FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



857 



Alps. The peaks and glaciers are in many 

 respects harder to climb than those of Switzer- 

 land. Besides serious deficiencies in roads and 

 accommodations, and the absence of guides 

 so complete that the explorer has to bring his 

 own with him from Europe, they are actually 

 more dangerous than peaks of corresponding 

 elevation in Switzerland, the rock being very 

 incoherent and slippery. Mr. Fitz-Gerald had 

 many narrow escapes, the most serious acci- 

 dent being caused by the unexpected fall of 

 a great block of stone. He ascended four 

 peaks Mount Tasman, 11, 4*75 feet; Mount 

 Sefton, 10,350 feet; Mount Haidinger, 10,- 

 054 feet ; and Mount Sealy, 8,631 feet and 

 crossed three new glacier passes. One of 

 these, to which the author's name has been 

 given, is practicable and valuable, in that it 

 makes possible direct communication between 

 the eastern and western coasts, where none 

 had been before except by sea. 



Bees as Weapons of War. History re- 

 cords two instances, according to Mr. Whiteley 

 Stokes in the London Athenasum, in which 

 bees have been used in warfare as weapons 

 against besieging forces. The first is related 

 by Appian, of the siege of Themiscyra in 

 Pontus, by Lucullus in his war against Mith- 

 ridates. Turrets were brought up, mounds 

 were built, and huge mines were made by 

 the Eomans. The people of Themiscyra 

 dug open these mines from above, and 

 through the holes cast down upon the work- 

 men bears and other wild animals, and hives 

 or swarms of bees. The second instance is 

 recorded in an Irish manuscript in the Biblio- 

 theque royale, at Brussels, and tells how the 

 Danes and Norwegians attacked Chester, 

 which was defended by the Saxons and some 

 Gallic auxiliaries. The Danes were worsted 

 by a stratagem ; but the Norwegians, shel- 

 tered by hurdles, tried to pierce the walls 

 of the town when, " what the Saxons and 

 the Gaeidhil who were among them did, 

 was to throw down large rocks, by which 

 they broke down the hurdles over their 

 heads. What the others did to check this 

 was to place large posts under the hurdles. 

 What the Saxons did next was to put all 

 the beer and water of the town into the 

 caldrons of the town, to boil them and 

 spill them down upon those who were under 

 the hurdles, so that their skins were peeled 



off. The remedy which the Lochlans applied 

 to this was to place hides outside on the hur- 

 dles. What the Saxons did next was to 

 throw down all the beehives in the town 

 upon the besiegers, which prevented them 

 from moving their hands or legs, from the 

 number of bees which stung them. They 

 afterward desisted and left the city." 



Artistic Decoration. Two theories of 

 decoration were recognized by Walter Crane 

 in a recent lecture : the organic, in which 

 the decoration is an essential and integral 

 part of the structure ; and the inorganic, in 

 which it is considered merely as so much 

 superadded or surface ornament. With the 

 development of Gothic architecture, sculp- 

 ture, as indeed decoration of all kinds, be- 

 came more and more important. It was 

 strictly organic, being used to emphasize 

 structural necessities. The sculpture of the 

 Doric temple was also organic, though on a 

 different principle. In the course of social 

 and architectural evolution we have become 

 more mixed and composite in our architec- 

 tural styles. With complexity of life, com- 

 plexity of form has increased, with the result 

 that modern buildings have lost to a great 

 extent that impressiveness which was due to 

 simplicity and the organic relation between 

 structure and decoration. Decoration may 

 be considered from three points of view: 

 from that of public sentiment and national 

 characters and ideals, as the expression of 

 the design, object, and purpose of particular 

 buildings ; from the technical point of view 

 of methods and materials ; and with regard 

 to adaptation to climatic conditions. The 

 decoration of buildings should be the highest 

 form of art, as it was in the middle ages. 

 The history and legends of localities should 

 be carefully preserved in and identified with 

 buildings. Churches have from time imme- 

 morial been the recipients of untold treas- 

 ures of art and craftsmanship, and still 

 seem to afford the largest field for the de- 

 signer ; but there is another sort of public 

 buildings of ever-increasing importance 

 the school, in which permanent mural deco- 

 ration might fill an important part in stimu- 

 lating the imagination and forming the 

 mind. In decoration attention should be 

 centered upon some leading and distinctive 

 feature. If sculpture is the method, inter- 



