483 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



IVatui'e 



somewhere." [" Outlines of Astronomy," 

 5th ed., p. 291.] And even if we cannot 

 certainly identify force in all its forms with 

 the direct energies of One Omnipresent and 

 All-pervading Will, it is at least in the 

 highest degree unphilosophical to assume 

 the contrary to speak or to think as if 

 the forces of Nature were either independent 

 of or even separate from the Creator's 

 power. ARGYLL Reign of Law, ch. 2, p. 73. 

 (Burt.) 



2372. NATURE PAINTED IN SHAD- 

 OW Earth an Inferno or a Slaughter-house. 

 The final result [of the doctrine of the 

 struggle for life, as commonly stated] is a 

 picture of Nature wholly painted in shadow 

 a picture so dark as to be a challenge to 

 its Maker, an unanswered problem to phi- 

 losophy, an abiding offense to the moral na- 

 ture of man. The world has been held up 

 to us as one great battle-field heaped with 

 the slain, an inferno of infinite suffering, a 

 slaughter-house resounding with the cries of 

 a ceaseless agony. DRUMMOND Ascent of 

 Man, int., p. 19. (J. P., 1900.) 



2373. NATURE, SECRETS OF, TO 

 WHOM REVEALED Scientist Must Become 

 as a Little Child. In the law-book of re- 

 search on which natural science is based 

 we read the same command as in the Scrip- 

 tures : " Verily I say unto you, except ye 

 become as little children ye shall not enter 

 into the kingdom of heaven." Accordingly, 

 we see the investigator everywhere striving 

 to turn back to the standpoint of a child 

 that forgets all sorrow whenever something 

 that moves is given him to look at; it 

 matters little whether a tin-plate set to 

 spin, or a pussy in her play. Only, of 

 course, between the manner in which the 

 scientist marvels at these phenomena and 

 that of a child there lies the chasm that 

 separates the moral value of a human being 

 ripened by experience from the innocence 

 of a child. Du BOIS-REYMOND Tierische 

 Bei&egung (a Lectutfe). (Translated for 

 Scientific Side-Lights.) 



2374. NATURE SEEN AT WORK 



Formation of Peat within a Human Life- 

 time. George, first Earl of Cromarty, seems 

 ... to have been a man of an eminently 

 active and inquiring mind. He found lei- 

 sure, in the course of a very busy life, to 

 write several historical dissertations of great 

 research. . . . His life was extended to 

 extreme old age; and as his literary ardor 

 remained undiminished till the last, some 

 of his writings were produced at a period 

 when most other men are sunk in the in- 

 curious indifferency and languor of old age. 

 And among these later productions are his 

 remarks on peat. He relates that when a 

 very young man he had marked, in passing 

 on a journey through the central Highlands 

 of Ross-shire, a wood of very ancient trees, 

 doddered and moss-grown, and evidently 

 passing into a state of death through the 



last stages of decay. He had been led by 

 business into the same district many years 

 after, when in middle life, and found that 

 the wood had entirely disappeared, and that 

 the heathy hollow which it had covered was 

 now occupied by a green, stagnant morass, 

 unvaried in its tame and level extent by 

 either bush or tree. In his old age he again 

 visited the locality, and saw the green sur- 

 face roughened with dingy-colored hollows, 

 and several Highlanders engaged in it in 

 cutting peat in a stratum several feet in 

 depth. What he had once seen an aged for- 

 est had now become an extensive peat-moss. 

 MILLER The Old Red Sandstone, ch. 10, p. 

 173. (G. & L., 1851.) 



2375. NATURE STIRS VARIED HU- 

 MAN EMOTIONS The contemplation of 

 the individual characteristics of the land- 

 scape, and of the conformation of the land 

 in any definite region of the earth, gives 

 rise to a different source of enjoyment. 

 . . . At one time the heart is stirred 

 by a sense of the grandeur of the face of 

 Nature, by the strife of the elements, or, 

 as in Northern Asia, by the aspect of 

 the dreary barrenness of the far-stretching 

 steppes; at another time softer emotions are 

 excited by the contemplation of rich har- 

 vests wrested by the hand of man from the 

 wild fertility of Nature, or by the sight of 

 human habitations raised beside some wild 

 and foaming torrent. HUMBOLDT Cosmos, 

 vol. i, int., p. 25. (H., 1897.) 



2376. NATURE, STUDY OF, INTER- 

 ESTS CHILDREN General Phenomena of 

 Life Readily Learned Lessons in Insects, 

 Plants, or Shells. From pupils of ten or 

 twelve years of age who have been properly 

 instructed in the elements of biology, one 

 may obtain a surprising accuracy in the an- 

 swers given to both written and oral ques- 

 tions. The chief idea, however, to be borne 

 in mind in teaching pupils of this early age 

 is that the instruction must be 'limited to 

 broad and general details, and, save in very 

 exceptional cases, must not include attempts 

 at specializing the science. The general 

 phenomena of plant and animal life; the 

 broad relations of the organic and inorganic 

 worlds, and the general details of the struc- 

 ture and life history of the more familiar 

 groups of animals and plants, present sub- 

 jects which may be made, with sufficient 

 means of illustration, to convey a great 

 amount of solid information to the youngest 

 pupil who is able to think for himself or 

 herself. For example, I do not see that an 

 intelligent teacher, with a good set of dia- 

 grams and a few specimens, should have the 

 slightest difficulty in interesting a very 

 youthful auditory in the structure and 

 metamorphosis of insects, and in the general 

 course of insect life. He would find in the 

 details furnished by the common observa- 

 tion of his pupils a ready assent to and 

 illustration of most of the facts he would 



