345 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Insect-life 

 Insight 



tional edibility. The flavor is delicious and 

 precisely comparable to that of the imported 

 figs, except for the lack of the slight acidity 

 noticed in those ordinarily bought on the 

 market, and which is of a rather disagree- 

 able quality. Wholesale grocers to whom 

 the writer has shown samples speak with 

 strong approval of their quality, and there 

 seems little doubt that a great and profit- 

 able trade in figs of this grade can readily 

 be gained in the United States. . . . 

 But this feature by no means comprises all 

 the possibilities of the industry. America 

 will compete with the Mediterranean coun- 

 tries in the open markets of the world. The 

 character of the product, even of this first 

 year's crop, shows it to be superior to the 

 Oriental product, both from chemical anal- 

 ysis and from expert opinion. 

 Cleanliness in packing, prevention of the 

 disgusting worms so often found in the im- 

 ported Smyrna figs, and other similar points 

 will be carefully attended to by American 

 packers. . . . The right varieties [of 

 trees] will be planted by the thousands dur- 

 ing the coming year, and in four or five 

 years will be producing substantial crops. 

 [See FIG, SMYRNA.] HOWARD Smyrna, Fig 

 Culture in the United States (Year-book of 

 the Department of Agriculture, 1900, pp. 79- 

 106). 



1688. INSECTS FLEEING BEFORE 

 WIND Dragon-flies and the Pampero. The 

 pampero is a dry, cold wind, exceedingly 

 violent. It bursts on the plains very sud- 

 denly, and usually lasts only a short time, 

 sometimes not more than ten minutes; it 

 comes irregularly, and at all seasons of the 

 year, but is most frequent in the hot season, 

 and after exceptionally sultry weather. It 

 is in summer and autumn that the large 

 dragon-flies appear ; not with the wind, but 

 and this is the most curious part of the 

 matter in advance of it; and inasmuch as 

 these insects are not seen in the country at 

 other times, and frequently appear in sea- 

 sons of prolonged drought, when all the 

 marshes and watercourses for many hun- 

 dreds of miles are dry, they must of course 

 traverse immense distances, flying before the 

 wind at a speed of seventy or eighty miles 

 an hour. On some occasions they appear 

 almost simultaneously with the wind, going 

 by like a flash, and instantly disappearing 

 from sight. You have scarcely time to see 

 them before the wind strikes you. HUDSON" 

 Naturalist in La Plata, ch. 9, p. 131. (C. & 

 H., 1895.) 



1689. INSECURITY, SENSE OF, 

 PRODUCED BY EARTHQUAKE The 

 "Solid Ground" Quivers Like Thin Ice. Feb- 

 ruary 20th, 1835. This day has been mem- 

 orable in the annals of Valdivia for the 

 most severe earthquake experienced by the 

 oldest inhabitant. I happened to be on 

 shore, and was lying down in the wood to 

 rest myself. It came on suddenly, and 

 lasted two minutes, but the time appeared 

 much longer. The rocking of the ground 



was very sensible. The undulations ap- 

 peared to my companion and myself to come 

 from due east, whilst others thought they 

 proceeded from southwest: this shows how 

 difficult it sometimes is to perceive the di- 

 rection of the vibrations. There was no dif- 

 ficulty in standing upright, but the motion 

 made me almost giddy: it was something 

 like the movement of a vessel in a little 

 cross-ripple, or still more like that felt by a 

 person skating over thin: ice, which bends 

 under the weight of his body. A bad earth- 

 quake at once destroys our oldest associa- 

 tions: the earth, the very emblem of solid- 

 ity, has moved beneath our feet like a thin 

 crust over a fluid one second of time has- 

 created in the mind a strange idea of inse- 

 curity, which hours of reflection would not 

 have produced. DARWIN Naturalist's Voy- 

 age around the World, ch. 14, p. 301. (A., 

 1898.) 



1690. INSENSIBILITY DUE TO AB- 

 SENCE OF MIND Power of Mental Absorp- 

 tion over the Bodily Life. Archimedes, it is 

 well known, was so absorbed in geometrical 

 meditation that he was first aware of the 

 storming of Syracuse by his own death- 

 wound, and his exclamation on the entrance 

 of the Roman soldiers was: Noli turbare 

 circulos meos! In like manner Joseph Scali- 

 ger, the most learned of men, when a Prot- 

 estant student in Paris was so engrossed in 

 the study of Homer that he became aware of 

 the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and of his 

 own escape, only on the day subsequent to 

 the catastrophe. The philosopher Carneades 

 was habitually liable to fits of meditation so 

 profound that, to prevent him sinking from 

 inanition, his maid found it necessary to 

 feed him like a child. And it is reported of 

 Newton that, while engaged in his mathe- 

 matical researches, he sometimes forgot to 

 dine. Cardan, one of the most illustrious of 

 philosophers and mathematicians, was once, 

 upon a journey, so lost in thought that he 

 forgot both his way and the object of his 

 journey. To the questions of his driver 

 whether he should proceed, he made no 

 answer; and when he came to himself at 

 nightfall, he was surprised to find the car- 

 riage at a standstill, and directly under a 

 gallows. The mathematician Vieta was 

 sometimes so buried in meditation that for 

 hours he bore more resemblance to a dead 

 person than to a living, and was then wholly 

 unconscious of everything going on around 

 him. On the day of his marriage the great 

 Budseus forgot everything in his philological 

 speculations, and he was only awakened to 

 the affairs of the external world by a tardy 

 embassy from the marriage-party, who 

 found him absorbed in the composition of 

 his " Commentarii." HAMILTON Metaphys- 

 ics, lect. 14, p. 180. (G. & L., 1859.) 



1691. INSIGHT, SCIENTIFIC, EN- 

 LARGED Mental Advance Attends Opening 

 of the Pacific. The Sandwich Islands, Pa- 

 pua or New Guinea, and some portions of 



