FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



619 



seen in the sky at night, nearly oppo- 

 site the point wliich is at the time occu- 

 pied by the sun on the opposite side of 

 the globe. It is near the ecliptic, but 

 appears two or three degrees away from 

 exact opposition to the sun. It seems 

 agreed that the Ge(/enscJiein is not at- 

 mospheric, but rather meteoric, being a 

 reflection fi-om some collection of me- 

 teors. The problem set before astrono- 

 mei-s is to identify the meteors. A the- 

 ory that they are connected with the 

 asteroidal zone, or mass of meteors of 

 which the known and numbered aster- 

 oids are conspicuous examples, has, ac- 

 cording to Professor Barnard, " much in 

 its favor, but there are objections to the 

 theory which can not easily be recon- 

 ciled with the observed facts." Mr. J. 

 Evershed, of Kenley, England, assumes 

 the Gcgcnscliein to be a tail to the earth, 

 produced by the escape of molecules of 

 hydrogen and helium away from the 

 globe in a direction opposite to the sun 

 — much as a comet's tail is formed. 

 Other observers suppose it to be con- 

 nected with the zodiacal light or band, 

 which is regarded as a body of meteors 

 connected with the earth and accom- 

 panying it, and is plainly visible in the 

 western sky after sunset in the spring, 

 rising from the place of the sun toward 

 the zenith; and Mr. William Anderson, 

 of Madeira, publishes a figure mth a 

 demonstration, in The Observatory, to 

 show how its place and appearance may 

 be accounted for on this supposition. 

 The Gegcnscliein has been compared in 

 a homely way to the radiance which 

 may be seen around the shadows of 

 our heads cast by the sun upon the 

 dewy grass early on a bright summer 

 morning. 



Literature for Children. — Mr. 

 Richard le Gallienne, in an article pub- 

 lished in the Boston Transcript, laments 

 the flood of rubbish that is poured out 

 under the guise of children's books. The 

 subject of literature for children is dis- 

 cussed in the Studies of the Colorado 

 Scientific Society by Prof. E. S. Parsons, 

 who remarks that three of the greatest 

 classics of childhood were not written 

 for children at all. " Pilgrim's Progress 

 was a new type of sermon written by 

 the tinker preacher in his prison cell at 

 Bedford ; Robinson Crusoe was a. pseudo- 

 history from the pen of one of the first 



great English realists; Gulliver's Trav- 

 els was a political satire by the greatest 

 of English satirists. The same thing is 

 true of the stories of the Bible, of the 

 Arabian Nights, of the folklore which 

 strikes a syTiipathctic chord at once in 

 the child's nature. . . . Child study, 

 then, reveals the fact that the child na- 

 ture is the counterpart of what is best 

 in books — that children can appreciate 

 literature." A friend of Professor Par- 

 sons wrote him of her daughter, nine 

 years old, being very fond of her fa- 

 ther's library, and ""simply devoted " to 

 the Bible and the plays of Shakespeare. 

 Harriet Martineau, when a child, " de- 

 voured oil of Shakespeare," sitting on a 

 footstool and reading by firelight, and 

 making shirts, with Goldsmith or Thom- 

 son or Milton where she could glance at 

 tliem occasionally. Another of Professor 

 Parsons's friends read " all of Goethe's 

 Faust with his little thirteen-year-old 

 girl, to her great enjoyment," and the 

 little girl afterward read alone all of 

 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. " Many 

 teachers have found young children de- 

 lighted with Dante." These incidents 

 and others point to the inference that 

 it is not necessary to go outside of the 

 world's great literature for fit material 

 for a child's imaginative and emotional 

 nature. One of Mr. Le Gallienne's main 

 conclusions is that it is very hard to 

 guess beforehand what the child will 

 like. 



Geography and Exploration in 

 1899. — No great geographical discover- 

 ies were recorded during 1899, but much 

 good work was done in exploration. 

 Considerable interest has been taken in 

 preparing expeditions of antarctic re- 

 search, of which a Belgian expedition 

 has returned with some important re- 

 sults, and Mr. Borchgrevink has begun 

 work at Cape Adar, on the antarctic 

 mainland. The search for Andree has 

 helped increase our knowledge of parts 

 of the arctic coast. In Asia, Captain 

 Deasy has laid down the whole of the 

 before unknown course of the Yarkand 

 River, and has furnished other informa- 

 tion concerning little-known regions; 

 and other surveys and explorations have 

 been diligently prosecuted- About as 

 much may be said of Africa, where " the 

 want of adequate exploration of the 

 mountainous regions on the borders of 



