409 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



lachine 



perior to anything that man can show. 

 JAMES Psychology, vol. ii, ch. 24, p. 440. 

 (H. H. &Co., 1899.) 



1998. LUXURIANCE OF NATURE 



Rapid Growth of Coral. The reefs on which 

 these corals grow are very irregular in form, 

 are full of cavities, and have not a solid flat 

 surface of dead rock, like that surrounding 

 the lagoon ; nor can they be nearly so hard, 

 for the inhabitants by the aid of crowbars 

 made, a channel of considerable length 

 through these reefs, in which a schooner, 

 built on the southeast islet, was floated out. 

 It is a very interesting circumstance that 

 this channel, altho made less than ten years 

 before our visit, was then, as we saw, almost 

 choked up with living coral, so that fresh 

 excavations would be absolutely necessary 

 to allow another vessel to pass through it. 

 DARWIN Coral Reefs, ch. 1, p. 19. (A., 

 1900.) 



1999. LUXURIANCE OF TROPICS 



Forest Superimposed on Forest. There 

 seems to be no forest region in the world 

 comparable with that of Brazil; for the 

 dreary one of Africa, described by Stanley, 

 appears far inferior in the development of 

 its trees. But in Brazil, as Alfred Wallace 

 has so graphically described, forest is fitted 

 to and superimposed on forest. At a great 

 height a waving sea of verdure, rich with 

 animal life, is spread out in the dazzling 

 sunshine, borne up on columns which tower 

 through the obscurity of the vast space be- 

 neath, wherein a second growth of what 

 would elsewhere seem noble trees finds a 

 congenial home. Beneath these, again, there 

 may yet be another similar but smaller 

 growth, while lycopods and a multitude of 

 humbler herbs clothe the soil. MIVART 

 Types of Animal Life, ch. 1, p. 3. (L. B. & 

 Co., 1893.) 



2000. LUXURY A CAUSE OF DE- 

 GENERACY When a bird which has been 

 accustomed to seek its food in trees and 

 bushes finds upon the ground supplies so 

 rich as to afford better sustenance, it will 

 gradually come to live more and more upon 

 the ground, and less and less in trees, a fact 

 which taken alone will entirely alter the 

 conditions of its life. It will not require to 

 fly, and will consequently fly less and less 

 often, and after the lapse of generations will 

 cease to fly altogether. And to bring all 

 this about, the wood in which it lives, the 

 climate, the surrounding animals, need not 

 have undergone any changes; merely the 

 adoption of a new habit by the bird itself 

 will suffice. WEISMANN Heredity, vol. ii, p. 

 4. (Cl. P., 1892.) 



2001 . MACHINE DISTRIBUTES EN- 

 ERGY The Coiled Spring. Another form 

 of stored energy is manifested in the wind- 

 ing up of a weight or spring; the amount 

 of power that has been expended in winding 

 up the weight may be utilized in its descent 

 when released to drive machinery, as of a 

 clock, and perform various kinds of work. 



The function of a machine, and its only 

 function, is to distribute energy that has 

 been stored, in a manner that will be most 

 convenient for our purposes. ELISHA GRAY 

 Nature's Miracles, vol. ii, ch. 2, p. 22. (F. 

 H. &H., 1900.) 



2OO2. MACHINE HAS NO INHER- 

 ENT POWER A Product of Mind, but Ex- 

 ternal and Objective. [The] essential ele- 

 ment in our idea of a machine is that its 

 powers, whatever they may be, are derived, 

 and not original. There may be great 

 knowledge in the work done by a machine, 

 but the knowledge is not in it. There may 

 be great skill, but the skill is not in it; 

 great foresight, but the foresight is not in 

 it; in short, great exhibition of all the 

 powers of mind, but the mind is not in the 

 machine itself. Whatever it does is done 

 in virtue of its construction, which con- 

 struction is due to a mind which has de- 

 signed it for the exhibition of certain 

 powers and the performance of certain 

 functions. These may be very simple or 

 they may be very complicated ; but whether 

 simple or complicated, the whole play of 

 its operations is limited and measured 

 by the intentions of its constructor. If 

 that constructor be himself limited either in 

 opportunity, or knowledge, or in power, 

 there will be a corresponding limitation in 

 the things which he invents and makes. Ac- 

 cordingly, in regard to man, he cannot make 

 a machine which has any of the gifts and 

 the powers of life. He can construct noth- 

 ing which has sensibility or consciousness 

 or any other of even the lowest attributes of 

 living creatures. And this absolute desti- 

 tution of even apparent originality in a 

 machine this entire absence of any share 

 of consciousness, or of sensibility, or of will 

 is one part of our very conception of it. 

 ARGYLL Unity of Nature, ch. 3, p. 57. 

 (Burt.) 



2003. MACHINE NEVER CREATES 

 POWER No engine, however subtly de- 

 vised, can evade this law of equivalence, or 

 perform on its own account the smallest 

 modicum of work. The machine distributes, 

 but it cannot create. TYNDALL Heat a 

 Mode of Motion, lect. 3, p. 83. (A., 1900.) 



2004. MACHINE, THE HUMAN 

 BODY A Digestion of Food Breathing 

 Voluntary Movements. Most undoubtedly, 

 the digestion of food in the human body is 

 a purely chemical process; and the passage 

 of the nutritive parts of that food into the 

 blood, a physical operation. Beyond all 

 question, the circulation of the 'blood is 

 simply a matter of mechanism, and results 

 from the structure and arrangement of the 

 parts of the heart and vessels, from the con- 

 tractility of those organs, and from the 

 regulation of that contractility by an auto- 

 matically acting nervous apparatus. The 

 progress of physiology has further shown 

 that the contractility of the muscles and 

 the irritability of the nerves are purely the 



