Febbuaey 1, 1897.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



41 



So much, then, for the manners and customs of the 

 Northern Bruin. ^Ve have been hitherto considering the 

 bear from his own point of view. The older naturalists, 

 and many of the laity, now dwell rather upon the uses of 

 creatures to man. They take what was termed by Prof. 

 Haeckel an anthropocentric view of the universe. From 

 this point of view the bear does undoubtedly come in. We 

 have already referred to the pious offerings of the Northern 

 sportsmen ; but the bear provides not only dress, but 

 meat and oil. The intrepid Willem Barents, one of the 

 pioneers of Arctic exploration, did not realize that the 

 bear was excellent eating ; subsequent travellers have, and, 

 oddly enough, some of them describe the flesh as tasting 



■""im 







Hs\ 



'Eq-lxs, Bbab chabgisg. (Zoological Grardens.) 



like mutton : oddly, because all strange meats, for some 



reason or other, are frequently compared to veal. 



We have now considered the Polar bear from the point 

 of view of the British public, the naturalist, and the 

 gourmet. 



[The last sentence in Mr. Beddard's article reminds me 

 that he has not treated of the Polar bear from a photo- 

 grapher's point of view, and a few remarks on the subject 

 may not be out of place here. 



As Mr. Beddard says, the two Polar bears now in the 

 " Zoo " are very fond of playing together, and they may be 

 seen biting at each other, wrestling, and rolling over for 

 hours at a time ; but I foimd it exceedingly difficult to 

 photograph them in the act of playing. Immediately I 

 approached the bars they would leave off their game — no 



doubt in the hopes of playing with me ! The only thing 

 to do was to wait quietly for a chance of a snap-shot, 

 which, after several hours, I eventually obtained. This 

 has been enlarged, and is reproduced in the accompanying 

 plate. The smaller illustration is of one of the bears 

 charging. Both Dr. Nansen and Mr. Jackson have, I 

 believe, taken photographs, at about fifteen yards, of bears 

 in their wild state in the act of charging, and have then 

 laid down the camera, taken up the rifle, and shot the bear. 

 With these captive bears I don't think this would be possible, 

 for they charge straight up to the camera at a tremendous 

 pace, without any check. 



When taking this photograph, a friend enticed the 

 beasts up to the further end of the inclosure, and while 

 he was playing with them with a stick, I crept up to the 

 bars with my camera ready. No sooner had I put the 

 camera through the bars than one bear charged at fuU 

 speed. I allowed him to come within twelve feet, and then 

 snapped the shutter, and immediately drew my camera 

 away. On several occasions I was only just in time, for 

 the beast grazed me with his paw. Personally, I should 

 not care to photograph one of these bears charging, with- 

 out the protection of the bars. — Haerv F. Wiiherby.] 



A PANTHEON OF SCIENCE. 



By John Mills, F.R.A.S. 



THE opening of the Davy-Faraday Laboratory La 

 December last, with all its resources for prose- 

 cuting original research in chemistry and chemical 

 physics, marks, in its way, an epoch in the 

 history of applied science in this country. Addi- 

 tional interest attaches to the event because it practically 

 forms the centenary of the Royal Institution of Great 

 Britain, which, a hundred years ago, was first conceived 

 by Benjamin Thomson, a Royalist American in the service 

 of the Elector Palatine of Bavaria, by whom he was 

 created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. " History 

 repeats itself,'' is a saying which we often hear; and it is 

 worthy of remark, in this connexion, that a dwelling- 

 house, adapted to the exigencies of the case, served as a 

 beginning for the requirements of the projectors of the 

 Royal Institution, just as the Davy-Faraday Laboratory of 

 to-day has been metamorphosed from a gentleman's 

 private residence into a series of small laboratories for the 

 accommodation of persons desirous of investigating scien- 

 tific problems. Some idea of the immense progress which 

 has been made in the several branches of science in the 

 interval which separates the epochs marked by the 

 beneficent acts of Count Rumford and Dr. Ludwig Mond, 

 may be gathered by the perusal of the series of articles — 

 " The Science of the Queen's Reign " — now appearing in 

 this magazine. 



It has been said that the history of the Royal Institution 

 is the history of science in England ; should anyone 

 doubt the truth of this assertion, let him but read the 

 records of the Institution's aims, aspirations, and actions, 

 and we venture to think that the most sceptical will 

 discover therein the initial points of many great schemes 

 for increasing the sum of human happiness — some of 

 which have been accompUshed, and others still exist in 

 the mind only. The Institution was launched in March, 

 1799, the first meeting of the managers being held at the 

 house of Sir Joseph Banks (chairman), in Soho Square, 

 Count Rumford as secretary, and Mr. Thomas Bernard as 

 treasurer. Rumford had previously circularised those 

 persons likely to be of use in supporting the ventui-e both 

 by personal influence and with pecimiary help, and a 



