579 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Reflection 

 Relics 



2858. RELATIVITY, LAW OF Dif- 

 ferent Estimates from Same Height. The 

 varying judgments may perhaps be, to some 

 extent, accounted for by that doctrine of 

 relativity which plays so important a part 

 in philosophy. This doctrine affirms that 

 the impressions made upon us by any cir- 

 cumstance, or combination of circumstances, 

 depend upon our previous state. Two trav- 

 elers upon the same height, the one having 

 ascended to it from the plain, the other hav- 

 ing descended to it from a higher elevation, 

 will be differently affected by the scene 

 around them. To the one Nature is expand- 

 ing, to the other it is contracting, and im- 

 pressions which have two such different an- 

 tecedent states are sure to differ. In our 

 scientific judgments the law of relativity 

 may also play an important part. TYNDALL 

 Fragments of Science, vol. ii, ch. 8, p. 123. 

 (A., 1897.) 



2859. RELICS OF A DISTANT LAND 

 AND AGE Deposits of Glacial Epoch. On 

 the steep slope leading from the valley of 

 the Rhone into the Val d'llliez, erratics 

 [scattered boulders], formerly many hun- 

 dreds, if not thousands, in number, are 

 strewn among the vines and under the 

 shadow of the Spanish chestnuts. They are 

 mostly of crystalline rock, while the valley 

 itself is wholly excavated in limestones and 

 slates. They have been derived from vari- 

 ous places higher up in the valley of the 

 Rhone. BONNEY Ice- work, Present and Past, 

 pt. i, ch. 1, p. 17. (A., 1896.) 



2860. RELICS OF ANCIENT PAST 

 IN PRESENT CIVILIZATION As the 

 fragment of a speech or song, a waking 

 or a sleeping vision, the dream of a van- 

 ished hand, a draft of water from a fa- 

 miliar spring, the almost perished fra- 

 grance of a pressed flower, call back the 

 singer, the loved and lost, the loved and won, 

 the home of childhood, or the parting hour, 

 so in the same manner there linger in this 

 crowning decade of the crowning century 

 bits of ancient ingenuity which recall to a 

 whole people the fragrance and beauty of 

 its past. MASON The Birth of Invention 

 (Address at Centenary of American Patent 

 System, Washington, D. C., 1891; Proceed- 

 ings of the Congress, p. 406). 



2861. RELICS OF BRUTES ARE 

 BONES AND TEETH Relics of Man Are 

 Chiefly His Works Archeology Links Ge- 

 ology and History. Nor does there appear 

 to be any reason why those methods of 

 examination which have proved so successful 

 in geology should not also be used to throw 

 light on the history of man in prehistoric 

 times. Archeology forms, in fact, the link 

 between geology and history. It is true that 

 in the case of other animals we can, from 

 their bones and teeth, form a definite idea 

 of their habits and mode of life, while in the 

 present state of our knowledge the skeleton 

 of a savage could not always be distin- 

 guished from that of a philosopher. But, 



on the other hand, while other animals leave 

 only teeth and bones behind them, the men 

 of past ages are to be studied principally 

 by their works: houses for the living, tombs 

 for the dead, fortifications for defense, tem- 

 ples for worship, implements for use, and 

 ornaments for decoration. AVEBURY Prehis- 

 toric Times, ch. 1, p. 2. (A., 1900.) 



2862. RELICS OF-PRIMEVAL MAN 



The Old Man of Cromagnon Cave-dwell- 

 ers. The beautiful work of Lartet and 

 Christy has vividly portrayed to us the an- 

 tiquities of the limestone plateau of the 

 Dordogne the ancient Aquitania remains 

 which recall to us a population of Horites, 

 or cave-dwellers, of a time anterior to the 

 dawn of history in France, living much like 

 the modern hunter-tribes of America, and 

 possibly contemporary in their 

 early history, at least with the mammoth 

 and its extinct companions of the later post- 

 Pliocene forests. . . . What manner of 

 people were they? The answer is given to 

 us by the skeletons found in the cave of 

 Cromagnon. This cavern is a shelter or 

 hollow under an overhanging ledge of lime- 

 stone, and excavated originally by the action 

 of the weather on a softer bed. It fronts 

 the southwest and the little river Vezere; 

 and, having originally been about eight feet 

 high and nearly twenty deep, must have 

 formed a cozy shelter from rain or cold or 

 summer sun, and with a pleasant outlook 

 from its front. . . . The "Old Man of 

 Cromagnon " was of great stature, being 

 nearly six feet high. More than this, his 

 bones show that he was of the strongest 

 and most athletic muscular development 

 a Samson in strength; and the bones of 

 the limbs have the peculiar form which is 

 characteristic of athletic men habituated 

 to rough walking, climbing, and running; 

 for this is, I believe, the real meaning of the 

 enormous strength of the thigh-bone and 

 the flattened condition of the leg in this 

 and other old skeletons. It occurs to- some 

 extent, tho much less than in this old man, 

 in American skeletons. His skull presents 

 all the characters of advanced age, tho the 

 teeth had been worn down to the sockets 

 without being lost, which, again, is the char- 

 acter of some, tho not of all, aged Indian 

 skulls. The skull proper, or brain-case, is 

 very long more so than in ordinary modern 

 skulls and this length is accompanied with 

 a great breadth, so that the brain was of 

 greater size than in average modern men, 

 and the frontal region was largely and 

 well developed. In this respect this most 

 ancient skull fails utterly to vindicate the 

 expectations of those who would regard pre- 

 historic men as approaching to the apes. 

 It is at the opposite extreme. The face, how- 

 ever, presented very peculiar characters. It 

 was extremely broad, with projecting cheek- 

 bones and heavy jaw, in this resembling the 

 coarse types of the American face, and the 

 eye-orbits were square and elongated later- 



