Beauty 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



64 



well-known ice streams of Switzerland. 

 RUSSELL Glaciers of Korth America, ch. 6, 

 p. 77. (G. & Co., 1897.) 



318. Gorgeous Sunset 



among Desert Ranges of Utah. The unu- 

 sually clear air of Utah, especially after 

 the winter rains, renders distant mountains 

 remarkably sharp and distinct, particularly 

 when the sun is low in the sky and a 

 strong side-light brings the sharp serrate 

 crests into bold relief and reveals a rich- 

 ness of sculpturing that was before un- 

 seen. At such time the colors on the broad 

 deserts, and amid the purple hills and 

 mountains, are more wonderful than artists 

 have ever painted, and exceed anything of 

 the kind witnessed by the dweller of regions 

 where the atmosphere is moist and the na- 

 tive tints of the rock concealed by vegeta- 

 tion. The hills of New England when ar- 

 rayed in all the gorgeous panoply of 

 autumnal foliage are not more striking 

 than the desert ranges of Utah when ablaze 

 with the reflected glories of the sunset sky. 

 The rich, native colors of the naked rocks 

 are then kindled into glowing fires, and 

 each canon and rocky gorge is filled with 

 liquid purple, beside which even the im- 

 perial dyes would be dull and lusterless. 

 At such times the glories of the hills are 

 mirrored in the dense water of the lake; 

 their duplicate forms appearing in sharp 

 relief on the paler tints of the reflected sky. 

 As the sun sinks behind the far-off . moun- 

 tains, range after range fades through in- 

 numerable shades of purple and violet until 

 only their highest battlements catch the 

 fading glory. The lingering twilight brings 

 softer and more mysterious beauties. 

 Ranges and peaks that were concealed by 

 the glare of the noonday sun start into 

 life. Forms that were before unnoticed 

 people the distant plain like a shadowy en- 

 campment. At last each remote mountain 

 crest appears as a delicate silhouette, in 

 which all details are lost, drawn in the soft- 

 est of violet tints on the fading yellow of 

 the sky. RUSSELL Lakes of North America, 

 ch. 4, p. 79. (G. & Co., 1895.) 



319. BEAUTY AND FERTILITY OF 

 EARTH DUE TO DESPISED ORGANISMS 



Worms Antedate and Still Supplement 

 the Plow. When we behold a wide, turf- 

 covered expanse, we should remember that 

 its smoothness, on which so much of its 

 beauty depends, is mainly due to all the in- 

 equalities having been slowly leveled by 

 worms. It is a marvelous reflection that 

 the whole of the superficial mold over any 

 such expanse has passed, and will again 

 pass, every few years through the bodies of 

 worms. The plow is one of the most an- 

 cient and most valuable of man's inven- 

 tions; but long before he existed the land 

 was in fact regularly plowed, and still con- 

 tinues to be thus plowed by earthworms. 

 It may be doubted whether there are many 

 other animals which have played so im- 



portant a part in the history of the world 

 as have these lowly organized creatures. 

 Some other animals, however, still more 

 lowly organized, namely, corals, have done 

 far more conspicuous work in having con- 

 structed innumerable reefs and islands in 

 the great oceans; but these are almost con- 

 fined to the tropical zones. DARWIN For- 

 mation of Vegetable Mould, ch. 7, p. 91. 

 (Hum., 1887.) 



2 O . BEAUTY AND HARMONY EXIST 

 ONLY IN THE SOUL The World vs. Man's 

 Interpretation of It.^Out in the external 

 world surrounding us there exists neither 

 sound nor song, neither noise nor quiet, but 

 only periodical or fitful vibrating motion, 

 or rest. 



The most glorious music, the most in- 

 spired speech is nothing there, absolutely 

 nothing except a wild, meaningless surf of 

 sound-waves, a purely mechanical, grossly 

 material movement of bodies that produce 

 sound, and of particles of air that conduct 

 it. Not until it reaches the purely subjec- 

 tive sphere of the sensation of hearing does 

 the new, beautiful, and significant world 

 come into being; but it exists nowhere ex- 

 cept within ourselves, and only for us. It 

 has absolutely no existence elsewhere. 

 CZERNAK Vorlesung iiber das Ohr und das 

 Horen. (Translated for Scientific Side- 

 Lights.) 



321. BEAUTY AND MAJESTY COM- 

 BINED IN PALM Aspiring Upward Reach 

 of Its Leaves. The direction of the leaves, 

 together with the lofty stem, gives to the 

 palms their character of high majesty. It 

 is a characteristic of the physiognomical 

 beauty of the palm that its leaves are di- 

 rected aspiringly upwards. . . . Na- 

 ture seems to have accumulated all the 

 beauties of form in the Jagua palm, which, 

 intermingled with the Cucurito or Vadgi- 

 hai, whose stem rises to a height of 80 or 

 even more than 100 feet, crowns the granite 

 rocks at the cataracts of Atures and Maj- 

 pures, and wliieh we also occasionally saw 

 on the lonely banks of the Cassiquiare. 

 Their smooth and slender stems rise to a 

 height of from 64 to 75 feet, projecting like 

 a colonnade above the dense mass of the sur- 

 rounding foliage. HUMBOLDT Views of Na- 

 ture, p. 301. (Bell, 96.) 



322. 



Height of Its Pillar- 



like Stem. Palms [are] the loftiest and 

 most stately of all vegetable forms. To these, 

 above all other trees, the prize of beauty 

 has always been awarded by every nation; 

 and it was from the Asiatic palm-world, or 

 the adjacent countries, that human civiliza- 

 tion sent forth the first rays of its early 

 dawn. Marked with rings, and not unfre- 

 quently armed with thorns, the tall and 

 slender shaft of this graceful tree rears on 

 high its crown of shining, fan-like, or pin- 

 nated leaves, which are" often curled like 

 those of some gramineae. Smooth stems of 



