Machin 



Machine 

 Mammalia 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



410 



results of the molecular mechanism of those 

 organs; and that the regular movements of 

 the respiratory, alimentary, and other in- 

 ternal organs are governed and guided as 

 mechanically by their appropriate nervous 

 centers. The even rhythm of the breathing 

 of every one of us depends upon the struc- 

 tural integrity of a particular region of the 

 medulla oblongata, as much as the ticking 

 of a clock depends upon the integrity of the 

 escapement. You may take away the hands 

 of a clock and break up its striking machin- 

 ery, but it will still tick; and a man may 

 be unable to feel, speak, or move, and yet 

 he will breathe. HUXLEY Lay Sermons, 

 serm. 14, p. 334. (G. P. P., 1899.) 



2OO5. Soul the Directing 



Agent, Not the Motive Power. The human 

 body is itself an admirably contrived com- 

 plex machine, furnished with levers, pulleys, 

 cords, valves, and other appliances for the 

 application and modification of the power 

 derived from the food. It is, in fact, a loco- 

 motive-engine, impelled by the same power 

 which under another form gives activity and 

 energy to the iron horse of the railway. In 

 both, the power is derived from combustion 

 of the carbon and hydrogen of the organic 

 matter employed for food or fuel. In both, 

 the direction of power is under the influence 

 of an immaterial, thinking, willing prin- 

 ciple called the soul. But this must not be 

 confounded, as it frequently is, with the 

 motive power. The soul of a man no more 

 moves his body than the soul of the engineer 

 moves the locomotive and its attendant 

 train of cars. In both cases the soul is the 

 directing, controlling principle, not the im- 

 pelling power. Let. for example, a locomo- 

 tive-engine be placed upon the track, with 

 water in the boiler and fire in the grate in 

 short, with all the potentials of motion, and 

 it will still remain quiescent. In this state 

 let the engineer enter the tender and touch 

 the valve; the machine instantly becomes 

 instinct with life and volition ; it has now a 

 soul to govern its power and direct its 

 operations; and indeed as a whole it may 

 be considered as an enormous animal, of 

 which the wheels and other parts are addi- 

 tions to the body of the engineer. HENRY 

 Improvement of the Mechanical Arts, Scien- 

 tific Writings, vol. i, p. 312. (Sm. Inst., 

 1886.) 



2OO6. MACHINERY, PRIMITIVE 

 SUBSTITUTES FOR Predecessor of the Suc- 

 tion-pump Storage of Water by African 

 Women. Whether women invented the suc- 

 tion-pump may remain in doubt, but the 

 Bakalahari dames [according to Living- 

 stone], when they wish to draw water, pro- 

 vide twenty or thirty ostrich-egg shells and 

 place them in a net. They tie a bunch of 

 grass to one end of a short reed for a 

 strainer, and insert the apparatus in a hole 

 as deep as the arm will reach, then ram 

 down the wet sand firmly round it. Apply- 

 ing the mouth to the free end of the reed, 

 they draw the water upward by sucking, and 



discharge it into an ostrich shell, guiding 

 the stream by means of a straw. The whole 

 stock of water passes through the woman's 

 mouth as a pump. The shells are taken 

 home and buried in wet sand for future use. 

 MASON Woman's Share in Primitive Cul- 

 ture, ch. 2, p. 25. (A., 1894.) 



2007. MAGNET AND AMBER IN 

 CHINA A "Breath" Animating Both. The 

 earliest reference to [the] attractive prop- 

 erty [of amber] is also apparently the first 

 mention of the like property of the magnet, 

 and appears in a " Eulogy of the Magnet," 

 written by Kouo pho in 324 A. D., in the 

 following words: 



" The magnet draws the iron, and the 

 amber extracts mustard-seeds. There is a 

 breath which penetrates secretly and with 

 velocity, and which communicates itself im- 

 perceptibly to that which corresponds to it in 

 the other object. It is an inexplicable thing." 



But this is nothing more than a restate- 

 ment of the European notion of the flow, or 

 virtue, or current, or soul, emanating from 

 the stone or the amber, with which theory 

 the Western civilized world was then fa- 

 miliar, and which, it is safe to say, involves 

 a power of abstract conception which the 

 Chinese mind has never possessed. PARK 

 BENJAMIN Intellectual Rise in Electricity, 

 ch. 3, p. 74. (J. W., 1898.) 



2008. MAGNET IN GREEK CLAS- 

 SICS Simile of Plato Transmitted Attraction. 

 The first mention of the magnet in the 

 Greek classics is apparently that made in 

 the fragmentary "(Eneus " of Euripides, 

 which Suidas quotes, and which distinctly 

 refers to the attraction of the lodestone for 

 the iron. The subject takes definite form, 

 however, in the " Ion " of Plato ; and there, 

 in the following words, Socrates describes 

 the famous rings: 



" The gift which you have of speaking ex- 

 cellently about Homer is not an art," says 

 the sage, " but, as I was just saying, an in- 

 spiration: there is a divinity moving you, 

 like that in the stone which Euripides calls 

 a magnet, but which is commonly known as 

 the stone of Heraclea. For that stone not 

 only attracts iron rings, but also imparts to 

 them similar power of attracting other 

 rings: and sometimes you may see a num- 

 ber of pieces of iron and rings suspended 

 from one another, so as to form quite a long 

 chain ; and all of these derive their powers 

 of suspension from the original stone. Now, 

 this is like the muse who first gives to men 

 inspiration herself, and from those inspired, 

 her sons, a chain of other persons is sus- 

 pended, who will take the inspiration from 

 them." 



Plato lived between the years 429 and 348 

 B. C., and from his time forward the rings 

 of Samothrace are described again and 

 again. PARK BENJAMIN Intellectual Rise 

 in Electricity, ch. 1, p. 23. (J. W., 1898.) 



2009. MAGNET, TEMPORARY OR 



PERMANENT Plasticity of Iron Coercive 



