105 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



seum at Moscow. Another carcass, together 

 with a young individual of the same species, 

 was met with in the same year, 1843, in 

 lat. 75 15' N., near the River Taimyr, 

 with the flesh decayed. It was embedded in 

 strata of clay and sand, with erratic blocks, 

 at about 15 feet above the level of the sea. 

 In the same deposit Mr. Middendorf ob- 

 served the trunk of a larch tree (Pinus 

 lariac), the same wood as that now carried 

 down in abundance by the Taimyr to the 

 Arctic Sea. There were also associated fos- 

 sil shells of living northern species, and 

 which are moreover characteristic of the 

 drift or glacial deposits of Europe. Among 

 these Nucula pygmcea, Tellina calcarea, Mya 

 truncata, and Saxicava rugosa were con- 

 spicuous. 



So fresh is the ivory throughout northern 

 Russia that, according to Tilesius, thou- 

 sands of fossil tusks have been collected and 

 used in turning; yet others are still pro- 

 cured and sold in great plenty. He declares 

 his belief that the bones still left in north- 

 ern Russia must greatly exceed in number 

 all the elephants now living on the globe. 



LYELL Principles of Geology, ch. 6, p. 81. 

 (A., 1854.) 



521. CLIMATE, EFFECT OF, ON 

 STRUGGLE FOR LIFE The action of 

 climate seems at first sight to be quite in- 

 dependent of the struggle for existence; but 

 in so far as climate chiefly acts in reducing 

 food, it brings on the most severe struggle 

 between the individuals, whether of the 

 same or of distinct species, which subsist on 

 the same kind of food. Even when climate, 

 for instance, extreme cold, acts directly, it 

 will be the least vigorous individuals, or 

 those which have got least food through the 

 advancing winter, which will suffer the 

 most. DARWIN Origin of Species, ch. 1, p. 

 64. (Burt.) 



522. CLIMATE, EFFECT OF, UPON 

 MAN In the climate of America, compared 

 with that of England, there is an important 

 difference. That of England is a moist, 

 moderate island climate, while that of 

 America is continental, with extremely dry 

 west winds and great extremes of heat and 

 cold in summer and winter. The elimina- 

 tion of heat is greater in America, and con- 

 sequently greater production of warmth 

 within the organism is necessary; the tissue 

 change has to be more rapid. This is ap- 

 parent in the entire being of the American. 

 Desor describes him exactly when he says 

 that the American's activity, his hurry, his 

 rushing, is more a matter of instinct, more 

 the result of natural impatience than of 

 necessity, the cause that creates restlessness 

 and haste in the Englishman. The latter 

 runs from zeal for business, the American 

 from an inner impulse. OPPENHEIMEB 

 Ueber den Einftuss des Klimas auf den 

 Menschen, p. 31. (Translated for Scientific 

 Side-Lights.) 



523. CLIMATE EFFECTS CHANGES 

 OF CHARACTERISTICS Wool Replaced by 

 Hair Hairless Cattle Whiteness of Arctic 

 Animals. I have myself seen in Southdown 

 sheep, which had been transported only two 

 years previously to the West Indies, the 

 thick covering of wool replaced by short 

 crisp hair, scarcely distinguishable from 

 that of the goats which had inhabited the 

 island for several generations ; and the hot- 

 test parts of the South American pampas 

 are inhabited by breeds of" cattle (the 

 descendants of those introduced by the 

 Spaniards), of which some are nearly, and 

 others quite, destitute of hair, and which 

 cannot live in the more temperate air of the 

 slopes of the Andes. It seems clear, then, 

 that this adaptation results from some di- 

 rect physical action of temperature on the 

 constitution of the animals; and yet (like 

 the expansion of water in cooling from 39.2 

 to 32) it is in direct opposition to a very 

 general law. The same may be said of the 

 winter whitening of the fur and plumage of 

 arctic mammals and birds. For, altho this 

 (like the preceding) has been adduced as an 

 example of " natural selection " the white 

 varieties surviving because they escape being 

 seen upon ground whitened by snow yet 

 there must have been some cause for the 

 production of the white varieties. CARPEN- 

 TER Nature and Man, lect. 15, p. 441. (A., 

 1889.) 



524. CLOTHING OF BARK AND 

 LEAVES Reversion to Primitive Customs. 

 To come now to clothing proper. The man 

 who wants a garment gets it in the simplest 

 way when he takes the covering off a tree 

 or a beast, and puts it on himself. The bark 

 of trees provides clothes for rude races in 

 many districts, as for instance in the cu- 

 rious use which natives of the Brazilian for- 

 ests have long made of the so-called " shirt- 

 tree " (Lecythis). A man cuts a four- or five- 

 feet length of the trunk, or a large branch, 

 and gets the bark off in an entire tube, 

 which he has then only to soak and beat 

 soft and to cut slits for armholes, to be able 

 to slip it on as a ready-made shirt; or a 

 short length will make a woman's skirt. The 

 wearing of bark has sometimes been kept up 

 as a sign of primitive simplicity. Thus in 

 India it. is written in the laws of Manu that 

 when the gray-haired Brahman retires into 

 the forest to end his days in religious medi- 

 tation, he shall wear a skin or a garment 

 of bark. A ruder people, the Kayans of 

 Borneo, while in common life they like the 

 smart foreign stuffs of the trader, when they 

 go into mourning throw them off and return 

 to the rude native garment of bark-cloth. 

 In Polynesia the manufacture of tapa from 

 the bark of the paper-mulberry was carried 

 to great perfection, the women beating it 

 out with grooved clubs into a sort of vege- 

 table felt, and ornamenting it with colored 

 patterns stamped on. The people were de- 

 lighted with the white paper of the Euro- 

 peans, and dressed themselves in it as a fine 



