625 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Sewing 

 Shore 



put out like a candle. The rapidity of the 

 shadow, and the intensity, produced a feel- 

 ing that something material was sweeping 

 over the earth at a speed perfectly frightful. 

 I involuntarily listened for the rushing noise 

 of a mighty wind." LANGLEY New Astron- 

 omy, ch. 2, p. 38. (H. M. & Co.) 



3096. SHELLS, IMPORTANCE OF, 

 IN CHRONOLOGY The Medals of Nature. 

 In the present state of science, it is chiefly 

 by the aid of shells that we are enabled to ar- 

 rive at these results [determination of geo- 

 logical time], for of all classes the Testacea 

 are the most generally diffused in a fossil 

 state, and may be called the medals prin- 

 cipally employed by Nature in recording the 

 chronology of past events. LYELL Principles 

 of Geology, bk. i, ch. 13, p. 183. (A. 1854.) 



3097. SHELLS, POMPEIAN, UN- 

 CHANGED THROUGH CENTURIES Pic- 

 tures Preserved Lines Written by Vanished 

 Hands Enduring Record of the Evanescent. 

 The writings scribbled by the soldiers on 

 the walls of their barracks [at Pompeii], 

 and the names of the owners of each house 

 written over the doors,, are still perfectly 

 legible. The colors of fresco paintings on the 

 stuccoed walls in the interior of build- 

 ings are almost as vivid as if they were 

 just finished. There are public fountains 

 decorated with shells laid out in patterns in 

 the same fashion as those now seen in the 

 town of Naples ; and in the room of a paint- 

 er, who was perhaps a naturalist, a large col- 

 lection of shells was found, comprising a 

 great variety of Mediterranean species, in 

 as good a state of preservation as if they 

 had remained for the same number of years 

 in a museum. A comparison of these re- 

 mains with those found so generally in a 

 fossil state would not assist us in obtaining 

 the least insight into the time required to 

 produce a certain degree of decomposition or 

 mineralization; for, altho under favorable 

 circumstances much greater alteration might 

 doubtless have been brought about in a 

 shorter period, yet the example before us 

 shows that an inhumation of seventeen cen- 

 turies may sometimes effect nothing towards 

 the reduction of shells to the state in which 

 fossils are usually found. LYELL Principles 

 of Geology, bk. ii, ch. 24, p. 392. (A., 1854.) 



3098. SHOCK, TRANSMITTED 



Earthquake Heaves Ocean Wave on the 

 Shore. Shortly after the shock [of the 

 Chilean earthquake of 1835], a great wave 

 was seen from the distance of three or four 

 miles, approaching in the middle of the bay 

 with a smooth outline; but along the shore 

 it tore up cottages and trees, as it swept 

 onwards with irresistible force. At the head 

 of the bay it broke in a fearful line of white 

 breakers, which rushed up to a height of 23 

 vertical feet above the highest spring-tides. 

 Their force must have been prodigious, for 

 at the fort a cannon with its carriage, esti- 

 mated at four tons in weight, was moved 15 



feet inwards. A schooner was left in the 

 midst of the ruins, 200 yards from the 

 beach. The first wave was followed by two 

 others, which in their retreat carried away 

 a vast wreck of floating objects. . . . 

 The great wave must have traveled slowly, 

 for the inhabitants of Talcahuano had time 

 to run up the hills behind the town; and 

 some sailors pulled out seaward, trusting 

 successfully to their boat riding securely 

 over the swell, if they could reach it before 

 it broke. DARWIN Naturalist's Voyage 

 around the World, ch. 14, p. 305. (A., 

 1898.) 



3O99. Wide Reach of 



Earthquake of Lisbon Felt Over Half the 

 World Mighty Wave in West Indies. The 

 area over which this convulsion [the earth- 

 quake of Lisbon] extended is very remark- 

 able. It has been computed, says Humboldt, 

 that on the 1st [of] November, 1755, a por- 

 tion of the earth's surface four times greater 

 than the extent of Europe was simultane- 

 ously shaken. The shock was felt in the 

 Alps and on the coast of Sweden, in small 

 inland lakes on the shores of the Baltic, 

 in Thuringia, and in the flat country of 

 northern Germany. The thermal springs of 

 Toplitz dried up, and again returned, inun- 

 dating everything with water discolored by 

 ocher. In the islands of Antigua, Barba- 

 does, and Martinique, in the West Indies, 

 where the tide usually rises little more than 

 two feet, it suddenly rose above twenty feet, 

 the water being discolored and of an inky 

 blackness. The movement was also sensible 

 in the great lakes of Canada. At Algiers 

 and Fez, in the north of Africa, the agita- 

 tion of the earth was as violent as in Spain 

 and Portugal; and at the distance of eight 

 leagues from Morocco, a village with the in- 

 habitants to the number of about 8,000 or 

 10,000 persons, are said to have been swal- 

 lowed up, the earth soon afterwards closing 

 over them. LYELL Principles of Geology, 

 bk. ii, ch. 29, p. 495. (A., 1854.) 



31 GO. SHORE, INHOSPITABLE In- 

 sects Blown Far Out to Sea Off Patagonia. 

 When seventeen miles off Cape Corrientes, 

 I had a net overboard to catch pelagic ani- 

 mals. Upon drawing it up, to my surprise I 

 found a considerable number of beetles in it, 

 and altho in the open sea, they did not ap- 

 pear much injured by the salt water. . . . 

 At first I thought that these insects had 

 been blown from the shore; but upon re- 

 flecting that out of the eight species four 

 were aquatic, and two others partly so in 

 their habits, it appeared to me most prob- 

 able that they were floated into the sea by a 

 small stream which drains a lake near Cape 

 Corrientes. On any supposition it is an 

 interesting circumstance to find live in- 

 sects swimming in the open ocean seventeen 

 miles from the nearest point of land. There 

 are several accounts of insects having 

 been blown off the Patagonian shore. Cap- 

 tain Cook observed it, as did more lately 



