113 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Combination 

 Compensation! 



munication with Nature than we do. They 

 had neither the artificial life, nor the hy- 

 pocrisy, nor the anxieties created by the 

 factitious necessities of modern existence. 

 It was they who established the first bases 

 of the sciences by the direct observation of 

 natural phenomena. If astronomy is the 

 most ancient of the sciences, the study of the 

 moon was the most ancient of astronomical 

 observations, because it was the simplest, 

 the easiest, and the most useful. The soli- 

 tary globe of night pours out its calm and 

 clear light in the midst of the silence and 

 contemplation of Nature. The succession of 

 its phases provided shepherds as well as 

 travelers with the first measure of time, 

 after that of day and night, due to the diur- 

 nal rotation of our planet. The lunar cres- 

 cent, with its melancholy light, gave to 

 Nature a pastoral calendar. FLAMMARION 



Popular Astronomy, bk. ii, ch. 2, p. 96. (A.) 

 559. COMMUNITY OF NEED AND 

 SUPPLY Chopping -knife in Use among Es- 

 kimo Women. The Eskimo women have a 

 knife precisely like the mincing-choppers in 

 every kitchen, which they use at present for 

 all sorts of work. But is it not interesting 

 to find dainty little women almost at the 

 jumping-off place of the globe holding on to 

 the primeval form of an implement as well 

 as its use whose modern representative does 

 service both in our kitchens and our sad- 

 dler-shops? The saddler and his wife now 

 divide between them an implement which 

 many thousands of years ago would have 

 been hers alone, and he would have been de- 

 filed to touch it. With it, in that early day, 

 she made harness for dogs and for herself to 

 wear, besides cutting out clothing and tents, 

 skinning animals, and mincing food. 

 MASON Woman's Share in Primitive Cul- 

 ture, ch. 2, p. 27. (A., 1894.) 



56O. COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT 



VIEWS Celest ial Objects Located by Combi- 

 ning Observations Transit of Venus The 

 Planet a Celestial Index. To determine the 

 distance of an inaccessible object we must 

 compare the direction in which it lies as 

 seen from two stations sufficiently far 

 apart. This, which is a principle of ordi- 

 nary land-surveying, is equally true of the 

 celestial objects. The astronomer deter- 

 mines the moon's distance by observing her 

 from the northern and southern hemi- 

 spheres, as from the Greenwich Observatory 

 and the observatory at Cape Town; or else 

 he takes advantage of the fact that the 

 earth rotates on her axis, and so carries any 

 given station from one side to another in a 

 given time. The distance of the sun can be 

 measured in no other (direct) way, and 

 altho we hear of the transits of Venus as 

 means of which the astronomer avails him- 

 self to determine the sun's distance, yet the 

 very same principle is involved the value 

 of a transit of Venus depending solely on 

 the fact that the observers at two distant 

 stations can in point of fact regard her as a 



celestial index, traversing the sun's face as 

 an index-plate, so that they possess, as it 

 were, an instrument of survey more power- 

 ful than any terrestrial instrument. PROC- 

 TOR Expanse of Heaven, p. 241. (L. G. & 

 Co., 1897.) 



561. COMPENSATION IN CHRO- 

 NOMETER Self-adjustment to Heat or Cold 

 Cause Back of Mechanism. We find a 

 singularly parallel case in that beautiful 

 piece of human workmanship-r-a clock or 

 chronometer so constructed as: by the accu- 

 rate " compensation " of its pendulum or 

 balance-wheel, to keep accurate time under 

 all ordinary variations of climatic tempera- 

 ture. Surely we do not consider it a suffi- 

 cient account of its self -adjustment to at- 

 tribute it to the physical action of heat or 

 cold; for this would disturb the perform- 

 ance of an ordinary clock or watch. We; 

 seek the explanation of its special " poten- 

 tiality " in the compensating apparatus ; 

 and we trace back the origin of this appara- 

 tus to the mind of its contriver. So, as it 

 seems to me, however long may be the chain 

 of " causation," or the series of " uncondi- 

 tional sequences," that may be traceable 

 backwards in the ancestral history of any 

 organized type, we come to a beginning of 

 it, as to the first term of an arithmetical or 

 geometrical progression; and we have no 

 less to account for the common beginning of 

 the whole organized creation, with its un- 

 limited possibilities of modification and 

 adaptation, than if we had to account for 

 the separate production of each type of 

 plant and animal. CARPENTER Nature and 

 Man, lect. 15, p. 442. (A., 1889.) 



562. COMPENSATION IN NATURE 



Insectivorous Plants Flourish in Poor 

 Soil Interchange of Functions of Organs 

 Roots Defective when Leaves Supply Food. 

 The absorption of animal matter from 

 captured insects explains how Drosera can 

 flourish in extremely poor peaty soil. . . . 

 Altho the leaves at a hasty glance do not 

 appear green, owing to the purple color of 

 the tentacles, yet the upper and lower sur- 

 faces of the blade, the pedicels of the central 

 tentacles, and the petioles contain chloro- 

 phyl, so that, no doubt, the plant obtains 

 and assimilates carbonic acid from the air. 

 Nevertheless, considering the nature of the 

 soil where it grows, the supply of nitrogen 

 would be extremely limited, or quite defi- 

 cient, unless the plant had the power of ob- 

 taining this important element from cap- 

 tured insects. We can thus understand how 

 it is that the roots are so poorly developed. 

 These usually consist of only two or three 

 slightly divided branches, from half to one 

 inch in length, furnished with absorbent 

 hairs. It appears, therefore, that the roots 

 serve only to imbibe water; tho, no doubt, 

 they would absorb nutritive matter if pres- 

 ent in the soil. ... A plant of Drosera, 

 with the edges of its leaves curled inwards, 

 so as to form a temporary stomach, with the. 



