Tiuem* 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



250 



of time, a most delicious and desirable 

 flavor. WILEY Relations of Chemistry to 

 Industrial Progress (Address at Purdue 

 University, Lafayette, Ind., 1896, p. 40). 



1223. FERNS, ANCIENT, PRESERVED 

 IN COAL Enduring Record of the Evanescent. 

 There* can be no doubt as to the true na- 

 ture of the Carboniferous forests; for the 

 structural character of the trees is as 

 strongly marked in their fossil remains as 

 in any living plants of the same character. 

 We distinguish the ferns not only by the pe- 

 culiar form of their leaves, often perfectly 

 preserved, but also by the fructification on 

 the lower surface of the leaves, and by the 

 distinct marks made on the stem at their 

 point of juncture with it. The leaf of the 

 fern, when falling, leaves a scar on the stem 

 varying in shape and size according to the 

 kind of fern, so that the botanist readily 

 distinguishes any particular species of fern 

 by this means a birthmark, as it were, by 

 which he detects the parentage of the indi- 

 vidual. AGASSIZ Geological Sketches, ser. i, 

 ch. 3, p. 76. (H. M. & Co., 1896.) 



1224. FERTILITY DUE TO MICRO- 

 ORGANISMS Vitality of the Soil Plants Die 

 in Sterilized Earth. These organisms have 

 been found to exist in innumerable colonies 

 in the soil. The soil is no longer regarded 

 as dead matter, but in the highest degree 

 as a vital organism. The possibility of 

 growing plants has been found to depend 

 directly upon the activity of the micro- 

 organisms of the soil. The progress of 

 chemistry has thus revealed in a new light 

 the relations which it holds to the very base 

 of society. If the activity of the micro- 

 organisms producing oxidations in the soil 

 were destroyed for a single year, nearly the 

 whole of the animal life of the earth would 

 perish of hunger. Already practical results 

 of immense importance have grown out of 

 these achievements of chemical research. 

 They have profoundly impressed the meth- 

 ods of agriculture and systems of fertiliza- 

 tion. If pease or beans be planted in a 

 sterilized soil the growth of the plantlet 

 produced will be limited by the nourishment 

 contained in the seed. After a few days 

 of apparently vigorous evolution, during 

 which time the reserve stores of plant-food 

 in the seeds have been consumed, the young 

 plant will wither and die. WILEY Rela- 

 tions of Chemistry to Industrial Progress 

 (Address at Purdue University, Lafayette, 

 Ind., 1896, p. 36). 



1225. FERTILITY OF LAND DETER- 

 MINED BY MOUNTAINS Their Effect on 

 the Rainfall. Imagine a southwest wind 

 blowing across the Atlantic towards Ireland. 

 In its passage it charges itself with aqueous 

 vapor. In the south of Ireland it encoun- 

 ters the mountains of Kerry: the highest 

 of these is Magillicuddy's Reeks, near Kil- 

 larney. Now the lowest stratum of this 

 Atlantic wind is that which is most fully 



charged with vapor. W T hen it encounters 

 the base of the Kerry mountains it is tilted, 

 up and flows bodily over them. Its load 

 of vapor is therefore carried to a height, 

 it expands on reaching the height, it is 

 chilled in consequence of the expansion, and 

 comes down in copious showers of rain. 

 From this, in fact, arises the luxuriant veg- 

 etation of Killarney; to this, indeed, the 

 lakes owe their water-supply. The cold 

 crests of the mountains also aid in the work 

 of condensation. 



Note the consequence. There is a town 

 called Cahirciveen to the southwest of Ma- 

 gillicuddy's Reeks, at which observations of 

 the rainfall have been made, and a good dis- 

 tance farther to the northeast, right in the 

 course of the southwest wind, there is an- 

 other town, called Portarlington, at which 

 observations of rainfall have also been 

 made. But before the wind reaches the 

 latter station it has passed over the moun- 

 tains of Kerry and left a great portion of 

 its moisture behind it. What is the result? 

 At Cahirciveen, as shown by Dr. Lloyd, the 

 rainfall amounts to 59 inches in a year, 

 while at Portarlington it is only 21 inches. 

 TYNDALL Forms of Wetter, 8, par. 81, p. 

 27. (A., 1899.) 



1226. FERTILITY TURNED TO BAR- 

 RENNESS Land Upheaved across Bed of 

 Stream. On the mainland near Lima, and 

 on the neighboring island of San Lorenzo, 

 Mr. Darwin found proofs that the ancient 

 bed of the sea had been raised to the height 

 of more than eighty feet above water within 

 the human epoch, strata having been dis- 

 covered at that altitude containing pieces 

 of cotton thread and plaited rush, together 

 with seaweed and marine shells. The same 

 author learnt from Mr. Gill, a civil engi- 

 neer, that he discovered in the interior near 

 Lima, between Casma and Huaraz, the 

 dried-up channel of a large river, sometimes 

 worn through solid rock, which, instead of 

 continually ascending towards its source, 

 has, in one place, a steep downward slope in 

 that direction, for a ridge or line of hills 

 has been uplifted directly across the bed 

 of the stream, which is now arched. By 

 these changes the water has been turned 

 into some other course; and a district, once 

 fertile, and still covered with ruins, and 

 bearing the marks of ancient cultivation, 

 has been converted into a desert. LYELL 

 Principles of Geology, bk. ii, ch. 29, p. 502. 

 (A., 1854.) 



1227. FETISHISM, ORIGIN OF IDEA 



AND NAME* Hasty Generalizations in Study 

 of Religions. Professor Max Miiller has 

 done memorable service in the analysis and 

 in the exposure which he has given us of 

 the origin and use of the word " fetishism," 

 and of the theory which represents it as a 

 necessary stage in the development of relig- 

 ion. It turns out that the word itself, and 

 the fundamental idea it embodies, is a 

 word and an idea derived from one of those 



