100 



* KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Feb. 6, 1885. 



800 miles the additional pressure would bo 6,000 millions 

 of tous. This, it will be observed, is very much smaller 

 than the effect due to changes of atmospheric pressure ovtr 

 such an area as the British Isles, but the ex'ra pressure 

 per square mile is nearly twice as great on account of a 

 foot rise in water as on account of a half-inch rise of the 

 mercurial barometer. (In the aVjove computation I have 

 taken a cubic foot of water as 1,000 oz. As a matter of 

 fact, a cubic foot of sea water weighs cou.sideiably more, 

 averaging Gl^ lb. instead of 62^ lb. — tiie weight of a cubic 

 foot of fresh water.) 



But the rise in the water level due to hurricanes is 

 merely an addition to the rise due to the tides. An extra 

 foot or two due to long-continued shoreward winds, added 

 to several feet due to high spring tides, would signify tens 

 of thousands of millions of tons of increased pressure on 

 the Spanish and Portuguese shore-line. Moreover, an 

 addition of this enormous weight on one side of a certain 

 definite coast-line, while on the other side of this shore- 

 line no change at all occurs from this cause, cannot but lie 

 a most potent disturbing CHUse — in a region, too, where the 

 very existence of a shore-line indicates irregularity in the 

 structure of the earth's crust beneath. 



I take it, then, that we may fairly consider that the 

 external action exerted upon the earth's crust, as the tidal 

 wave sweeps upon a shore-line, as winds heap up the seas 

 there, and as atmospheric pressure increases and diminishes 

 ■ — especially during the progress of great storms — must 

 play a most important part in producing subterranean 

 disturbances. At every moment of time millions of 

 millions of tons of matter, in the form of water and air, 

 are being flung hither and thither over the surface of the 

 earth. Can we wonder if, apart from ititeiior causes of 

 disturbance, the crust shows signs of occasional fluctuation ? 

 — Ncwca.illc Weekly Cliroiiicle. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OP CLOTHING. 



By W. Mattieu William.?. 



I.— OUR NATURAL CLOTHING. 



"f TIE know very little about the beginnings of man — 

 V\ nothing, at pi-esent, of the aborij^inal human being ; 

 one of the widest gaps in the geological record being that 

 between the lowest specimen of the two-handed creature 

 and the highest of the four-handed. Every new paleonto- 

 logical discovery fills up or narrows one of the lower gap--, 

 but from the beginnings of geology to the present time 

 absolutely nothiug has been found that bridges over this 

 upper chasm — no fossil of human type that is less human 

 than some living savages ; no monkey, no anthropoid ape 

 that is more anthropoid — more nearly human — than the 

 Hving gorilla, orangoutang, or chimpanzee. 



Are we, therefore, to conclude that the creation of man 

 was exceptional — that there was actually an original break 

 in that continuity of progressive development which is 

 otlierwise revealed to us in the great Book of Genesis 

 which geology has opened; or is it that this chapter is yet 

 unread 1 



What has this question to do with clothing 1 some of my 

 readers will exclaim. My reply is, that cluthing suggests 

 the answer to it. The fact that we cannot live in the 

 " temperate " zones of the earth without clothing shows 

 that we are foreigners here — that we have wandered from 

 the birth-place of our race, and therefore cannot expect to 

 find any remains of our aboriginal ancestors in British 

 railway cuttings or other European excavations. 



Our own bare backs and tender skin, the geographical 

 distribution of the nearest of our poor relations, the 

 shadowy rumours of tradition, and the most ancient 

 monumental remains, all indicate a tropical or sub-tropical 

 origin of nun — rather tropical than sub-tropical; and 

 seeing that these trojiical regions, where the fos-il bones 

 of our primitive ancestors probably lie, are practically 

 unexplored, the most interesting chapter of the geological 

 revelation is demonstrably still unopened. 



It may be different presently. When cuttings are made 

 for a Grand Junction Railway between the Congo and the 

 Nile, when the British Association holds a colonial meeting 

 at Khartoum, as it did last year at Montreal, specimens of 

 many missing links will probably be shown at the geo- 

 logical section to illustrate papeis on arboreal men and 

 trogloditio apes. 



In order to understand the true philcso])hy of clothing it 

 is necessary always to bear in mind that cur artificial 

 clothing is merely a geographical accident, a damaging im- 

 pediment, a necessary evil that we have to mitigate as 

 much as possible, by so selecting its material and adapting 

 its form that we may protect ourselves from the chilling 

 mischief of our surrounding?, with as little sacrifice as 

 possible of the free, cutaneous transi)iration that we 

 should enjoy in our aboriginally native climate. 



We are told that the ancient Britons were naked savages 

 who painted their bodies, probably with earthy or ochreous 

 pigments. It is usually supposed that they did this simply 

 for ornament sake. I suspect, however, that the practice 

 originated with the simple and inevitable discovery that a 

 layer of mud or clay, or diit of any kind, checked the 

 cooling effect of free evaporation from the skin, and thus 

 the painting of the body served very rudely one of the 

 purposes of clothing ; that it was the most primitive and 

 (with the exception of tight stays) the worst kind of human 

 clothing. 



So far as Julius Ctesar's description is concerned, we 

 must remember that Roman armies rarely, if ever, marched 

 during the winter ; that he made his first acquaintance 

 with our shores in the summertime, when such supple- 

 mentary covering as the skins of beasts was not fashionable. 

 It is doubtful whether, even with the aid of much paint, 

 any human beings could endure even the mild winters of 

 our island, still less those of Continental Europe. 



We know by their remains that primitive, prehistoric 

 men took refuge in limestone caverns. They would there 

 find a mild winter climate, and I am inclined to regard 

 this as the chief influence which drove them into the 

 retreats, rather than to suppose that they chose these 

 caverns as a refuge from wild beasts. The intermingling 

 of flint weapons with the bones of bears, hyenas, wolves, 

 ita, rather indicats a struggle on both side for the posses- 

 sion of these " eligible family mansions " during frosty 

 weather. 



The first questions to be answered in considering the 

 subject of clothing philosophically is, Why do we require 

 clothing under any circumstances, and how does clothing 

 act in supplying the requirement ? 



The answer to the first part of this question is simple 

 enough. We, in common with all the other warm- 

 blooded animals, have a bodily temperature considerably 

 above that of the mean temperature of the temperate 

 zones of the earth — above even of that of the tropics. 

 The maintenance of this temperature is absolutely neces- 

 sary for the maintenance of our health, and even of our 

 life. 



Whenever a body of any kind, animate or inanimate, 

 has a temperature above that of its surroundings, it 

 radiates away to those surroundings more heat than it 



