Attenuation 



Automatism 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



58 



but rarely necessary, method is to pass it 

 through the tissues of an insusceptible ani- 

 mal. Thus we see that, whilst the favor- 

 able conditions which we have considered 

 afford full scope for the growth and per- 

 formance of functions of bacteria, we are 

 able by a partial withdrawal of these, short 

 of that ending fatally, to modify the char- 

 acter and strength of bacteria. NEWMAN 

 Bacteria, ch. 1, p. 36. (G. P. P., 1899.) 



288. ATTRACTION CONSTANT, 

 HOWEVER LONG RESTRAINED The day 



was fading and the deeper glacier pools 

 were shaded by their icy banks. Through 

 the shadowed water needles of ice were dart- 

 ing; all day long the molecules had been 

 kept asunder by the antagonistic heat; 

 their enemy is now withdrawn, and they 

 lock themselves together in a crystalline 

 embrace. TYNDALL Hours of Exercise in 

 the Alps, ch. 6, p. 74. (A., 1898.) 



289. AURORA MAY ENVELOP THE 

 EARTH Australia Responds to Borealis. 

 It would even seem that this simultaneity 

 of the aurora borealis and australis is the 

 rule and not the exception. Data with re- 

 gard to the southern hemisphere are often 

 wanting, yet we possess an uninterrupted 

 series of eight years of observations taken 

 at Hobart Town in Tasmania, from 1841 to 

 1848, during which thirty- four auroras were 

 reckoned. Now, every time that an aurora 

 was seen at Hobart Town an aurora bore- 

 alis was observed in the northern hemi- 

 sphere; or, at least, if it were daytime in 

 Europe, there were those important mag- 

 netic perturbations which accompany polar 

 auroras. 



If it be remembered that the presence of 

 the sun above the horizon prevents a given 

 aurora from being seen over half the sur- 

 face of the globe, and if we remark that, in 

 the cases cited above, the aurora was seen 

 in the whole of that part of the mean lati- 

 tudes of the globe where it was night at the 

 time of its appearance, it will not seem un- 

 reasonable to admit that at certain mo- 

 ments the lights of the double polar aurora 

 may entirely envelop the earth, with the 

 exception of an equatorial zone of a width 

 of about forty degrees. ANGOT Aurora 

 Borealis, ch. 4, p. 55. (A., 1897.) 



290. AUTHORITY A HINDRANCE TO 

 INVESTIGATION Werner's Pupils Too Eager 

 to Maintain His Views Travel Needed for 

 Broad Views of the Universe. Werner had 

 a great antipathy to the mechanical labor 

 of writing, and, with the exception of a 

 valuable treatise on metalliferous veins, he 

 could never be persuaded to pen more than 

 a few brief memoirs, and those containing 

 no development of his general views. Al- 

 tho the natural modesty of his disposition 

 was excessive, approaching even to timidity, 

 he indulged in the most bold and sweeping 

 generalizations, and he inspired all his 

 scholars with a most implicit faith in his 



doctrines. Their admiration of his genius, 

 and the feelings of gratitude and friendship 

 which they all felt for him, were not unde- 

 served; but the supreme authority usurped 

 by him over the opinions of his contempo- 

 raries was eventually prejudicial to the 

 progress of the science; so much so as 

 greatly to counterbalance the advantages 

 which it derived from his exertions. If it 

 be true that delivery be the first, second, 

 and third requisite in a popular orator, it 

 is no less certain that to travel is of first, 

 second, and third importance to those who 

 desire to originate just and comprehensive 

 views concerning the structure of our globe. 

 Now Werner had not traveled to distant 

 countries; he had merely explored a small 

 portion of Germany, and conceived, and 

 persuaded others to believe, that the whole 

 surface of our planet, and all the mountain 

 chains in the world, were made after the 

 model of his own province. It became a 

 ruling object of ambition in the minds of 

 his pupils to confirm the generalizations of 

 their great master, and to discover in the 

 most distant parts of the globe his " uni- 

 versal formations," which he supposed had 

 been each in succession simultaneously pre- 

 cipitated over the whole earth from a com- 

 mon menstruum, or " chaotic fluid." It now 

 appears that the Saxon professor had mis- 

 interpreted many of the more important 

 appearances even in the immediate neigh- 

 borhood of Freiberg. LYELL Principles of 

 Geology, bk. i, ch. 4, p. 47. (A., 1854.) 



291. AUTHORITY OF MOTHERHOOD 



There is at least one authority the right- 

 fulness of which is not a question, but a 

 fact. All men are born of parents. All 

 men, moreover, are born in a condition of 

 utter helplessness and of absolute depend- 

 ence. . . . It is a dependence arising 

 out of conditions full to overflowing of all 

 the elements to which the sentiment of 

 moral obligation is necessarily and intui- 

 tively attached. It is the least and lowest 

 of these elements that at the breasts of its 

 mother an infant first satisfies its hunger 

 and its thirst. Other elements follow in an 

 ascending order. In the arms of its mother 

 it feels the first sense of rest, and the first 

 ideas of refuge and of protection. In the 

 voice of its mother it hears the first expres- 

 sions of love, and makes the first responses 

 which that love demands. In the smile of 

 its mother it first finds the great gift of 

 laughter. In the eyes of its mother it has 

 its first look into the mirror of another 

 spirit, and feels the answering tides which 

 are stirring within its own. These are but a 

 part of the great claim, accumulating with 

 the hours and days, upon which the author- 

 ity of a mother rests. And so it comes to 

 pass that the rightfulness of that authority 

 is by the necessities of nature recognized 

 from the first, and when its voice is issued 

 in command, the duty of obedience is felt 

 and known. As a matter of fact, therefore, 



