Sycle 

 arkness 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



146 



long they are restored to the air or the soil, 

 only to renew the same cycle of ceaseless 

 change. Life, during its whole existence, is 

 an untiring builder, the oxygen of the at- 

 mosphere a fell destroyer; and when at last 

 the builders cease, then the spirit takes its 

 heavenward flight, and leaves the frail tene- 

 ment to its appointed end. Dust returns to 

 the dust, and these mortal mists and vapors 

 to the air. COOKE Religion and Chemistry, 

 ch. 4, p. 99. (A., 1897.) 



717. CYCLES OF VOLCANIC ACTION 



Earth's Subterranean Forces Never Still. 

 Geologists have been led to the conclusion 

 . . . that the subterranean forces are in 

 a state of continual flux over the surface of 

 the globe. At one point of the earth's crust 

 these forces gradually gather such energy as 

 to rend asunder the superincumbent rock- 

 masses and make themselves manifest at the 

 surface in the series of phenomena charac- 

 teristic of volcanic action. But after a 

 longer or shorter interval of time an in- 

 terval which must probably be measured by 

 millions of years the volcanic forces die 

 out in that area to make their appearance 

 in another. JUDD Volcanoes, ch. 9, p. 277. 

 (A., 1899.) 



718. DANCING AMONG BIRDS 



Amusements of Animals. There are human 

 dances in which only one person performs 

 at a time, the rest of the company looking 

 on; and some birds, in widely separated 

 genera, have dances of this kind. A stri- 

 king example is the Rupicola, or cock-of-the- 

 rock, of tropical South America. A mossy 

 level spot of earth surrounded by bushes is 

 selected for a 'dancing-place, and kept well 

 cleared of sticks and stones; round this 

 area the birds assemble, when a cock-bird, 

 with vivid orange-scarlet crest and plumage, 

 steps into it, and, with spreading wings and 

 tail, begins a series of movements as if dan- 

 cing a minuet; finally, carried away with 

 excitement, he leaps and gyrates in the most 

 astonishing manner, until, becoming ex- 

 hausted, he retires, and another bird takes 

 his place. HUDSON Naturalist in La Plata, 

 ch. 19, p. 261. (C. &H., 1895.) 



719. DANCING ANCIENTLY A SIG- 

 NIFICANT RITE Passionate Fervor of Dan- 

 cers Superstitions Connected with Dance. 

 Dancing may seem to us moderns a frivo- 

 lous amusement; but in the infancy of 

 civilization it was full of passionate and 

 solemn meaning. Savages and barbarians 

 dance their joy and sorrow, their love and 

 rage, even their magic and religion. . . . 

 We have enough of the savage left in us to 

 feel how Australians leaping and yelling at 

 a corroboree by firelight in the forest can 

 work themselves up into frenzy for next 

 day's fight. But with our civilized notions 

 it is not so easy to understand that barba- 

 rians' dancing may mean still more than 

 this ; it seems to them so real that they ex- 

 pect it to act on the world outside. Thus 



among the Mandan Indians, when the hunt- 

 ers failed to find the buffaloes on which the 

 tribe depended for food, every man brought 

 out of his lodge the mask made of a buffalo's 

 head and horns, with the tail hanging down 

 behind, which he kept for such an emergency, 

 and they all set to dance buffalo. Ten or 

 fifteen masked dancers at a time formed the 

 ring, drumming and rattling, chanting and 

 yelling; when one was tired out he went 

 through the pantomime of being shot with 

 bow and arrow, skinned, and cut up; while 

 another, who stood ready with his buffalo- 

 head on, took his place in the dance. So it 

 would go on, without stopping day or night, 

 sometimes for two or three weeks, till at 

 last these persevering efforts to bring the 

 buffalo succeeded, and a herd came in sight 

 on the prairie. TYLOR Anthropology, ch. 

 12, p. 296. (A., 1899.) 



7 2O. DANCING, RELIGIOUS In An- 

 cient Greece and Rome, as in Modern India. 

 In ancient religion dancing came to be one 

 of the chief acts of worship. Religious 

 processions went with song and dance to the 

 Egyptian temples, and Plato said that all 

 dancing ought to be thus an act of religion. 

 In fact, it was so to a great extent in 

 Greece, as where the Qretan chorus, moving 

 in measured pace, sang hymns to Apollo, 

 and in Rome, where the Salian priests sang 

 and danced, beating their shields, along the 

 streets at the yearly festival of Mars. Mod- 

 ern civilization, in which sacred music flour- 

 ishes more than ever, has mostly cast off the 

 sacred dance. To see this near its old state 

 the traveler may visit the temples of India, 

 or among the lamas of Tibet watch the 

 mummers in animal masks dancing the 

 demons out, or the new year in, to wild 

 music of drums and shell-trumpets. Rem- 

 nants of such ceremonies, come down from 

 the religion of England before Christian 

 times, are still sometimes to be seen in the 

 dances of boys and girls round the midsum- 

 mer bonfire, or of the mummers at Yuletide ; 

 but even these are dying out. The dances of 

 choristers in plumed hats and the dress of 

 pages of Philip III.'s time, still performed 

 before the high altar of Seville Cathedral, 

 are now among the quaintest relics of a rite 

 all but vanished from Christendom. TYLOR 

 Anthropology, ch. 12, p. 297. (A., 1899.) 



721. DANGER , HIDDEN Vesuvius 

 Seemingly an Extinct Volcano before 

 Eruption of 79. From the first colonization 

 of southern Italy by the Greeks, Vesuvius 

 afforded no other indications of its volcanic 

 character than such as the naturalist might 

 infer from the analogy of its structure to 

 other volcanoes. These were recognized by 

 Strabo, but Pliny did not include the moun- 

 tain in his list of active vents. The ancient 

 cone was of a very regular form, terminating 

 not as at present in two peaks, but with a 

 summit which presented, when seen from a 

 distance, the even outline of an abruptly 



