Vol. XIV. 



JAN. 15, 1880. 



No. 2. 



TEK.MS: $1.00 Pkr ANNUM, IN At)VANCK;l IT' ,,4- r^TJ ^ dn r> rl t'^-i 1 Q 'y ^ f (Miibs to different postofficf's. NOT I.FHS 

 2Copiesfor3l.90;3tor82.75;5tor84.00, I Jlii^ ittU L Lb) ItlyiO ili ±0 i O. | than KOcts. ea.li. St-iit postpaid, in t)ie 

 lOor more, 7S r!ta. each. Sinjtle Number, ! ', U. S. and Canadas. To all other conn- 



5 cts. Additions to clubs maybe m.ade f rUBLlsi!Er> skmi-montiily by '; tries of the Universal Postal Union. IRc 



at ehih rates. Above are all to be sent ', . -r ~nr\(\Ty ivrxT'TkTXT a /~»ttt/'^ pervenr extra. To all conntTiepNOT of 

 To ONEPOSTOFFICK. I A. i. ilUU i , IM iliJJijN iV, UlilU. I the U. V. U.,42ci 



•per year extra. 



MORE ABOUT THE BEE'S EYES. 



TALK TO THE .lUVENILES ON HOW TO rOMI'KE- 

 IIENP MERE NUMBERS. 



[j S Prof. Cook has opened the way, T now ven- 



9l\^i ture forth with a few more notes upon the i 

 jPP bee's eye— such facts as I have been enabled i 

 '*""*^ to glean fi-om the field of the microscope. [ 

 This is not intended to supplement Prof. | 

 Cook's able article on the above subject, but is sim- I 

 ply the result of independent research. I therefore j 

 will take up the eye of a bee, presenting- it in a 

 slightly different phase. i 



Let me see— I was going- to write to the little 

 folks, so T am. First, I desire you to read Prof. 1 

 Cook's article over carefulli% for you surely will , 

 find it interesting; then if you choose you can see 

 what I have to say. 



The compound eyes that Prof. Cook told you 

 about are called " compound " because there area 

 great number of eyes in one. If I should tell you 

 that in one of these compound eyes there are over 

 3000 little eyes you would hardly know how many this 

 meant. When I tell you that the sun is over ninety 

 millions of jniles away, you could then form but a 

 small idea of its immense distance. Figures have 

 but little meaning to us, unless we can have some- 

 thing for comparison. Astronomers — men who 

 study the stars— have a way of comprehending dis- 

 tances, and I will try to explain it so jou can un- 

 derstand it. 



You are accustomed to regard this earth as very 

 large. You can travel a whole week over its sur- 

 face, and then you will have gone over but a small 

 portion of its circumference. Now, did you e^■er 



think that light travels? If you are old enough, 

 and have been at school long enough, you will find 

 that it travels exceeding Ij- fast. Why! it can go 

 around this great earth more than seven times a 

 second; and yet, with this enormous speed, wise 

 men tell us that it taKes eight full minutes for the 

 light to travel from the sun to our earth. In other 

 words, it takes eight minutes for the light to travel 

 90,000,000 of miles— the distance from the sun to us. 

 Nov/, can you understand what a lot of ciphers 

 mean? If you do not, get your mother to help you. 

 A moment ago I told you that a bee had, in one of 

 his compound eyes, over 3000 simple eyes, or COOO 

 in both his large eyes. These figures I obtained 

 with the aid of my microscope by counting a cer- 

 tain number, then estimating. By referring to Car- 

 penter—an authority on the microscope— I find that 

 a liy has in two of his compound eyes 4000 simple 

 eyes; the cabbage-butterfly, 17,000; dragon-fly, 24,000. 



These numbers arc by no means as large as those 

 standing for the distance to the sun; yet three oi- 

 four thousand, I fancy, will have little meaning to 

 our little folks. Let me see— arrry large hall or 

 church will hold perhaps three thousand people. 

 Now, suppose you crowd every one of these people 

 into an area cf little OA^er an eighth of an inch 

 sfiuare, how small do you suppose each person 

 would become? He would be about the size of one 

 of these simple eyes in the compound eye of a bee. 



Little friends, I have given you these comparison 

 in order that you may better understand what 

 mere numbers signify, and also that you may bet- 

 ter comprehend how very small are the simple 

 eyes of the bee. 



Let us next glance for a moment at the general 



