275 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Future 

 Generation 



of the rain. The proportion of sediment in 

 the waters at other seasons was compara- 

 tively insignificant, the total amount dur- 

 ing the five winter months being only 247,- 

 881,600 cubic feet, and during the three 

 months of hot weather 38,154,240 cubic feet. 

 The total annual discharge, then, would be 

 6,368,077,440 cubic feet. 



This quantity of mud would in one year 

 raise a surface of 228 1/ 2 square miles, or a 

 square space each side of which should 

 measure 15 miles, a height of one foot. To 

 give some idea of the magnitude of this 

 result, we will assume that the specific grav- 

 ity of the dried mud is only one-half that 

 of granite (it would, however, be more) ; 

 in that case, the earthy matter discharged 

 in a year would equal 3,184,038,720 cubic 

 feet of granite. Now about 12% cubic feet 

 of granite weigh one ton; and it is com- 

 puted that the Great Pyramid of Egypt, if 

 it were a solid mass of granite, would weigh 

 about 600,000,000 tons. The mass of matter, 

 therefore, carried down annually would, ac- 

 cording to this estimate, more than equal in 

 weight and bulk forty-two of the great pyr- 

 amids of Egypt, and that borne down in 

 the four months of the rains would equal 

 forty pyramids. But if, without any con- 

 jecture as to what may have been the spe- 

 cific gravity of the mud, we attend merely 

 to the weight of solid matter actually proved 

 by Mr. Everest to have been contained in 

 the water, we find that the number of tons' 

 weight which passed down in the 122 days 

 of the rainy season was 339,413,760, which 

 would give the weight of fifty-six pyramids 

 and a half; and in the whole year 355,361,- 

 464 tons, or nearly the weight of sixty pyra- 

 mids. The base of the Great Pyramid of 

 Egypt covers eleven acres, and its perpen- 

 dicular height is about five hundred feet. 

 LYELL Principles of Geology, bk. ii, ch. 18, 

 p. 282. (A., 1854.) 



1341. Work of Nature 



and of Man Compared. It is scarcely pos- 

 sible to present any picture to the mind 

 which will convey an adequate conception 

 of the mighty scale of this operation, so 

 tranquilly and almost insensibly carried on 

 by the Ganges, as it glides through its al- 

 luvial plain, even at a distance of 500 miles 

 from the sea. It may, however, be stated, 

 that if a fleet of more than eighty Indiamen, 

 each freighted with about 1,400 tons' weight 

 of mud, were to sail down the river every 

 hour of every day and night for four 

 months continuously, they would only trans- 

 port from the higher country to the sea 

 a mass of solid matter equal to that borne 

 down by the Ganges, even in this part of 

 its course, in the four months of the flood 

 season. Or the exertions of a fleet of about 

 2,000 such ships going down daily with the 

 same burden, and discharging it into the 

 gulf, would be no more than equivalent to 

 the operations of the great river. LYELL 

 Principles of Geology, bk. ii, ch. 18, p. 282. 

 (A., 1854.) 



1342. GEMS, ARTIFICIAL, INFERIOR 



Nature's Laboratories Surpass Those of 

 Alan. But most of the crystals of minerals 

 which have been thus artificially formed are 

 of minute, indeed often of microscopic, di- 

 mensions. In the underground reservoirs 

 beneath volcanoes, however, we have all the 

 necessary conditions for the formation of 

 crystals of minerals on a far grander scale. 

 High temperatures, pressures far greater 

 than any we can command at the earth's 

 surface, the action of superheated steam 

 and many acid gases on the various con- 

 stituents of both igneous and sedimentary 

 rocks, and, above all, time of almost un- 

 limited duration; these constitute such a 

 set of conditions as may fairly be expected 

 to result in the formation of crystals simi- 

 lar to those artificially produced, but of far 

 greater size and beauty. JUDD Volcanoes, 

 ch. 5, p. 148. (A., 1899.) 



1343. GENERATION, SPONTANEOUS 



Science Finds A'o Evidence of. If you ask 

 me whether there exists the least evidence 

 to prove that any form of life can be de- 

 veloped out of matter, without demonstrable 

 antecedent life, my reply is that evidence 

 considered perfectly conclusive by many has 

 been adduced; and that were some of us 

 who have pondered this question to follow 

 a very common example, and accept testi- 

 mony because it falls in with our belief, we 

 also should eagerly close with the evidence 

 referred to. But there is in the true man 

 of science a desire stronger than the wish 

 to have his beliefs upheld; namely, the de- 

 sire to have them true. And this stronger 

 wish causes him to reject the most plau- 

 sible support if he has reason to suspect that 

 it is vitiated by error. Those to whom I 

 refer as having studied this question, believ- 

 ing the evidence offered in favor of " spon- 

 taneous generation " to be thus vitiated, 

 cannot accept it. They know full well that 

 the chemist now prepares from inorganic 

 matter a vast array of substances which 

 were some time ago regarded as the sole 

 products of vitality. They are intimately 

 acquainted with the structural power of 

 matter, as evidenced in the phenomena of 

 crystallization. They can justify scientific- 

 ally their belief in its potency, under the 

 proper conditions, to produce organisms. 

 But, in reply to your question, they will 

 frankly admit their inability to point to 

 any satisfactory experimental proof that 

 life can be developed save from demon- 

 strable antecedent life. TYNDALL Frag- 

 ments of Science (the Belfast Address), vol. 

 ii, ch. 9, p. 191. (A., 1900.) 



1344. Theory of , Refuted 



Biogenesis and Abiogenesis Pasteur and 

 TyndalL Scientific men began to believe 

 that no form of life arose de novo (abiogen- 

 esis), but had its source in previous life 

 (biogenesis). It remained to Pasteur and 

 Tyndall to demonstrate this beyond dispute 

 and put to rout the fresh arguments for 

 spontaneous generation which Pouchet had 



