475 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Mystery 



2327. MYSTERY OF ROENTGEN 



RAYS Their Nature Unexplained Defy Re- 

 fraction or Reflection. What is it that 

 constitutes the difference between the Roent- 

 gen rays and rays of ordinary light in con- 

 sequence of which the one are not refracted, 

 or only in an infinitesimal degree, while the 

 other are freely refracted? . . . How is 

 it that light travels more slowly through 

 refracting medium than through vacuum? 

 There are different conjectures which have 

 been advanced. One is that the ether within 

 refracting media is more dense than the 

 ther in free space. Another is that while 

 the density is the same the elasticity is less. 

 Then, there have been speculations as to the 

 ether being loaded with particles of matter. 

 G. G. STOKES, quoted by BARKER in Roent- 

 gen Rays, essay 4, p. 58. (H., 1899.) 



2328. MYSTERY OF SLEEP Awe- 

 inspiring Contrast to Waking Life. There 

 is the mystery of sleep, which quietly shuts 

 all the avenues of sense and so isolates the 

 mind from contact with the world outside. 

 To gaze at the motionless face of a sleeper 

 temporarily rapt from the life of sight, 

 sound, and movement which, being com- 

 mon to all, binds us together in mutual 

 recognition and social action has always 

 something awe-inspiring. This external in- 

 action, this torpor of sense and muscle, how 

 unlike to the familiar waking life, with 

 its quick responsiveness and its overflowing 

 energy! SULLY Illusions, ch. 7, p. 127. (A., 

 1897.) 



2329. MYSTERY OF THE SEAT OF 

 THE SOUL Relation of Consciousness to 

 Space. This is the problem known in the 

 history of philosophy as the question of 

 the seat of the soul. It has given rise to 

 much literature, but we must ourselves treat 

 it very briefly. Everything depends on what 

 we conceive the soul to be, an extended or 

 an inextended entity. . . . 



The truth is that if the thinking principle 

 is extended we neither know its form nor its 

 seat, whilst if unextended it is absurd to 

 speak of its having any space-relations at 

 all. JAMES Psychology, vol. i, ch. 8, p. 214. 

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



2330. MYSTERY OF THE SUN'S 

 CORONA Spectroscope Fails to Solve Finds 

 There a Yet Unknown Gas. The spectro- 

 scope informs us that, in great part at least, 

 the elements which exist in the lower regions 

 of the solar atmosphere in the state of va- 

 por are metals we are familiar with upon 

 the earth, while it shows the chromosphere 

 and prominences to consist mainly of hydro- 

 gen and helium, and makes it possible to 

 observe them even when the sun is not hid- 

 den by the moon. The secret of the corona 

 it fails to unlock as yet, tho it informs us 

 of the presence in it of an unknown gas of 

 inconceivable tenuity. YOUNG The Sun, 

 int., p. 8. (A., 1898.) 



2331. MYSTERY OF THE SUN'S 

 UPLIFTING POWER Plants Built Up in 



Defiance of Gravitation. Did the reader 

 ever consider that next to the mystery of 

 gravitation, which draws all things on the 

 earth's surface down, comes that mystery 

 not seen to be one because so familiar of 

 the occult force in the sunbeams which lifts 

 things up? The incomprehensible energy of 

 the sunbeam brought the carbon out of the 

 air, put it together in the weed or the plant, 

 and lifted each tree-trunk -above the soil. 

 The soil did not lift it, any more than the 

 soil in Broadway lifted the spire of Trinity. 

 Men brought stones there in wagons to build 

 the church, and the sun brought the ma- 

 terials in its own way, and built up alike 

 the slender shaft that sustains the grass- 

 blade and the column of the pine. If the 

 tree or the spire fell it would require a cer- 

 tain amount of work of men or horses or 

 engines to set it up again. So much actual 

 work, at least, the sun did in the original 

 building, and if we consider the number of 

 trees in the forest we see that this alone 

 is something great. LANGLEY Neiv Astrono- 

 my, ch. 3, p. 72. (H. M. & Co., 1896.) 



2332. MYSTERY OF THE UNIVERSE 



One or Many Systems? Is the visible uni- 

 verse organized in one or in several systems ? 

 . . . A problem so vast as this is still far 

 from receiving even an approximate solution. 

 From whatever point of view we consider 

 it we find ourselves face to face with the 

 infinite in space and time. The present 

 aspect of the universe immediately brings 

 into question its past and its future state, 

 and then the whole of united human learn- 

 ing supplies us in this great research with 

 but a pale light scarcely illuminating the 

 first steps of the dark and unknown road 

 on which we are traveling. FLAMMARION 

 Popular Astronomy, bk. vi, ch. 10, p. 652. 

 (A.) 



2333. MYSTERY OF VOLCANO AND 

 EARTHQUAK E Boundary of Darkness 

 around Circle of Light. I shall endeavor to 

 point out . . . that the general tendency 

 of subterranean movements, when their ef- 

 fects are considered for a sufficient lapse of 

 ages, is eminently beneficial, and that they 

 constitute an essential part of that mecha- 

 nism by which the integrity of the habit- 

 able surface is preserved, and the very exist- 

 ence and perpetuation of dry land secured. 

 Why the working of this same machinery 

 should be attended with so much evil is a 

 mystery far beyond the reach of our phi- 

 losophy, and must probably remain so until 

 we are permitted to investigate, not our 

 planet alone and its inhabitants, but other 

 parts of the moral and material universe - 

 with which they may be connected. Could 

 our survey embrace other worlds, and the 

 events, not of a few centuries only, but of 

 periods as indefinite as those with which 

 geology renders us familiar, some apparent 

 contradictions might be reconciled, and some 

 difficulties would doubtless be cleared up. 

 But even then, as our capacities are finite, 



