uakes 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



196 



say that I have never seen any signs in the 

 Japanese timber buildings which could be 

 attributed to the effects of earthquakes, and 

 His Excellency Yamao Yozo, Vice-Minister 

 of Public Works, who has made the study of 

 the buildings of Japan a speciality, told me 

 that none of the temples and palaces, altho 

 many of them are several centuries old, and 

 altho they have been shaken by small earth- 

 quakes and also by many severe ones, show 

 any signs of having suffered. The greatest 

 damage wrought by large earthquakes ap- 

 pears to have resulted from the influx of 

 large waves or from fires. MILNE Earth- 

 quakes, ch. 7, p. 122. (A., 1899.) 



959. EARTH-SCULPTURE OF PRIM- 

 ITIVE MAN' 'Animal Mounds " The ' 'Alli- 

 gator." The " Animal Mounds " which have 

 been observed out of Wisconsin differ in 

 many respects from the ordinary type. Near 

 Granville, in Ohio, on a higher spur of land, 

 is an earthwork, known in the neighborhood 

 as the " Alligator." It has a head and body, 

 four sprawling legs, and a curled tail. The 

 total length is two hundred and fifty feet; 

 the breadth of the body forty feet, and the 

 length of the legs thirty-six feet. "The 

 head, shoulders, and rump are more elevated 

 than the other parts of the body, an attempt 

 having evidently been made to preserve the 

 proportions of the object copied." The av- 

 erage height is four feet, at the shoulders 

 six. AVEBTJBY Prehistoric Times, ch. 8, p. 

 256. (A., 1900.) 



960. ECHOES OF THOUGHT After- 

 images Each Perception or Sensation 

 Leaves Its Trace Counting Strokes after 

 Clock Has Struck. In the nervous system 

 each stimulus leaves some latent activity be- 

 hind it which only gradually passes away. 

 Psychological proof of the same fact is af- 

 forded by those " after-images " which we 

 perceive when a sensorial stimulus is gone. 

 We may read off peculiarities in an after- 

 image, left by an object on the eye, which 

 we failed to note in the original. We may 

 " hark back " and take in the meaning of a 

 sound several seconds after it has ceased. 

 Delay for a minute, however, and the echo 

 itself of the clock or the question is mute; 

 present sensations have banished it beyond 

 recall. With the feeling of the present thing 

 there must at all times mingle the fading 

 echo of all those other things which the pre- 

 vious few seconds have supplied. JAMES 

 Psychology, vol. i, ch. 15, p. 634. (H. H. & 

 Co., 1899.) 



961. ECLIPSE OF THE SUN Beauty 

 of the Spectacle Colored Flames of the 

 Chromosphere Shine Out when Disk is 

 Darkened Source of the " Unnatural 

 Light." Those who were at leisure to watch 

 the coming shadow of the moon described its 

 curved outline as distinctly visible on the 

 plains. " A rounded ball of darkness with 

 an orange-yellow border," one called it. 

 Those, again, who looked down on the bright 

 clouds below say the shadow was preceded 



by a yellow fringe, casting a bright light 

 over the clouds and passing into orange, 

 pink, rose-red, and dark red, in about twenty 

 seconds. This beautiful effect was noticed 

 by nearly all the amateur observers present, 

 who had their attention at liberty, and was 

 generally unseen by the professional ones, 

 who were shut up in dark tents with pho- 

 tometers, or engaged otherwise than in ad- 

 miring the glory of the spectacle as a spec- 

 tacle merely. This strange light, forming a 

 band of color about the shadow as seen from 

 above, must have really covered ten miles or 

 more in width, and have occupied a consid- 

 erable fraction of a minute in passing over 

 the heads of those below, to whom it prob- 

 ably constituted that lurid light on their 

 landscape I have spoken of as so peculiar 

 and " unnatural." It seems to be due to the 

 colored flames round the sun, which shine 

 out when its brighter light is extinguished. 

 LANGLEY New Astronomy, ch. 2, p. 56. 

 (H. M. & Co.) 



962. ECLIPSE, TOTAL, OF THE SUN 



Once Prolific of Superstition Still Weird 

 and Awe-inspiring Man's Conscious De- 

 pendence on the Orb of Day. Of all as- 

 tronomical phenomena, there are few which 

 have struck the human imagination so much 

 as total eclipses of the sun. What spectacle 

 more strange, in fact, than that of the sud- 

 den disappearance of the day-star at noon- 

 day in the midst of a clear sky ? In the days 

 when humanity was ignorant of the natural 

 causes of these effects, such a disappearance 

 was considered as supernatural, and they 

 saw in it with terror a manifestation of the 

 divine anger. Since the natural causes have 

 been discovered, and these phenomena are 

 seen to answer to our calculations with the 

 most obedient fidelity, all supernatural ter- 

 ror has disappeared from cultivated minds, 

 but the grand spectacle does not the less im- 

 press the beholder. 



At the hour predicted by the astronomer 

 we see the brilliant disk of the sun cut into 

 towards the west, and a black segment 

 slowly advancing, eating away the solar disk 

 until it is reduced to the form of a thin 

 luminous crescent. At the same time day- 

 light diminishes; from all sides a wan and 

 sinister gleam replaces the brilliant light in 

 which Nature rejoiced, and an infinite sad- 

 ness falls upon the world. Very soon there re- 

 mains nothing of the radiant star but a nar- 

 row arc of light, and hope appears disposed 

 to wing its flight from this earth, so long 

 illuminated by the paternal sun. Life seems 

 still connected with the sky by an invisible 

 thread, when suddenly the last ray of day- 

 light dies out, and a darkness as profound 

 as it is sudden spreads all around us, redu- 

 cing the whole of Nature to astonishment 

 and silence. The stars shine in the sky! 

 The man who would still speak and com- 

 municate, his impressions while attentively 

 watching the phenomenon cries out with 

 surprise; then he becomes silent, struck 

 with stupor. The singing-bird crouches un- 



