Dec. 15, .1882.] 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



4G7 



by the use of corsets, he -n-ould have judged the task hope- 

 less. With all his skill he could not have given beauty to 

 a nude Aphrodite, representing a woman 5 ft. 4 in. in 

 height and 18 in. round the waist. He might have made 

 a quaintly eftective statue, but it would have been in his 

 eyes only a Grotesque. 



Yet that would be a mere nothing to the attempt to 

 model a statue from a corset-marred woman of the height 

 and waist measurement just mentioned. The ancient 

 sculptor's work, though grotesque, would represent a 

 human being as Nature might fasliion one, who does not 

 give to all animals perfection of proportion. The corset- 

 spoiled waist does not err in being out of proportion, but in 

 being deformed. It is not merely the ellipticity of the 

 natural waist that is wanting, but all the curves which 

 a well-shaped waist possesses, A perfectly-formed waist, 

 of man or woman — as for instance, the waist shown in 



Fig. 1. 



Fig. 1 (not the centaur's), and the waist of the Apollo 

 Belvidere (which is, however, somewhat feminine in type) 

 may be compared to perfect music, so beautifully are its 

 proportions harmonised ; a grotesque waist, such as I 

 imagined above, might give pleasure like a quaint and 

 fanciful air : but a corset-made waist is sheer discord to the 

 artistic mind. Like the crushed foot of the Chinese lady, 

 the compressed head of the savage, pierced lips and nostrils 

 (aye, and pierced ears, too, fair ladies), the waist made by 

 stays is not ill-proportioned, it is malformed. Yet even the 

 waist thus distorted — the waist made by stays — is not so 

 hideous as the waist when actually in its corset enclosure. 

 For enfeebled though the stays-pinched woman is about the 

 waist, she can still bend her waist a little when the stays 

 are removed. The movement is of course ungraceful ; there 

 are no gentle curvings and undulations, as when an unde- 

 formed woman bends her shapely waist ; but still there is a 

 possibility of bending. With a well-tautened corset there is 

 none ; when the waist moves it moves all in one piece. 

 The wearer may walk or even run (at her proper peril), or 

 dance, or ride ; the trunk, as a whole, may move in a 

 variety of ways, just as the arm may, if you put it in 

 splints : but there is no more possibility of curving the 

 trunk between the hips and the chest than there is of 

 bending an arm at the elbow when it is in splints from 

 shoulder to wrist. Yet Nature prol>ably did not provide 

 abdominal and lumbar muscles for nothing, any more than 

 she fashioned elbow and knee joints to no purpose, 

 {To he continued.) 



New C'omp.\ky. — The prospectus of the Patent Electric 

 Gas Igniting Company (Limited) has been issued. The 

 Company proposes to liglit gas by means of a spark from 

 an induction coil. This is comparatively a very ancient 

 idea, and for some application of it the Company is to pay 

 a sum of .£75,000, .£29,920 in cash and £45,080 in shares, 

 the total capital being £100,000. We refrain from com- 

 menting on a scheme which looks for a large profit on so 

 small an available capital 



THE GREAT SUN-SPOT. 



e the accompanying for compa 

 satisfactory view, see page 431. 



X^^E give the accompanying for comparison with our 

 \ * less S! " " 



Great Sux-spot, Xov. 19, 12. 



(J. W. W.-irtl, Belfast, 4-3 in. 'Wray equatorial, Hugh"., power 113. 

 Hodgson prism single surface reflection used.) 



The spot at this time was decidedly of a cyclonic ap- 

 pearance, a huge forked tongue lying spirally over the 

 umbra, and all round the larger spot there were shehnng 

 "tongues" distinctly seen projected into the blacker 

 umbra. 



"OUR BODIES:" 



SHORT PAPERS ON PHYSIOLOGY. 



Xo. I.— BOXES. 



By De, Andrew Wilson, F,R.S,K 



IF there is any one part of the human frame which more 

 than another appears to be dead and lifeless in its 

 character, that part is the skeleton. We are apt to trans- 

 late our ideas of what a Uvin'j bone should be, from that 

 which a iPad bone is — hard, tirm, dense, unyielding, and, 

 above all, lifeless, material. Now this is very far indeed 

 from the true state of matters. The physiologist tells us 

 that bone is not merely a thoroughly living tissue, but that 

 it is literally living in all its parts. Furthermore, a little 

 reflection will teach us that as bones have to grow, tliey 

 must needs do so by processes similar to those through 

 which other parts of the human frame increase. If we cut 

 a bone it bleeds ; and this fact alone shows us how plenti- 

 fully bone is supplied with blood-vessels, carrying the 

 nutrient fluid for its repair and growth. Again, there was 

 a period in our indi%-idual history when bone was not. 

 Bone must, therefore, have been formed as other tissues 

 grow, and must have exhibited all that vitality which 

 marks the production and development of the varied be- 

 longings of our frames. 



Let us suppose that we cut across a long bone, such as 

 the thigh bone, or any bone of the arm itself. In the 

 hollow interior of the bone, we find )narrow when the bone 

 is examined in the fresh condition. The bone itself is very 

 dense and thick towards the outside layer, but of more, 

 open structure as we approach tlie inner layers. Outside 

 the bone, and adhering very closely to it, is a tough layer 

 known as the prrionlfinii. There is no doubt that tliis 

 layer has much to do with the repair of bones when they 

 are broken or injured, and, for one thing, it supports the 

 bloodvessels which enter the bone and which nourish it 



To properly understand what bone is, we must appeal 

 to tlie microscope. A thin cross-section of bone, ground 

 down till it becomes so transparent that we can reflect the 

 light through it, is placed under the ohject-glivss of tlie 

 microscope. Regarding this view of bone attentively, we 



