Storms 

 Strength 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



656 



the earthquake are as absolute silence. 

 PROCTOR Expanse of Heaven, p. 300. (L. G. 

 & Co., 1897.) 



3243. STRAIN OF DESIRE TOWARD 

 THE UNKNOWN Recollection by Effort. 

 Whenever we seek to recall something for- 

 gotten, or to state the reason for a judgment 

 which we have made intuitively, the desire 

 strains and presses in a direction which it 

 feels to be right, but towards a point which 

 it is unable to see. In short, the absence 

 of an item is a determinant of our repre- 

 sentations quite as positive as its presence 

 can ever be. JAMES Psychology, vol. i, ch. 

 14, p. 584. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



3244. STRATA ARRANGED FOR 

 GEOLOGIST'S STUDY Granite Wedges 

 Forced through Sandstone. Imagine a large 

 wedge forced from below through a sheet of 

 thick ice on a river or pond. First the ice 

 rises in an angle, that becomes sharper and 

 higher as the wedge rises; then it cracks 

 and opens, presenting its upturned edges 

 on both sides, and through comes the wedge. 

 And this is a very different process, be it 

 observed, from what takes place when the 

 ice merely cracks and the water issues 

 through the crack. In the one case there 

 is a rent and water diffused over the sur- 

 face; in the other there is the projecting 

 wedge, flanked by the upturned edges of 

 the ice; and these edges, of course, serve 

 as indices to decide regarding the ice's thick- 

 ness and the various layers of which it is 

 composed. Now, such are the phenomena 

 exhibited by the wedge-like granitic ridge. 

 The lower Old Red Sandstone, tilted up 

 against it on both sides, at an angle of 

 about eighty, exhibits in some parts a sec- 

 tion of well-nigh two thousand feet, stretch- 

 ing from the lower conglomerate to the soft, 

 unfossiliferous sandstone, which forms in 

 Ross and Cromarty the upper beds of the 

 formation. There is a mighty advantage 

 to the geologist in this arrangement. When 

 books are packed up in a deep box or chest 

 we have to raise the upper tier ere we can 

 see the tier below, and this second tier ere 

 we can arrive at a third, and so on to the 

 bottom. But when well arranged on the 

 shelves of a library, we have merely to run 

 the eye along their lettered backs, and we 

 can thus form an acquaintance with them 

 at a glance, which in the other case would 

 have cost us a good deal of trouble. Now, 

 in the neighborhood of this granitic wedge, 

 or wall, the strata are arranged, not like 

 books in a box such was their original po- 

 sition but like books on the shelves of a 

 library. They have been unpacked and ar- 

 ranged by the uptilting agent, and the 

 knowledge of them, which could only have 

 been attained in their first circumstances 

 by perforating them with a shaft of im- 

 mense depth, may now be acquired simply 

 by passing over their edges. A morning's 

 saunter gives us what would have cost, but 

 for the upheaving granite, the labor of a 



hundred miners for five years. MILLER The 

 Old Red Sandstone, ch. 6, p. 98. (G. & L., 

 1851.) 



3245. STRATA OF A MOUNTAIN 



An Amended Illustration. The geologists of 

 the school of Werner used to illustrate what 

 we may term the anatomy of the earth, as 

 seen through the spectacles of their system, 

 by an onion and its coats; they represented 

 the globe as a central nucleus, encircled by 

 concentric coverings, each covering consti- 

 tuting a geological formation. The onion, 

 through the introduction of a better school, 

 has become obsolete as an illustration ; but 

 to restore it again, tho for another purpose, 

 we have merely to cut it through the middle, 

 and turn downwards the planes formed by 

 the knife. It then represents, with its coats, 

 hills . . . such as Ben Nevis, ere the 

 granite had perforated the gneiss, or the 

 porphyry broken through the granite. 

 MILLER The Old Red Sandstone, ch. 2, p. 25. 

 (G. & L., 1851.) 



3246. STRATEGY OF DEER PRO- 

 TECTING FAWN Fawn's Instinct of Flight 

 and Concealment. I have had frequent op- 

 portunities of observing the young, from 

 one to three days old, of the Cervus campes- 

 tris the common deer of the pampas and 

 the perfection of its instincts at that tender 

 age seem very wonderful in a ruminant. 

 When the doe with fawn is approached 

 by a horseman, even when accompanied with 

 dogs, she stands perfectly motionless, ga- 

 zing fixedly at the enemy, the fawn motion- 

 less at her side; and suddenly, as if. at a 

 preconcerted signal, the fawn rushes direct- 

 ly away from her at its utmost speed, and 

 going to a distance of six hundred to a 

 thousand yards conceals itself in a hollow 

 in the ground or among the long grass, lying 

 down very close with neck stretched out 

 horizontally, and will thus remain until 

 sought by the dam. When very young, if 

 found in its hiding-place, it will allow itself 

 to be taken, making no further effort to 

 escape. After the fawn has run away the 

 doe still maintains her statuesque attitude, 

 as if resolved to await the onset, and only 

 when the dogs are close to her she also 

 rushes away, but invariably in a direction 

 as nearly opposite to that taken by the fawn 

 as possible. At first she runs slowly, with 

 a limping gait, and frequently pausing, as 

 if to entice her enemies on, like a partridge, 

 duck, or plover when driven from its young ; 

 but as they begin to press her more closely 

 her speed increases, becoming greater the 

 further she succeeds in leading them from 

 the starting-point. 



The alarm-cry of this deer is a peculiar 

 whistling bark, a low but far - reaching 

 sound; but when approaching a doe with 

 young I have never been able to hear it, 

 nor have I seen any movement on the part 

 of the doe. Yet it is clear that in some 

 mysterious way she inspires the fawn with 

 sudden, violent fear, while the fawn, on its 



