355 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Intelligence 

 Intervention 



changes which they [deltas] have undergone 

 within the last three thousand years, they 

 are sufficient to show how constant an in- 

 terchange of sea and land is taking place on 

 the face of our globe. In the Mediterranean 

 alone, many flourishing inland towns, and a 

 still greater number of ports, now stand 

 where the sea rolled its waves since the era 

 of the early civilization of Europe. If we 

 could compare with equal accuracy the an- 

 cient and actual state of all the islands and 

 continents, we should probably discover that 

 millions of our race are now supported by 

 lands situated where deep seas prevailed in 

 earlier ages. In many districts not yet oc- 

 cupied by man, land animals and forests 

 now abound where ships once sailed ; and, on 

 the other hand, we shall find, on inquiry, 

 that inroads of the ocean have been no less 

 considerable. LYELL Geology, ch. 18, p. 289. 

 (A., 1854.) 



1734. 



Coal-beds Buried 



under Ocean-rocks. All of the formations 

 of the Secondary and Tertiary periods are on 

 top of the coal and this shows that after 

 the age of rank vegetable growth there was 

 a sinking of the earth in many places far 

 down into the ocean so that vast layers of 

 rock formed on top of these beds of vegetable 

 matter. In England great chalk-beds crop 

 out in cliffs on the southern coast, and, as 

 we have seen, these chalk-rocks are largely 

 made up of the shells of marine animals. 

 London stands on a chalk-bed from six hun- 

 dred to eight hundred feet thick. Indeed, 

 England has been poetically called Albion, 

 White-land, from this appearance of her 

 coast. All of the great chalk-beds were 

 formed ages after the coal-beds, as the latter 

 are found in the upper strata of the Pale- 

 ozoic period. ELISHA GRAY Nature's Mir- 

 acles, vol. i, ch. 3, p. 26. (F. H. & H., 

 1900.) 



1735. INTEREST, ACQUIRED, BE- 

 COMES CONTROLLING An adult man's 

 interests are almost every one of them in- 

 tensely artificial: they have slowly been 

 built up. The objects of professional inter- 

 est are most of them, in their original na- 

 ture, repulsive ; but by their connection with 

 such natively exciting objects as one's per- 

 sonal fortune, one's social responsibilities, 

 and especially by the force of inveterate 

 habit, they grow to be the only things for 

 which in middle life a man profoundly cares. 

 JAMES Talks to Teachers, ch. 10, p. 98. 

 (H. H. & Co., 1900.) 



1736. INTEREST IN THE DIVINE 

 RECORD To me it seems that to look 

 on the first land that was ever lifted above 

 the waste of waters, to follow the shore 

 where the earliest animals and plants were 

 created when the thought of God first ex- 

 pressed itself in organic forms, to hold in 

 one's hand a bit of stone from an old sea- 

 beach, hardened into rock thousands of cen- 

 turies ago, and studded with the beings that 

 once crept upon its surface or were stranded 



there by some retreating wave, is even of 

 deeper interest to men than the relics of 

 their own race, for these things tell more 

 directly of the thoughts and creative acts of 

 God. AGASSIZ Geological Sketches, ser. i, 

 ch. 2, p. 29. (H. M. & Co., 1896.) J 



1737. INTEREST OF MAN IN ANI- 

 MALS Pigeons Carefully Bred by Ancient 

 Egyptians A Pastime of Nobles and Kings. 

 The art of and fancy foT pigeon-breeding 

 is very ancient. Even more than 3,000 years 

 before Christ it was carried on by the Egyp- 

 tians. The Romans, under the emperors, 

 laid out enormous sums upon the breeding 

 of pigeons, and kept accurate pedigrees of 

 their descent, just as the Arabs keep gene- 

 alogical pedigrees of their horses, and the 

 Mecklenburg aristocracy of their own an- 

 cestors. In Asia, too, among the wealthy 

 princes, pigeon-breeding was a very ancient 

 fancy; in 1600, the court of Akber Khan 

 possessed more than 20,000 pigeons. Thus 

 in the course of several centuries, and in 

 consequence of the various methods of breed- 

 ing practised in the different parts of the 

 world, there has arisen out of one single 

 originally tamed form an immense number 

 of different races and varieties, which in 

 their most divergent forms are extremely 

 different from one another, and are often 

 curiously characterized. HAECKEL History 

 of Creation, vol. i, ch. 6, p. 144. (K. P. & 

 Co., 1899.) 



1738. INTERPRETATION INSTINC- 

 TIVE The Less Known Explained by the Better 

 Known The Concave Seen in Relief. Now, 

 it may be asked, why should we tend to 

 transform the concave into the convex 

 rather than the convex into the concave? 

 . . . We are rendered much more fa- 

 miliar, both by Nature and by art, with 

 raised (cameo) design than with depressed 

 design (intaglio), and we instinctively in- 

 terpret the less familiar form by the more 

 familiar. . . . [An] illustration of this 

 kind of illusion recently occurred in my 

 own experience. Nearly opposite to my win- 

 dow came a narrow space between two de- 

 tached houses. This was, of course, darker 

 than the front of the houses, and the rece- 

 ding parallel lines of the bricks appeared to 

 cross this narrow vertical shaft obliquely. 

 I could never look at this without seeing it 

 as a convex column, round which the par- 

 allel lines wound obliquely. Others saw it 

 as I did, tho not always with the same over- 

 powering effect. I can only account for this 

 illusion by help of the general tendency of 

 the eye to solidify impressions drawn from 

 the flat, together with the effect of special 

 types of experience, more particularly the 

 perception of cylindrical forms in trees, 

 columns, etc. SULLY Illusions, ch. 5, p. 85. 

 (A., 1897.) 



1739. INTERVENTION OF NATU- 

 RAL CAUSES Not the Negation of Divine 

 Power. The reluctance to admit, as belong- 

 ing to the domain of Nature, any special 



