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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ists to-day. Animals have varied from one 

 geological stratum to another, and the high- 

 er the animals, the greater has been the 

 variation. It is to be inferred, therefore, 

 that man has varied more than the other 

 mammals. The problem is to discover in the 

 Tertiary period an ancestral form of man, a 

 predecessor of the man of historical times. 

 There are In the Tertiary strata objects which 

 imply the existence in that age of an intel- 

 ligent being ; and such objects have been 

 found in two different stages of the epoch 

 — in the Lower Tertiary at Thcnay, and in 

 the Upper Tertiary at Otta, in Portugal, and 

 at Puy Courny, in Cantal. They prove that 

 at those two distant epochs there existed in 

 Europe animals acquainted with fire, and 

 able, more or less, to cut stone. During 

 the Tertiary period, then, there lived ani- 

 mals less intelligent than existing man, but 

 more intelligent than existing apes, although 

 their skeletons have not yet been discov- 

 ered, only their works. To these species, 

 the ancestral forms of historic man, M. de 

 Mortillet would give the name of anthropo- 

 pithecus, or man-ape. 



TVords and Things. — A writer in the 

 " Journal of Science " remarks upon the in- 

 adequacy of language to describe motions, 

 as in the flight of different species of but- 

 terflies; colors, except a few particularly 

 named ones ; forms, except geometrical 

 ones; and tastes and odors, in which the 

 failure is complete. At the same time our 

 mental conceptions of all these things may 

 be of the clearest, when they have once 

 passed under observation. To this he ap- 

 pends the pertinent question: Seeing how 

 very impotent is language, unaided, to con- 

 vey precise knowledge, " Why is such ex- 

 clusive attention paid to words, both in 

 lower and higher education, to the almost 

 entire neglect of things ? Verbal memory 

 is cultivated above all other faculties of the 

 human mind. Much care is taken to train 

 up youth in the correct use of language. 

 But in what school is the art of observation 

 systematically taught ? Who heeds or asks 

 whether the observing faculties are strength- 

 ened ? Quite the contrary ; these faculties, 

 if perhaps not intentionally, are not the less 

 weakened and crowded out by dominant ver- 

 balism. . . . I am not seeking to undervalue 



the use and study of language. It furnish- 

 es, at any rate, receptacles in which the rough 

 outlines of our knowledge may be preserved. 

 But it must no longer seek to maintain the 

 exclusive position which it has usurped. It 

 must be made to feel that it is the espalier 

 and not the vine, the purse and not the 

 money, the shell and not the substance." 



Sands of the Taikistan Descits. — Ac- 

 cording to an account by M. Paul Lcssar, 

 of the Russian Geographical Society, the 

 sands of the Kara-Kum Desert of Turkistan, 

 represented on maps by one conventional 

 sign, arc in reality very varied, and are 

 divisible into three principal kinds. In the 

 country between Merv and Attok, and be- 

 tween Sarakhs and Chacha, the soil is 

 clayey, largely mixed with sand ; its sur- 

 face is formed into hillocks, rarely more 

 than seven feet high, and usually thickly 

 overgrown with brushwood. This kind of 

 desert presents no particular obstacles to 

 the traveler. The second kind of desert 

 consists of real sands — not, however, of a 

 drifting nature, but everywhere knit to- 

 gether by bushes ten or fifteen feet high. 

 It is only at the summits of the hillocks, 

 which are higher than those just described, 

 that there is a little drift-sand, which is 

 carried from place to place. In sands of 

 this kind, carts move with great difficulty, 

 while horses and camels go freely. No 

 storm need be dreaded in these deserts, for 

 the quantity of drift-sands is so small that 

 it can not become dangerous, though it may 

 cause considerable discomfort. The case 

 is, however, very different with the sands 

 of the third kind, or the so-called harkhans. 

 In them no tree or bush or grass-blade is to 

 be seen ; the sand is wholly of a drifting 

 nature; and the slightest puff of wind 

 effaces the fresh tracks of a caravan. 

 Wherever they meet a bush they arc de. 

 posited around it by the wind in hillocks 

 that assume a variety of shapes. When the 

 hillocks have covered the bushes they are 

 molded by the wind according to one pat- 

 tern, in which the side exposed to the wind 

 presents a gradually raised cone, and the 

 reverse a sharp curve, while a section might 

 be accurately figured by a rib. The passage 

 of these sands is very difficult. Horses 

 sink and are hardly able to extricate their 



