POPULAR MISCELLANY, 



571 



different classes. Mr. Howitt explained a 

 method for indicating member?, which fully 

 disposes of the idea that the paucity of 

 numerals in the language of the Australians 

 arises from any inability to conceive of 

 higher numbers than two, three, or four. 



Modern Greek Personifications of the 

 San. — According to Mr. J. Theodore Bent, 

 the personifications of the sun among the 

 peasants of modern Greece compare well 

 with the legends of classical times. His 

 beauty, power, and strength endow him with 

 regal attributes, and he is supposed at night- 

 time to seek his kingdom and live in a pal- 

 ace, where his mother tends upon him. We 

 have also the sun's wife and the sun's 

 daughter, and can compare the Macedonian 

 legend of Ileliojenni with the Homeric myths 

 of Perse and her children, Circe and Aictes. 

 The sun, as messenger, may be compared 

 with the words of the dying Ajax. The 

 connection between sun-worship and that of 

 the prophet Elias is very marked in modern 

 Greece. Elias looks after rain, and is the 

 Greek St. Swithin. Churches to him are 

 always found on sites of ancient temples to 

 Apollo. This idea of a union between St. 

 Elias and a power over the elements is clearly 

 shown in a manuscript from Lesbos. There 

 is a connection between sun-worship and 

 St, George, noticeable not only in the isl- 

 ands, but in Macedonia, where a curious 

 swing ceremony is performed on St. George's 

 day in honor of the sun's bride having been 

 swung up to heaven on that day, and the 

 Kapa fires are lit. 



New Medicinal Plants.— Mrs. 11. C. De 

 S. Abbott has published an account of the 

 enterprise of Mr. Thomas Christy, of Lou- 

 don, in investigating and introducing the act- 

 ive principles of valuable medicinal plants. 

 His operations are carried on at his estate 

 in Sydenham and ia the native countries of 

 the plants, where he has agents employed 

 in collecting and cultivating. One of the 

 most important plants lately introduced is 

 the Strophanihus, or arrow-poison of Africa, 

 from which the powerful cardiac remedy 

 strophantiue is extracted. The plant is a 

 creeper, topping the tallest trees, and bear- 

 ing intensely bitter seed-pods. The oily 

 pulp of the seeds, with which the natives 



smear their arrows, causes instant death, or 

 stupor and foaming at the mouth, followed 

 by death in the animals with whose blood it 

 is mixed, while it dees not appear to affect 

 badly the flesh far from the wound. Among 

 other new drugs are kcrpod, good for chil- 

 blains ; alvelos, efficient in skin-diseases ; 

 and the haya poison and sassy-bark, which 

 produce anaesthesia of the cornea. Mrs. 

 Abbott suggests that a rich field of research, 

 to be cultivated with great advantage to the 

 healing art, lies in the study of the unin- 

 vestigated plants of our own country. It is 

 a field in which she is herself an earnest 

 laborer. 



Absence of Memory and Presence of 

 Mind. — The sudden lapses of memory that 

 occasionally attack persons of strong mind 

 are frequently very surprising. Such lapses 

 have occasionally been known to come upon 

 public speakers without the audience seem- 

 ing to have been aware that the speech had 

 been marred. Thackeray relates that he 

 once lost the thread of an after-dinner speech, 

 and thought that he had made a fool of him- 

 self ; but his mother, who was within hear- 

 ing, was of the opposite opinion. The Rev. 

 Henry Ware, of Boston, lost himself in the 

 middle of a sermon and stopped abruptly. 

 He was consoled after the service by hearing 

 one member of the congregation remark to 

 another that that was the best sermon Mr. 

 Ware had ever preached. *' That pause was 

 sublime ! " A French preacher, when a simi- 

 lar accident befell him, remarked, " Friends, I 

 had forgot to say that a person much afflicted 

 is recommended to your immediate prayers," 

 and knelt down to pray. The afflicted person 

 was himself, and his device wa^ successful to 

 the restoration of the thread of his discourse. 

 A famous Irish actor was once called upon to 

 sing his favorite song, " The Sprig of Shilla- 

 lah," although it was not on the bills. lie 

 could not recollect the beginning, and ap- 

 pealed to the audience: "Ladies and gentle- 

 men, I assure you that I have sung this song 

 so often that I forget the first line ! " The 

 audience gave him the first line, and he went 

 on with the song amid great applause. 

 Father Taylor, the " sailor's preacher," when 

 he once got confused, cried out : " Boys, I've 

 lost my nominative case ; but never mind, 

 we're on the way to glory ! " 



