126 



• KNOWLEDGE - 



[Mabcb 2, 1883. 



as prayers for protit, for tho punisliment of persons not 

 pleasant to us, and so fortli, til we reach some not so 

 obviously profane. 



Yet so long as the laws of nature are imperfectly known, 

 these special impertinences towards the God of nature will 

 continue. No one, nowadays, would think of praying that 

 the action of gravity should be suspended (any more than a 

 reasonable being would ask Ood to 



Aimiliiluto both time and space 



To make two lovers hnppy), 

 for the action of gravity has been investigated and mea- 

 sured ; nor would any one pray tliat a chemical or physical 

 experiment should turn out in a particular way in order 

 that a favourite theory might be supported. But, outside the 

 recognised operations of natural law, in the domain of the 

 unknown, men still feel free to pray without offence — 

 though if they worded their prayers logically they might 

 run somewhat as follows : — " Grant that these processes 

 which I cannot comprehend " (whether meteorological 

 phenomena, or tlie progress of disease, or commercial 

 and industrial inlluences) " may be so working as to lead 

 to the end which I (not that / know what is best for me) 

 particularly desire." 



I^f many parts of Switzerland, the Geneva correspondent 

 of the Times says, are often found smooth flat stones, evi- 

 dently hand published, and covered with dots, lines, circles, 

 and half-circles. The origin and use of these stones, known 

 among country people as Sclialensteine, have long been a 

 moot point among the learned. Herr Rodiger, of Bellech, in 

 Solothurn, says Sclialensteine are neither more nor less than 

 topographical charts, as a comparison of them with any mo- 

 dern map of the districts in which they are found will show. 

 The engraved dots correspond with existing towns and 

 villages, the lines with roads. Even the fords and moun- 

 tain passes are indicated. Herr Riidiger has examined many 

 of these stones from various parts of the country, and he 

 possesses a collection, picked up in Solothurn, which form 

 together a map of the entire canton. Another significant 

 circumstance is that the Sclialensteine are mostly found at 

 intervals of about two hours — say, six miles — from each 

 other, and at spots where several roads meet. The former 

 Herr Rodiger calls " headstones " — I/avjjitsteine — the latter 

 he denominates " by-stones " — Kebensteine. If he be right 

 in his hypothesis, the places where these stones are met 

 with possessed considerable populations long before the 

 dawn of history ; even the villages show'n on the Sclialen- 

 steine must be far older than the Christian era. 



of Knowledge. I was moved to reply, and at some 

 length. I am satisfied my reply would have found no 

 place if it had been addressed to some exceedingly high- 

 toned papers in which an unfair attack had been made. 

 But it was inserted at once in the Sporting Times. The 

 following extracts from it will show what statements were 

 questioned, and how they were maintained. 



There are papers aiming at and claiming, but not 

 always reaching, a high and dignified position, which do 

 not always treat people fairly. I remember being blamed 

 in the pages of such a paper for claiming in my book on 

 the Sun " every scrap of theory to which I might be 

 entitled ; " and when I wrote five lines in reply, saying 

 there was not such a claim, good, bad, or indifferent, 

 throughout the volume, getting no better satisfaction than 

 the reply from the editor that it was not the justice of my 

 claims but the advisability of making them that was in 

 question — an odd reply, where I had denied making any 

 claim at alL Kow recently, I have had experience of 

 very different treatment in the columns of a paper not 

 claiming, I believe, the high and dignified tone of such 

 papers as — let us saj' — the Alhena;uin. A writer in the 

 Sporfinff Timrs, adopting the worthy title Philalethes, 

 or Truth-Lover, liad rejected with scorn and contumely 

 some items of information contained in a recent number 



" ^Vs for the moving dune in Nevada," Knowledce, No. 

 G6, p. G.3, " it is a true bill I had heard of it when in that 

 neighbourhood myself from several scientific authorities ; 

 Mr. Jlonroe, who reports the movement, is an eminent sur- 

 veyor ; the account is confirmed by the editor of the ^cien- 

 tijic A merican ; I have stood on a similar, though smaller, 

 sand mountain in New Zealand ; and histly, no one who 

 has ever seen the sand dunes of the Landes, and heard 

 what has happened there, will deem the story very mar- 

 vellous. There, not only have millions of tons of sand 

 advanced inland at an average rate of seventy-two feet, but 

 each year three million cubic feet of sand ad%ances (as it 

 were, from beneath the sea) upon the coast ; or, putting 

 thirty cubic feet of sand to the ton (about a five-inch cube 

 of sand to the pound avoirdupois), a million tons of new 

 sand are added each year to the mvading mass. In violent 

 storms, whole villages have been destroyed in a few hours ; 

 the town of Mimizan, after thirty years' contest with the 

 advancing sands, is now^ nearlv Ijuried beneath them." 



" As for the cunning toad story " (same number of 

 Knowledge), its defect is that it is so easily explained, 

 without imputing wonderful intelligence to the toad. 

 Toads seek their food where they know it is likely to be 

 found. In this case a toad, finding the insects gathered 

 round saucers of moistened meal, simply hid itself 

 under the meal, and caught them from that coign of 

 vantage. The humour of the chickens in taking their 

 meal off the toad's back, instead of visiting the 

 other saucers, was to me far the best part of the 

 story. And, talking of intelligence and humour 

 in animals, none of the stories we read give half 

 the evidence of character and fun in animals that every 

 one who is at all observant can find in the general ways 

 of animal friends. I have had dog friends who have told 

 me more in a day's walk about canine intelligence, by a 

 number of little ways and dodges severally too slight to 

 be worth telling, than one could gather from a dozen 

 volumes of animal intelligence stories ; while, as for fun, 

 the thought of some of the odd tricks of two particular 

 friends of mine, both black retrievers, is as good to me in 

 its way as a volume of Mark Twain or Ai'temus Ward." 



" The stinging-tree is only too certain a fact, as many 

 know to their cost. ' Philalethes,' however, considering 

 the name he takes, should not have said that our corre- 

 spondent described the tree as ' rushing out and stinging 

 persons.' ' We often came into contact with them,' can 

 hardly bear that meaning. Several years ago, President 

 Barnard, of Columbia College, New York, gave a very 

 interesting account (at the table of the late Professor H. 

 Draper), of his own unfortunate experience with one of the 

 stinging trees of America." 



" Lastly, the question of the chirping, or, rather, 

 tapping, spider is under discussion in the pages of Know- 

 leijoe. The death watch has been suggested in e.xpla- 

 nation of what was observed, but the death watch is a 

 coleopterous insect, not a spider or arachnoid. ' 



