330 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



integrity. Nor is there the faintest silver lining to this dark social 

 cloud. These people have not the relieving benefit of sleeping in 

 pure air after a day of hard work of twelve or fourteen hours' du- 

 ration in the disease-laden atmosphere of insanitary workshops, 

 but are subjected by day and by night to conditions as far removed 

 from the sources of health as the poles are asunder. Their daily 

 occupations and mode of life in the workshop are bad, and their 

 homes also are bad. 



It may pertinently be asked. What is the remedy to hinder 

 further degradation of racial power, and rescue the town-dwellers 

 from the agencies so powerfully operating upon their physical 

 competency ? I fully recognize the cogency of such a question, 

 but I must at once admit my inability to suggest a satisfactory 

 answer. It may to some extent be found in adopting legislative 

 measures. No doubt sanitary reform is doing an excellent work. 

 Insanitary surroundings, overcrowding, uncleanliness, impurity, 

 and intemperance, must all be done away with or lessened. Edu- 

 cate the children in the pure air of the country, make the parents 

 aware of the great constitutional value of sobriety and morality, 

 give them all pure air and plenty of it, and away fly the pale faces, 

 cachexia, lowered vitality, stunted development, muscular attenu- 

 ation, and the imperfect elimination of functional products. — 

 The Lancet. 



SEA-LIONS AND FUR-SEALS. 



By W. H. LAERABEE. 



THE animals of the seal-kind include two groups or families 

 which, with a general similarity of structure, exhibit quite 

 distinct features in their appearance, habits, and movements. 

 The order to which they belong is named Pinniy)edia, from the 

 structure of the paws, which are webbed down to the ends of the 

 fingers, and in one of the families beyond them. The families are 

 the Pliocid(E, or true seals ; and the Otariidce, eared seals, sea-lions, 

 or sea-bears. Two articles of the same name but very different 

 qualities are derived from them and form important commercial 

 wares. Seal-skin from the true seal has short, bristly hairs, and 

 is used for trunk-covers, coats, caps, gloves, etc. ; seal-skin from 

 the eared seals is the soft, fine, glossy fur which the ladies prize 

 so highly, and which has an important place in our luxurious 

 winter wardrobes. These animals are carnivorous mammalia, 

 and breathers of the air ; while they hunt their food in the water, 

 they must live out of it ; hence they are found most frequently 

 near the water, on the rocks of the coast, or floating on cakes 

 of ice. In connection with the walrus, they have been aptly de- 



