3 2 THE NA TURE-STUDY REVIEW [a : ,-janua™, I9o6 



terest of motion, and motion in things usually considered incapable of 

 independent motion. The bristling of iron filings on a card over a 

 little magnet is an entirely novel observation, and one calculated to 

 excite the keenest interest. The picking up of tacks and small iron 

 objects and the inactivity of brass, copper, silver etc. are readily 

 shown. Even the phenomena of magnetism induced in a piece of 

 soft iron can be made perfectly intelligible to any child, and all of these 

 experiments can be performed in any room at any time of the year, 

 and at less expense than the price of a toad. The magnetic tack- 

 hammer is sure to interest a child; and the behavior of the compass 

 needle, including its north-indicating property, and how it serves to 

 guide the mariner at sea, will serve as texts for stories galore. A 

 small piece of lodestone will help to make real the discovery of this 

 property, and floated on a piece of cork or wood will illustrate the guide 

 which helped the first great discoverers to circumnavigate the globe. 

 Have we not here much evidence of the importance of the humblest 

 observations, when a little piece of brown stone floating on a piece 

 of wood in a vessel of water can direct a Columbus to a new world ? 



Leaves and twigs and plants are the subject of much deserved 

 attention, and are studied in minutest detail. This is of course all 

 very well when such materials can be obtained. Why not devote 

 some attention to the phenomena of crystallization ? The quick 

 evaporization of many simple solutions when spread on glass fur- 

 nishes figures quite as varied, quite as intrinsically beautiful, quite as 

 instructive and quite as distinctive as any leaf forms, and much more 

 positive and accurate. Even the added interest of color need not be 

 lacking. Those charming little "hopper" crystals formed by the 

 cubic crystallization of a solution of common salt, will interest the 

 child and may be made to point a moral, or adorn a tale. The 

 coordination of these phenomena with the ice figures on the window, 

 and the beautiful crystals of the snow, will serve to occupy to advan- 

 tage several winter periods. The sources of crystallization are 

 almost endless. The beautiful colors of the rarest flowers can be 

 more than matched for a few cents in the simplest chemical experi- 

 ments, and is the one less wonderful than the other? Is the hand of 

 nature less apparent in the delicate crystal of most beautiful color and 

 form constructed with the accuracy of the mathematician, than in the 

 petal of the flower ? Such parallels could be multiplied almost indefi- 

 nitely, sed ex utw disce om/ies. 



There is one feature of nature-study on plants and animals which 



