522 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



complete theory ol punishments or rewards in 

 hades had found its way into the popular creed. 

 The prevalent belief was merely that the souls 

 of the departed with the exception of a few 

 who had personally off ended against the gods 

 were occupied in the lower world in the un- 

 real or shadowy performance of the same ac- 

 tions that had employed them when in the 

 region of day. The poets and dramatists 

 introduced the accessories of tribunals, trials 

 of the dead, a paradise for the good, and place 

 of torture for the bad. The modes of punish- 

 ment imagined were ingenious, such as that 

 of Ixion, who was bound to an ever-revolving 

 wheel ; that of Sisyphus, who was set to roll a 

 huge stone up a steep hill, a toil never ending 

 and still beginning, for as soon as it reached 

 the summit it rolled back again to the plain ; 

 or that of Tantalus, who was placed up to his 

 chin in the water, but was unable to quench 

 his thirst, as the water constantly slipped 

 away from him as he raised it to his lips. 

 Over his head also hung a branch loaded with 

 fruit, but, as he stretched forth his hand to 

 grasp it, it sprang from him toward the clouds. 

 It is plain that these punishments had their 

 origin in the imagination of poets rather than 

 .of priests or religious teachers. 



Illiteracy of Various Nations. In 

 Russia, Servia, Roumania, and Bulgaria over 

 :80per cent, of the population are illiterate, 

 ; Spain 63 per cent., Italy 48 per cent., Hun- 

 ;gary 43 per cent., Austria 39 per cent., Ireland 

 :21 per cent., France and Belgium 15 per cent., 

 Holland 10 per cent., United States (whites) 

 8 per cent., Scotland 7 per cent., Switzerland 

 2.5 per cent., some parts of Germany 1 per 

 cent. In Sweden, Denmark, and Bavaria, 

 Wurtemberg and Saxony, only rarely a person 

 cannot write. 



Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The 

 Hanging Gardens of Babylon, so celebrated 

 among the Greeks, contained a square of four 

 plethra that is, 400 feet on every side and 

 were carried up aloft into the air in the man- 

 ner of several large terraces, one above an- 

 other, till the height equaled that of the walls 

 of the city. The ascent was from terrace to 

 terrace by stairs ten feet wide. The whole 

 pile was sustained by vast arches, raised upon 

 other arches, one upon another, and strength- 

 ened by a wall, surrounding it on every side, 

 of twenty-two feet thickness. On the top of 

 the arches were first laid large flat stones, 

 sixteen feet long and four broad ; over these 

 was a layer of reeds, mixed with a quantity of 

 bitumen, upon which were two rows of bricks, 

 closely cemented together with plaster. The 

 whole was covered with thick sheets of lead, 

 mpon which lay the mold of the garden ; and 



all this flooring was contrived to keep the 

 moisture of the mold from running away 

 through the arches. The mold, or earth, laid 

 thereon was so deep that the greatest trees 

 might take root in it ; and with such the ter- 

 races were covered, as well as \\ ith all other 

 plants and flowers-that were proper for a gar- 

 den of pleasure. In the upper terrace there 

 was an engine or kind of pump by which water 

 was drawn up out of the river, and from thence 

 the whole garden was watered. In the spaces 

 between the several arches, upon which the 

 whole structure rested, were large amd magnif- 

 icent apartments that were very light, and had 

 the advantage of an exceedingly beautiful 

 prospect. 



Pan, the chief Grecian god of pastures, 

 forests, and flocks. He was, according to the 

 most common belief, a son of Hermes by a 

 daughter of Dryops, or by Penelope, the wife 

 of Ulysses ; while other accounts make Penel- 

 ope the mother, but Ulysses himself the father 

 though the paternity of the god is also 

 ascribed to the numerous wooers of Penelope 

 in common. The original seat of his worship 

 was the wild, hilly, and wooded solitudes of 

 Arcadia, whence it gradually spread over the 

 rest of Greece, but was not introduced into 

 Athens until after the battle of Marathon. He 

 is represented as having horns, a goat's beard, 

 a crooked nose, pointed ears, a tail, and 

 goat's feet. He had a terrible voice, which, 

 bursting abruptly on the ear of the traveler in 

 solitary places, inspired him with a sudden 

 fear (whence the word panic). He is also rep- 

 resented as fond of music and of dancing with 

 the forest nymphs, and as the inventor of the 

 syrinx or shepherd's flute, also called Pan's 

 pipe. The fir tree was sacred to him, and he 

 had sanctuaries and temples in various parts of 

 Arcadia, at Troezene, at Sicyon, at Athens, 

 etc. When, after the establishment of Chris- 

 tianity, the heathen deities were degraded by 

 the Church into fallen angels, the characteris- 

 tics of Pan the horns, the goat's beard, the 

 pointed ears, the crooked nose, the tail, and 

 the goat's feet were transferred to the devil 

 himself, and thus the " Auld Hornie " of 

 popular superstition is simply Pan in dis- 

 guise. 



'^Esthetics is a term invented about the 

 middle of the last century by Baumgarten, a 

 Professor of Philosophy in the University of 

 Frankfort-on-the-Oder, to denote the science 

 of the Beautiful, particularly of art, as the 

 most perfect manifestation of the Beautiful. 

 Notwithstanding the fact that the Beautiful 

 was a favorite subject of contemplation among 

 the ancients, Baumgarten is held to be the 

 first who considered the subject from the true 



