541 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Power 



burn, and so " the land of his birth and the 

 land of his adoption are united in his 

 grave." MARCUS BENJAMIN Early Presi- 

 dents of the American Association (Proceed- 

 ings of Amer. Assoc. for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, 1899). 



2666. POWER OF AIR-CURRENTS 

 Birds and Insects Blown off Shore Insects 

 Borne to Mountain-tops. Small singing 

 birds, and even butterflies (as I have myself 

 witnessed in the Pacific), are often met 

 with at great distances from the shore dur- 

 ing storms blowing off land. In a similar 

 manner insects are involuntarily carried into 

 the higher regions of the atmosphere, to an 

 elevation of 17,000 to 19,000 feet above the 

 plains. The light bodies of these insects 

 are borne upwards by the vertically ascend- 

 ing currents of air caused by the heated con- 

 dition of the earth's surface. M. Boussin- 

 gault, an admirable chemist, who ascended 

 the Gneiss Mountains of Caracas, while hold- 

 ing the appointment of Professor in the 

 newly established Mining Academy at Santa 

 Fe de Bogota, witnessed, during his ascent 

 to the summit of the Silla, a phenomenon 

 which confirmed in a most remarkable man- 

 ner this vertical ascent of air. He and his 

 companion, Don Mariano de Bivero, observed 

 at noon a number of luminous, whitish 

 bodies rise from the valley of Caracas to the 

 summit of the Silla, an elevation of 5,755 

 feet, and then sink towards the adjacent 

 seacoast. This phenomenon was uninter- 

 ruptedly prolonged for a whole hour, when 

 it was discovered that the bodies, at first 

 mistaken for a flock of small birds, were a 

 number of minute balls of grass - haulm. 

 Boussingault sent me some of this grass, 

 which was immediately recognized by Pro- 

 fessor Kunth as a species of Vilfa. HUM- 

 BOLDT Views of Nature, p. 232. (Bell, 1896.J 



2667. POWER OF CONTROLLED IN- 

 TENSITY Impulsiveness Easy. The high- 

 est form of character, however, abstractly 

 considered, must be full of scruples and in- 

 hibitions. But action, in such a character, 

 far from being paralyzed, will succeed in 

 energetically keeping on its way, some- 

 times overpowering the resistances, some- 

 times steering along the line where they 

 lie thinnest. . . . The mind of him 

 whose fields of consciousness are complex, 

 and who, with the reasons for the action, 

 sees the reasons against it, and yet, instead 

 of being palsied, acts in the way that takes 

 the whole field into consideration such a 

 mind is the ideal sort of mind that we 

 should seek to reproduce in our pupils. 

 Purely impulsive action, or action that pro- 

 ceeds to extremities regardless of conse- 

 quences, on the other hand, is the easiest 

 action in the world and the lowest in type. 

 JAMES Talks to Teachers, ch. 15, p. 179. 

 (H. H. & Co., 1900.) 



2668. POWER OF ELEMENTAL FOR- 

 CES Nature's Glassmaking Fulgurites 

 Man's Imitations Feeble. In a broad band 



of sand-hillocks [near the Rio Plata] . . . 

 I found a group of those vitrified, siliceous 

 tubes which are formed by lightning enter- 

 ing loose sand. These tubes resemble in 

 every particular those from Drigg, in Cum- 

 berland, . . . one of which was traced 

 to a depth of not less than thirty feet. The 

 internal surface is completely vitrified, glos- 

 sy, and smooth. . . . Their circumference 

 is about two inches, but in some fragments, 

 which are cylindrical and without any fur- 

 rows, it is as much as four inches. . . . 

 At Paris M. Hachette and M. Beudant suc- 

 ceeded in making tubes, in most respects 

 similar to these fulgurites, by passing very 

 strong shocks of galvanism through finely- 

 powdered glass. . . . One tube, formed 

 with pounded glass, was very nearly an inch 

 long, namely, .982, and had an internal di- 

 ameter of .019 of an inch. When we hear 

 that the strongest battery in Paris was used, 

 and that its power on a substance of such 

 easy fusibility as glass was to form tubes 

 so diminutive, we must feel greatly aston- 

 ished at the force of a shock of lightning 

 which, striking the sand in several places, 

 has formed cylinders, in one instance of at 

 least thirty feet long, and having an internal 

 bore, where not compressed, of full an inch 

 and a half; and this in a material so ex- 

 traordinarily refractory as quartz! DAR- 

 WIN Naturalist's Voyage around the World, 

 ch. 3, p. 58. (A., 1898.) 



2669. POWER OF EVIL DEPENDENT 

 ON WHAT IT FINDS Bacteria Produce Dis- 

 ease in Disordered System. It has been 

 known for some time past that not all wa- 

 ters polluted with disease-germs produce 

 disease. . . . This may depend upon the 

 infective agent, its quantity and quality, 

 the body being able in many cases to resist 

 a small dose of poison. It is, however, nec- 

 essary to infection, especially in water-borne 

 disease, -that the tissues shall be in some 

 degree disordered. The perverted action of 

 the stomach influences the acid secretion of 

 the gastric juice, through which bacilli might 

 then pass uninjured. Particularly must this 

 be so in the bacillus of cholera, which is 

 readily killed by the normal acid reaction 

 of the stomach. NEWMAN Bacteria, ch. 2, 

 p. 83. (G. P. P., 1899.) 



2670. POWER OF EXPANSION Bun- 

 ker Hill Monument Bent by Sunshine. Every 

 day when the sun shines the top of Bunker 

 Hill monument is thrown out of plumb sev- 

 eral inches by the power of expansion. The 

 same is true of any tower or shaft construct- 

 ed in the same way. The side that the sun's 

 rays fall upon is expanded, while the oppo- 

 site remains practically the same. All the 

 molecules on the sunny side are thrown into 

 greater activity, and . require more 

 space in which to move. This causes the 

 column to bend away from the sun in the 

 form of a curve. ELISHA GRAY Nature's 

 Miracles, vol. ii, ch. 14, p. 120. (F. H. & 

 H., 1900.) 



