84 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



garded as evidence of tropical or sub- 

 tropical climatic conditions. Hence, it is 

 to be inferred that while the specimen 

 under discussion was growing tropical 

 or sub-tropical conditions prevailed. 



This inference is strengthened by the 

 luxuriance of the contemporaneous vege- 

 tation as shown b}- the large size of the 

 fossil leaves and by the presence of cer- 

 tain remains which suggest Yucca or 

 some kind of a palm. 



Finally, the fossil plants from the Ple- 

 istocene of east Canada, in the Don 

 River Valley, indicate a cooler climate 

 for that part of Canada during their pe- 

 riod of growth. Whether the Kootenay 

 Valley and the Don River Valley Pleis- 

 tocene floras were contemporaneous 

 or not is not at present known. Al- 

 though Dr. Hollick does not disre- 

 gard a different conclusion, the fact 

 that they may have been so taken in 

 connection with other suggestive facts 

 leads him to conclude his paper as fol- 

 lows, "We may have, therefore, in this 

 recently discovered Pleistocene flora in 

 British Columbia, the heretofore missing 

 link of evidence tending to show that 

 contemporaneous regional climatic dif- 

 ferences between the west and the east 

 on our continent have prevailed more or 

 less continuously ever since Cretaceous 

 time." 



Cuts by courtesy of tlie New York 

 Botanical Garden. 



Recent English records show that 

 in certain especially dusty and smoky 

 cities, the dirt that falls from the air 

 may occasionally reach the enormous 

 amount of sixty tons on a square mile 

 during a single month. 



God in Nature. 



BY H. GORDON HAWKINS, WESTFIELD, MASS. 



Oh, the wondrous beauty of them all, 

 The flowered dell, the mountain wall, 

 The viny bower where hides the silver spring. 

 The lacy wood where numerous wood birds 



sing. 

 The fallow field, the unploughed hill. 

 The slow brook running past the mill, 

 The leafy coven, where red deer leap in sight, 

 the wooded slope bathed in the morning light. 

 All these, God's gifts, are to our weary gaze 

 Far better than an idle sone of nraise. 

 We learn His lessons from the whispering trees 

 From warbling birds and playful breeze. 

 From silent rock and rushing storm 

 And from the sunbeams, dancing warm, 

 And even in the dying flowers. 

 We learn the lesson of the hours. 



Knowing Too Much to Be Helpful. 



In this work as a magazine writer I 

 learned a lesson from my father which 

 has exerted a controlling influence upon 

 me in my editorial life. ]\Ir. Fletcher 

 Harper asked me to write an article for 

 the "^vlagazine" on ocean steamship 

 travel. I told him that I could not do so 

 because I had no other knowledge of the 

 subject than such as I had gained from 

 my one voyage across the ocean. "Then 

 ask your father to write it," said he. This 

 I did. 



"Why do you not write the article 

 yourself?" asked my father. 



"Because I know nothing of the sub- 

 ject," was my reply. 



"Then," said he, "you are just the one 

 to write it." 



"How is that?" I asked. 



"Because," said he, "the object of the 

 author of a popular magazine article is 

 to give knowledge of a subject 

 to people who are wholly ignor- 

 ant of it. To do that he must 

 know both the subject and the con- 

 dition of ignorance. If he is familiar 

 with the condition of ignorance, he can 

 make himself acquainted with the sub- 

 ject ; but if he is thoroughly familiar 

 with the subject it is almost impossible 

 for him to acquaint himself with the con- 

 dition of ignorance." 



Whether I wrote the article or not I 

 forget, but this principle, laid down by 

 my father, became my guide when later 

 I took up editorial work. I have found 

 it almost uniformly true that an expert 

 cannot write on the subject with which 

 he is familiar what readers who are not 

 familiar with the subject can understand. 

 The experienced but non-technical 

 writer must provide the article, and it 

 must then be submitted to the expert to 

 make sure that he has fallen into no se- 

 rious errors. — Dr. Lyman Abbott in 

 "The Outlook.'^ 



There is a corollary from this Q. E. D. 

 A technical organization or institution 

 can never successfully popularize natu- 

 ral science. It requires a separate or- 

 ganization that may draw from technical 

 sources accurate data to be popularized. 



Matter has more intricacies, delicacies 

 and potencies than the mind of man has 

 been able to discover. Not that matter 

 is greater than mind but it has been 

 touched to finer issues by a finer, higher 

 mind. — Bishop H. W. Warren. 



