151 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Death 

 Decay 



metal is one of those great discoveries which 

 Europe owes to the East, and that the use of 

 copper was not introduced into our continent 

 until it had been observed that by the addi- 

 tion of a small quantity of tin it was ren- 

 dered harder and more valuable. AVEBUBY 

 Prehistoric Times, ch. 3, pp. 56-57. (A., 

 1900.) 



740. DEBT OF SCIENCE TO UN- 

 LEARNED CONTRIBUTOR Discovery of 

 the Mammoth. It was an eventful day, not 

 only for science, but for the world, when a 

 Siberian fisherman chanced to observe a 

 singular mound lying near the mouth of the 

 River Lena, where it empties into the Arctic 

 Ocean. During the warmer summer weather, 

 he noticed that, as the snow gradually 

 melted, this mound assumed a more distinct 

 and prominent outline, and at length, on one 

 side of it, \vhere the heat of the sun was 

 greatest, a dark body became exposed, 

 which, when completely uncovered, proved to 

 be that of an immense elephant, in so per- 

 fect a state of preservation that the dogs 

 and wolves were attracted to it as by the 

 smell of fresh meat, and came to feed upon 

 it at night. The man knew little of the 

 value of his discovery, but the story went 

 abroad, and an Englishman traveling in 

 Russia, being curious to verify it, visited 

 the spot, and actually found the remains 

 where they had been reported to lie, on the 

 frozen shore of the Arctic Sea strange 

 burial-place enough for an animal never 

 known to exist out of tropical climates. 

 Little beside the skeleton was left, tho parts 

 of the skin remained covered with hair, 

 showing how perfect must have been the 

 condition of the body when first exposed. 

 The tusks had been sold by the fisherman; 

 but Mr. Adams succeeded in recovering 

 them; and collecting all the bones, except 

 those of one foot, which had been carried off 

 by the wolves, he had them removed to St. 

 Petersburg, where the skeleton now stands 

 in the Imperial Museum. AGASSIZ Geolog- 

 ical Sketches, ser. i, ch. 7, p. 182. (H. M. & 

 Co., 1896.) 



741. DECAY OF ANCIENT LIFE 

 MINISTERS TO MODERN Coal and Miner- 

 al Springs Unseen Laboratories of Nature. 

 The bottom and the lower slopes of the val- 

 ley are occupied by the bituminous and sul- 

 fureous schists of the fish-bed, and in these, 

 largely impregnated with the peculiar in- 

 gredients of the formation, the famous me- 

 dicinal springs of the Strath have their rise. 

 They contain, as shown by chemical analy- 

 sis, the sulfates of soda, of lime, of mag- 

 nesia, common salt, and, above all, sulfu- 

 reted hydrogen gas elements which masses 

 of sea-mud, charged with animal matter, 

 would yield as readily to the chemist as the 

 medicinal springs of Strathpeffer. Is it not 

 a curious reflection, that the commercial 

 greatness of Britain, in the present day, 

 should be closely connected with the tower- 

 ing and thickly spread forests of arbora- 



ceous ferns and gigantic reeds vegetables of 

 strange form and uncouth names which 

 nourished and decayed on its surface, age 

 after age, during the vastly extended term 

 of the Carboniferous period, ere the moun- 

 tains were yet upheaved, and when there 

 was as yet no man to till the ground ? Is it 

 not a reflection equally curious that the 

 invalids of the present summer should be 

 drinking health, amid the recesses of Strath- 

 peffer, from the still more ancient mineral 

 and animal debris of the lower ocean of the 

 Old Red Sandstone, strangely elaborated for 

 vast but unreckoned periods in the bowels of 

 the earth? MILLER Old Red Sandstone, ch. 

 10, p. 183. (G. & L., 1851.) 



742. DECAY OF CREEDS Severance 

 of Theology from Nature This Separation 

 Not Found in Scripture Spiritual Laws 

 Are Laws of Nature. Perhaps it is not too 

 much to say that the manifest decay which 

 so many creeds and confessions are now suf- 

 fering, arises mainly from the degree in 

 which at least the popular expositions of 

 them dissociate the doctrines of Christianity 

 from the analogy and course of Nature. 

 There is no such severance in Scripture no 

 shyness of illustrating divine things by ref- 

 erence to the natural. On the contrary, we 

 are perpetually reminded that the laws of 

 the spiritual world are in the highest sense 

 laws of Nature, whose obligation, operation, 

 and effect are all in the constitution and 

 course of things. Hence it is that so much 

 was capable of being conveyed in the form 

 of parable the common actions and occur- 

 rences of daily life being often chosen as the 

 best vehicle and illustration of the highest 

 spiritual truths. It is not merely, as 

 Jeremy Taylor says, that " all things are 

 full of such resemblances " it is more than 

 this more than resemblance. It is the per- 

 petual recurrence, under infinite varieties of 

 application, of the same rules and principles 

 of divine government of the same divine 

 thoughts, divine purposes, divine affections. 

 Hence it is that no verbal definitions or log- 

 ical forms can convey religious truth with 

 the fulness or accuracy which belongs to 

 narratives taken from Nature man's na- 

 ture and life being, of course, included in 

 the term: 



" And so, the Word had breath, and wrought 

 With human hands the Creed of creeds." 

 TENNYSON In Memoriam. 

 ARGYLL Reign of Law, ch. 1, p. 32. 

 ( Burt. ) 



743. DECAY OF SPIRITUAL FAC- 

 ULTIES Moral Parasites. So far from 

 ministering to growth, parasitism ministers 

 to decay. So far from ministering to holi- 

 ness, that is to wholeness, parasitism minis- 

 ters to exactly the opposite. One by one the 

 spiritual faculties droop and die, one by one 

 from lack of exercise the muscles of the soul 

 grow weak and flaccid, one by one the moral 

 activities cease. So from him that hath not 



