Woman 

 Wonders 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



758 



things for her children, and to gratify them 

 in their instincts of prowling and seizing. 

 MASON Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, 

 ch. 2, p. 18. (A., 1894.) 



3751. WOMAN IN GEOLOGY Orig- 

 inal Discoveries by Lady Gordon Gumming. 

 The seat of Sir William Gordon Gumming, 

 of Altyre, is in the neighborhood of one of 

 the Morayshire deposits discovered by Mr. 

 Malcolmson; and for the greater part of 

 the last two years Lady Gordon Gumming 

 has been engaged in making a collection of 

 its peculiar fossils, which already fills an 

 entire apartment. The object of her lady- 

 ship was the illustration of the geology of 

 the district, and all she sought in it on her 

 own behalf was congenial employment for a 

 singularly elegant and comprehensive mind. 

 But her labors have rendered her a benefac- 

 tor to science. Her collection was visited, 

 shortly after the late meeting of the British 

 Association in Glasgow, by Agassiz and Dr. 

 Buckland; and great was the surprise and 

 delight of the philosophers to find that the 

 whole was new to geology. All the species, 

 amounting to eleven, and at least one of the 

 genera, that of the Glyptolepis, were differ- 

 ent from any Agassiz had ever seen or de- 

 scribed before. MILLER The Old Red Sand- 

 stone, ch. 7, p. 123. (G. & L., 1851.) 



3752. WOMAN, PARENTAL LOVE 

 STRONGEST IN Mother's Devotion to Her 

 Child. Parental love is an instinct stronger 

 in woman than in man, at least in the early 

 childhood of its object. I need do little more 

 than quote Schneider's lively description of 

 it as it exists in her: 



" As soon as a wife becomes a mother her 

 whole thought and feeling, her whole being, 

 is altered. Until then she had only thought 

 of her own well-being, of the satisfaction 

 of her vanity; the whole world appeared 

 made only for her; everything that went 

 on about her was only noticed so far as it 

 had personal reference to herself; she asked 

 of every one that he should appear interest- 

 ed in her, pay her the requisite attention, 

 and as far as possible fulfil her wishes. 

 Now, however, the center of the world is 

 no longer herself, but her child. She does 

 not think of her own hunger, she must first 

 be sure that the child is fed. It is nothing 

 to her that she herself is tired and needs 

 rest, so long as she sees that the child's sleep 

 is disturbed ; the moment it stirs she awakes, 

 tho far stronger noises fail to arouse her 

 now. . . . But not only the contact, the 

 bare look of the offspring affords endless 

 delight, not only because the mother thinks 

 that the child will some day grow great and 

 handsome and bring her many joys, but 

 because she has received from Nature an 

 instinctive love for her children. She does 

 not herself know why she is so happy, and 

 why the look of the child and the care of it 

 are so agreeable, any more than the young 

 man can give an account of why he loves 

 a maiden, and is so happy when she is near. 



Few mothers, in caring for their child, think 

 of the proper purpose of maternal love for 

 the preservation of the species. Such a 

 thought may arise in the father's mind ; sel- 

 dom in that of the mother. The latter feels 

 only . . . that it is an everlasting delight 

 to hold the being which she has brought 

 forth protectingly in her arms, to dress it, 

 to wash it, to rock it to sleep, or to still its 

 hunger." JAMES Psychology, vol. ii, ch. 24, 

 p. 440. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



3753. WOMAN, THE MYSTERIOUS 

 BIFOLD LIFE OF" The Germans believe 

 that there is something sacred and pro- 

 phetic in woman; therefore they respect 

 the counsel of women and hearken to their 

 judgments" (Tacitus). In fact, both of those 

 preeminent antique nations (Greece and 

 Rome) never regarded woman as more than 

 a thing, always as only the servant, in no 

 respect the partner of man, his equal in 

 birth; while the Germans regarded woman, 

 weak physically, as nevertheless a creature 

 of fine intellectual development, having, 

 therefore, a right to protection and forbear- 

 ance, to reverence and sacred consideration. 

 The emotional side of humanity was re- 

 garded her strength, that invisible, mysteri- 

 ous power closely related to the divine, 

 before which one retires with a natural awe, 

 as from something supernatural. And yet 

 just as throughout Nature we have day and 

 night, summer and winter, so throughout the 

 life of the Germanic woman there runs that 

 bipartition which on the one hand permits 

 her to appear like unto the gods, and on the 

 other represents her in slavish inferiority. 

 Her legal position was entirely subordinate. 

 REINSCH Stellung und Leben der deutschen 

 Frau im Mittelalter (Virchow und Holtzen- 

 dorff's Sanimlung wissenschaftlicher Vor- 

 tr age, 1882). (Translated for Scientific Side- 

 Lights.) 



3754. WOMAN THE SUPPORT OF 

 RELIGION Was it accident, or a pro- 

 phetic token, that Greek architecture em- 

 ployed superb female figures called caryat- 

 ides, in the place of pillars, as supports 

 for the halls of their temples? HOLTZEN- 

 DORFF Frauenrechte (a Lecture). (Trans- 

 lated for Scientific Side-Lights.) 



3755. WOMAN'S CULTURE, ER- 

 RORS AFFECTING Highest Development of 

 Character Required. Fathers and mothers 

 are still mostly of opinion that light caliber 

 in their daughters would find most approval 

 from their prospective husbands. They be- 

 lieve that the master of the house should 

 train his wife to suit his own taste and re- 

 quirements, and think that a character of wax 

 forms the most suitable raw material. They 

 erroneously assume that a dependent, unen- 

 lightened creature, without any aim, is equal 

 to the capacity for sacrifice and personal 

 devotion. From traditions in the family, 

 young girls acquire the notion that marriage 

 signifies chiefly promotion in social rank, 



