A CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE. 259 



more than three feet from me, and though, when I moved, 

 he hid himself in the muddy water, yet I managed to cap- 

 ture and take him home alive. He was a little animal, cer- 

 tainly, not larger than a half-dollar piece, and,it was mar- 

 vellous how a thing so small could make such a loud and 

 piercing noise. I took him to my room, and placed him in 

 a water-tight box, in which I fashioned an artificial bog, in 

 the hope that he would confirm my testimony by his piping. 

 The second evening, as I sat in my room, poring over the 

 recitations of the morrow, he lifted up his voice, loud, shrill, 

 and clear, as when singing in his native marsh. I hurried, 

 in triumph, to the learned disputants about his identity, and 

 in their presence, he furnished unanswerable evidence that 

 the peeper was a frog, and not a newt. I was complimented 

 by both the learned pundits, as though I had added a great 

 item to the aggregate of human knowledge." 



" You did do a great thing, my friend," said Spalding, 

 " you solved a mystery about which men, wise in the learn- 

 ing of the books, had perhaps been disputing for centuries. 

 What are the peepers ? asked the naturalist, who listened to 

 their piping notes from the marshy places in the spring 

 time. It was a matter of small practical importance, what 

 they were. Still it was a question which MIND wanted to 

 have .solved. Its solution would do no great amount of 

 good to the world. But then it was a mystery which it was 

 the business of mind to lay bare ; and what more has sci- 

 ence done in tracing the history and progress of this earth 

 of ours, as written upon the rocks, among which geology 



