Vegetation 

 Ventriloquism 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



732 



high temperature, which is pretty constant 

 at 80 F., and the quantity of carbonic acid 

 that it contains, render it peculiarly fitted 

 to afford nourishment to vegetable life. The 

 banks of travertin are everywhere covered 

 with reeds, lichen, confervse, and various 

 kinds of aquatic vegetables ; and at the same 

 time that the process of vegetable life is 

 going on the crystallizations of the calcare- 

 ous matter, which is everywhere deposited 

 in consequence of the escape of carbonic 

 acid, likewise proceed. There is, I believe, 

 no place in the world where there is a more 

 striking example of the opposition or con- 

 trast of the laws of animate and inanimate 

 Nature, of the forces of inorganic chemical 

 affinity, and those of the powers of life." 



The same observer informs us that he 

 fixed a stick in a mass of travertin covered 

 by the water in the month of May, and in 

 April following he had some difficulty in 

 breaking, with a sharp-pointed hammer, the 

 mass which adhered to the stick, and which 

 was several inches in thickness. The upper 

 part was a mixture of light tufa and the 

 leaves of confervas; below this was a darker 

 and more solid travertin, containing black 

 and decomposed masses of confervas; in 

 the inferior part the travertin was more 

 solid, and of a gray color, but with cavi- 

 ties probably produced by the decomposition 

 of vegetable matter. LYELL Principles of 

 Geology, bk. ii, ch. 16, p. 243. (A., 1854.) 



3628. VEGETATION, GIGANTIC, OF 

 TROPICS A Forest of Arum. One of the 

 islands was low and sandy, and half of it 

 was covered with gigantic arum-trees, the 

 often-mentioned Caladium arbor escens, which 

 presented a strange sight. Most people 

 are acquainted with the little British spe- 

 cies Arum maculatum, which grows in 

 hedge-bottoms, and many, doubtless, have 

 admired the larger kinds grown in hot- 

 houses; they can therefore form some idea 

 of a forest of arums. On this islet the 

 woody stems of the plants near the bot- 

 tom were eight to ten inches in diameter, 

 and the trees were twelve to fifteen feet 

 high, all growing together in such a manner 

 that there was just room for a man to walk 

 freely between them. There was a canoe 

 inshore, with a man and a woman; the 

 man, who was hooting with all his might, 

 told us in passing that his son was lost 

 in the " aningal " (arum-grove). He had 

 strayed while walking ashore, and the father 

 had been an hour waiting for him in vain. 

 BATES Naturalist on the River Amazon, 

 ch. 5, p. 664. (Hum., 1880.) 



3629. VEGETATION, MICROSCOPIC 



-The " Red Snow" of the Alps. Some- 

 times, in the midst of the wide expanse, one 

 comes upon a patch of the so-called red snow 

 of the Alps. At a distance one would say 

 that such a spot marked some terrible scene 

 of blood, but, as you come nearer, the hues 

 are so tender and delicate, as they fade from 

 deep red to rose, and so die into the pure 



colorless snow around, that the first im- 

 pression is completely dispelled. This red 

 snow is an organic growth, a plant spring- 

 ing up in such abundance that it colors ex- 

 tensive surfaces, just as the microscopic 

 plants dye our pools with green in the 

 spring. It is an alga (Protocoites nivalis), 

 well known in the arctics, where it forms 

 wide fields in the summer. AGASSIZ Geo- 

 logical Sketches, ser. i, ch. 8, p. 227. (H, 

 M. & Co., 1896.) 



363O. VELOCITY OF LIGHT Ex- 

 actness of Newcomb's Observations Rays 

 Sent Across a Measured Space. All ear- 

 lier efforts of the kind were thrown into 

 the shade by Professor Newcomb's arduous 

 operations at Washington in 1880-1882. The 

 scale upon which they were conducted was 

 in itself impressive. Foucault's entire appa- 

 ratus in 1862 had been enclosed in a single 

 room; Newcomb's revolving and fixed mir- 

 rors, between which the rays of light were 

 to run their timed course, were set up on 

 opposite shores of the Potomac, at a distance 

 of nearly four kilometers [about 2y 2 miles]. 

 This advantage was turned to the utmost 

 account by ingenuity and skill in contri- 

 vance and execution; and the deduced velocity 

 of 299,860 kilometers (=186,328 miles) a 

 second had an estimated error (30 kilo- 

 meters [18.63 miles]) only one- tenth that 

 ascribed by Cornu to his own result in 1874. 

 CLERKE History of Astronomy, pt. ii, ch. 

 6, p. 297. (Bl., 1893.) 



3631. Happy Conjecture 



of Bacon. The second book of Lord Bacon's 

 " Novum Organum " gives us the earliest 

 views on the velocity of light and the prob- 

 ability of its requiring a certain time for its 

 transmission. He speaks of the time re- 

 quired by a ray of light to traverse the 

 enormous distances of the universe, and pro- 

 poses the question whether those stars yet 

 exist which we now see shining. We are 

 astonished to meet with this happy conjec- 

 ture in a work whose intellectual author 

 was far behind his contemporaries in mathe- 

 matical, astronomical, and physical knowl- 

 edge. The velocity of reflected solar light 

 was first measured by Kb'mer (November, 

 1675) by comparing the periods of occulta- 

 tion of Jupiter's satellites; while the veloc- 

 ity of the direct light of the fixed stars was 

 ascertained (in the autumn of 1727) by 

 means of Bradley's great discovery of aber- 

 ration, which afforded objective evidence of 

 the translatory movement /of the earth, and 

 of the truth of the Copernican system. 

 FUMBOLDT Cosmos, vol. iii, p. 80. (H., 

 1897.) 



3632. VELOCITY OF OCEAN CUR- 

 RENTS Narrowing of Channel Increases 

 Speed of Crowded Waters. The ordinary 

 velocity of the principal currents of the 

 ocean is from one to three miles per hour; 

 but when the boundary lands converge, large 

 bodies of water are driven gradually into a 

 narrow space, and then wanting lateral room 



