251 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Ferments 

 Fig 



popular superstitions which are so common 

 in connection with Latin Christianity. The 

 Portuguese sailors who first explored the 

 West Coast of Africa were themselves ac- 

 customed to attach superstitious value to 

 beads, or crosses, or images, or charms, and 

 amulets of their own. These were called 

 '"' feitigos." They saw the negroes attach- 

 ing some similar value to various objects of 

 a similar kind, and these Portuguese sail- 

 ors therefore described the negro worship 

 as the worship of " feitic.os." President De 

 Brosses, a French philosopher of the Vol- 

 tairean epoch in literature, then extended 

 the term " fetish " so as to include not only 

 artificial articles, but also such great nat- 

 ural features as trees, mountains, rivers, 

 and animals. In this way he was enabled 

 to classify together, under one indiscrim- 

 inate appellation, many different kinds of 

 worship and; many different stages in the 

 history of religious development or decay. 

 This is an excellent example of the crude 

 theories and false generalizations which 

 have been prevalent on the subject of the 

 origin of religion. First, there is the as- 

 sumption that whatever is lowest in sav- 

 agery must have been primeval an assump- 

 tion which is in all cases improbable, and 

 in many cases must necessarily be false. 

 Next there is great carelessness in ascer- 

 taining what is really true even of existing 

 savages in respect to their religious beliefs. 

 ARGYLL Unity of Nature, ch. 12, p. 284. 

 ( Burt. ) 



1228. FICTIONS OF LAMARCK No 

 Kno'wn Instance of Acquisition of New Or- 

 gans. I must here interrupt the author's 

 [Lamarck's] argument, by observing that 

 no positive fact is cited to exemplify the 

 substitution of some entirely new sense, fac- 

 ulty, or organ in the room of some other 

 suppressed as useless. All the instances ad- 

 duced go only to prove that the dimen- 

 sions and strength of members and the per- 

 fection of certain attributes may, in a long 

 succession of generations, be lessened and 

 enfeebled by disuse; or, on the contrary, be 

 matured and augmented by active exertion; 

 just as we know that the power of scent is 

 feeble in the greyhound, while its swiftness 

 of pace and its acuteness of sight are re- 

 markable that the harrier and staghound, 

 on the contrary, are comparatively slow in 

 their movements, but excel in the sense of 

 smelling. 



It was necessary to point out to the 

 reader this important chasm in the chain 

 of evidence, because he might otherwise 

 imagine that I had merely omitted the il- 

 lustrations for the sake of brevity; but 

 the plain truth is that there were no ex- 

 amples to be found; and when Lamarck 

 talks " of the efforts of internal sentiment/' 

 " the influence of subtle fluids," and " acts 

 of organization," as causes whereby animals 

 and plants may acquire new organs, he sub- 

 stitutes names for things; and, with a dis- 

 regard to the strict rules of induction, re- 



sorts to fictions, as ideal as the " plastic 

 virtue," and other phantoms of the geolo- 

 gists of the Middle Ages. LYELL Principles 

 of Geology, bk. iii, ch. 33, p. 571. (A., 

 1854.) 



1229. FIG, DOMESTIC, IN THE 

 UNITED STATES Great Fig-tree of Chico, 

 California. Fig-culture has never amount- 

 ed to much as an industry in this country. 

 Fig-trees grow abundantly throughout the 

 South and in California having been in- 

 troduced by the early French and Spanish 

 settlers, and there have been more or less 

 frequent importations since. As a domestic 

 fruit, the fig is of considerable importance 

 in all the Gulf and South Atlantic States. 

 It is a common dooryard tree throughout 

 this region. It has been grown with more 

 or less success as far north as the lower 

 Hudson River Valley, and where well cared 

 for during the winter it will bear well for 

 years, even at these northern limits. In 

 the South figs are used almost entirely for 

 household purposes. They are eaten fresh 

 from the tree and are served on the table 

 with sugar and cream. They are also stewed 

 and made into puddings and pies, and are 

 canned and preserved. In this section figs 

 are occasionally, but seldom, dried for house- 

 hold use, as they ripen at the period of 

 summer showers, which makes drying dif- 

 ficult. Much more of an effort to produce 

 a salable dried fig has been made in Cali- 

 fornia than in the South, especially during 

 the last twenty years, and a greater suc- 

 cess has been secured, probably on account 

 of the drier climate. Fig-trees were grown 

 in California by the early Spanish padres, 

 probably as early as 1710, and have flour- 

 ished throughout the southern part of the 

 State, one of the largest and most remark- 

 able trees in America growing as far north 

 as Chico (130 miles north of San Fran- 

 cisco), on the Bidwell place, where it was 

 planted in 1856. 



The writer saw this tree in 1898, and it 

 is certainly one of the great horticultural 

 curiosities of the country. It is 11 feet in 

 circumference near the base of the trunk; 

 branches have grown down into the ground 

 and sent up new shoots, and the process has 

 been repeated until a ground space of 150 

 feet in diameter is covered by this one 

 tree, giving a dense shade over a space big 

 enough to accommodate a large picnic party. 

 HOWARD Smyrna Fig Culture in the Uni- 

 ted States (Year-book of the Department of 

 Agriculture, 1900, p. 79). 



1230. FIG, THE SMYRNA, NATURAL- 

 IZED IN CALIFORNIA Failure of Fruit to 

 Mature Utility of the Wild Variety, or 

 Caprifig, Discovered. After the early at- 

 tempts to dry figs in California had pro- 

 gressed for some years it was gradually real- 

 ized that with the varieties then growing 

 it was impossible to arrive at a product 

 which should compare in quality or com- 

 mercial value with the Smyrna fig of com- 



