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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



It must be recollected, however, that cruel 

 murder is, according to their code of ethics, 

 a conspicuous virtue, a moral duty. They all 

 apparently believe that man is compounded 

 of a body and spirit. The spirit leaves its 

 tenement during sleep, and at death does not 

 return. Hence, in waking up a sleeper, they 

 proceed to rouse him by degrees, so that the 

 spirit may have time to return and take its 

 place. 



Korean Marriages. Korean girls, ac- 

 cording to Mr. H. S. Saunderson, after enjoy- 

 ing freedom till they are eight years old, are 

 consigned to the women's quarters, where 

 they live in seclusion till they are married, at 

 sixteen or seventeen years. After marriage 

 the woman is allowed to see no man but her 

 husband. The boys, on the other hand, are 

 taught that it is undignified for them to enter 

 the women's part of the house. They never 

 see their brides till the wedding day, all hav- 

 ing been arranged for them, often when both 

 bride and groom are infants. The marriage 

 ceremony is very simple. The bride and 

 bridegroom invite their most intimate friends 

 to assist them in dressing their hair in the 

 manner befitting their new estate. Then 

 the bridegroom mounts a white pony, which 

 is led by two servants, while two others 

 on either side support the rider in his 

 saddle. Thus he proceeds to the bride's 

 house, accompanied by his relatives. At 

 their destination they find a pavilion erected 

 in the courtyard of the house, in which the 

 bride and her relatives are awaiting their 

 arrival. A goose (the Korean symbol of 

 fidelity), which the bridegroom brings with 

 him, is then produced. The bride (who has 

 to cover her face with her long sleeves) and 

 the bridegroom then bow to each other until 

 their heads almost touch the ground. This 

 they do three or four times, and are then man 

 and wife. A loving-cup is passed round, 

 and then the bride is taken off to the woman's 

 apartments of her husband's home, where she 

 is looked after by her mother and mother-in- 

 law, while the groom entertains his friends. 

 Fidelity is imposed on the wife, but the hus- 

 band is under no such obligation. He can 

 marry but one wife, it is true, but he is allowed 

 as many concubines as he can afford. These, 

 however, never inhabit the same house as his 

 principal wife. The husband is forced to 



maintain his wife properly and treat her with 

 respect. Marriage is the great event in a Ko- 

 rean's life, for he then attains man's estate. 

 Before marriage, no matter how old he may 

 be, he is treated as a boy, and has to maintain 

 a deferential attitude toward the married 

 men, even though they be only half his age. 



Rapid Transmission of Earthquake Mo- 

 tion. Attention is called by Prof. John 

 Milne to the apparently high velocity with 

 which motion is transmitted from an earth- 

 quake center to places far distant from it 

 a quarter of the earth's circumference and 

 to the importance of instituting an extended 

 systematic observation of these movements. 

 During the last few years European ob- 

 servers have recorded earth movements that 

 had their origin in Japan or in other distant 

 countries. Beyond a radius of a few hun- 

 dred miles from their origin these disturb- 

 ances are often too feeble to be sensible or 

 to be recorded by ordinary seismographs. 

 Their presence is, however, made known by 

 the use of specially contrived nearly horizon- 

 tal pendulums, and it is found that they have 

 a duration of from ten to thirty minutes, 

 and sometimes last for one or two hours. 

 Observations made at Tokyo of the earth- 

 quake of March 22, 1894, the distance from 

 the epicentrum being about six hundred 

 miles, indicated that the rate of propagation 

 of the motion of the waves was from 2*3 

 kilometres per second for the more pro- 

 nounced superficial waves, to 11 '5 kilome- 

 tres per second for the lighter shocks, and 

 they passed to Italy at the rate of nine or ten 

 kilometres per second. An investigation is 

 especially wanted of the velocities of propa- 

 gation of the elastic movements which ap- 

 parently go from Japan to Europe in fifteen 

 or twenty minutes. Prof. Milne has devised 

 some delicate instruments expressly to be 

 used in these investigations. 



American Nickel Mines. The nickel mine 

 at Lancaster Gap, Pa., belongs to the class 

 of ores described by Prof. J. H. L. Vogt, of 

 Christiania, Norway, as typical deposits of 

 nickeliferous sulphides, formed by a process 

 of magnetic differentiation in basic igneous 

 rocks. It is situated about three miles south 

 of the main line of the Pennsylvania Rail- 

 road, a little more than fifty miles west of 



