120 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



t 



"May Allah bless the day and the hour of your arrival ! " said he. 

 " This morning a messenger of the Emir has arrived from Kapibad, 

 and is now awaiting your coming under a tree where all the roads 

 from the east meet near the village gate." 



\_To be continued.'] 



Dornian, in his "Origin of Primitive Superstitions," gives the follow- 

 ing on the authority of Schoolcraft: " Sleep is thought by the Algic race to be 

 produced by fairies, the prince of whom is Weeng. The power of this Indian 

 Morpheus is exerted in a peculiar manner and by a novel agency. Weeng 

 seldom acts directly in inducing sleep, but he exercises dominion over hosts 

 of gnome-like beings, who are everywhere present. These beings are invisi- 

 ble. Each one is armed with a tiny club, and when he observes a person sit- 

 ting or reclining under circumstances favorable to sleep, he nimbly climbs upon 

 his forehead and inflicts a blow. The first blow only creates drowsiness; the 

 second makes the person lethargic, so that he occasionally closes his eyelids; the 

 third produces sound sleep. It is the constant duty of these little emissaries to 

 put every one to sleep whom they encounter men, women, and children. They 

 hide themselves everywhere, and are ready to fly out and exert their sleep-com- 

 pelling power, although their peculiar season of action is in the night. They are 

 also alert during the day. "While the forms of these gnomes are believed to be 

 those of little or fairy men, the figure of Weeng himself is unknown, and it is 

 not certain that he has ever been seen. Iagoo is said to have seen him sitting 

 upon a branch of a tree. He was in the shape of a giant insect, with many 

 wings upon his back, which made a low, deep, murmuriDg sound, like distant 

 falling water. Weeng is not only the dispenser of sleep, but it seems he is also 

 the author of dullness. If an orator fails, he is said to be struck by Weeng. If 

 a warrior lingers, he has ventured too near the sleepy god. If children begin to 

 nod or yawn, the Indian mother looks up smilingly and says they have been 

 struck by Weeng, and puts them to bed." 



In his "Diseases of Memory," Ribot says: "When a child learns to 



write, according to Lewes, it is impossible for him to use his hand alone; he 

 must also move his tongue, the facial muscles, and perhaps his feet. In time 

 he is able to suppress these useless discharges of nerve- force. And so, when 

 we attempt for the first time any muscular act, we expend a great quantity of 

 superfluous energy which we learn gradually to subdue. By exercise certain 

 movements are fixed, to the exclusion of others." 



What is a Cause ? Kingdon Clifford says that the word represented 



by " cause " has sixty-four meanings in Plato and forty-eight in Aristotle. He 

 further observes that " these were men who liked to know as near as might be 

 what they meant ; but how many meanings the word has had in the writings of 

 the myriads of people who have not tried to know what they meant by it will, 

 I hope, never be counted." 



Oxygen and Consciousness. Brown-Sequard, according to Dr. Luys, 



once injected the head of a dog, when separated from the trunk, with defibrin- 

 ated and oxygenated blood, and at the moment when the injection of this blood 

 had recalled the manifestations of life he called the dog by his name. The eyes 

 of the head thus separated from the trunk turned toward him, as if the voice of 

 the master had still been heard and recognized. 



