Prevision 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



553 



would see himself again a child, for the 

 aspect of the earth would not arrive where 

 he was till after a long delay. 



There is here neither a vision, nor a phe- 

 nomenon of memory, nor a marvelous or 

 supernatural action, but an actual, posi- 

 tive, natural, and incontestable fact; what 

 has been .for a long time the past for the 

 earth is only the present for a distant ob- 

 server in space. This vision is, none the 

 less, very astonishing. Indeed, it is a singu- 

 lar fact that it is impossible to see the stars 

 as they are at the moment when we examine 

 them, and that we are only able to see their 

 past! 



Thus the progressive motion of light car- 

 ries with it through infinitude the ancient 

 history of all the suns and all the worlds 

 expressed in an eternal present. 



The metaphysical reality of this vast 

 problem is such that we can now conceive 

 the omnipresence of the world in all its du- 

 ration. Events vanish for the place which 

 brings them forth, but they remain in space. 

 This successive and endless projection of all 

 the facts accomplished on each of the worlds 

 is performed in the bosom of the Infinite 

 Being whose omnipresence thus maintains 

 everything in an eternal permanence. 

 FLAMMARION Popular Astronomy, bk. vi, ch. 

 7, p. 617. (A.) 



2718. PRESENT THE KEY TO PAST 



Rocks Worn Down Now as in Ancient 

 Days. The present, geologists tell us, con- 

 tains the key to the past. If we wish to find 

 out how rocks have been removed, and what 

 has since become of them, we must observe 

 what is taking place under the influence of 

 existing agents of change. How, then, are 

 rocks being affected at present? We do not 

 proceed far in our investigation before we 

 discover that they are everywhere becoming 

 disintegrated. In one place they are break- 

 ing up into angular fragments; in another, 

 crumbling down into grit, sand, or clay. 

 Brooks and rivers and the waves upon our 

 coasts are constantly undermining them; 

 everywhere, in short, rocks are being as- 

 saulted and reduced. GEIKIE Earth Sculp- 

 ture, ch. 2, p. 18. (G. P. P., 1898.) 



2719. PRESERVATION OF STATUES 

 IN BED OF LAVA Long-enduring Heat. 

 But it must not be supposed that this 

 complete fusion of rocky matter coming in 

 contact with lava is of universal or even com- 

 mon occurrence. It probably happens when 

 fresh portions of incandescent matter come 

 successively in contact with fusible mate- 

 rials. In many of the dikes which intersect 

 the tuffs and lavas of Etna there is scarcely 

 any perceptible alteration effected by heat 

 on the edges of the horizontal beds, in con- 

 tact with the vertical and more crystalline 

 mass. On the side of Mompiliere, one of 

 the towns overflowed in [a previous] erup- 

 tion . . . , an excavation was made in 

 1704, and by immense labor the workmen 

 reached, at the depth of thirty-five feet, the 



gate of the principal church, where were 

 three statues, held in high veneration. One 

 of these, together with a bell, some money, 

 and other articles, was extracted in a good 

 state of preservation from beneath a great 

 arch formed by the lava. It .seems very ex- 

 traordinary that any works of art, not en- 

 cased with tuff, like those in Herculaneum, 

 should have escaped fusion in hollow spaces, 

 left open in this lava-current, which was so 

 hot at Catania eight years after it entered 

 the town that it was impossible to hold the 

 hand in some of the crevices. LYELL Prin- 

 ciples of Geology, bk. ii, ch. 25, p. 401. (A., 

 1854.) 



2 7 2O. PRESSURE IN DEPTHS OF 

 OCEAN At a depth of 2,500 fathoms the 

 pressure is, roughly speaking, two and a half 

 tons per square inch that is to say, several 

 times greater than the pressure exerted by 

 the steam upon the piston of our most pow- 

 erful engines. Or, to put the matter in 

 other words, the pressure per square inch 

 upon the body of every animal that lives at 

 the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean is about 

 twenty-five times greater than the pressure 

 that will drive a railway train. HICKSON 

 Fauna of the Deep ea,ch. 2, p. 19. (A., 1894.) 



2721. 



Drives Water into 



Pores of Sunken Wood. If wood be sunk 

 to vast depths in the sea it may be impreg- 

 nated with water suddenly. Captain Scores- 

 by informs us, in his " Account of the Arctic 

 Regions," that on one occasion a whale, on 

 being harpooned, ran out all the lines in the 

 boat, which it then dragged under water, 

 to the depth of several thousand feet, the 

 men having just time to escape to a piece 

 of ice. When the fish returned to the sur- 

 face " to blow " it was struck a second time, 

 and soon afterwards killed. The moment 

 it expired it began to sink an unusual cir- 

 cumstance, which w r as found to be caused 

 by the weight of the sunken boat, which 

 still remained attached to it. By means of 

 harpoons and ropes the fish was prevented 

 from sinking until it w r as released from the 

 weight by connecting a rope to the lines of 

 the attached boat, which was no sooner 

 done than the fish rose again to the surface. 

 The sunken boat was then hauled up with 

 great labor, for so heavy was it that, altho 

 before the accident it would have been buoy- 

 ant when full of water, yet it now required 

 a boat at each end to keep it from sinking. 

 " When it was hoisted into the ship the paint 

 came off the wood in large sheets, and the 

 planks, which were of wainscot, were as 

 completely soaked in every pore as if they 

 had lain at the bottom of the sea since the 

 flood! A wooden apparatus that accom- 

 panied the boat in its progress through 

 the deep, consisting chiefly of a piece of 

 thick deal about fifteen inches square, hap- 

 pened to fall overboard, and tho it originally 

 consisted of the lightest fir, sank in the 

 water like a stone. The boat was rendered 

 useless; even the wood of which it was 



