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SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Sciences 

 Sea 



certain freezing effect. Nevertheless, in di- 

 recting the largest lenses and reflectors to- 

 wards the moon, and then placing in their 

 focus very delicate thermometers, nothing 

 has ever been perceived which could justify 

 such a singular conclusion. . . . The 

 following is the explanation: 



The physicist Wells first ascertained that 

 at night objects may acquire a temperature 

 different from that of the atmosphere which 

 surrounds them. This important fact is 

 now proved. If we place in the open air 

 small pieces of cotton, eiderdown, etc., we 

 often find that their temperature is six or 

 seven or even eight degrees centigrade be- 

 low the temperature of the surrounding at- 

 mosphere. Vegetables are in the same case. 

 We cannot, then, judge of the cold which a 

 plant has experienced in the night by the 

 sole indications of a thermometer suspended 

 in the atmosphere. Place a thermometer 

 flat on the ground: its temperature will 

 descend below that of the air, if the sky is 

 very clear. A plant may be much frozen, 

 altho the air may be constantly maintained 

 at several degrees above zero [centigrade]. 



These differences of temperature are only 

 produced in perfectly clear weather. If the 

 sky is cloudy the difference disappears en- 

 tirely or becomes imperceptible. In the 

 nights of April and May the temperature is 

 often only a few degrees above zero [centi- 

 grade] . At that time plants exposed to the 

 light of the moon that is to say, to a clear 

 sky may be frozen, notwithstanding the 

 thermometer. If the moon, on the contrary, 

 does not shine, if the sky is cloudy, the tem- 

 perature of the plants not descending below 

 that of the atmosphere, they would not 

 freeze at least not till the thermometer 

 has marked zero. It is, then, true, as the 

 gardeners assert, that with quite similar 

 thermometric circumstances a plant may 

 be frozen or not, according as the moon is 

 visible or hidden behind clouds. If they are 

 mistaken, it is only in the conclusions that 

 is, in attributing the effect to the light of 

 the moon. The lunar light is here but an 

 index of a clear atmosphere: it is in conse- 

 quence of the clearness of the sky that the 

 nocturnal freezing of the plants is effected 

 [through the radiation of their heat into 

 space]. The moon contributes in no way to 

 the result. Whether it is set or on the hori- 

 zon the phenomenon would be the same. 

 FLAMMARION Popular Astronomy, bk. ii, ch. 

 8, p. 174. (A.) 



3O21. SCULPTURE AND PAINTING, 

 INFANCY OF Modern Work of Untaught 

 Rustics Like Ancient Idols. The painter's 

 and sculptor's art seems to have arisen in 

 the world from the same sort of rude begin- 

 nings which are still to be seen in children's 

 attempts to draw and carve. The sheets of 

 bark or skins on which barbarous tribes 

 have drawn men and animals, guns and 

 boats, remind us of the slates and barn 

 doors on which English children make their 

 early trials in outline. Many of these chil- 



dren will grow up and go through their lives 

 without getting much beyond this childish 

 stage. The clergyman of a country parish 

 some years ago set the cottagers to amuse 

 themselves with carving in wood such fig- 

 ures as men digging or reaping. They pro- 

 duced figures so curiously uncouth, and in 

 style so like the idols of barbarous tribes, 

 that they were kept as examples of the in- 

 fancy of sculpture, and are now to be seen 

 in the museum of Kew Gardens. TYLOB 

 Anthropology, ch. 12, p. 300. (A., 1899.) 



3022. SCULPTURE, GREEK, IN- 

 DEBTED TO ASSYRIANS AND EGYP- 

 TIANS Painting of Ancient Statuary. Greek 

 art is sometimes written of as tho it had 

 itself begun in the rudest stage, with clumsy 

 idols of wood and clay, till by efforts of 

 their own surpassing genius the Greek 

 sculptors came to hew in marble the forms 

 which are still the wonders of the world. 

 But great as Greek genius was, it never did 

 this. The Greek nations had been for ages 

 in contact with the older civilizations of the 

 Mediterranean; their starting-point was to 

 learn what art could do in Egypt, Phenicia, 

 Babylonia; and then their genius set them 

 free from the hard old conventional forms, 

 leading them to model life straight from 

 Nature, and even to fashion in marble 

 shapes of ideal strength and grace. The 

 Egyptian sculptors would not spoil polished 

 granite with paint, but many of their 

 statues w T ere colored, and there are traces 

 of paint left on the Assyrian sculptures and 

 on Greek statues, so that we are apt to have 

 a wrong idea of a Greek temple, as tho its 

 marble gods and goddesses used to be of the 

 glaring whiteness of a modern sculpture- 

 gallery. The Greek terra-cotta statuettes in 

 the British Museum are models of antique 

 female grace in form and costume, only 

 wanting the lost color restored to make them 

 the prettiest things in the world. TYLOB 

 Anthropology, ch. 12, p. 303. (A., 1899.) 



3023. SEA, EARTHQUAKES ORIG- 

 INATING BENEATH Steam the Motive Pow- 

 er of Volcanic Eruptions. It may here be 

 remarked that a very large proportion of 

 the destructive earthquakes of the world 

 have originated beneath the sea, along the 

 base of continental domes which are unusu- 

 ally steep. On the top of these slopes, 

 which, for example, form the backbone of 

 Japan and Peru, we find volcanic vents. 

 Where strong folding of the earth's crust 

 has taken place, as in the Alps and Hima- 

 layas, but at a distance from the sea, earth- 

 quakes may be frequent whilst volcanic 

 eruptions are unknown. Earthquakes occur 

 where rock-folding is in progress, and vol- 

 canoes are found where maxima of folding 

 have taken place, providing the site of these 

 is sufficiently near large bodies of water, 

 which supply the moisture which, when con- 

 verted into steam, is the motive power for 

 all great eruptions. MILNE Earthquakes, 

 ch. 17, p. 285. (A., 1899.) 



