471 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Music 

 Mystery 



mountain which reached far above the high- 

 est point on the cliffs now enclosing it, and 

 was probably as conspicuous a member of 

 the sisterhood of mountains of which it 

 formed a part as any of the neighbor- 

 ing peaks, but the once prominent pile has 

 been removed so as to leave the profound 

 gulf that now fascinates and startles the ob- 

 server. The character of the sculpturing on 

 the outer slope of the truncated mountain 

 shows that it was eroded, both by streams 

 and by glaciers, before the catastrophe that 

 carried away its summit and left only a 

 hollow stump to mark the site of the ice- 

 crowned peak that formerly gleamed in the 

 sky. RUSSELL Lakes of North America, ch. 

 1, p. 20. (G. & Co., 1895.) 



2307. MYSTERY AS TO CONSTITU- 

 TION OF THE EARTH An Unsolved Prob- 

 lem No Dogmatism upon the Unknown, 

 From this summary of the speculative views 

 which have been entertained upon the sub- 

 ject of the physical condition of the earth's 

 interior, it will be clear that at present we 

 have not sufficient evidence for arriving at 

 anything like a definite solution of the 

 problem. The conditions of temperature 

 and pressure which exist in the interior of a 

 globe of such vast dimensions as our earth 

 are so far removed from those which we can 

 imitate in our experimental inquiries, and 

 it is so unsafe to push the application of 

 laws arrived at by the latter to the extreme 

 limits required by the former, that we shall 

 do well to pause before attempting to dog- 

 matize on such a difficult question. JUDD 

 Volcanoes, ch. 11, p. 329. (A., 1899.) 



2308. MYSTERY AWAITING SOLU- 

 TION Science Ever Looks toward the Future. 

 It is believed that we understand how the 

 more compact and stonelike variety of tuff 

 was deposited, since similar accumulations 

 are formed where waters saturated with 

 calcium carbonate deposit that salt on ac- 

 count of the loss of carbonic acid. The den- 

 dritic tuff may also have been precipitated 

 in a similar manner, or perhaps through 

 the agency of low forms of plant life. The 

 mode of origin of the tuff with well-defined 

 crystals, however, is still unknown, altho 

 both geologists and chemists have sought 

 diligently to discover the secret of its forma- 

 tion. The open cellular structure of the 

 crystals, as well as their forms, suggest that 

 they are pseudomorphs ; that is, having a 

 false form, or a form not assumed by cal- 

 cium carbonate on crystallizing, but result- 

 ing from the alteration or replacement of 

 some other mineral. This suggestion only 

 removes the difficulty one step farther, how- 

 ever, since the nature of the original min- 

 eral is still unknown. RUSSELL Lakes of 

 North America, ch. 6, p. 111. (G. & Co., 

 1895.) 



2309. MYSTERY BEHIND EVOLU- 

 TION Cause Carried Further Back in Time. 

 It [the evolutionary hypothesis] does not 

 sclve it does not profess to solve the ulti- 



mate mystery of this universe. It leaves,, 

 in fact, that mystery untouched. For, grant- 

 ing the nebula and its potential life, the 

 question whence they came would still re- 

 main to baffle and bewilder us. At bottom 

 the hypothesis does nothing more than 

 " transport the conception of life's origin to 

 an indefinitely distant past." TYNDALL. 

 Fragments of Science, vol. ii, ch. 8, p. 133. 

 (A., 1897.) 



2310. MYSTERY EXPLAINED The. 



Sinking of Great Stones through the Action 

 of Worms. Farmers in England are well 

 aware that objects of all kinds, left on the 

 surface of pasture-land, after a time disap- 

 pear, or, as they say, work themselves down- 

 wards. How powdered lime, cinders, and 

 heavy stones can work down, and at the 

 same rate, through the matted roots of a 

 grass-covered surface, is a question which 

 has probably never occurred to them. . . . 

 When a stone of large size and of irregular 

 shape is left on the surface of the ground, it 

 rests, of course, on the more protuberant 

 parts; but worms soon fill up with their 

 castings all the hollow spaces on the lower 

 side; for, as Hensen remarks, they like the 

 shelter of stones. As soon as the hollows 

 are filled up the worms eject the earth which 

 they have swallowed beyond the circumfer- 

 ence of the stones, and thus the surface of 

 the ground is raised all round the stone. As- 

 the burrows excavated directly beneath the 

 stone after a time collapse, the stone sinks 

 a little. Hence it is that boulders which at 

 some ancient period have rolled down from 

 a rocky mountain or cliff on to a meadow at 

 its base, are always somewhat embedded in 

 the soil; and, when removed, leave an ex- 

 act impression of their lower surfaces in the 

 underlying fine mold. If, however, a boulder 

 is of such huge dimensions that the earth 

 beneath is kept dry, such earth will not be 

 inhabited by worms, and the boulder will 

 not sink into the ground. DARWIN Forma- 

 tion of Vegetable Mould, ch. 3, p. 42* 

 (Hum., 1887.) 



2311. MYSTERY LIES BEHIND 

 EVERY THEORY Limitations of Human. 

 Mind. It is very frequently said, in oppo- 

 sition to the transmutation theory [or de- 

 velopment hypothesis], that it does indeed 

 fully explain those phenomena by inherit- 

 ance and adaptation, but that it does not at 

 the same time explain these properties of 

 organic matter, and that therefore we do not 

 arrive at first causes. This objection is 

 quite correct, but it applies equally to all 

 explanations of phenomena. We nowhere 

 arrive at a knowledge of first causes. The 

 origin of every simple salt-crystal, which we 

 obtain by evaporating its mother-liquor, is. 

 no less mysterious to us, as far as concerns, 

 its first cause, and in itself no less incom- 

 prehensible than the origin of every animal 

 which is developed out of a simple cell. In 

 explaining the most simple physical or 

 chemical phenomena, as the falling of a> 



