396 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



author ventures a rationalistic interpretation, that the leaf conceals a 

 worm which hatches into a butterfly. A more probable explanation, 

 judging from the cut, is that it is a case of leaf mimicry by a moth. 



On the Island of Panay, the Spaniards told him that when it 

 thunders there fall crosses of a greenish-black stone which have great 

 virtue. Here, too, the author is skeptical and suggests that 'it is pos- 

 sible they might make 'em of the stones that fell.' It is, however, 

 not uncommon for fulgurites, formed by the fusion of the sand by 

 lightning, to have a branching form like a rude cross. 



It appears that a great many of those curious creatures of the class 

 described by Herodotus, Ptolemy, Pliny and Mandeville have taken 

 refuge from advancing civilization in the Philippines. Here were to be 

 found mermaids, not only of the common species, but its converse form. 

 Besides were-wolves, there were even Vere-crocodiles,' if such a word 

 can be used. The missing link was also a native of the Island of 

 Mindoro, with tails half a span long. The account of the same tribe 

 of Negrillos, four pages beyond, seems to have been written later, for 

 the tails had grown. "Some fathers of the society of great credit 

 told me, that these Mangihani have a tail a span long. In other 

 respects they are brave, and pay tribute, but have not as yet embraced 

 the Christian faith." The clause connecting the two sentences is more 

 logical than it sounds. Mention should also be made of the Amazons 

 which inhabited islands near the coast of Palapa; of the serpents which 

 magnetized their victims, and of the monkeys which caught oysters 

 weighing several pounds by fishing with their tails. 



From a political point of view, it is important to note that not a 

 tenth of the inhabitants of the Philippines owned allegiance to the 

 King of Spain, and also that the Moluccas were formerly included as 

 a part of the Philippines. 



From Manila Dr. Gemilli set sail for California, which he gives 

 evidence to prove was not an island, as had been commonly supposed, 

 but was a part of New Spain. The paragraph in which he gives his 

 opinion of the ocean, misnamed Pacific, is as stately and antiquated 

 in its architecture as a seventeenth century galleon and forms a suit- 

 able close to these extracts from the ancient history we have annexed; 



"The voyage from the Philippine islands to America may be call'd 

 the longest, and most dreadful of any in the world; as well because 

 of the vast ocean to be cross'd, being almost the one-half of the terra- 

 quous globe, with the wind always a-head; as for the terrible tempests 

 that happen there, one upon the back of the other, and for the desperate 

 diseases that seize people, in seven or eight months living at sea, some- 

 times near the line, sometimes cold, sometimes temperate, sometimes 

 hot, which is enough to destroy a man of steel, much more flesh and 

 blood, which at sea had but indifferent food." 



