4 8o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and in subsequent life, he derived the benefits of the labors of Lorenzo 

 of Pisa, who had introduced algebra into the universities of Europe ; 

 and of Mtiller and Boehm, who had, by their geometrical researches 

 and theories, demonstrated the rotundity of the earth. With this 

 knowledge, confirmed by observation during his early life as a navi- 

 gator, and the works of Marco Polo, Columbus projected the voyage 

 which resulted in the discovery of the Western Continent. But print- 

 ing and the rotundity of the earth were not the only consequences of 

 the studies of book-men in the fifteenth century. We have already 

 mentioned algebra, and have time only to state that the establishment 

 of the first bank at Genoa, the Hanseatic League, the voyage of Vasco 

 de Gama around the Cape of Good Hope, the first working of coal- 

 mines at Newcastle, Norwich, the first drama, the final systematization 

 of musical notation, all took place in the fifteenth century. We should 

 also have shown how the study of sesthetical principles in this and the 

 preceding century, by the societies and guilds of masons and architects, 

 endowed the world with great painters and architects, and sculptors 

 Benvenuto, Raphael, Angelo, Titian, and many more who have left be- 

 hind them imperishable monuments of their studies and genius. 



Need we look back to recapitulate and confirm the fact that the 

 highest source, continuous movers and central custodians of the studies 

 which caused these great events were book-men, school-men, and the- 

 ologists ? Let us rather look forward into succeeding centuries, and 

 merely mention the names of Erasmus, Thomas More, Francis Bacon, 

 Descartes, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Dalton, Lavoisier, 

 Shakespeare, Harvey. But no ! the names of the studious thinkers 

 who from their cabinets and laboratories have revolutionized the 

 world, and to whom we owe the grand and beautiful civilization and 

 works arts, machines, products, conveniences, political science, lib- 

 erty, commerce, etc., which we now enjoy, would take hours to enu- 

 merate. There is not a development of science or art that can not be 

 traced back to the " eureka " of some solitary, plodding book-man. 







ABOUT ELEPHANTS. 



By Dr. ANDREW WILSON, F.E.S.E. 



THE interest which attaches to the modern representatives of the 

 mammoth host is by no means limited to the zoological world, 

 but extends throughout all classes of society, who find something to 

 wonder at even in the huge proportions and ungainly ways of the 

 elephant family. A remarkably limited family circle is that which 

 includes the elephants as its typical representatives. The past history 

 of the race, like that of not a few other groups of animals and plants, 

 is exactly the converse of its present-day phases, as regards numerical 



