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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that of ordinary life, a phraseology conse- 

 crated to the inspiration of the divine affla- 

 tus ; as the noble old poet, Spenser, ex- 

 pressed it, ' a ladder of the gods.' In this, 

 and in this alone, did the native poets pour 

 out their wild chants. These, I say, were 

 their simple resources. Do not look upon 

 them with contempt. At no time has poetry 

 felt that it could dispense with them " ; and 

 the author draws illustrations of the fact 

 from Poe, Tennyson, and Clarence Mangan. 

 A great many of these American songs " are 

 wholly without intelligible meaning ; both 

 verse and refrain are merely interjectional ; 

 they are sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

 Such are the war-songs of the Iroquois and 

 many others which I could name. But in 

 defense of these I would ask you to remem- 

 ber that they are su?ig, not written to be 

 read, and they must be judged by the laws 

 of vocal music. . . . These broken syllables, 

 these choked utterances, these inarticulate 

 cries are the emotional outbursts of senti- 

 ment and passion, the oldest, the most heart- 

 felt, the most untutored language of human 

 feeling, the spontaneous revelations of that 

 common nature which makes the whole world 

 kin." 



The Salt Marsh of the Ravir. Lieuten- 

 ant II. B. Vaughan, who made a journey of 

 1,164 miles in eastern Persia, thus describes 

 one of the most curious features of the 

 country, the salt swamp of the Kavir: " As 

 we quitted the defile, a sudden turn in the 

 road presented to our astonished gaze what 

 at first sight looked like a vast frozen sea, 

 stretching away to the right as far as the 

 eye could reach in one vast glistening ex- 

 panse. A more careful examination proved 

 it to be nothing more than salt formed into 

 one immense sheet of dazzling brilliancy, 

 while here and there upon its surface, pools 

 of water, showing up in the most intense 

 blue, were visible. Away to the north of it 

 stood a distant row of low red hills. A pe- 

 culiar haze, perhaps caused by evaporation, 

 hangs over the whole scene, which, though 

 softening the features of the distant hills, 

 does not obliterate their details. This, which 

 I now see before me, is the great salt swamp, 

 to the presence of which the Dasht-i Kavir 

 owes its name. This swamp, lying at a low 

 level in the center of the great desert, receives 



into its bed the drainage from an immense 

 tract of territory. All the rivers flowing 

 into it are more or less salt, and carry down 

 to it annually a great volume of water. The 

 fierce heat of the desert during the summer 

 months causes a rapid evaporation, the re- 

 sult being that the salt constantly increases 

 in proportion to the water, until at last the 

 ground becomes caked with it. The Per- 

 sians say that many years ago a sea rolled 

 its waves over the whole of the depression 

 where I am now traveling, and that it was 

 navigated by ships which used to sail from 

 Semnau to Kashan. My guide told me the 

 following legend : ' One day, many years ago, 

 long before the time of the Prophet, a holy 

 man arrived at Kashan, took a boat, and or- 

 dered the man to sail him across to some 

 point or other. The boatman, being of a sus- 

 picious turn of mind, insisted on payment 

 of the fare before landing. This condition 

 was accepted, but the amount offered was 

 held insufficient, and a pour boire was de- 

 manded in addition. After a dispute the 

 point was yielded, and the old man said 

 nothing more until he reached the shore, 

 when, taking up a handful of earth from the 

 ground, he threw it into the sea, uttering the 

 words, " Avaricious boatmen shall here ply 

 their trade no more." The sea instantly dis- 

 appeared, and in its place came the desert 

 as it now stands ; while the fish became 

 turned into stones, the boatman who tried to 

 swindle was struck with blindness, and the 

 holy man went on his way rejoicing.' I sug- 

 gested to my guide that this was rather a 

 severe punishment for so small a fault, and 

 that an earthquake or a severe storm which 

 would have sent all the boatmen to the bot- 

 tom of the sea might have been sufficient to 

 meet all the requirements of the case. He 

 said he didn't know about that ; anyhow, 

 this was the story as he had heard it re- 

 counted by his tribe, who had lived on the 

 borders of the desert for ages." 



The Leaves of the Tnlip Tree. In the 



examination of some young plants of the 

 tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifcra), Mr. Theo- 

 dor ITolm observed that, though their ger- 

 mination did not present anything of par- 

 ticular interest, a peculiar feature appeared 

 in their young foliage leaves. The two or 

 three leaves showed a great similarity among 



