47 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Arrest 

 Ascent 



extraordinary fall: and the man who plies 

 his labor at all seasons in the open air has 

 by much the best chance of profiting by 

 these. There are formations which yield 

 their organisms slowly to the discoverer, 

 and the proofs which establish their place 

 in the geological scale more tardily still. I 

 was acquainted with the old red sandstone 

 of Ross and Cromarty for nearly ten years 

 ere I had ascertained that it is richly fos- 

 siliferous a discovery which, in exploring 

 this formation in those localities, some of 

 our first geologists had failed to anticipate. 

 I was acquainted with it for nearly ten 

 years more ere I could assign to its fossils 

 their exact place in the scale. MILLER The 

 Old Red Sandstone, ch. 1, p. 13. (G. & L., 

 1851.) 



236. ARTIST FEARING BLINDNESS 



Scientist Explains Difficulty Prediction 

 of Recovery Fulfilled. One of the most 

 interesting cases of diffraction by small par- 

 ticles that ever came before me was that of 

 an artist whose vision was disturbed by 

 vividly colored circles. He was in great 

 dread of losing his sight; assigning as a 

 cause of his increased fear that the circles 

 were becoming larger and the colors more 

 vivid. I ascribed the colors to minute par- 

 ticles in the humors of the eye, and ventured 

 to encourage him by the assurance that the 

 increase of size and vividness on the part of 

 the circles indicated that the diffracting par- 

 ticles were becoming smaller, and that they 

 might finally be altogether absorbed. The 

 prediction was verified. TYNDALL Lectures 

 on Light, lect. 2, p. 92. (A., 1898.) 



237. ARTIST, SCIENTIFIC BLUNDER 



OF Asiatic Monkey Given Prehensile Tail. 

 An amusing illustration of the wide-spread 

 ignorance which exists as to such matters, 

 and also of the use of the imagination in a 

 way not strictly scientific, occurred with 

 reference to the Prince of Wales's visit to 

 India some years ago. Among other places 

 of interest the Prince visited was the Tem- 

 ple of Monkeys at Benares. His visit was 

 duly depicted in one of the illustrated jour- 

 nals, and no doubt with scrupulous fidelity 

 in all these points to w r hich the artist di- 

 rected his attention. Nevertheless these 

 monkeys are represented as having prehen- 

 sile tails ; which is about as accurate as 

 would be a picture of a fox-hunt by a sup- 

 posed eye-witness wherein the hounds should 

 be represented each with a fox's brush for 

 tail [none but American monkeys having 

 prehensile tails]. MIVABT Types of Animal 

 Life, ch. 1, p. 5. (L. B. & Co., 1893.) 



238. ARTIST, SELECTION THE SE- 

 CRET OF HIS POWER Beauty of Works of 

 Art Due to Elimination. The artist selects 

 his items, rejecting all tones, colors, shapes, 

 which do not harmonize with each other 

 and with the main purpose of his work. 

 That unity, harmony, " convergence of char- 

 acters," as M. Taine calls it, which gives to 



works of art their superiority over works of 

 nature, is wholly due to elimination. Any 

 natural subject will do, if the artist has wit 

 enough to pounce upon some one feature of 

 it as characteristic, and suppress all merely 

 accidental items which do not harmonize 

 with this. JAMES Psychology, vol. i, ch. 9, 

 p. 287. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



239. ARTS AND SCIENCES, GROWTH 



OF From Bow through Crossbow to Musket. 

 Arts and sciences never spring forth per- 

 fect, like Athene out of the~split head of 

 Zeus. They come on by successive steps, 

 and where other information fails the ob- 

 server may often trust himself to judge 

 from the mere look of an invention how it 

 probably arose. Thus no one can look at a 

 crossbow and a common longbow without 

 being convinced that the longbow was the 

 earlier, and that the crossbow was made 

 afterwards by fitting a common bow on a 

 stock, and arranging a trigger to let go the 

 string after taking aim. Tho history fails 

 to tell us who did this and when, we feel al- 

 most as sure of it as of the known historical 

 facts that the crossbow led up to the match- 

 lock, and that again to the flint-lock mus- 

 ket, and that again to the percussion mus- 

 ket, and that again to the breech-loading 

 rifle. TYLOR Anthropology, ch. 1, p. 18. 

 (A., 1899.) 



240. ASCENT FROM BRUTE TO MAN 



Alpine Heights of Intellect Marvelous 

 Endowment of Speech Spiritual Exalta- 

 tion. Nay, more; thoughtful men, once 

 escaped from the blinding influences of tra- 

 ditional prejudice, will find in the lowly 

 stock whence man has sprung the best evi- 

 dence of the splendor of his capacities, and 

 will discern in his long progress through 

 the past a reasonable ground of faith in his 

 attainment of a nobler future. 



They will remember that in comparing 

 civilized man with the animal world one is 

 as the Alpine traveler, who sees the moun- 

 tains soaring into the sky, and can hardly 

 discern where the deep-shadowed crags and 

 roseate peaks end and where the clouds of 

 heaven begin. Surely the awe-struck voy- 

 ager may be excused if at first he refuses to 

 believe the geologist, who tells him that 

 these glorious masses are, after all, the 

 hardened mud of primeval seas, or the 

 cooled slag of subterranean furnaces of 

 one substance with the dullest clay, but 

 raised by inward forces to that place of 

 proud and seemingly inaccessible glory. 



But the geologist is right; and due re- 

 flection on his teachings, instead of di- 

 minishing our reverence and our wonder, 

 adds all the force of intellectual sublimity 

 to the more esthetic intuition of the unin- 

 structed beholder. 



And after passion and prejudice have 

 died away the same result will attend the 

 teachings of the naturalist respecting that 

 great Alps and Andes of the living world 



