imit 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



400 



a distance of about ten feet, through a dor- 

 mer window, breaking the sash, and scatter- 

 ing the fragments across the street. It was 

 evidently attracted to this point by the 

 upper end of a perpendicular gutter, which 

 was near the window. It passed silently 

 down the gutter, exhibiting scarcely any 

 mark of its passage until it arrived at the 

 termination, about a foot from the ground. 

 Here again an explosion appeared to have 

 taken place, since the windows of the cellar 

 were broken. A bed, in which a man was 

 sleeping at the time, was situated against 

 the wall, immediately under the bell- wire; 

 and altho his body was parallel to the wire, 

 and not distant from it more than four feet, 

 he was not only uninjured, but not sensibly 

 affected. The size of the hole in the chim- 

 ney, and the fact that the lightning passed 

 along the copper wire without melting it, 

 show that the discharge was a small one, 

 and yet the mechanical effects, in breaking 

 the plaster, and projecting the window- 

 frame across the street, were astonishingly 

 great. HENRY On the Protection of Houses 

 from Lightning, Scientific "Writings, p. 232. 

 (Sm. Inst., 1886.) 



1952. LIKENESS OF EMBRYOS OF 

 DIVERSE BEINGS Separation Attendant on 

 Development. It has been shown that gen- 

 erally the embryos of the most distinct 

 species belonging to the same class are 

 closely similar, but become, when fully de- 

 veloped, widely dissimilar. A better proof 

 of this latter fact cannot be given than the 

 statement by Von Baer that " the embryos 

 of mammalia, of birds, lizards, and snakes, 

 probably also of Chelonia, are in the earliest 

 states exceedingly like one another, both as 

 a whole and in the mode of development of 

 their parts; so much so, in fact, that we 

 can often distinguish the embryos only by 

 their size. In my possession are two little 

 embryos in spirit, whose names I have 

 omitted to attach, and at present I am quite 

 unable to say to what class they belong. 

 They may be lizards or small birds, or very 

 young mammalia, so complete is the simi- 

 larity in the mode of formation of the head 

 and trunk in these animals. The extremi- 

 ties, however, are still absent in these em- 

 bryos. But even if they had existed in the 

 earliest stage of their development we 

 should learn nothing, for the feet of lizards 

 and mammals, the wings and feet of birds, 

 no less than the hands and feet of men, all 

 arise from the same fundamental form." 

 [Compare GERMS, 1368-70.] DARWIN Origin 

 of Species, ch. 14, p. 458. ( Burt. ) 



1953. LIKENESS, REMARKABLE, 

 OF ANIMAL AND PLANT Digestive Fluid 

 of Sundew Resembles Gastric Juice of Ani- 

 mals A Common Thought Unites Two 

 Kingdoms. The glands of Drosera [sun- 

 dew] absorb matter from living seeds which 

 are injured or killed by the secretion. They 

 likewise absorb matter from pollen and 

 from fresh leaves; and this is notoriously 



the case with the stomachs of vegetable- 

 feeding animals. Drosera is properly an in- 

 sectivorous plant; but as pollen cannot fail 

 to be often blown on to the glands, as will 

 occasionally the seeds and leaves of sur- 

 rounding plants, Drosera is, to a certain ex- 

 tent, a vegetable feeder. . . . There is a 

 remarkable accordance in the power of di- 

 gestion between the gastric juice of animals 

 with its pepsin and hydrochloric acid, and 

 the secretion of Drosera with its ferment 

 and acid belonging to the acetic series. We 

 can, therefore, hardly doubt that the fer- 

 ment in both cases is closely similar, if not 

 identically the same. That a plant and an 

 animal should pour forth the same, or 

 nearly the same, complex secretion, adapted 

 for the same purpose of digestion, is a new 

 and wonderful fact in physiology. DARWIN 

 Insectivorous Plants, ch. 6, p. 110. (A., 

 1900.) 



1954. LIMBS, LOST,REMNANTS OF 



Rudimentary Organs Hind Legs of Ser- 

 pents and Fishes. An abundance of the 

 most interesting examples of rudimentary 

 organs is furnished by comparative osteol- 

 ogy, or the study of the skeletons of verte- 

 brate animals, one of the most attractive 

 branches of comparative anatomy. In most 

 of the vertebrate animals we find two pairs 

 of limbs on the body, a pair of fore legs and 

 a pair of hind legs. Very often, however, 

 one or the other pair is imperfect ; it is sel- 

 dom that both are, as in the case of serpents 

 and some varieties of eel-like fish. But 

 some serpents, viz., the giant serpents (boa, 

 python), have still in the hinder portion of 

 the body some useless little bones, which are 

 the remains of lost hind legs. In like man- 

 ner the mammals of the whale tribe 

 (Cetacea), which have only fore legs fully 

 developed (breast fins), have further back 

 in their body another pair of utterly super- 

 fluous bones, which are remnants of unde- 

 veloped hind legs. The same thing occurs in 

 many genuine fishes, in which the hind legs 

 have in like manner been lost. HAECKEL 

 History of Creation, vol. i, ch. 1, p. 14. (K. 

 P. & Co., 1899.) 



1955. LIMESTONE, HILLS OF, ONCE 

 BENEATH SEA Historical Antiquity Is Geo- 

 logically Recent. We observe in Sicily a 

 lofty table-land and hills, sometimes rising 

 to the height of 3,000 feet, capped with a 

 limestone, in which from 70 to 85 per cent, 

 of the fossil Testacea are specifically iden- 

 tical with those now inhabiting the Mediter- 

 ranean. These calcareous and other argil- 

 laceous strata of the same age are inter- 

 sected by deep valleys which have been 

 gradually formed by denudation, but have 

 not varied materially in width or depth 

 since Sicily was first colonized by the 

 Greeks. The limestone, moreover, which is 

 of so late a date in geological chronology, 

 was quarried for building those ancient tem- 

 ples of Girgenti and Syracuse of which the 

 ruins carry us back to a remote era in 



