369 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Knowledge 

 Lakes 



impressions as well as good, and whatever 

 advance is made in the line of true progress 

 will not be the result of a blind law of ne- 

 cessity, but of a providential design through 

 human agency and properly directed human 

 labor. Without labor nothing of value can 

 be accomplished. It is the essential pre- 

 requisite of well-being, the original curse 

 which proves a blessing in disguise. The 

 remark has been properly made, that could 

 all the wants of man be supplied without 

 labor, there would be reason to fear that he 

 would become a brute for the want of some- 

 thing to do, rather than a philosopher from 

 an abundance of leisure. In all countries 

 where Nature does the most, man does the 

 least. The sterile soil and the inclement sky 

 seem to be the stimulants to mental and 

 physical exertion when once the necessary 

 impulse has been given. True progress does 

 not consist in obviating the necessity of 

 labor, but in changing, by means of im- 

 provements in the arts, its character, in 

 rendering it more conducive to the supply 

 of the wants and comforts of man, and to 

 the development of his mental and moral 

 nature. HENRY Improvement of the Me- 

 chanical Arts (Scientific Writings, vol. i, p. 

 323). (Sm. Inst., 1886.) 



1 8O3. LABOR, FALLACIES REGARD- 

 ING "Free Labor" Often a Misnomer Com- 

 petition Despotic. Had not the working 

 classes a right to employ their children as 

 they pleased? Who were better able to 

 judge, than fathers and mothers, of the ca- 

 pacities of their children? Why interfere 

 for the protection of those who already had 

 the best and most natural of all protec- 

 tions? Such were some of the arguments 

 against interfering with "free labor." Now 

 in what sense was this labor free? It was 

 free from legal compulsion that is to say, 

 it was free from that kind of compulsion 

 which arises out of the public will of the 

 whole community imposed by authority upon 

 the conduct of individuals. But there was 

 another kind of force from which this labor 

 was not free the force of overpowering mo- 

 tive operating on the will of the laborers 

 themselves. If one parent, more careful 

 than others of the welfare of his children, 

 and moved less exclusively by the desire 

 of gain, withdrew his children at an earlier 

 hour than others from factory work, his 

 children were liable to be dismissed and not 

 employed at all. On the other hand, motives 

 hardly less powerful were in constant oper- 

 ation on the masters. The ceaseless, and 

 increasing, and unrestricted competition 

 amongst themselves the eagerness with 

 which human energies rush into new open- 

 ings for capital, for enterprise, and for 

 skill made them, as a class, insensible to 

 the frightful evils which were arising from 

 that competition for the means of subsist- 

 ence which is the impelling motive of labor. 

 ARGYLL Reign of Law, ch. 7, p. 210. 

 (Burt.) 



1804. LACK OF EVIDENCE NOT 

 IMPEACHMENT OF EVIDENCE Manifest 

 Adjustment Stands as Fact. The relations 

 of adjustment between a given number of 

 elements are none the less a certain fact 

 because similar elements may be found else- 

 where without any such adjustment being 

 visible to us. It is the very fact of their not 

 being separate, but combined, in the one 

 case which justifies and compels a conclu- 

 sion different from that whfrh arises in the 

 other case. This is the law of evidence on 

 which we act and judge in other matters 

 with conviction which is both intuitive and 

 capable of being confirmed by the rules of 

 reason. And this reply is applicable to all 

 objections of the same kind. Those portions 

 of the system of Nature which are wholly 

 dark to us do not necessarily cast any shad- 

 ow on those other portions of that system 

 which are luminous with inherent light. 

 Rather the other way. The shining tracts 

 which thus reflect the light of reason and 

 of mind send abundant rays into all the 

 dark places round them. ARGYLL Reign of 

 Law, ch. 1, p. 21. (Burt.) 



1805. LAKE-DWELLINGS OF LIV- 

 ING PEOPLE One feature in their [the 

 Amazonian Indians'] mode of building de- 

 serves to be mentioned. Owing to the sub- 

 merged state of the ground on which they 

 live the Indians often raise their houses 

 on piles sunk in the water. Here we have 

 the old lacustrine buildings, so much dis- 

 cussed of late years, reproduced for us. One 

 even sees sometimes a little garden lifted in 

 this way above the water. AGASSIZ Journey 

 in Brazil, ch. 5, p. 162. (H. M. & Co., 1896.) 



1806. LAKES HAVE LIFE-HISTO- 

 RIES Duration Varying from a Day to Ages 

 The Oldest Lake Recent for the Geologist. 

 Lakes, like mountains and rivers, have 

 life-histories which exhibit varying stages 

 from youth through maturity to old age. 

 The span of their existence varies as do the 

 lives of animals and plants. In arid regions 

 they are frequently born of a single shower 

 and disappear as quickly when the skies are 

 again bright; their brief existence may be 

 said to resemble the lives of the Ephemera. 

 Again, the conditions are such that lakes 

 perhaps hundreds of square miles in area 

 are formed each winter, and evaporate to 

 dryness during the succeeding summer ; these 

 may be compared with the annual plants, 

 so regular are their periods. Still others 

 exist for a term of years and only disappear 

 during seasons of exceptional aridity; but 

 the greater number of inland water bodies 

 resemble the Sequoia and endure for cen- 

 turies with but little apparent change. So 

 long are the lives of many individuals that 

 human history has recorded only slight 

 changes in their outlines, but to the geologist 

 even these are seen to be of recent origin 

 and the day of their extinction not remote. 

 RUSSELL Lakes of North America, int., p. 

 7. (G. & Co., 1895.) 



