705 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Tree 

 Triumph 



them as belonging to some creation pre- 

 ceding the present, since no such animals 

 had ever existed in our own geological peri- 

 od. Such a statement was a revelation to 

 the scientific world; some looked upon it 

 with suspicion and distrust; others, who 

 knew more of comparative anatomy, hailed 

 it as introducing a new era in science; but 

 it was not till complete specimens were 

 actually found of animals corresponding per- 

 fectly to those figured and described by Cu- 

 vier, proving beyond a doubt their actual 

 existence in ancient times, that all united 

 in wonder and admiration at the result 

 obtained by him with such scanty means. 

 AGASSIZ Geological Sketches, ser. i, ch. 7, 

 p. 185. (H. M. & Co., 1896.) 



3486. Kepler's Laws 



His Joy in Proving the Harmony of the 

 Universe. It was thus that Kepler viewed 

 this last discovery of his. His fervent dis- 

 position was roused to earnest enthusiasm 

 when he had found this law of harmony in 

 the universe. He felt instinctively that he 

 was approaching a yet grander discovery, 

 or that at least he had shown the path 

 by which a greater truth was to be reached 

 and the law of the universe recognized. 

 He might have spoken of himself, had he 

 known what was to come, as the Moses 

 of the astronomy of the future, who saw 

 the promised land afar off, but entered not 

 therein. But he chose rather to use the 

 words of the ancient mystics : " I will re- 

 joice!" he exclaimed; "I will triumph in 

 my sacred fury; for I have found the gold- 

 en vases of the Egyptians!"* PROCTOR Ex- 

 panse of Heaven, p. 109. (L. G. & Co., 1897.) 



3487. Result Attained Af- 

 ter Long Discouragement Newton's Discov- 

 ery of Gravitation Confirmed Patience and 

 Exactness of Science. At the time when 

 Newton attempted to make this comparison 

 between gravity at the surface of the earth 

 and the force which keeps the moon in her 

 orbit, the diameter of the terrestrial globe 

 was not known with sufficient exactness. 

 The result did not completely answer his 

 expectations; he found for the distance 

 which the moon falls towards the earth in 

 one second a little less than the twentieth 

 of an inch (it should be a little more, 

 about 0.053 inch) ; but altho the difference 

 was not large it appeared sufficient to pre- 

 vent him from inferring the identity which 

 he hoped to find. The cause of his failure 

 was not explained till sixteen years later. 

 In the year 1682, being present at a meeting 

 of the Royal Society of London, he heard 

 mentioned a new measure of the earth made 

 by the French astronomer Picard, and hav- 

 ing obtained the result which that astrono- 

 mer had found, he again took up the calcula- 

 tion which he had attempted sixteen years 

 previously, employing the new data ; but as 



* Referring to the belief of the Pythagoreans that cer- 

 tain sacred secrets were preserved in golden vases shown 

 to Pythagoras by Egyptian priests. 



he proceeded the desired precision came with 

 evidence more and more luminous; the 

 thinker became as if mentally dazed, and 

 felt seized with such emotion that he could 

 not continue, and begged one of his friends 

 to finish the calculation. FLAMMARION Pop- 

 ular Astronomy, bk. ii, ch. 1, p. 92. (A.) 



3488. 



Terrestrial Sub- 



stances in the Sun Revelations of the 

 Spectroscope. It has long been supposed 

 that the sun and planets have had a 

 common origin, and that hence the same 

 substances are common to them all. Can 

 we, then, detect the presence of any of 

 our terrestrial substances in the sun? We 

 have learned that the bright bands of a 

 metal are characteristic of the metal; that 

 we can, without seeing the metal, declare 

 its name from the inspection of its bands. 

 The bands are, so to speak, the voice of 

 the metal declaring its presence. Hence, if 

 any of our terrestrial metals be contained 

 in the sun's atmosphere, the dark lines 

 which they produce ought to coincide ex- 

 actly with the bright lines emitted by the 

 vapor of the metal itself. About sixty bright 

 lines have been determined as belonging to 

 the single metal iron. If the light from the 

 incandescent vapor of iron, obtained by pass- 

 ing electric sparks between two iron wires, be 

 allowed to pass through one-half of a fine 

 slit, and the light of the sun through the 

 other half, the spectra from both sources of 

 light may be placed one underneath the 

 other. When this is done it is found that 

 for every bright line of the iron spectrum 

 there is a dark line of the solar spectrum. 

 Reduced to actual calculation, this means 

 that the chances are more than 1,000,000,- 

 000,000,000,000 to 1 that iron is in the at- 

 mosphere of the sun. Comparing in the 

 same manner the spectra of other metals, 

 Professor Kirchhoff, to whose genius we owe 

 this splendid generalization, finds iron, cal- 

 cium, magnesium, sodium, chromium, and 

 many other metals, in the solar atmosphere. 

 TYNDALL Heat a Mode of Motion, lect. 17, 

 p. 512. (A., 1900.) 



3489. TRIUMPH OF SPIRIT OVER 



MATTER Scott Composing Waverley Novels. 

 " John Ballantyne ( whom Scott, while suf- 

 fering under a prolonged and painful illness, 

 employed as his amanuensis) told me that 

 tho Scott often turned himself on his pillow 

 with a groan of torment, he usually con- 

 tinued the sentence in the same breath. 

 But when dialogue of peculiar animation 

 was in progress spirit seemed to triumph 

 altogether over matter; he arose from his 

 couch and walked up and down the room, 

 raising and lowering his voice, and, as it 

 were, acting the parts. It was in this fash- 

 ion that Scott produced the far greater 

 portion of the * Bride of Lammermoor,' the 

 whole of the ' Legend of Montrose,' and 

 almost the whole of * Ivanhoe ' " (Lockhart's 

 " Life of Scott," ch. 44) . CARPENTER Mental 

 Physiology, bk. i, ch. 3, p. 139. (A., 1900.) 



