Jxs. 23, 1885.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



67 



struck, I tbink, by the politeness with which nearly all 

 men in America, even of the humbler orders, treat women. 

 Defects of breeding may be noticed, of CMurse, and some of 

 them are tolei-ably general in the Western States, but they 

 mostly ati'eet mere externals, not the real amenities of life. 

 Albeit one could wish that, instead of the bettt r bred fall- 

 ing into the ways of those less fortunate in regard to breed- 

 ing, they should set steadily a good example even iu 

 externals. It may be a matter of no momeut, for instance, 

 that here or there a working man or woman should put his 

 food into his mouth with his knife. But for those who 

 have pleasanter ways of eating to fall into the same ugly 

 babit because they are surrounded by folk who know no 

 better, is surely a mistake. I have repeatedly seen 

 people of good social standing do such things in the far 

 Western States, though the}' must know perfectly well 

 the more seemly habits which good breeding enjoins. 

 I feel somewhat ashamed of myself if my gorge 

 rises when a labourer puts food into his mouth 

 with a knife, and a semi-scientific question arises 

 in my mind as to the origin of a feeling so fanciful and 

 artificial. But when persons who have had better oppor- 

 tunities indulge in the same habit, the case is diflV-rent : I 

 no longer wondei- or feel ashamed at the sense of di.sgust 

 which comes over me when I see the knife (to consider this 

 particular solecism for the moment) put to this improper 

 use. And I notice another singular circumstance. T.i see 

 a knife, held in the ordinary way, go into the mouth loaded 

 with what does not belong to it, is unpleasant enough ; but 

 the feeling cf disgust is curiously intensified when the 

 knife is held in that way which the labouring classes 

 have quite ingeniously invented to make the knife more 

 serviceable. Perhaps if tsvo-pronged forks were still 

 in use, and spoons had not been invented, we might be 

 driven to the use of the knife as a sort of spoon. 

 Then we should do as the labouring folk do ; when we 

 wanted to use a knife as a spoon, we should turn the knife's 

 edge from the mouth (setting the thumb against the back 

 of the knife), and so bring the back instead of the edge 

 into the mouth. When I sec a working man or woman do 

 this, I am rather ple.ised with the ingenuity of the method, 

 than disgusted at the wi-ong u-e of the knife. But to see 

 a person in good social position adopt this workmanlike 

 way of using the knife, produces a different effect. Beau 

 Kash used to express much stronger objection to a darn 

 than to a hole in the silk stockings of his day, for, said he 

 with foolish wit, " a hole may be the accident of a day, 

 but a darn is deliberate poverty." In like manner, but 

 with better reason, one may pass over the carelessness 

 which has led some once well-bred persons in America to 

 fall into the habits of less fortunate folk around them, to 

 speak ungrammatically, mispronounce words, and so forth ; 

 probably the most of us would do the same after passing 

 many years among the rougher sort of people ; but to see 

 a lady or gentleman set the thumb on the back of the 

 knife and use the blade in the workmanlike fashion I 

 have described (showing they have not merely fallen into 

 a bad habit, but have deliberately learned how best to 

 follow it), this is truly distressing. I have not only seen 

 this, but I have seen persons of good social standing 

 calmly feed an infant with the knife point ! Yet, oddly 

 enough, one may often notice that while the seniors in a 

 family have adopted these hateful wMys, and the infants 

 are made familiar with knife-blades from baViyhood, the 

 grown boys and girls in the same family would as soon 

 think of pxitting a knife into the mouth as of putting their 

 fingers into a dish. The cri'ioisms of writers like Dickens, 

 Mrs. TroUope, and so forth, however harsh and even rude 

 they may have been, have had this good effect at least : the 



young people who have read, marked, and inwiir.lly digested 

 such notes about manners and custonn have corrected many 

 ugly ways which otherwise they might have aloptttl or 

 retained. 



One could wish the good effect had extended to language; 

 but though the young pcojile, especially the ladies, speak 

 much more correctly than their elders, and sometimes 

 with perfect accuracy, it must bo admittx'd that in sonic of 

 the Western States of America the English language has 

 degenerated terribly. — Newcastle Weekly Chronicle. 



DINOSAURS 



(Continued from p. 27.) 



AMONG the animals found in the Rocky Mountains, the 

 strangest beast i.'i dcjubtless the brontosaurus, of whose 

 skeleton we give a restoration according to Professor Marsh 

 (Fig. 1). This animal reached a gigantic size; living, it 



Fig. i. — Skeleton of Broiitosaurug ( •< 1-125). 



must have weighed at least thirty tons ! The bead is re- 

 markably small for an animal of such a sv^c. The brain, 

 which is extremely small, indicates a slow and stupid beast. 

 The neck is long, flexible, strong, and very mobile, the legs 

 are massive, and the bones solid. The animal walked after 

 the manner of our present bears, its body was entirely 

 naked, its habits more or less aq latic, and it must have 

 frequented muddy swamps pretty much as the hippo- 

 potamus does. Its food consisted of plants that grew iu 

 the water or near the banks. 



Not far from the French frontier, between Mons and 

 Tournay, in Belgium, is located the Bernissart coal-mine. 

 In order to reach the bed of coal it is necessary in that 

 country to excavate the earth to a certain depth, and 

 traverse strata which were deposited subsequent to the 

 formation of the valuable combustible. In making researches 

 at Bernissart for extracting coal, some wealden strata were 

 encountered in a valley that dated from the beginning of 

 the Cretaceous epoch, and that was afterward filled through 

 the movements of the earth. Fishes by hundreds, croco- 

 diles of unknown types, and gi-antic reptiles here lay 

 buried at a depth of almost 1,150 feet, nearly in the spot 

 where they formerly lived. They were buried in mud, and 

 lay pellmell along with the plants that grew upon the 

 ground that they had trod at an epoch so remote as to 

 exceed all imagination. These gigantic animals thus brought 

 to light, thanks to the persevering researches of De Paux 

 and Sohier, were dinosaurs belonging to the genus igua- 

 nodon, the first remains of which were found liy Mantell 

 in 1822. 



It is to the labours of Boulenger and Van Beneden, and 

 especially to those of Dollo, tliat we owe our knowledge of 

 one of the strangest beings that ever existed in olden times. 

 The discovery of the Bernissart iguanodon — an animal 

 whose entire skelet-m is now known — has thrown an abso- 

 lutely new light upon the structure of a whole group of 

 herbivorous dinosaurs. 



