65 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Beauty 



the palm, which I carefully measured, rose 

 to a height of 190 feet. The palm dimin- 

 ishes in size and beauty as it recedes from 

 the equatorial towards the temperate zones. 

 HUMBOLDT Views of Nature, p. 223. 

 (Bell, 1896.) 



323. BEAUTY AND SUBLIMITY IN- 

 ACCESSIBLE AND BARREN Antarctic Ice- 

 capped Continent. From about latitude 

 70 to 79 S. he [Sir J. Ross] found 

 comparatively open water, and sailed along 

 near the coast of a great mass of land, on 

 which, however, it was impossible to set 

 foot. Its shores were everywhere covered 

 with ice projecting into the sea. A thick 

 mass of ice capped the whole region, and 

 bare rock was only seen where precipices 

 rose high above the water. Mile after mile 

 this unbroken rampart, often rising to a 

 height of from two to three hundred feet, 

 presented a hopeless barrier to the explor- 

 ers. It evidently indicates the margin of a 

 large and mountainous mass of land, per- 

 haps of an Antarctic continent. From the 

 top of the ice-cliff the dazzling white sur- 

 face sloped up towards a range "whose 

 lofty peaks, perfectly covered with eternal 

 snow, rose to elevations varying from seven 

 to ten thousand feet above the level of the 

 ocean. The glaciers that filled their inter- 

 vening valleys, and which descended from 

 near the mountain summits, projected in 

 many places several miles into the sea, and 

 terminated in lofty perpendicular cliffs. In 

 a few places the rocks broke through their 

 icy covering, by which alone we could be 

 assured that land formed the nucleus of 

 this, to appearance, enormous iceberg." 

 BONNET Ice-work Present and Past, pt. i, 

 ch. 2, p. 57. (A., 1896.) 



324. BEAUTY AN END IN NATURE 



Elaborate and Multiplied Ornament 

 Human Impulses Not Out of Harmony 

 with Divine Intelligence. It would be to 

 doubt the evidence of our senses and of our 

 reason, or else to assume hypotheses of 

 which there is no proof whatever, if we were 

 to doubt that mere ornament, mere variety, 

 are as much an end and aim in the work- 

 shop of Nature as they are known to be in 

 the workshop of the goldsmith and the 

 jeweler. Why should they not? The love 

 and desire of these is universal in the mind 

 of man. It is seen not more distinctly in 

 the highest forms of civilized art than in 

 the habits of the rudest savage, who covers 

 with elaborate carving the handle of his 

 war-club, or the prow of his canoe. Is it 

 likely that this universal aim and purpose 

 of the mind of man should be wholly with- 

 out relation to the aims and purposes of his 

 Creator? He that formed the eye to see 

 beauty, shall he not see it? He that gave 

 the human hand its cunning to work for 

 beauty, shall his hand never work for it? 

 How, then, shall we account for all the 

 beauty of the world for the careful pro- 

 vision made for it where it is only the sec- 



ondary object, not the first? ARGYLL Reign 

 of Law, ch. 14, p. 114. (Burt.) 



325. Gorgeous Coloring 



of Humming-birds. Those who, by special 

 study, have laid their minds alongside the 

 mind of Nature in any of her provinces 

 have generally imparted to them a true 

 sense, so far as it goes, in the interpretation 

 of her mysteries. Let us, then, hear what 

 Mr. Gould says on the beauty of the hum- 

 ming-birds : " The members of .most <f the 

 genera have certain parts of their plumage 

 fantastically decorated, and in many in- 

 stances most resplendent in color. My own 

 opinion is that this gorgeous coloring of the 

 humming-birds has been given for the mere 

 purpose of ornament, and for no other pur- 

 pose of special adaptation in their mode 

 of life; in other words, that ornament and 

 beauty, merely as such, was the end pro- 

 posed/' ARGYLL Reign of Law, ch. 5, p. 137. 

 (Burt.) 



326. 



Ornament Sought 



amid Devices for Concealment. Even in 

 those cases, for example, where concealment 

 is the main object in view, ornament is never 

 forgotten, but lies, as it were, underneath, 

 carried into effect under the conditions and 

 limitations imposed by the higher law and 

 the more special purpose. Thus, the feathers 

 of the ptarmigan, tho confined by the law of 

 assimilative coloring to a mixture of black 

 and white or gray, have those simple colors 

 disposed in crescent bars and mottlings of 

 beautiful form, even as the lichens which 

 they imitate spread in radiating lines and 

 semicircular ripples over the weather- 

 beaten stones. It is the same with all other 

 birds whose color is the color of their home. 

 For the purpose of concealment, their color- 

 ing would be equally effective if it were laid 

 on without order *or regularity of form. 

 But this is never done. The required tints 

 are always disposed in patterns, each vary- 

 ing with the genus and the species ; varying 

 for the mere sake of variation, and for the 

 beauty which belongs to ornament. And 

 where this purpose is not under the re- 

 straint of any other purpose controlling it 

 and keeping it down as it were within com- 

 paratively narrow limits, how gorgeous are 

 the results attained ! What shall we say of 

 flowers those banners of the vegetable 

 world which march in such various and 

 splendid triumph before the coming of its 

 fruits? What shall we say of the hum- 

 ming-birds whose feathers are made to re- 

 turn the light which falls upon them, as if 

 rekindled from intenser fires, and colored 

 with more than all the colors of all the 

 gems? ARGYLL Reign of Law, ch. 4, p. 114. 

 (Burt.) 



327. BEAUTY AN END IN THE DI- 

 VINE MIND Microscopic Perfection in Hid- 

 den Rocks. There is unity of character in 

 every scale, plate, and fin [among the ich- 

 thyolites of the Old Red Sandstone] 



