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SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



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pulley in the same device. For hoisting logs, 

 a rope was fastened to the tops of posts, 

 passed down under a log in the ground, 

 back over the top of the post, and down to 

 the ground, where it was seized by men. 

 MASON Aboriginal American Mechanics 

 (Memoirs of the International Congress of 

 Anthropology, p. 76). (Sch. P. C.) 



3728. WHIRLWIND AS OBSERVED 

 BY FRANKLIN A Means of Seed-dispersal 

 Franklin tells us, in one of his letters, 

 that he saw, in Maryland, a whirlwind whicli 

 began by taking up the dust which lay in 

 the road, in the form of a sugar-loaf, with 

 the pointed end downwards, and soon after 

 grew to the height of forty or fifty feet, 

 being twenty or thirty in diameter. It ad- 

 vanced in a direction contrary to the wind; 

 and altho the rotary motion of the column 

 was surprisingly rapid, its onward progress 

 was sufficiently slow to allow a man to 

 keep pace with it on foot. Franklin fol- 

 lowed it on horseback, accompanied by his 

 son, for three-quarters of a mile, and saw 

 it enter a wood, where it twisted and turned 

 round large trees with surprising force. 

 These were carried up in a spiral line, and 

 were seen flying in the air, together with 

 boughs and innumerable leaves, which, from 

 their height, appeared reduced to the ap- 

 parent size of flies. As this cause operates 

 at different intervals of time throughout 

 a great portion of the earth's surface, it 

 may be the means of bearing not only plants, 

 but insects, land testacea and their eggs, 

 with many other species of animals, to 

 points which they could never otherwise 

 have reached, and from which they may then 

 begin to propagate themselves again as from 

 a new center. LYELL Principles of Geology, 

 bk. iii, ch. 37, p. 619. (A., 1854.) 



3729. WILDERNESS, PLANTING OF 

 THE Wind-wafted Seeds The Tumbleweed. 

 There is a very common weed found on 

 waste ground and also in fields and gar- 

 dens, which on good soil, with plenty of 

 room and light, grows much in the shape 

 of a globe with a diameter of two to three 

 feet. It is called Amaranthus albus in the 

 books, and is one of the most prominent 

 of our tumbleweeds. It does not start in 

 the spring from seed till the weather be- 

 comes pretty warm. The leaves are small 

 and slender, the flowers very small, with no 

 display, and surrounded by little rigid, 

 sharp-pointed bracts. When ripe in au- 

 tumn, the dry, incurved branches are quite 

 stiff; the main stem near the ground easily 

 snaps off and leaves the light ball at the 

 mercy of the winds. Such a plant is es- 

 pecially at home on prairies or cleared 

 fields, where there are few large obstructions 

 and where the wind has free access. 



The mother plant, now dead, toiled busily 

 during the heat of summer and produced 

 thousands of little seeds. The best portion 

 of her substance went to produce these 

 seeds, giving each a portion of rich food 



for a start in life, and wrapping each in a 

 glossy black coat. Now she is ready to sac- 

 rifice the rest of her body to be tumbled 

 about, broken in pieces, and scattered in 

 every direction for the good of her precious 

 progeny, most of whom will find new places, 

 where they will stand a chance the next 

 summer to grow into plants. BEAL Seed 

 Dispersal, ch. 5, p. 31. -(G-. & Co., 1898.) 



3730. " WILFULNESS," SUPPOSED, 

 IN CHILD A Misinterpretation Perhaps a 

 Lack of Volitional Control. Great mistakes 

 are often made by parents and teachers, who 

 . . . treat as wilfulness what is in reality 

 just the contrary of will-fulness, being the 

 direct result of the want of volitional con- 

 trol over the automatic activity of the brain. 

 To punish a child for the want of obedience 

 which it has not the power to render is 

 to inflict an injury which may almost be 

 said to be irreparable. . . . Nothing re- 

 tards the acquirement of the power of di- 

 recting the intellectual processes so much 

 as the emotional disturbance which the feel- 

 ing of injustice provokes. Hence the deter- 

 mination often expressed, to " break the 

 will " of an obstinate child by punishment, 

 is almost certain to strengthen these reac- 

 tionary influences. Many a child is put 

 into " durance vile " for not learning " the 

 little busy bee," who simply cannot give its 

 small mind to the task, whilst disturbed by 

 stern commands and threats of yet severer 

 punishment for a disobedience it cannot 

 help; when a suggestion kindly and skil- 

 fully adapted to its automatic nature, by 

 directing the turbid current of thought and 

 feeling into a smoother channel, and guiding 

 the activity which it does not attempt to 

 oppose, shall bring about the desired result, 

 to the surprise alike of the baffled teacher, 

 the passionate pupil, and the perplexed by- 

 standers. CARPENTER Mental Physiology, 

 ch. 3, p. 135. (A., 1900.) 



3731. WILL AS DISTINCT FROM 

 IMPERSONAL FORCE Mind Sees in Na- 

 ture a Reflection of Itself. Whatever diffi- 

 culty there may be in conceiving of a will 

 not exercised by a visible person, it is a 

 difficulty which cannot be evaded by arrest- 

 ing our conceptions at the point at which 

 they have arrived in forming the idea of 

 laws or forces. That idea is itself made up 

 out of elements derived from our own con- 

 sciousness of personality. This fact is seen 

 by men who do not see the interpretation 

 of it. They denounce as a superstition the 

 idea of any personal will separable from the 

 forces which work in Nature. They say that 

 this idea is a mere projection of our own 

 personality into the world beyond the shad- 

 ow of our own form cast upon the ground 

 on which we look. And indeed this, in a 

 sense, is true. It is perfectly true that the 

 mind does recognize in Nature a reflection 

 of itself. But if this be a deception, it is a 

 deception which is not avoided by transfer- 

 ring the idea of personality to the abstract 



