237 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Experiment 

 extension 



feel that the patient is doomed, the dentist 

 will have a premonition that the tooth will 

 break, tho neither can articulate a reason 

 for his foreboding. The reason lies embedded, 

 but not yet laid bare, in all the countless 

 previous cases dimly suggested by the actual 

 one, all calling up the same conclusion, 

 which the adept thus finds himself swept on 

 to, he knows not how or why. JAMES 

 Psychology, vol. ii, ch. 22, p. 365. (H. H. & 

 Co., 1899.) 



1155. EXPLORATION OF ANCIENT 

 GEOLOGIC LANDS AND SEAS -A Future 

 in the Study of the Past. As the ancient 

 geographers were laying the foundation for 

 all our modern knowledge of the present 

 conformation of the globe, so are the ge- 

 ologists of the nineteenth century preparing 

 the ground for future investigators, whose 

 work will be as far in advance of theirs as 

 are the delineations of Carl Hitter, the great 

 master of physical geography in our age, in 

 advance of the map drawn by the old Alex- 

 andrian geographer. We shall have our 

 geological explorers and discoverers in the 

 lands and seas of past times, as we have 

 had in those of the present our Colum- 

 buses, our Captain Cooks, our Livingstones 

 in geology, as we have had in geography. 

 There are undiscovered continents and riv- 

 ers and inland seas in the past world to 

 exercise the ingenuity, courage, and perse- 

 verance of men, after they shall have solved 

 all the problems, sounded all the depths, 

 and scaled all the heights of the present 

 surface of the earth. AGASSIZ Geological 

 Sketches, ser. i, ch. 4, p. 97. (H. M. & Co., 

 1896.) 



1156. EXPLORATION OF DEEP SEA 



Required Governmental Aid Science De- 

 mands Concentration of Human Power. 

 But the men of science fifty years ago, push- 

 ing their inquiries as to the character of the 

 sea-fauna into deeper and deeper water, at 

 length demanded information as to the ex- 

 istence of forms of animal life in the great- 

 est depths. Unable themselves to bear the 

 heavy expenses involved in such an investi- 

 gation, they sought for and obtained the as- 

 sistance of the government, in the form of 

 national ships, for the work, and then our 

 knowledge of the depths of the great ocean 

 may be said to have commenced. HICKSON 

 Fauna of the Deep Sea, pref., p. 8. (A., 



1157. EXPORTATION OF PRODUCTS 

 AND EXHAUSTION OF SOIL Home Market 

 Permits Replacement Poverty of Merely 

 Agricultural Communities. The exporta- 

 tion of agricultural products becomes, there- 

 fore, a slow but certain method of securing 

 soil exhaustion, and this accounts for the 

 fact that countries, or those portions of 

 countries, which are devoted to almost ex- 

 clusive agricultural pursuits, thus causing 

 a continuous exportation of agricultural 

 products, become the homes, not of the rich- 

 est, but of the poorest communities. 



It would be useless to deny, in this con- 

 nection, that our own country, with a soil 

 enriched by centuries of accumulating ni- 

 trogen, has grown rich from its agricultural 

 exports. But when the last of our virgin 

 soil shall have been placed under cultiva- 

 tion, a continuous stream of such exports 

 will certainly impoverish the nation, and 

 reduce all who practise such agriculture to 

 the condition which has already been reached 

 by those who have for years grown tobacco, 

 corn, cotton, and wheat oh the same soil, 

 and sold the products without paying back 

 to the field the percentage of profits which 

 was its due. 



On the other hand, the farmer who is for- 

 tunate enough to be permitted to patronize 

 the home market, w r ho sells his maize and 

 takes home a load of manure, adds not only 

 to the' plethora of his purse, but also to the 

 fertility of his soil. 



Thus in the light of agricultural chemis- 

 try we see clearly the deep scientific basis 

 of the teachings of political economy which 

 show the value of the home market. While y 

 therefore, the statement made at the com- 

 mencement of this address, that the chief 

 factor in the prosperity of a country is its 

 agriculture, remains in every sense true, yet 

 from the data discussed it as readily ap- 

 pears that agricultural prosperity is most 

 intimately connected with the advancement 

 of every other industry. Agricultural 

 chemistry teaches the farmer to welcome the 

 furnace and the mill, for in their proximity 

 he secures a sure return to his fields of the 

 plant-foods removed in his crops. WILEY 

 Economical Aspects of Agricultural Chemis- 

 try (Proceedings of the Amer. Assoc. for 

 Advancement of Science, vol. xxxv). 



1158. EXTENSION OF INDIVIDUAL- 

 ITY Clothing Is Almost Part of Self. The 

 body is the innermost part of the material 

 self in each of us; and certain parts of the 

 body seem more intimately ours than the 

 rest. The clothes come next. The old say- 

 ing that the human person is composed of 

 three parts soul, body, and clothes is 

 more than a joke. We so appropriate our 

 clothes and identify ourselves with them 

 that there are few of us who, if asked to 

 choose between having a beautiful body clad 

 in raiment perpetually shabby and unclean, 

 and having an ugly and blemished form al- 

 ways spotlessly attired, would not hesitate a 

 moment before making a decisive reply. 

 JAMES Psychology, vol. i, ch. 10, p. 292. 

 (H. H. &Co., 1899.) 



1159. EXTENSION OF KNOWLEDGE 

 THROUGH CONTACT WITH EXTERNAL 

 WORLD Promise for Future. If art may 

 be said to dwell within the magic circle of 

 the imagination, the extension of knowl- 

 edge, on the other hand, especially depends 

 on contact with the external world, and this 

 becomes more manifold and close in pro- 

 portion with the increase of general inter- 

 course. The creation of new organs (in- 



