96 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



Uncle Sam Exploring for New Plants. 



BY H. E. ZIMMERMAN, MT. MORRIS, ILL. 



The Bureau of Plant Industry, under 

 the Department of Agriculture, at 

 Washington, sends out explorers to 

 various parts of the world in search of 

 new plants which might be introduced 

 into this country and prove of value. 



Individuality of Tides, 



The United States Coast and Geodetic 

 Survey has been developing a new theory 

 of tides. According to this theory, the 

 familiar pictures of the geogTaphies, with 

 two knobs of water standing out on oppo- 

 site sides of the earth, is entirely wrong. 

 There is not, in fact, anv ireneral tide anv- 



JN SEARCH OF ••NEW" PLANTS. 



The picture shows an outfit used by 

 one of its explorers near Ure-dalik, 

 Chinese Turkestan. The large cart, 

 with its three mules in front and one 

 horse behind, and over i,ooo pounds of 

 baggage in it, trekked through a piece 

 of sandy and alkaline desert. The 

 man in the foreground is a Russo-Turki 

 interpreter : the others are the driver 

 and the general helper. 



According to a late report on Irish 

 fisheries, the rings on the deeper valve 

 of the oyster are not, as is commonly 

 thought, a reliable test of age. Oysters 

 of knoAvn age that had been under ol)- 

 servation at the experiment station for 

 four years showed from three to eight 

 ^'annual" rings. 



California Poppies. 



Bright sunbeani-s in the garden, 

 Caught and held there fast; 



But like the really sunbeams. 

 Night cuenches them at last. 



— Emma Peircc 



where ; but each separate ocean has its 

 own tide quite independently of the rest 

 of the water on the globe. Thus the 

 waters of the Pacific swish back and forth 

 with no more relation to the swishing in 

 the Atlantic than as if the two oceans 

 were two separate bathtubs in which two 

 children were being washed. 



From this, it follows that every great 

 lake, every small lake and every little 

 pond, even down to every tiny pool, has 

 a tide of its own precisely like the tides 

 of the larger oceans except that the rise 

 and fall may be only the fraction of an 

 inch. 



As we contemplate the infinite spaces 

 above us, Avith no beginning and no 

 ending, we become "stilled'' as it were 

 by the immensity of it all. Our finite 

 minds stand appalled, but the sense of 

 a Great Power creeps gradually over 

 us and the unseen almost becomes real, 

 while Life takes on a new meaning. — 

 Editha S. Campbell, Erie, Pennsyl- 

 vania. 



