SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Cause 

 Cave* 



servation, recording from day to day the 

 aspects of Nature, or the indications of in- 

 struments devised to reveal her ways. Oth- 

 ers there are who add to this capacity for 

 observation a power over the language of 

 experiment, by means of which they put 

 questions to Nature, and receive from her 

 intelligible replies. There is, again, a third 

 class of minds, that cannot rest content 

 with observation and experiment, whose 

 love of causal unity tempts them perpetu- 

 ally to break through the limitations of the 

 senses, and to seek beyond them the roots 

 and reasons of the phenomena which the ob- 

 server and experimenter record. To such 

 spirits adventurous and firm we are in- 

 debted for our deeper knowledge of the 

 methods by which the physical universe is 

 ordered and ruled. TYNDALL Fragments of 

 Science, vol. i, ch. 5, p. 131. (A., 1897.) 



439. CAUSES, KNOWLEDGE OF, 

 SAVES LIFE Bacteria Recognized, Antisep- 

 tic Treatment Follows Surgery Conquers 

 Wounds and Disease. Even more impor- 

 tant was the introduction of the antiseptic 

 treatment in 1865, which, by preventing the 

 suppuration of incised or wounded surfaces, 

 has reduced the death-rate for serious am- 

 putations from forty-five per cent, to twelve 

 per cent., and has besides rendered possible 

 numbers of operations which would have 

 been certainly fatal under the old system. 

 . . . The antiseptic treatment was the 

 logical outcome of the proof that suppuration 

 of wounds and all processes of fermentation 

 and putrefaction were not due to normal 

 changes either in living or dead tissues, but 

 were produced by the growth and the rapid 

 multiplication of minute organisms, espe- 

 cially of those low fungoid groups termed 

 bacteria. If, therefore, we can adopt meas- 

 ures to keep away or destroy these organ- 

 isms and their germs, or in any way pre- 

 vent their increase, injured living tissues 

 will rapidly heal. ... In the case of 

 wounds and surgical operations this is ef- 

 fected by means of a weak solution of corro- 

 sive sublimate, in which all instruments and 

 everything that comes in contact with the 

 wound are washed, and by filling the air 

 around the part operated on with a copious 

 spray of carbolic acid. WALLACE The Won- 

 derful Century, ch. 14, p. 148. (D. M. & 

 Co., 1899.) 



440. CAUTION NEEDED IN INTER- 

 PRETING DISCOVERIES Stone weapons, 

 however, of many kinds were still in use 

 during the Age of Bronze, and lingered on 

 even into that of iron, so that the mere pres- 

 ence of a few stone implements is not in 

 itself sufficient evidence that any given 

 " find " belongs to the Stone Age. AVEBURY 

 Prehistoric Times, ch. 1, p. 3. (A., 1900.) 



441. CAVE-MEN OF DENMARK LIKE 

 MODERN FUEGIANS Hunting and Fishing 

 the Great Reliance of Primitive Man. The 

 Fuegians wander along their bleak inhospi- 



table shores, feeding mostly on shell-fish, so 

 that in the course of ages their shells, with 

 fish-bones and other rubbish, have formed 

 long banks above high-water mark. Such 

 shell-heaps, or " kitchen-middens," are found 

 here and there all round the coasts of the 

 world, marking the old resorts of such 

 tribes; for instance, on the coast of Den- 

 mark, where archeologists search them for 

 relics of rude Europeans, who, in the Stone 

 Age, led a life somewhat like that of Terra 

 del Fuego. Hunting and fishing go on 

 through all levels of society, beginning with 

 the savages who have no other means of 

 subsistence, till at last among civilized na- 

 tions game and fish hardly do more than 

 supplement the more regular supplies of 

 grain and meat from the farm. Looking at 

 the devices of the hunter and fisher, it will 

 be seen how thoroughly most of them belong 

 to the ruder stages of culture. TYLOB 

 Anthropology, ch. 9, p. 207. (A., 1899.) 



442. CAVERNS CARVED BY OCEAN- 

 WAVES FingaVs Cave Remains of Ancient 

 Beaches. We are, perhaps, generally dis- 

 posed to associate the formation of caves 

 with the action of the waves upon a rocky 

 shore, and certainly some of the most re- 

 markable caves are due to this cause. The 

 process of attrition can indeed often be ob- 

 served in actual progress, and those who 

 have seen the gigantic waves break upon a 

 rock-bound coast, and have observed the 

 huge masses of stone which have been torn 

 away like so many fragments of timber and 

 strewn upon the beach, can form some tol- 

 erably accurate idea of the power of the sea 

 to eat its way into the face of any cliff 

 when once it has found a weak place in the 

 rock. . . . [Such is the] familiar cav- 

 ern known as Fingal's Cave, which is due to 

 the action of the waves. These sea-worn 

 caves are easily distinguished from those 

 formed by other agencies. They are seldom 

 of great extent, and they generally lie in a 

 tolerably horizontal plane. Sometimes they 

 lie far above the present water-line, but the 

 nearly level floor, the indication in their 

 vicinity of an ancient beach, and the fact 

 that in many cases at least similar caves of 

 greater or less extent are to be observed 

 opening on the same general horizon, prove 

 conclusively that they must be due to the 

 prolonged beating of the ocean-waves upon 

 a rocky shore. DALLAS Nature-Studies, p. 

 37. (Hum., 1888.) 



443. CAVES AS READY-MADE 

 HOUSES The Cave-men of Europe. Rock- 

 shelters under the cliffs were in Europe the 

 resort of the ancient savages, as is proved 

 by the bones and flint flakes and other re- 

 mains that are found lying there in the 

 ground. Caves are ready-made houses for 

 beast or man. It has been already men- 

 tioned how in such countries as England 

 and France caverns were the abodes of the 

 old tribes of the reindeer and mammoth 

 period, and the bushmen of South Africa 



