Feb. 27, ISSo.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



171 



These reflex actions, which to us are geitures, are in- 

 lierited from generation to generation ; they exist as ni\ieh in 

 the highest organisms as in the lowest ; the ncvlj- horn 

 human infant tlraws its foot away if tickled with a fea'her, 

 just as the sensitive plant shrinks from the apjiroacliing 

 linger. 



Thus it may he said that the A B C of the gesture- 

 langusge is unconscious and instinctive muscular action 

 following on sensation. The next ttage in its develop- 

 ment may be defined as unconscious and instinctive 

 muscular action expressive of emotion. In this stage voice 

 for the first time comes into play, and we recognise tiic 

 howl of pain, the shriek of mortal terror, the growl or roar 

 of auger and rage. 



The second class of gestures — the gestures of will — being 

 voluntary, are conscious, and only instinctive in so far as 

 they express instinctive desires. 



The third class is the result as well as the expression 

 of thought, and under this he id must also be classed the 

 voluntary assumption of gestures belonging to the first 

 class, for the purpose of deception. Thus an animal really 

 frighteued at the approach of an enemy will assume an 

 expression of fierceness and anger, and ruffle his feathers 

 or biistle up his hair to make himself look terrible ; and a 

 man with a tlutter at his heart will, to use a common 

 expression, "show a bold front." The third class, there 

 fore, answers to a certain extent to that definition of 

 language which says, "it was invented for purposes of 

 concealment." 



SUBTERRAXEAX WOODS. 



CLA.REXCE DEMING, in his "By-ways of Nature 

 and Life," says of the swampy region of southern 

 New Jersey : — 



The huge trees which lie under the swamp to unknown 

 depths are of the white cedar variety, an evergreen, known 

 scientifically as the Cv.presses T/iyoiJrs. They grew years 

 ago in the fresh water, which is necessary for their suste- 

 nance, and when in time, either by a subsidence of the land 

 or a rise of the seas, the salt water reached them, they died 

 in numbers. But many of them, ere they died, fell over as 

 living trees, and were covered slowly by the deposits of 

 muck and peat which fill the swamp. Those trees that fell 

 over by the roots, and known as " windfalls," to distin- 

 guish them from the " breakdowns," are the ones most 

 sought for commercial use?, and they are found and worked 

 as follows : — The log digger enters the swamp with a 

 sharpened iron rod. He probes in the soft soil until he 

 strikes a tree, probably two or three feet below the surface. 

 In a few minutes he finds the length of the trunk, how 

 much still remains firm wood, and at what place the first 

 knots, which will stnp the straight "split" necessary for 

 shingles, begin. Still using his prod, like the divining-rod 

 of a magician, he manages to secure a chip, and by the 

 smell knows whether the tree is a windfall or Vjreakdown. 

 Then he inserts in the mud a saw like that used by ice- 

 cutters, and saws through the roots and muck until the log 

 is reached. The top and roots are thus sawed off, a ditch 

 dug over the tree, the trunk loosened, and soon the great 

 stick, sometimes five or six feet thick, rises and floats on 

 the water, which quickly fills the ditch almost to the 

 surface. 



The log is now sawed into lengths 2 ft. long, which are 

 split by hand and worked into shingles, as well as into 

 staves used for pails and tubs. The wood has a coarse 

 grain which splits as straight as an arrow. The thingles 

 made from it last sixty or seventy years, are eagerly sought 



by builders in southern New Jersey, and command in the 

 market a much higher jirice than ordinal y shingles made of 

 pine or chestnut, which la.st for rooting usually not more 

 than twenty or twenty five years. In colimr the wood of 

 the white cedar is a delicate pink, and it has a strong 

 flavour, resembling that of the red cedar used in making 

 lead pencils. The trees, once fairly buried in the swamp, 

 never become waterlogged, as is shown by their floating in 

 the ditches as soon as they are pried up, and what is more 

 singular, as soon as they rise they turn invariably with 

 their under sides uppermost. These two facts are mysteries 

 which science has thus far left so. The men who dig the logs 

 up and split them earn their money. The work, according to 

 the Indastfial U'orhl, is hard, rc(iuiring, besides lusty 

 manual labour, .skill and cx|i(rionce. The swamps are 

 soft and trcacherou.", no machinery can be used, and long 

 stretches with mud and water must l)e covered with boughs 

 or bark before the shingles can reach tlio village and civi- 

 lisation. 



ON THE EAPID INCREASE OF SHORT 

 SIGHT, 



AND OTHEK FORMS OF DP:FECTIVE VISION'. 



By Jonx Browning, F.R.A.S. 



I WAS recently invited to attend a lecture at the Society 

 of Arts, by 3ilr. Brudenell-Carter, "On the Influence 

 of Civilisation upon Eyesight." The attention I have, for 

 many years, given to subjects connected with vision, has 

 made me acquainted with the fact generally that short sight 

 is greatly on the increase ; but I confess I was a.stonished 

 at the statistics so ably put forward by the lecturer. 



I pafs over the lucid and interesting references to the 

 evolution of the eye from a portion of the skin, owing to 

 the action of light. We know that light must exert some 

 8) ecial action on the body or it would not be so essential as 

 it is to health. 



Next, the lecturer dilated on the efTect of transmission of 

 short sight from parents, and in this connection I may say 

 that I have supplied spectacles to four generations of one 

 family for short sight within a few weeks, while for three 

 generations I have many times supplied them. The 

 evidence of transmission is in such cases undeniable. But, 

 besides those cases which are thus unfortunately and in- 

 evitably increasing, we are manufacturing short-sighted 

 people on wholesale scale. Mr. Brudenell Carter has 

 done excellent work in directing attention to this subject 

 in his well-known manual on " Eyesight, Good and Bad." 



Some seventy years since, in three regiments of Guards, 

 tested for defective vision, short sight was almost entirely 

 unknown ; and only last year, an examination of the 

 children of a Board School in South London, showed that 

 more than one-fourth of the children had defective vision, 

 and one in each ten was shortsighted. Mr. BrU'lenell- 

 Carter recently wrote to the London Scliool Board, and 

 offered to test the eyesight of a large number of the 

 scholars, but his offer was unceremoniously declined, in an 

 uncivil letter, in very bad English. The President of the 

 evening. Dr. Mann, more than hinted that this proved 

 that civilisation might ])roduce cerebral degeneration as well 

 as defective vision. Perhaps I may be pardoned for saying 

 that the refusal proved that the majurily of the School 

 Board consisted of shortsighted persons. 



In every other respect but that of vision our race is 

 improving. That the stature of our men is increasing, and 

 that our athletes even out-do the picked men of ^avage 

 racep, and even the feats that were performed in rowing, 



