314 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



Admiration not for a Part, but for the 

 Whole. 



Here is a modern fable in which 1 

 am chief actor : 



I fell out of a boat ; a friendly hand 

 pulled me in. I cried to my friend. "All 

 my life I shall be grateful to that hand." 

 The friend replied, "Why not to all of 

 me ?" 



I was in straightened financial cir- 

 cumstances. I had not ten cents with 

 which to buy a sandwich ; the gnawing 

 pains of hunger made me sick. A 

 friend handed me a half-dollar and said, 

 "Go, eat." I grabbed his pocketbook 

 and exclaimed, "O pocketbook, all my 

 life I shall be loyal to you in deepest 

 gratitude." The friend, pained, said. 

 "Why does he not take me as well as 

 my pocketbook into consideration?" 



I was engaged in a tangled quarrel 

 with one who had been my friend. I 

 consulted a lawyer; the wise man pa- 

 tiently heard my story, and in a few 

 words told me what to do. In my depth 

 of gratitude I exclaimed, "O wise 

 mouth, I shall always admire you for 

 the words that have come from you." 

 The lawyer said, "What a peculiar 

 man! He does not take me into con- 

 sideration." 



I was lame and decrepit ; a youth of- 

 fered to do an errand for me. When 

 he returned I thus adored him : "O you 

 legs that have so swiftly brought me 

 what I needed, I shall always hold you 

 in the highest appreciation." The 

 youth, with wondering eyes, spoke his 

 thoughts, "Why does this man limit 

 his appreciation to my legs?" 



But perhaps the more astonishing 

 fact is that the gratitude was soon for- 

 gotten. The helping hand, the gener- 

 ous pocketbook, the wise mouth, the 

 nimble legs were soon out of mind. O 

 gratitude, how limited you are not only 

 in time but in extent. 



You, you, reader, man, woman, child, 

 you are as foolish as I was for in these 

 recent strenuous times you have said 

 of old Mother Nature as a whole, "O 

 how I appreciate her coal fields, her 

 wheat fields, her potato patch. O 

 Mother Nature, you have warmed me 

 from your storage in the ground, and 

 to those mines I shall ever be grateful. 

 You have fed me from the fields, and 

 to those fields my heart will always be 



bound with the strongest ties of appre- 

 ciation." Does it require the ear of 

 imagination to hear old Mother Nature 

 say to each one of her children, "You 

 have learned only a part of the lesson 

 of the war. You are grateful, yet for 

 only a part of my bounties to you. 

 You will come into your full heritage 

 of appreciation and gratitude when you 

 learn to love me as a whole, and desire 

 to know me better. Thus far you have 

 learned to see me only in part." 



Photographing Lenses Wanted. 



Early in the war, The Guide to Na- 

 ture called attention to a well-organ- 

 ized movement in Great Britain to lend 

 to the government for use in the army 

 various sorts of field glasses, telescopes 

 and other optical instruments, the prop- 

 erty of individuals. Something of the 

 same enterprise is now under way in 

 this country. The pressing need, just 

 at present, is for camera lenses to equip 

 the observation airplanes of the new 

 fleet. In particular, the government 

 desires to buy the following : 



Zeiss, Tessar anastigmat, working 

 aperture F. 3.5 of 4.5. 



Bausch and Lomb, Tessar, F. 4.5 ; 



Voigtlander Heliar anastigmat, F. 



4-5- 



The focal lengths of all these should 

 lie between 8-*4 and 20 inches. 



Persons having any of these lenses 

 which they are willing to sell, should 

 send price and description to the Pho- 

 tographic Division of the Signal Corps, 

 U. S. A., Mills Building Annex, Wash- 



ington. 



Snowdrops. 



Out of the snow, into the glow 

 Of the quickening, vernal sun ; 



These fragile blooms from nature's looms, 

 Whisper that spring has begun. 



— Emma Peirce. 



The Greater Untold Problem. 



In the present coal situation we wish 

 to bring to the surface one of the most 

 important factors of the problem ap- 

 parently lost sight of so far as common 

 talk and newspaper articles are con- 

 cerned. Everybody nowadays says, 

 "Where can we get the coal?" Appar- 

 ently we are the only ones who raise 

 our voice to ask, "Where on earth shall 

 we get the money to pay for it?" 



