FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



861 



where subterranean ice occurs in North 

 America, two of which are in Pennsylvania 

 The dimensions of the caves vary greatly, 

 some being great halls, three hundred or 

 four hundred feet long, and some small tun- 

 nels in which one can not stand up straight. 

 The forms assumed by underground ice are 

 different from those visible in glaciers or ice- 

 bergs. There are no seracs or crevasses, but 

 stalactite forms are very common. The ice 

 in the bottoms follows the shape of the floor. 

 Sometimes ice is found in them of the pecul- 

 iar structure called prismatic — breaking into 

 regular prisms. Holes or runnels are formed 

 in the lowest parts of the ice floors, where 

 they are cut out by the melting water; and 

 lakes and pools sometimes occur in them. 



Scientific Palmistry. — The character and 

 direction of the movements of the digits both 

 in hand and foot, Sir William Turner ob- 

 served in his anthropological address at the 

 British Association, are imprinted on the in- 

 tegument of palm and sole. In the palm of 

 the human hand the oblique direction of the 

 movement of the fingers toward the thumb, 

 when bent in grasping an object, is shown 

 in the obliquity of the two great grooves 

 which cross the palm from the root of the 

 index to the root of the little finger. The 

 deep curved groove, extending to the wrist, 

 which marks off the eminence of the ball of 

 the thumb from the rest of the palm, is as- 

 sociated with the opponent action of the 

 thumb, which is so marked in man that the 

 tip of the thumb can be brought in contact 

 with a large part of the palmar surface of the 

 hand and fingers. Faint longitudinal grooves 

 in the palm, situated in a line with the fin- 

 gers, express slight folds which indicate 

 where the fingers are approximated to or 

 separated from one another in adduction and 

 abduction. In some hands a longitudinal 

 groove marks off the muscles of the ball of 

 the little finger from the rest of the palm, 

 and is associated with a slight opponent ac- 

 tion of that digit, by the combination cf 

 which with a partial opposition of the 

 thumb the hand can be hollowed into a cup 

 — the drinking cup of Diogenes. These 

 grooves are present in the infant's hands at 

 the time of birth, and the author has seen 

 them in an embryo. They appear in the 

 palm months before the infant can put its 



hand to any use. They are not, therefore, 

 acquired after birth. Grooves are also seen 

 in the palm of the hand of the anthropoid 

 apes, differing in various respects from those 

 of man, and respectively characteristic of 

 the group in which they are found. 



The Psychology of Humor. — A recent 

 number of the American Journal of Psy- 

 chology contains an inquiry into the psy- 

 chology of " tickling laughter and the com- 

 ic," by Prof. G. Stanley Hall and Arthur 

 Allin. Their material was obtained by 

 means of a widely circulated syllabus, sent 

 with the request that the questions be an- 

 swered, and the sheet then returned to the 

 authors. About seven hundred answers 

 were received, many of these from school 

 teachers having the supervision of a num- 

 ber of pupils, so that the real number of 

 individuals heard from amounted to prob- 

 ably three thousand. The authors discuss 

 the answers received, and then go on to 

 a consideration of the general subject. The 

 many theories since Aristotle, concerning wit 

 and humor, are shown to be either pure- 

 ly speculative or extremely circumscribed 

 in the range of their induction and hence 

 furnishing no foothold for further research. 

 Among the older conceptions of the essen- 

 tials of humor mentioned is Hobbes's: "The 

 passion of laughter is the sudden glory aris- 

 ing from some sudden conception of some 

 eminence in ourselves, by comparison with 

 the inferiority of others, or with our own 

 formerly." Dryden defined wit as a "pro- 

 priety of thoughts and words, or thoughts 

 and words elegantly adapted to the subject." 

 Dr. Johnson thought it "a combination of 

 dissimilar images or discovery of occult re- 

 semblances in things apparently unlike. Rich- 

 ard Blackstone conceived it as " a series of 

 high and exalted ferments." Kant defines 

 laughter " as an affection arising from the 

 sudden transformation of a strained expec- 

 tation into nothing." Mr. J. L. Ford says : 

 "Careful study of the work turned out by 

 professional joke makers reveals the fact that 

 fully nine tenths of their humor is founded 

 on the simple idea of disaster or misfortune. 

 . . . For a great many years nearly all our 

 national humor had for its foundations the 

 mother-in-law, the goat, the stove-pipe ine- 

 briety, and the banana peel." The authors 



