402 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



[Kov. 17, 1{ 



they put hairs into a brook, and because tliere after- 

 vikTcb appear hair worms, tlicrefore the hairs liave begotten 

 the worms — such, of course, is the argument But only a 

 worse than childish intellect will receive this reasoning as 

 good or likely. I have never yet had my demand for an 

 experiment w itl> some horse's hairs and a bowl of water at 

 faoane satisfied : and I nee<) linnlly remark how fatal is the 

 facility with which tlio dilficulties of proving that the hairs 

 pUoed in a stream actually became the living worms are 

 glossed over. The persistence of this superstition exhibits 

 anew that l>elief in the marvellous wliich is often un- 

 inHuence<i by e.xact science. 



Laying aside this startling theory of spontaneous gene- 

 ration as childish folly, we may note that near relations of 

 the hair worms are known to exist in latitudes far removed 

 from the familiar ponds and ditches around us. A species 

 of hair worm is known to live beneath the shells of shrimps 

 at enormous depths in the sea. One might feel tempted 

 to ask if tliis hair worm is also generated from etiuino ap- 

 pendages ; for what holds true of the Oan/ii/.i of the pond, 

 should logically apply, of course, to all its kith and kin. 

 Another member of the liair worm's family circle is the 

 ilmnif, which i.•^ found coiled up inside the bodies of 

 butterflies and moths. Like the hairworm, Jfeniiif escapes 

 from its insect host at the time of egg-deposition, and 

 bories itself in the soil. The young Mrrmix, armed with 

 a boring lancet, pierces the soft bodies of caterpillars, 

 and grows to maturity, in fact, along with the insect, 

 as the latter becomes the chrysalis and perfect in- 

 sect respectively. There is also another ally of 

 the hair worm, which lives as a lodger and boarder 

 in the interior of that friend of the llowers, the humble 

 l>ee. This is the Sjihnrularia, with whose history Sir John 

 Lubbock and Mr. Cole have made us acquainted. John 

 Hunter knew S/iliirnil,irin well, but in 1S3G it was more 

 tally examined by Dufour. The female worm, or that 

 which is found in the bee, is about an inch long. It is 

 white, and possesses a Ijody bluntly pointed at either end. 

 It is covered by small warty projections. No mouth or 

 digestive system exist.s, but a very large " fat body " 

 occupies the interior of the parasite. The male Sj>h«ni- 

 laria appears to l>e alwut 28,000 times smaller than the 

 female. In this curious group of animals the habit of 

 leaving the insect host to propagate the species is probably 

 represented as in the hair worms themselves. As a final 

 remark concerning the hair worms, I may refer to the 

 well-known fact of their remarkable tenacity of life. Both 

 young and adult hair worms can be dried and mummified, 

 :ind kept in this dessicated state for lengthened periods ; 

 yet upon the addition of moisture they at once revive, and 

 appt-ar able to resume all the functions of life as before. 

 ■Sinilar phenomena occur in the history of the Uolifcrn, 

 or "wheel animalcules." In what state the animals 

 actually remain, or on what this " potential vitality," as it 

 ia called, de|>endK, we do not know, but their tenacity of 

 life may well explain how their existence is perpetuated 

 through the winter's cold and under conditions of more 

 rigorous nature still. 



\m it TkueI— An American paper says: — " There was 

 excit<?ment in front of the Cential Methodist Church, 

 Markct-strr-et, Newark, N.J., on Saturday evening last. 

 Adjoining the church is a building with iron columns, 

 which is supplied with eb-ctric light, and somewhere in the 

 circuit a telegraph wire had fallen upon the electric wire, 

 UuH charging the building n«air the church. The current 

 fxiPuAnA to the iron fence outside, and four persons who 

 had touched the fence in passing had Iwen knocked down. 

 TT^cy wf-re not seriously injure<l." 



THE TYPE-WRITER. 



By RlCllAKD A. PUOCTOR. 



SEEING an advertisement of this instrument in the 

 columns of Knowledok, I thought it would probably 

 be the very thing for mc -if I couUrgct over the habit of 

 associating mental work with the nianipuhition of a pen. I 

 remembered that when (.Joldsmith tried dictating instead of 

 writing, he failed — only w hen urging pen over paper could 

 he express his ideas with his wonted freedom. 1 had had 

 a somewhat similar experience myself. A day or two before 

 I gave my first lectures in New York, four stt'nogi'aphers 

 from the otlice of the Sew Yurk Tribune called on 

 me by appointment, to take down the first lecture 

 from my own lips. I tried to imagine an audience, 

 and to talk as if addressing one. But it was useless. 

 After some ten or twelve sentences, I told the four 

 reporters 1 could make nothing of it ; I could not lecture 

 without an audience. The case of the aspirant to oratorical 

 fame and the cabbages was reversed : ho practised before a 

 set of cabbages, and could only tell a real audience that 

 " he — he — he perceived they were not ca))bag(,-s ; " I had 

 never lectured save before an audience and trusting to the 

 inspiration of the moment to give me fit words for what I 

 had to tell them ; and, though the four reporters were very 

 far indeed from being cabl)ages (on the contrary, four as 

 bright and clever men as one would care to meet), I had 

 to tell them I perceived they — they — they were not an 

 audience. 



It was with some doubt, therefore, that I began to try 

 the Remington Type Writer, especially as the makers 

 consider that some time should bo given to practice before 

 using the instrument for regular work. 



I was agreeably disappointed. In a few minutes one 

 begins to know wliere the letters are, and not long after 

 one begins to find the way of knocking off the short words 

 — the, and, vuk, that, in, if, of, there, ever, trere, and so 

 forth, almost at a stroke. The mind forms ideas and sen- 

 tences as readily as with the pen ; and though at first the 

 rate of writing is, of course, slower than with the pen, the 

 work is much pleasantcr. 



In my own case there was no time wasted over practice. 

 I gave up a certain department of my work with Know- 

 ledge (the "Answers to Correspondents," if you nmsl 

 know, Mr. Inquisitive,) to th(! type-writ(^r ; and so made 

 progress at once with practice and with my work. I only 

 found one d(^fcct in this arrangement. It was so much 

 pleasantcr to work with the Writer than with the pen, that 

 I was disposed to give more than due time to the Answers.* 

 rortunat<-ly, correspondents are so numerous, and increase 

 so fast, that material was not wanting. To the accompani- 

 ment of our " Steinway," on which divers members of my 

 family continued their practice, the work went merrily 

 forward, and that which some readers regard as sulphuric 

 acid, while others only just recognise in it an occasional 

 (and then slight) acidulous flavour, trickled over the paper 

 from the almost noiseless writer. 



The use of the instrument, pleasant from the l)eginning, 

 grows pleasanter with every day's firactice, until there is 

 quite a charm in manipulating these little keys. The rate 



• In passing, I may note that many readcTH seem not to under- 

 Htand that the greater the Hpaco given to AnswtTH, tho more space 

 ia saved for tho largo-typo matter which the bulk of our readers 

 chiefly care for. Almost ovory answer means u letter which would 

 otherwise have appeared in tho " Correspondence," to elicit, pcrliaps, 

 a dozen iinswers, and possibly u lengthy controversy. Patting an 

 nvornge of only one column for each (which is very moderate), I 

 find that about twenty pages weekly would bo required for corre- 

 spcmdencc. Thus, I am absolutely forced to adopt some such plan 

 of dealing with most of the letters which reach mc. 



