168 GLIMPSES OF NATURE. 



Professors Crum Brown and Mach have succeeded in 

 confirming this opinion, and, what is more to the 

 point, in elevating it into the region of certified facts. 

 As the former scientist lately remarked in the 

 course of a public lecture, we really possess little or 

 no means of judging of motion. We move through 

 space in this old world of ours at the rate of 68,000 

 miles per hour, yet we are all unconscious of the move- 

 ment. The rapid, even motion of a train may be really 



sc 



Coc 



Fig, 34. The Inner Ear. 

 Coc., Cochlea ; V, vestibule ; S C, semicircular canals, laid open. 



unperceived, and of many other circumstances relating 

 to movement ihe like remark holds good. Yet, any 

 deviation of motion from the straight line is at once 

 perceived how or why is the puzzle ; but at least we 

 are conscious of the transition, say, to a curve or to a 

 steep gradient. 



It is the same, as has well been pointed out, with 

 the ascent in a lift or in a balloon. At first we seem 

 to be going down, but midway in the lift we become 

 unconscious of the movement, until the apparatus 



