Space 

 Spectrum 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



638 



star depths with his gaging telescope, tho 

 the mirror was eighteen inches in width; 

 but even when he brought into action his 

 great forty-feet telescope, with its mirror 

 four feet across, he still saw that cloudy 

 light which speaks of star depths as yet 

 unfathomed. Nay, the giant telescope of 

 Lord Rosse has utterly failed to penetrate 

 the ocean of space which surrounds us on 

 all sides. PROCTOR Expanse of Heaven, p. 

 302. (L. G. & Co., 1897.) 



3159. SPACE, INFINITY OF Space 

 has no bounds. Whatever be the fron- 

 tier which we may assign to it in thought, 

 our imagination immediately flies across this 

 frontier, and, looking beyond, still finds 

 space. And altho we cannot comprehend 

 the infinite, each of us feels that it is easier 

 to conceive space as unlimited than to imag- 

 ine it limited, and that it is impossible 

 that space should not exist everywhere. 

 FLAMMARION Popular Astronomy, bk. vi, ch. 

 4, p. 590. (A.) 



31 (JO. There may ex- 

 ist round our visible universe an immense 

 space, absolutely void and desert, beyond 

 \vhich, at immeasurable distances, lie other 

 universes. FLAMMARION Popular Astrono- 

 my, bk. vi, ch. 10, p. 670. (A.) 



3161. SPACE, MATERIAL SUPPLIED 

 TO EARTH FROM Ninety Thousand Tons 

 of Meteoric Matter Annually Received. 

 Day by day and year by year meteors are 

 falling upon the earth, not by hundreds and 

 thousands, but by thousands of millions. 

 This process of growth is, however, exceed- 

 ingly slow. Estimated, indeed, by the ac- 

 tual quantity of matter falling year by year 

 upon the earth, it seems like a real, appreci- 

 able growth. For let us suppose that on the 

 average each meteor of more than 140,000 

 millions which fall per annum weighs but a 

 single grain. Then the earth's weight is 

 increased each year by 20 millions of pounds, 

 or by more than 90,000 tons. Yet this is a 

 mere nothing compared with the actual 

 weight of the earth. Supposing the matter 

 thus received to be spread uniformly over 

 the whole surface of the earth, it would 

 form a layer less than the 800,000,000th 

 part of an inch in thickness; so that at 

 this rate 400 millions of years must elapse 

 before the earth's diameter would be in- 

 creased a single inch. Thus it may fairly 

 be said that tho the earth is really acquir- 

 ing new mass year by year, yet she is no 

 longer growing appreciably in dimensions. 

 PROCTOR Expanse of Heaven, p. 178. (L. 

 G. & Co., 1897.) 



3162. SPECIALIZATION OF MOVE- 

 MENTS Functions Localized in Particular 

 Regions of the Brain. Up to 1870 the opin- 

 ion which prevailed was that which the ex- 

 periments of Flourens on pigeons' brains 

 had made plausible, namely, that the dif- 

 ferent functions of the hemispheres were 

 not locally separated, but carried on each 



by the aid of the whole organ. Hitzig in 

 1870 showed, however, that in a dog's brain 

 highly specialized movements could be pro- 

 duced by electric irritation of determinate 

 regions "of the cortex [of the brain] ; and 

 Ferrier and Munk, half a dozen years later, 

 seemed to prove, either by irritations or ex- 

 cisions or both, that there were equally de- 

 terminate regions connected with the senses 

 of sight, touch, hearing, and smell. JAMES 

 Psychology, vol. i, ch. 2, p. 30. (H. II. & 

 Co., 1899.) 



3163. SPECIES, ABSOLUTENESS OF, 

 A FALLACY The Doubts of Scientists. 

 Much of the popular idea of the distinctness 

 of all species rests on a fallacy, which is 

 obvious enough when once pointed out. In 

 systematic works every plant and animal 

 must be referred to some species, every spe- 

 cies is described by such and such marks, 

 and in the books one species is as good as 

 another. The absoluteness of species, being 

 the postulate of the science, was taken for 

 granted, to begin with ; and so all the forms 

 which have been named and admitted into 

 the systematic works as species are thereby 

 assumed to be completely distinct. All the 

 doubts and uncertainties which may have 

 embarrassed the naturalist when he pro- 

 posed or admitted a particular species, the 

 nice balancing of the probabilities and the 

 hesitating character of the judgment, either 

 do not appear at all in the record or are 

 overlooked by all but the critical student. 

 ASA GRAY Natural Science and Religion, 

 lect. 1, p. 39. (S., 1891.) 



3164. SPECIES DEFINED Distinct 

 Species of Bacteria Recognized. A word 

 may be said here respecting the much-dis- 

 cussed question of species in bacteria. A 

 species may be defined as " a group of indi- 

 viduals which, however many characters 

 they share with other individuals, agree in 

 presenting one or more characters of a 

 peculiar and hereditary kind with some 

 certain degree of distinctness." Now, as re- 

 gards bacteria, there is no doubt that sepa- 

 rate species occur and tend to remain as 

 separate species. It is true, there are many 

 variations, due in large measure to the me- 

 dium in which the organisms are growing 

 variations of age, adaptation, nutrition, etc. 

 yet the different species tend to remain 

 distinct. . . . But because of the occur- 

 rence of these morphological and even patho- 

 logical differences it must not be argued 

 that the demarcation of species is wholly 

 arbitrarv. NEWMAN Bacteria, ch. 1, p. 29. 

 (G. P. P., 1899.) 



3165. SPECIES ONCE ABUNDANT 

 NOW EXTINCT The Irish Elk. The mag- 

 nificent Irish elk, or Megaceros hibernicus, 

 which attained a height of more than ten 

 feet, with antlers measuring eleven feet from 

 tip to tip, may perhaps have lived to a 

 somewhat more recent period, but appears 

 to have had a much more restricted range 

 [than the cave-bear, mammoth, etc.]. Its 



