Wonders 

 Work 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



760 



well described and illustrated in Dr. Tyn- 

 dall's work upon the glaciers. They are 

 known throughout the Alps as " glacier- 

 tables." AGASSIZ Geological Sketches, ser. 

 i, ch. 8, p. 285. (H. M. & Co., 1896.) 



376O. 



Milk from Trop - 



ical Tree The Cow-tree. We had already 

 heard a good deal about this tree [the Mas- 

 saranduba, or cow-tree], and about its pro- 

 ducing from its bark a copious supply of 

 milk as pleasant to drink as that of the 

 cow. We had also eaten its fruit in Para, 

 where it is sold in the streets by negro 

 market-women, and had heard a good deal 

 of the durableness in water of its timber. 

 We were glad, therefore, to see this wonder- 

 ful tree growing in its native wilds. It 

 is one of the largest of the forest monarchs, 

 and is peculiar in appearance on account of 

 its deeply scored, reddish, and ragged bark. 

 A decoction of the bark, I was told, is used 

 as a red dye for cloth. A few days afterward 

 we tasted its milk, which was drawn from 

 dry logs that had been standing many days 

 in the hot sun at the sawmills. It was pleas- 

 ant with coffee, but had a slight rankness 

 when drank pure ; it soon thickens to a glue, 

 which is excessively tenacious, and is often 

 used to cement broken crockery. I was told 

 that it was not safe to drink much of it, 

 for a slave had recently nearly lost his life 

 through taking it too freely. BATES Nat- 

 uralist on the River Amazon, ch. 2, p. 635. 

 (Hum., 1880.) 



3761. WONDERS OF SUPERSTITION 

 SURPASSED BY THE WONDERS OF 

 SCIENCE Distances from which Comets Come 

 Millions of Years on Their Way Witness- 

 es of Vanished Eras Ancient Testimony of 

 the Existence of Matter. Do we ever think 

 what an immense voyage they [comets] 

 must have made to come from there to 

 here? Do we imagine for how many years 

 they must have flown through the dark im- 

 mensity to plunge themselves into the fires 

 of our sun? If we take into account the 

 directions from which certain comets come 

 to us, and if we assign to the stars situated 

 in that region the least distances consistent 

 with known facts, we find that these comets 

 certainly left their last star more than 

 20,000,000 years ago. 



In thus putting to us from the height of 

 their celestial apparitions so many notes of 

 interrogation on the grandest problems of 

 creation, comets assume to our eyes an in- 

 terest incomparably greater than that with 

 which superstition blindly surrounded them 

 in past ages. When we reflect for a mo- 

 ment that a certain comet which shines 

 before us in the sky came originally from 

 the depths of the heavens, that it has trav- 

 eled during millions of years to arrive here, 

 and that, consequently, it is by millions of 

 years that we must reckon its age if we 

 wish to form any idea of it, we cannot re- 

 frain from respecting this strange visitor 

 as a witness of vanished eras, as an echo 



of the past, as the most ancient testimony 

 which we have of the existence of matter. 

 But what do we say? These bodies are 

 neither old nor young; there is nothing old, 

 nothing new; all is present: the ages of the 

 past contemplate the ages of the future, 

 which all work, all gravitate, all circulate 

 in the eternal plan. Musing, you look at 

 the river which flows so gently at your feet, 

 and you believe you see again the river of 

 your childhood; but the water of to-day is 

 not that of yesterday; it is not the same 

 substance which you have before your eyes, 

 and never, never shall this union of mole- 

 cules, which you behold at this moment, 

 come back there, never till the consumma- 

 tion of the ages! FLAMMARION Popular 

 Astronomy, bk. v, ch. 3, p. 528. (A.) 



3762. WONDERS, SCIENCE DOES 

 NOT MAKE LESS An Explanation Is a 

 Statement of a Grander Fact Gravitation 

 a Marvelous Truth. People are apt to 

 think that when the scientific explanation 

 of a fact is given, the fact in question ceases 

 to be wonderful. But if we would but re- 

 flect, we should see that this explanation is 

 only another fact of a more general kind, 

 and one which ought, therefore, to be re- 

 garded as more striking, one which ought 

 to incite us to more curious inquiry. That 

 a stone, dropped in the air, falls to the 

 ground, is so familiar an experience that it 

 could excite wonder only in the most re- 

 flective minds. But when it did excite won- 

 der and curiosity, the fact was made not 

 less, but much more wonderful when its 

 scientific explanation was furnished in New- 

 ton's law of gravitation a law according 

 to which we find that a stone is, as it were, 

 drawn to the earth by a force which can be 

 measured, and by which the earth acts on 

 the moon precisely in the same way as it 

 does upon a stone dropped in the air. That 

 explanation is a very wonderful fact, one 

 that leads men of science to inquire why 

 this should be so, tho it requires a scientific 

 training to appreciate that kind of curiosity. 

 CHISHOLM Nature-Studies, p. 26. (Hum., 

 1888.) 



3763. WORD ASSOCIATED WITH 



ITS MEANING Empty Repetition Gives Feel- 

 ing of Unnaturalness. This [difference be- 

 tween perception of particulars and of a 

 whole which includes them] is probably the 

 reason why, if we look at an isolated print- 

 ed word and repeat it long enough, it ends 

 by assuming an entirely unnatural aspect. 

 Let the reader try this with any word on 

 this page. He will soon begin to wonder if 

 it can possibly be the word he has been 

 using all his life with that meaning. It 

 stares at him from the paper like a glass 

 eye. with no speculation in it. Its body is 

 indeed there, but its soul is fled. It is re- 

 duced, by this new way of attending to it, 

 to its sensational nudity. We never before 

 attended to it in this way, but habitually 

 got it clad with its meaning the moment 



