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SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



642 



tracted recall of sounds by sights which have 

 always been coupled with them in the past. 

 I find that I can name six hundred letters 

 in two minutes on a printed page. Five 

 distinct acts of association between sight 

 and sound (not to speak of all the 

 other processes concerned) must then have 

 occurred in each second in my mind. In 

 reading entire words the speed is much more 

 rapid. Valentin relates in his " Physiology " 

 that the reading of a single page of the 

 proof, containing 2,629 letters, took him 

 1 minute and 32 seconds. In this experiment 

 each letter was understood in ds of a second, 

 but owing to the integration of letters into 

 entire words, forming each a single aggre- 

 gate impression directly associated with a 

 single acoustic image, we need not suppose 

 as many as 28 separate associations in a 

 sound. 'The figures, however, suffice to show 

 with what extreme rapidity an actual 

 sensation recalls its customary associates. 

 Both, in fact, seem to our ordinary attention 

 to come into the mind at once. JAMES Psy- 

 chology, vol. i, ch. 14, p. 557. (H. H. & 

 Co., 1899.) 



3180. SPEED OF TORTOISE SCI- 

 ENTIFICALLY MEASURED The tortoises 

 [of the Galapagos Islands], when purposely 

 moving towards any point, travel by night 

 and day, and arrive at their journey's end 

 much sooner than would be expected. The 

 inhabitants, from observing marked indi- 

 viduals, consider that they travel a distance 

 of about eight miles in two or three days. 

 One large tortoise, which I watched, walked 

 at the rate of sixty yards in ten minutes 

 that is 360 yards in the hour, or four miles 

 a day, allowing a little time for it to eat 

 on the road. DARWIN Naturalist's Voyage 

 around the World, ch. 17, p. 383. (A., 

 1893.) 



3181. SPEED OF TRAVEL AT- 

 TAINABLE BY MEANS OF BICYCLE 



Strength, Accuracy, and Lightness Com- 

 bined. Almost as remarkable as our rail- 

 roads and steamships is the new method 

 of locomotion by means of the bicycle and 

 tricycle. The principle is old enough, but 

 the perfection to which these vehicles have 

 now attained has been rendered possible by 

 the continuous growth of all kinds of deli- 

 cate tools and machines required in the 

 construction of the infinitely varied forms 

 of steam-engines, dynamos, and other rapid- 

 ly moving machinery. In the last century 

 it would not have been possible to construct 

 a modern first-class bicycle, even if any 

 genius had invented it, except at a cost of 

 several hundred pounds. The combination 

 of strength, accuracy, and lightness would 

 not then have been attainable. WALLACE 

 The Wonderful Century, ch. 1, p. 9. (D. 

 M. & Co., 1899.) 



3182. SPIRITS, DISTILLED, A ME- 

 DIEVAL DISCOVERY Intemperance a Chief 

 Evil of Modern World. It was not till the 



Middle Ages that distilled spirit, tho more 

 ancient in the east, came into use among 

 the western nations. It was generally ac- 

 cepted as beneficial, as is well seen in the 

 name of "water of life," Latin, aquavitce; 

 French, eau-de-vie; Irish, usquebaugh (for 

 shortness, whisky). Alcoholic spirit is now 

 produced in immense quantities from the 

 refuse of wine making, brewing, sugar-re- 

 fining, etc. Its employment as a habitual 

 stimulant is among the greatest evils of the 

 modern world, bringing about in the low 

 levels of the population a state of degrada- 

 tion hardly matched in the worst ages of his- 

 tory. TYLOE Anthropology, ch. 11, p. 269. 

 (A., 1899.) 



3183. SPIRITUALITY THE GOAL 

 OF EVOLUTION Victor Hugo: " The Tad- 

 pole of an Archangel." What strikes one 

 most in running the eye up this graduated 

 ascent [of life] is that the movement is in the 

 direction of what one can only call spiritual- 

 ity. From the growl of a lion we have passed 

 to the whisper of a soul, from the motive 

 fear to the motive sympathy; from the 

 icy, physical barriers of space to a nearness 

 closer than breathing; from the torturing 

 slowness of time to time's obliteration. If 

 evolution reveals anything, if science itself 

 proves anything, it is that man is a spiri- 

 tual being, and that the direction of his 

 long career is towards an ever larger, rich- 

 er, and more exalted life. On the final prob- 

 lem of man's being the voice of science is 

 supposed to be dumb. But this gradual per- 

 fecting of instruments and, as each arrives, 

 the further revelation of what lies behind 

 in Nature this gradual refining of the mind, 

 this increasing triumph over matter, this 

 deeper knowledge, this efflorescence of the 

 soul, are facts which even science must 

 reckon with. Perhaps, after all, Victor Hu- 

 go is right: " I am the tadpole of an arch- 

 angel." DRUMMOND Ascent of Man, ch. 5, 

 p. 184. (J. P. & Co., 1900.) 



3184. SPLENDOR THAT CONCEALS 



'Night Has Revelations Even More Sublime 

 than Day From Star-clusters the Distant 

 Universe Is Unseen. The blaze of light from 

 the thousand thousand stars of their [dwell- 

 ers on worlds in star-clusters] firmament 

 must blot out all light from beyond. Their 

 whole sky by which I here mean the illu- 

 minated air which in the case of our own 

 daylight limits our range of view, and forms 

 a veil beyond which we cannot penetrate 

 their whole sky must be far more re- 

 splendent than ours, because every part 

 has its hundreds on hundreds of suns. In 

 this great splendor exists a perpetual limit 

 to all extension of their researches into the 

 constitution of the universe. The light of 

 their myriads of suns blinds them to lights 

 which lie beyond; their system of suns is 

 their universe; and tho the universe thus 

 revealed to them is magnificent and stu- 

 pendous, yet we can see how minute it is, 

 compared with what is revealed to ourselves, 



