693 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Thought 

 Time 



had perished; thousands more alighting even 

 upon the boiling sweets, the floor covered 

 and windows darkened with bees, some 

 crawling, others flying, and others still so 

 completely besmeared as to be able neither 

 to crawl nor fly, not one in ten able to carry 

 home its ill-gotten spoils, and yet the air 

 filled with new hosts of thoughtless comers. 

 ROMANES Animal Intelligence, ch. 4, p. 

 184. (A., 1899.) 



3428. THUNDER-STORM THE RE- 

 LEASE OF STORED ENERGY All of the 



phenomena of a thunder-storm, hail-storm, or 

 tornado, with their terrific manifestations 

 in the form of thunder, lightning, wind, and 

 rain, are simply the result of a sudden re- 

 leasing of the stored energy in the myriads 

 of moisture spherules that were placed there 

 by the power of the sun when they were 

 silently and invisibly wrested from the sur- 

 face of the water, or from condensed mois- 

 ture globules floating in the air. ELISHA 

 GRAY Nature's Miracles, vol. ii, ch. 2, p. 

 20. (F. H. & H., 1900.) 



3429. TIME, ANCIENT METHODS 

 OF MEASURING Difficulties Overcome by 

 Ancient Astronomers. During many centu- 

 ries time was only measured by sun-dials 

 and water-clocks, or clepsydras. Water, run- 

 ning out regularly from a reservoir, is re- 

 ceived in a vase which shows every hour. 

 A float placed upon the liquid carries a lit- 

 tle figure of a boy, which rises regularly 

 and points to the hours. The ancient as- 

 tronomers of China, Asia, Chaldea, and 

 Greece measured in this way the hours of 

 the night, the transits of stars across the 

 meridian, and the duration of eclipses. 

 FLAMMARION Popular Astronomy, bk. ii, 

 ch. 2, p. 19. (A.) 



3430. TIME, ELEMENT OF, IN BAC- 

 TERIAL ANALYSIS Rapid Multiplication 

 of Bacteria May Defeat Experiment. When 

 the sample has been duly collected, sealed, 

 and a label affixed bearing the date, time, 

 and conditions of collection and full address, 

 it should be transmitted with the least pos- 

 sible delay to the laboratory. Frequently 

 it is desirable to pack the bottles in a small 

 ice case for transit. On receipt of such a 

 sample of water the examination must be 

 immediately proceeded with, in order to 

 avoid, as far as possible, the fallacies arising 

 from the rapid multiplication of germs. 

 Even in almost pure water, at the ordinary 

 temperature of a room, Frankland found 

 organisms multiplied as follows: 



NO. OF GERMS 



HOURS. PER C. C. 

 1 ,073 



6 6,028 



24 7,262 



48 43,100 



Another series of observations revealed 

 the same sort of rapid increase of bacteria. 

 On the date of collection the micro-organ- 

 isms per c. c. in a deep- well water (in April) 

 were seven. After one day's standing at room 



temperature the number had reached twenty- 

 one per c. c. After three days under the 

 same conditions it was 495,000 per c. c. At 

 blood-heat the increase would, of course, 

 be much greater, as a higher temperature 

 is more favorable to multiplication. NEW- 

 MAN Bacteria, ch. 2, p. 38. (G. P. P., 1899.) 



3431. TIME, EVOLUTION GIVES 

 NEW PERSPECTIVE OF Reveals the Unity 

 of Nature. Evolution has done for time 

 what astronomy has done for space. As sub- 

 lime to the reason as the science of the stars, 

 as overpowering to the imagination, it has 

 thrown the universe into a fresh perspec- 

 tive, and given the human mind a new di- 

 mension. Evolution involves not so much 

 a change of opinion as a change in man's 

 whole view of the world and of life. It is 

 not the statement of a mathematical propo- 

 sition which men are called upon to declare 

 true or false. It is a method of looking upon 

 Nature. Science for centuries devoted itself 

 to the cataloguing of facts and the discovery 

 of laws. Each worker toiled in his own 

 little place the geologist in his quarry, the 

 botanist in his garden, the biologist in his 

 laboratory, the astronomer in his observa- 

 tory, the historian in his library, the arche- 

 ologist in his museum. Suddenly these 

 workers looked up; they spoke to one 

 another; they had each discovered a law; 

 they whispered its name. It was "evolu- 

 tion." Henceforth their work was one, sci- 

 ence was one, the world was one, and mind, 

 which discovered the oneness, was one. 

 DRUMMOND Ascent of Man, int., p. 8. (J. 

 P., 1900.) 



3432. TIME, GEOLOGIC ,4 Thousand 

 Feet of Chalk Long in Depositing. The 

 chalk [of the English cliffs] is in places more 

 than a thousand feet thick. I think you 

 will agree with me that it must have taken 

 some time for the skeletons of animalcules 

 of a hundredth of an inch in diameter to 

 heap up such a mass as that. I have said 

 that throughout the thickness of the chalk 

 the remains of other animals are scattered. 

 These remains are often in the most ex- 

 quisite state of preservation. The valves 

 of the shellfishes are commonly adherent; 

 the long spines of some of the sea-urchins, 

 which would be detached by the smallest 

 jar, often remain in their places. In a 

 word, it is certain that these animals have 

 lived and died when the place which they 

 now occupy was the surface of as much of 

 the chalk as had then been deposited ; and 

 that each has been covered up by the layer 

 of globigerina-mud, upon which the crea- 

 tures embedded a little higher up have, in 

 like manner, lived and died. But some of 

 these remains prove the existence of reptiles 

 of vast size in the chalk sea. These lived 

 their time, and had their ancestors and 

 descendants, which assuredly implies time, 

 reptiles being of slow growth. . . . Thus, 

 not onlv is it certain that the chalk is the 



