527 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Photography 



and interest, even, as regards those), led 

 to the further inquiry as to what it was 

 made of, and then to finding the unexpected 

 relations which it bore to the earth and our 

 own daily lives on it, the conclusion being 

 that, in a physical sense, it made us and 

 re-creates us, as it were, daily, and that the 

 knowledge of the intimate ties which unite 

 man with it brings results of the most prac- 

 tical and important kind, which a genera- 

 tion ago were unguessed at. 



This new branch of inquiry is sometimes 

 called celestial physics, sometimes solar 

 physics, and is sometimes more rarely re- 

 ferred to as the new astronomy. LANGLEY 

 The New Astronomy, ch. 1, p. 3. (H. M. & 

 Co., 1896.) 



2599. PHYSIOLOGY AGAINST THE 

 MATERIALIST Thought Not in Brain 

 Molecular Movements Are "but Concomitants 

 of Mental Action. The only thing which 

 cerebral physiology tells us, when studied 

 with the aid of molecular physics, is against 

 the materialist, so far as it goes. It tells 

 us that during the present life, altho thought 

 and feeling are always manifested in con- 

 nection with a peculiar form of matter, 

 yet by no possibility can thought and feel- 

 ing be in any sense the products of matter. 

 Nothing could be more grossly unscientific 

 than the famous remark of Cabanis, that 

 the brain secretes thought as the liver se- 

 cretes bile. It is not even correct to say 

 that thought goes on in the brain. What 

 goes on in the brain is an amazingly com- 

 plex series of molecular movements with 

 which thought and feeling are in some un- 

 known way correlated, not as effects or as 

 causes, but as concomitants. FISKE Destiny 

 of Man, ch. 16, p. 109. (H. M. & Co., 1900.) 



2600. PICTURE DRAWN BY LIGHT- 

 NING STROKE Form Photographed in Death. 

 When a disruptive discharge takes place 

 through the air between two conductors, 

 in many cases a part of the matter of each 

 conductor is transferred to the other. [Ac- 

 counts have been] received . . . from 

 different sources of a remarkable phenome- 

 non connected with this action. In the case 

 of a person killed many years ago by light- 

 ning, while standing near to the whitewashed 

 wall of a room, the discharge took place be- 

 tween his body and the wall, and on the 

 latter was depicted, in dark color, an image 

 of his person. Other cases of the same kind 

 had been observed. HENRY Scientific Wri- 

 tings, vol. i, p. 293. (Sm. Inst., 1886.) 



2601. PICTURE-WRITING Transition 

 from Hieroglyph to Sound-sign Phonograph 

 Returns to the Actual Sound. In examining 

 the methods of writing, we began with the 

 rude hunter's pictures, passing on to the 

 Egyptian's use of a picture to represent the 

 sound of its name, then to the breaking 

 down of the picture into a mere sound-sign, 

 till in this last stage the connection between 

 figure and sound becomes so apparently ar- 



bitrary that the child has to be taught, this 

 sign stands for A, this for B. In curious 

 contrast with this is the modern invention 

 of the phonograph, where the actual sound 

 spoken into the vibrating diaphragm marks 

 indentations in the traveling strip of tin- 

 foil, by which the diaphragm can be after- 

 wards caused to repeat the vibrations and 

 reutter the sound. When one listens to the 

 tones coming forth from the strip of foil the 

 South Sea Islander's fancy of the talking 

 chip seems hardly unreasonable. TYLOR 

 Anthropology, ch. 7, p. 181. (A., 1899.) 



2602. PIGMENTS DIFFER FROM 

 RAYS No Natural Color la Pure Blue and 

 Yellow Lights Do Not Make Green. You 

 will find it stated in many books that blue 

 and yellow lights mixed together produce 

 green. But blue and yellow have been just 

 proved to be complementary colors, produ- 

 cing white by their mixture. The mixture 

 of blue and yellow pigments undoubtedly 

 produces green, but the mixture of pigments 

 is totally different from the mixture of 

 lights. Helmholtz has revealed the cause 

 of the green in the case of a mixture of 

 blue and yellow pigments. No natural color 

 is pure. A blue liquid or a blue powder 

 permits not only the blue to pass through 

 it, but a portion of the adjacent green. 

 A yellow powder is transparent not only 

 to the yellow light, but also in part to the 

 adjacent green. Now, when blue and yellow 

 are mixed together the blue cuts off the 

 yellow, the orange, and the red; the yel- 

 low, on the other hand, cuts off the violet, 

 the indigo, and the blue. Green is the only 

 color to which both are transparent, and 

 the consequence is that when white light 

 falls upon a mixture of yellow and blue 

 powders the green alone is sent back to the 

 eye. TYNDALL Lectures on Light, lect. 1, 

 p. 37. (A., 1898.) 



2603. PILOTS OF CIVILIZATION 



The Buffalo a Pioneer Bison-tracks Show 

 the Best Passes over Mountains. It is also 

 a remarkable fact that the North- American 

 bison, or buffalo, has exerted an influence 

 on geographical discoveries in pathless moun- 

 tain districts. These animals advance in 

 herds of many thousands in search of a 

 milder climate, during winter, in the coun- 

 tries south of the Arkansas River. Their 

 size and cumbrous forms render it difficult 

 for them to cross high mountains on these 

 migratory courses, and a well-trodden buf- 

 falo-path is therefore followed wherever it 

 is met with, as it invariably indicates the 

 most convenient passage across the moun- 

 tains. Thus buffalo-paths have indicated 

 the best tracks for passing over the Cumber- 

 land Mountains in the southwestern parts 

 of Virginia and Kentucky, and over the 

 Rocky Mountains between the sources of 

 the Yellowstone and Platte rivers, and be- 

 tween the southern branch of the Columbia 

 and the Californian Rio Colorado. HUM- 

 BOLDT Views of Nature, p. 42. (Bell, 1896.) 



