POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



275 



able results in the human body. There are 

 many homely illustrations of this fact as 

 when one has a headache which disappears 

 on the coming of some unexpected visitor, 

 to return as soon as he is gone, or when a 

 patient is relieved on the administration of 

 a bread-pili. The speaker himself had been 

 so interested in looking at a microscopic ob- 

 ject that people had come into his room and 

 spoken to him, and he had not heard or seen 

 them. Looking at these physiological con- 

 ditions, a great many things can be brought 

 about which are described as being induced 

 by the agency of another person. The 

 speaker estimated the frequency with which 

 such agencies can be made successful as in 

 inverse proportion to the development of the 

 higher ganglia.- People are influenced by 

 them in the inverse order of their intellect- 

 ual faculties, and in the direct order of the 

 automatic activities of the brain ; hence the 

 range in which such phenomena are capable 

 of being seen and produced is practically 

 what is called the neurotic range. This in- 

 cludes people whose nervous systems are 

 movable, excitable, sensitive, irritable, or 

 explosive. All such people are capable of 

 manifesting phenomena which are brought 

 about by attention, expectation, and concen- 

 tration ; and we find, too, that all these phe- 

 nomena occur in people with a lowly devel- 

 oped nervous system, which is to a great ex- 

 tent automatic, and is manifestly enforced by 

 emotion. The hypnotic phenomena which 

 are related were supposed to be capable of 

 explanation on the simple physiological 

 grounds thus laid down, without the intro- 

 duction of any person exercising a mysteri- 

 ous power. 



Scenery of Yellowstone Park. The 



merits of the scenery of Yellowstone Park 

 appear to Prof. G. F. Wright to have 

 been considerably exaggerated. He rode 

 through it under favorable conditions for 

 observation, but found his trip, on the 

 whole, disappointing. The figures repre- 

 senting the height of the* mountains around 

 it above the sea are deceptive. A mountain 

 10,000 or 11,000 feet high does not look ex- 

 traordinarily large and massive when it rises 

 not more than 2,000 or 3,000 feet above the 

 elevated plateau on which it stands as a 

 base ; but those 2,000 or 3,000 feet are all 



that is shown of the mountain-rim of the 

 park, while the glimpses to the outside 

 mountains are few and far between. The 

 grandest views are those on entering the 

 park as one looks outward from the encir- 

 cling rim. " Those who reside in the Atlan- 

 tic States do not need to go to the Rocky 

 Mountains for scenery." Even Dr. Ilayden 

 acknowledged this substantially after he had 

 been to the Crawford Notch. " He who has 

 seen the Adirondacks and the White Mount- 

 ains has seen some of the best artistic effects 

 of which Nature is capable. Even he who has 

 looked over the parallel ranges of Pennsyl- 

 vania has no need to pine for the mountain 

 scenery of the Yellowstone Park." The 

 beauty of the Yellowstone Canon, however, 

 with its unique combinations of rock-carving 

 and variegated color, which " artists are put 

 to shame in their attempts to imitate," can 

 hardly be surpassed. The geysers, Prof. 

 Wright says, in the Boston Congregationalist, 

 " are decidedly vulgar, and one can afford to 

 die without seeing them. Boiling paint-pots, 

 with only one dull color in them, are not in- 

 spiring. Acres of land laid waste by sul- 

 phurous waters and gases, such as greet one 

 on every hand in these geyser basins, can be 

 seen at any time in Pennsylvania where the 

 refuse water is pumped from the coal-mines 

 to spread its desolation all around. The 

 Upper Geyser basin, with its score or more 

 of steam-jets, looks from a distance like a 

 flourishing manufacturing town. The odors 

 can be matched in the calico-printing mills. 

 The geysers differ from steam fire-engines 

 in throwing hot water instead of cold ; and 

 even the Excelsior is not as impressive as 

 the ocean surf of the New England coast." 

 But the author thinks that the scientific in- 

 terest of the park can hardly be exagger- 

 ated. 



Mosquito-inocnlation against Yellow Fe- 

 ver. Statements are made by two physi- 

 cians of Havana (Drs. Finlay and Delgado), 

 in the medical journal of that city, concerning 

 their practice of inoculating persons newly 

 arrived in Cuba against yellow fever by 

 means of mosquitoes which have been caused 

 to contaminate themselves by stinging a pa- 

 tient afflicted with that disease. The obser- 

 vations have been carried on for ten years, 

 and relate to fifty-two cases of mosquito-in- 



