50 



♦ KNOWLEDGE * 



fJiLY 18, 1884. 



tailed reference, because its supprior transparency renders 

 it best adapted for microscopical investigation. Like the 

 rest of its brethren, it is carnivorous, and its favourite dish 

 seems to be the quaint little creatures called, from their 

 spasmodic, jerky movements, water fleas, though they are 

 not fleas at all, nor, indeed, even insects, but belong to the 

 group of animals of which crabs, lobsters, and shrimps are 

 the most familiar representatives. These specks of crea- 

 tion, which are considerably more minute than our house- 

 hold fleas, are caught and crunched V)y Corethra in con- 

 siderable numbers, and with great avidity. To facilitate 

 the crushing of their hard horny skin, it is furnished with a 

 pair of strong jaws, carrying stout, tooth-like projections. 



(To be continued). 



SUPERSTITION. 



IT is noteworthy how closely superstition and ignorance 

 are allied. The dynamiters have shown us what a 

 low and ignorant class of savages still exists in Ireland, 

 and beyond a doubt most of the trouble which exists in 

 Ireland, and is caused by the Irish lower classes wherever 

 they make their abode, arises from the sheer ignorance of 

 the race. There is no country in Europe, perhaps, unless it 

 be in the more murderous parts of Italy, where superstitions 

 of the stupidest sort are more prevalent than in Ireland 

 among the ignorant members of the community. Con- 

 sider, for instance, the edifying scene presented at a spot 

 about 100 yards from the place where the Dublin Inviu- 

 cibles were hanged. Here is a well called theWell of St. John, 

 the foulness of whose waters, though to the eye they seem 

 tolerably clear, has caused medicinal properties to be 

 imputed to them, after the customary notion of the 

 ignorant that the effectiveness of medicines is propor- 

 tional to their loathsomeness of taste or smell, or both. 

 But (probably because these waters become particularly 

 offensive at midsummer) the ignorant of that region 

 regard the water of this well as especially curative if 

 taken thence on the eve of June 24, now St. John's 

 day, though the tradition dates unquestionably from 

 times long preceding the Christian era. This silly sujier- 

 stition (amazingly silly in this age) is so firmly believed in 

 by the ignorant, and there are so many ignorant folk 

 round about Kilmainham, that, on June 23 last, quite 

 5,000 people assembled at the well, having made a 

 pilgrimage thither from greater or less distances. It is 

 regarded by these unfortunate idiots as essential that the 

 water should lie drawn before daylight on St. John's eve, 

 and the pilgrims oame provided with every class of vessel 

 to bring away the precious fluid (precious stuflT). The 

 well is in a recess under a wall, we are tuld, and candles 

 had to be used to light the people down the steps, so that 

 the scene presented was of a weird character. I have 

 seen such iveird scenes, and most melancholy they are. 

 Watch a detachment of the Salvation Army going along 

 with the savage and silly noises in which they delight 

 and note the degraded type of countenance of every 

 single member of the procession. Imagine 5,000 persons 

 of still stupidier and more animal type groping about with 

 candles to gather foul water in dirty vessels, mumbling 

 unmeaning incantations to strengthen its virtue — a scene 

 weird enough for a Rembrandt to paint ; only, if he would 

 not make it too utterly mslancholy for all who long to see 

 the human race becoming better and wiser, he should let 

 gloom and darkness hide all the worst features of the 

 scene. Truly, a man must keep such scenes from his 

 thoughts, even as lit must refrain from thinking of the 



squalor of our ill-fed and worse clothed poor, if he would 

 believe that man is but a little lower than the angels, or 

 else he must have strange ideas of the angels. Thinking 

 of the ways of some who are closely akin to these super- 

 stitious and ignorant beings — I mean the dynamiters — he 

 might well conclude that man is but a little higher than 

 the devils, according to accepted ideas as to these folk. — 

 R. A. Proctor, in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle. 



THE 



INTERNATIONAL 

 EXHIBITION. 



HEALTH 



VIII.— WATEE AND WATER-SUPPLIES— (conKntMd). 



A RETROSPECTIVE inquiry into the statements made 

 in our last communication would show that it is 

 chiefly by the action of carbonic acid gas, oxygen, organic 

 matter, and hydration, that water is enabled to act upon 

 the substratum of our earth. By means of these reactions 

 it is endowed with properties which it would otherwise 

 never possess, and a little reflection would convince one 

 that those attributes are wholly dependent upon the charac- 

 ter of the formations through which it penetrates. Let us 

 now proceed to trace the physical history of the water 

 which saturates the earth's crust, and which is destined to 

 play a most important part in the laboratory of Nature ; 

 in doing so we shall be able to unravel the mysteries of the 

 Plutonic region, and gain an insight into the principles 

 which we shall have to bear in mind when we come to 

 consider the practical aspect of the water question in its 

 relation to man. 



The dry bones of natural philosophy are capable of being 

 rendered highly delectable when the results of abstruse 

 calculations are reduced to round numbers and put forth as 

 astounding realities ; at least, so they seemed to us in our 

 college days, when the learned professor laid aside the garb 

 of austerity to discourse upon the wonders of the " unseen 

 universe," and material creation, to his awe-stricken class 

 of undergraduates. We were taught that in the far-off 

 hazy annals of the world, at a time which is only so far 

 definite as to allow of a licence of computation between 

 twenty to forty millions of years ago, the earth was 

 in the condition of the sun of our present era, 

 and that through the radiation of the heat into 

 space, it hlowly cooled down to become fitted for 

 the habitation of living things. (On the authority 

 of our University pedagogue, we may state that sufficient 

 heat leaves the earth per annum to melt a film of ice one 

 quarter of an inch thick, spread over its entire surface). 

 It does not much matter to us whether that happy time 

 was consummated six millions, or only six thousands of 

 years ago ; suffice it to say that the only evidences we have 

 of the former intense heat of the earth now are to be 

 traced to the vestiges of internal temperature, which we 

 are made aware of in our comparatively trivial borings, 

 which show a rise of about PC. for every 100 feet of 

 descent into a mine, and to those natural operations which 

 manifest themselves in volcanic outbursts, fiery lakes, and 

 thermal springs. The late Principal Forbes has shown that 

 irrespective of the nature of the soil, the changes of tem- 

 perature due to the rotation of the earth upon its axis, or 

 that caused by day and night, is onl}- perceptible to a depth 

 of one foot ; and that the seasons do not afl^ect the earth's 

 crust, as far as temperature is concerned, to a greater deptk 

 than from 28 to 30 feet. 



Water which penetrates into the earth, then, has to con- 

 tend against tli'jso thermal sources ; by them it is endowed 

 with solvent and other propertie.s, in addition to those 



