EVERGREEN 



2108 



EVOLUTION 



swamp to the Caloosahatchee River, and the 

 higher portions of the land were rendered fit 

 for occupation and agriculture. A total :nv:i 

 of 5,000 square miles may eventually be re- 

 claimed, the state of Florida in 1913 having 

 appropriated $6,000,000 for this purpose. 



The Seminole Indians, after their subjection 

 in 1842, fled towards the Everglades and for 

 many years were the only inhabitants of what 

 was until recently a most unhealthful and in- 

 hospitable region. 



Consult The Everglades of Florida, a document 

 (No. 89) of the United States Senate, which may 

 be secured from the Government Printing Office, 

 Washington ; also, Rhodes and Dumont's A Guide 

 to Florida. 



EVERGREEN, any plant, shrub or tree 

 which wears a dress of green all the year. 

 Deciduous trees (which see) drop all their 

 leaves at a definite season each year, and stand 

 for months bare skeletons of trunk, branches 

 and limbs. Evergreens, however, do not shed 

 old leaves until new ones have formed, so 

 their change of garment is not noticeable; the 

 new leaves push off the old. The leaves of 

 evergreen trees, being called upon to bear ex- 

 posure to frost, cold and drying winds, are 

 more tough and leathery than leaves of other 

 trees, and, as in the cone-bearing trees (which 

 see), the leaves are needlelike. Needle leaves 

 have less leaf surface exposed than have broad 

 leaves, and thus can more easily resist changes 

 of temperature. They also have abundant 

 green tissue (see CHLOROPHYLL) to absorb life- 

 giving properties. 



In warm climates many evergreens keep their 

 leaves for several years. Some of the best 

 known evergreens are those which serve so 

 well and last so long in interior decoration 

 pines and firs, holly, ivy, box and myrtle. 

 Rhododendrons, some magnolias, and most 

 tropical plants are evergreens. Some of the 

 evergreens, the pines, especially, are among 

 the most valuable timber trees in the world. 



EVERLASTING FLOWER, a name applied 

 to various flowers which when picked and dried 

 can be kept for an indefinite time without 

 much change in their appearance. The French 

 call them immortelles, and that name is now 

 given in America to flowers of that nature 

 used in wreaths to be placed on graves. See 

 AMARANTH ; IMMORTELLE. 



EVIDENCE. Those things which tend to 

 prove the truth or falsity of a fact at issue the 

 basis of all legal trials, whether civil or crim- 

 inal. Testimony, which is the written or 



spoken declaration of a witness, is only one 

 kind of evidence. Objects which may be in- 

 spected by the judge or jury as, for instance, 

 documents or weapons may also be evidence. 

 There is almost general agreement as to what 

 constitutes evidence and what kind of evidence 

 is permissible. 



It is the business of a judge to decide what 

 evidence is admissible in a case, and fre- 

 quently much of the time in a trial is occu- 

 pied by the efforts of opposing lawyers to have 

 certain evidence admitted or excluded. The 

 first requirement of evidence is that it shall 

 have a direct bearing on the question at issue. 

 Sometimes this leads to strange situations. 

 For instance, if a prisoner is charged with 

 stealing a black horse, no evidence will be 

 admitted to prove that he took one of an- 

 other color. Hearsay evidence, the statements 

 of one party as to what he heard another say, 

 is legal only in a few special instances. Oral 

 evidence cannot as a rule contradict that of 

 documents. Confessions of guilt are not ad- 

 missible as evidence if made with the hope 

 of reward or the fear of punishment. 



Prima-facie evidence, or evidence as shown 

 on the face of things, is that which at first view 

 seems to be conclusive, but may be contra- 

 dicted. Thus the books of original entry of 

 a bookkeeper are evidence that certain sums 

 have been handled in a certain manner, unless 

 other evidence proves them wrong. 



Circumstantial Evidence. If the thumb 

 mark of a certain man is found on pieces of 

 counterfeit paper money it is evidence of the 

 circumstance that it has been in his possession, 

 but not necessarily that he has been guilty 

 of passing counterfeit money. Such evidence 

 is called circumstantial because, while the 

 crime is to be presumed, nothing direct is 

 conclusively proved. When circumstantial 

 evidence points without reasonable doubt to 

 the commission of a crime a jury is bound to 

 act upon it as though it were direct proof. It 

 is the business of the judge to charge or in- 

 struct the jury what verdict it is entitled to 

 reach from a consideration of the evidence. 



EVOLUTION, evolu'shun, a word once em- 

 ployed in connection with such a simple 

 process as the development or unfolding of a 

 flower. Since the time of Herbert Spencer 

 (which see) it has taken on a different mean- 

 ing. As commonly used, the term implies the 

 descent of the complex life-forms of to-day 

 from the simpler ones of ages gone. Incred- 

 ibly slow has been the process, incredibly long 



