FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



287 



ground alongside each limb. The animal 

 was intentionally not isolated from his fel- 

 lows, as it was feared that if placed by itself 

 it would become restive and ill-tempered. 

 The rope surrounding the beast's neck had 

 one end secured to three strong pillars in the 

 ground, some distance away and slightly in 

 advance of the fore feet; and the other, 

 which terminated in a loop, was hooked to a 

 double series of pulleys, to the tackle of 

 which ninety men were attached. When all 

 was ready, the slack was gently, quietly, 

 and without any apparent annoyance to the 

 elephant — which kept on eating hay — taken 

 in till the coils round its neck were just taut. 

 The word was then given, " Walk away with 

 the rope." Amid perfect silence the ninety 

 men walked away, without apparently any 

 effort. So noiselessly and easily did every- 

 thing work that, unless with foreknowledge 



of what was going to take place, one might 

 have been present without realizing what the 

 march of these men meant. The elephant 

 gave no sign of discomfort either by trunk 

 or tail. Its fellows standing close by looked 

 on in pachydermatous unconcern, and at the 

 end of exactly thirty seconds it slowly col- 

 lapsed and lay down as if of its own accord. 

 There was absolutely no struggle and no 

 motion, violent or otherwise, in any part of 

 the body, nor the slightest indication of pain. 

 In a few seconds more there was no response 

 obtained by touching the eyeball. At the 

 end of thirteen minutes after the order to 

 " walk away " the eye had become rigid and 

 dim. That no more humane, painless, and 

 rapid method of taking the life of a large 

 animal could be devised was the opinion 

 of all the experts who witnessed the exe- 

 cution. 



MINOR PARAGRAPHS. 



Count Gleichen relates, in his story of 

 the mission to Menelek, that besides the 

 Maria Theresa 1780 dollars, the people of 

 Abyssinia, for small change, use a bar of 

 hard crystallized salt, about ten inches long 

 and two inches and a half broad and thick, 

 slightly tapered toward the end, five of which 

 go to the dollar at the capital. People are 

 very particular about the standard of fineness 

 of the currency. " If it does not ring like 

 metal when flicked with the finger nail, or if 

 it is cracked or chipped, they won't take it. 

 It is a token of affection also, when friends 

 meet, to give each other a lick of their re- 

 spective amolis, and in this way the material 

 value of the bar is also decreased. For still 

 smaller change cartridges are used, of which 

 three go to one salt. It does not matter 

 what sort they are. Some sharpers use their 

 cartridges in the ordinary way, and then put 

 in some dust and a dummy bullet to make 

 up the difference, or else they take out the 

 powder and put the bullet in again, so that 

 possibly in the next action the unhappy seller 

 will find that he has only miss-fires in his 

 belt ; but this is such a common fraud that 

 no one takes any notice of it, and a bad car- 

 tridge seems to serve as readily as a good 

 one." 



A study of problems in the Psychology 

 of Reading, by J. 0. Quantz, bore upon the 



questions of the factors which make a rapid 

 reader, the relations of rapidity to mental 

 capacity and alertness, quickness of visual 

 perception, and amount of practice ; and 

 whether those who gain their knowledge 

 principally through the eye or through 

 the ear obtain and retain most from read- 

 ing. The author finds that colors are more 

 easily perceived than geometrical forms, 

 isolated words than colors, and words in con- 

 struction than disconnected words ; that per- 

 sons of visual type are slightly more rapid 

 readers than those of the auditory type ; that 

 rapid readers, besides doing their work in less 

 time, do superior work, retaining more of the 

 substance of what is read and heard than do 

 slow readers. Lip movement is a serious 

 hindrance to speed, and consequently to in- 

 telligence, of reading. The disadvantage ex- 

 tends to reading aloud. Apart from external 

 eonditions, such as time of day, physical fa- 

 tigue, etc., some of the influences contribut- 

 ing to rapidity of reading are largely physio- 

 logical, as visual perception ; others are of 

 mental endowment, as alertness of mind ; 

 still others are matters of intellectual equip- 

 ment rather than intellectual ability, as ex- 

 tent of reading and scholarly attainment. 



Mr. Merton L. Miller, of the University 

 of Chicago, says, in his preliminary study of 

 the Pueblo of Taos, New Mexico, that he was 



