EDITORIAL AND GKXF.RAL 



,21 



^^KK 





Incorrect and Fanciful Derivations. 



This title was suggested by reading the 

 following item in the "Nature and Sci- 

 ence" department of "The Youth's Com- 

 panion :" 



The Snail and the Screw. — It is no doubt 

 true that nearly all human inventions have 

 been suggested by natural objects. Mons. 

 Charles Fremont, of the French School of 

 Mines, points out an interesting example in 

 the case of the screw, the fundamental idea 

 of which, he believes, was suggested to 

 primitive man by the spiral shell of the ed- 

 ible snail. It was not the shape of the shell 

 that suggested the screw, but the spiral 

 motion which it is necessary to give to the 

 body of the snail in order to withdraw it 

 from the shell. This at once showed that an 

 object of a screw shape embedded in a solid 

 powerfully resisted attempts to withdraw it 

 by a straight pull. The hint was enough, 

 and the screw became one of the earliest of 

 man's inventions. 



How prettily but how remotely in- 

 genious. Who can dispute it? How sub- 

 tly it catches our fancy and excites our 

 interest. But on second thought there 

 come to mind the conclusions of another 

 philosopher, Josh Billings, who said, "It's 

 better to know fewer things than so many 

 things that aren't so." Yet some one who 

 likes to roll such interesting derivations 

 under the tongue inquires, "How do you 

 know it isn't so?" I did not say that. Of 

 course the man to whom you are paying 

 five dollars a day to "jack up" your build- 

 ing, or the plumber who is getting sev- 

 enty-five cents an hour for cutting the 

 threads on your water pipes, may both 



date their inspiration back primitively to 

 the snail, or they may not. 



What an ingenious theory it is that 

 the horse-chestnut is so called because 

 the leaf scars are horseshoe-shaped and 

 have tiny spots in them to represent nail 

 holes. Never mind the fact that many 

 other trees, notably the ailanthus, have 

 scars more perfectly horseshoe shaped ; 

 never mind the fact that the word horse 

 is commonly applied to things large and 

 coarse, as, for example, horse-radish, 

 horse sense, horse laugh. If you are not 

 poetically inclined, nor of an economic 

 turn of mind and the horseshoe and nails 

 do not appeal to you, then relegate the 

 whole matter to southern India or north- 

 eastern Russia or wherever nobody wilt 

 go to verify it, and assert that the rude 

 peasants — do not forget to put in the 

 word rude — grind these large chestnuts 

 and with them stuff their horses. I say 

 "stuff" advisedly, for undoubtedly one 

 would need to stuff the horses to make 

 them eat the bitter food. 



"But don't you really believe they feed 

 horse-chestnuts to their horses over 

 there?" 



"Stuff and nonsense" often go together. 



But you know that horsehair snakes, 

 are developed in watering troughs from 

 the hairs that fall from the tails of the 

 horses which drink there? Of course; 

 but I wonder why the hair is taken from 

 the tail rather than from the mane which 

 is nearer the trough. Never mind the un- 



