Originators 

 Painting 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



506 



2491. ORIGINATORS AND FOLLOW- 

 ERS Brutes Not Inventive. Reflect a mo- 

 ment upon your own daily life and you will 

 recognize two sets of activity, those which 

 you originate, and those in which you fol- 

 low suit. Animals can learn to follow suit, 

 and to a very limited extent can originate. 

 But it is the divine spark of originality 

 which underlies every thought or device in 

 this world. As one man invents a machine 

 and others by thousands fall into the use of 

 it, as the musician composes a song and mil- 

 lions sing it, so was it in the cradle-land of 

 humanity: the inventor, touched with fire 

 from the divine altar, set new examples to 

 be followed. MASON The Birth of Inven- 

 tion (Address at Centenary of American Pat- 

 ent System, Washington, D. C., 1891, Pro- 

 ceedings of the Congress, p. 407 ) . 



2492. OSTRICH OF AMERICA The 



" Ship of the Wilderness " Invisible ~by 

 Protective Coloring. Among the feathered 

 inhabitants of the pampas the grand archaic 

 ostrich of America survives. 



The rhea possesses a unique habit, which 

 is a puzzle to us, altho it probably once had 

 some significance namely, that of running, 

 when hunted, with one wing raised verti- 

 cally, like a great sail a veritable " ship of 

 the wilderness." In every way it is adapted 

 to the conditions of the pampas. . . . 

 Its commanding stature gives it a wide 

 horizon; and its dim, pale, bluish-gray color 

 assimilates to that of the haze, and renders 

 it invisible at even a moderate distance. Its 

 large form fades out of sight mysteriously, 

 and the hunter strains his eyes in vain to 

 distinguish it on the blue expanse. Its fig- 

 ure and carriage have a quaint majestic 

 grace, somewhat unavian in character, and 

 peculiar to itself. There are few more 

 strangely fascinating sights in Nature than 

 that of the old black-necked cock-bird, 

 standing with raised agitated wings among 

 the tall plumed grasses, and calling to- 

 gether his scattered hens with hollow boom- 

 ings and long mysterious suspirations, as if 

 a wind blowing high up in the void sky had 

 found a voice. HUDSON Naturalist in La 

 Plata, ch. 1, p. 26. (C. & H., 1895.) 



2493. OUTCASTS OF HUMANITY 



Evidence of Vanished Civilization Figures . 

 on the Rocks. The South- American steppes 

 are the boundaries of a European semi- 

 civilization. To the north, between the 

 mountain chain of Venezuela and the Carib- 

 bean Sea, lie, crowded together, industrial 

 cities, clean and neat villages, and carefully 

 tilled fields. Even a taste for arts, scien- 

 tific culture, and a noble love of civil free- 

 dom have long since been awakened within 

 these regions. 



To the south, a drear and savage wilder- 

 ness bounds the steppe. Forests, the growth 

 of thousands of years, in one impenetrable 

 thicket, overspread the marshy region be- 

 tween the rivers Orinoco and Amazon. 



Huge masses of lead-colored granite con- 

 tract the beds of the foaming rivers. Moun- 

 tains and forests reecho with the thunder of 

 rushing waters, the roar of the tiger-like 

 jaguar, and the dull rain-foreboding howl 

 of the bearded ape. . . . 



In this grand and wild condition of Na- 

 ture dwell numerous races of men. Sepa- 

 rated by a remarkable diversity of lan- 

 guages, some are nomadic, unacquainted 

 with agriculture, and living on ants, gums, 

 and earth, mere outcasts of humanity, 

 . . . such as the Ottomaks and Jarures; 

 others, for instance the Maquiritares and 

 Macos, have settled habitations, live on 

 fruits cultivated by themselves, are intelli- 

 gent, and of gentler manners. Extensive 

 tracts between the Cassiquiare and the Ata- 

 bapo are inhabited solely by the tapir and 

 social apes; not by man. Figures graven 

 on the rocks . . . attest that even these 

 deserts were once the seat of a higher civi- 

 lization. They bear testimony, as do also 

 the unequally developed and varying lan- 

 guages (which are amongst the oldest and 

 most imperishable of the historical records 

 of man), to the changing destinies of na- 

 tions. HUMBOLDT Views of Nature, p. 19. 

 (Bell, 1896.) 



2494. OUTLOOK ON THE UNIVERSE 

 ENLARGED BY TELESCOPE Satellites of 

 Jupiter and Ring of Saturn Discovered. 

 The increased power of vision, yielded nearly 

 two hundred and fifty years ago by the in- 

 vention of the telescope, has afforded to the 

 eye, as the organ of sensuous cosmical con- 

 templation, the noblest of all aids toward a 

 knowledge of the contents of space, and the 

 investigation of the configuration, physical 

 character, and masses of the planets and 

 their satellites. The first telescope was con- 

 structed in 1608, seven years after the death 

 of the great observer, Tycho Brahe. Its 

 earliest fruits were the successive discovery 

 of the satellites of Jupiter, the sun's spots, 

 the crescent shape of Venus, the ring of 

 Saturn as a triple planetary formation, . . . 

 telescopic stellar swarms, and the nebulae in 

 Andromeda. In 1634, the French astron- 

 omer Morin, eminent for his observations on 

 longitude, first conceived the idea of mount- 

 ing a telescope on the index-bar of an in- 

 strument of measurement, and seeking to 

 discover Arcturus by day. The perfection 

 in the graduation of the arc would have 

 failed entirely, or to a considerable extent, 

 in affording that greater precision of obser- 

 vation at which it aimed, if optical and 

 astronomical instruments had not been 

 brought into accord, and the correctness of 

 vision made to correspond with that of 

 measurement. The micrometer application 

 of fine threads stretched in the focus of the 

 telescope, to which that instrument owes its 

 real and invaluable importance, was first 

 devised six years afterward (1640). by the 

 young and talented Gascoigne. HUMBOLDT 

 Cosmos, vol. iii, p. 41. (H., 1897.) 



