Work 

 World 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



762 



ucts of the explosion must by some power 

 be decomposed, and the atoms replaced in 

 the same relations as before the firing of the 

 gun; and this process is mechanically analo- 

 gous to the lifting of fallen weights and 

 placing them upon elevated shelves, or hang- 

 ing them from hooks, ready to drop again 

 when the occasion may require. YOUNG 

 The Sun, int., p. 3. (A., 1898.) 



3769. WORK OF MAN AND WOMAN 

 AMONG ABORIGINES Carving for Man- 

 Basketry and Pottery for Woman White 

 Man's Tools Not an Improvement. There 

 ought to be no doubt that in every case 

 where the savage was fortunate enough to 

 obtain the knife his carving and whittling 

 were better done. There is a marvelous dif- 

 ference between carving, on the one hand, 

 man's work chiefly, and basketry or pottery, 

 on the other, conservative woman's work. 

 In no tribes were the two last-named arts 

 bettered by contact with the higher race. 

 The work was done with the hands almost 

 wholly. The tools were of the simplest 

 character. The harsh iron awl was not so 

 good as the smooth-pointed bone awl, of 

 which hundreds have been found, and the 

 pride in personal endeavor departed with the 

 quenching of the tribal spirit. The potter's 

 wheel, such as it was three centuries ago, 

 was only a barrier to the unmechanical sex. 

 Therefore those who constantly assert that 

 prejudice made it impossible for the savage 

 to better himself in the adoption of the 

 white man's devices catch only half a truth. 

 MASON The Man's Knife among the North 

 American Indians (Report of U. 8. National 

 Museum, for 1897, p. 727). 



37 7 O. WORK OF WOMAN THE 

 CALENDAR OF PRIMITIVE MAN The 

 work of the men among the Omahas, accord- 

 ing to Dorsey, was regulated essentially by 

 that of the women, who were to them a sort 

 of calendar. The summer hunt was under- 

 taken after the women had planted the corn 

 and the pumpkins, and the beans had been 

 gathered. They returned on the ripening 

 of the sunflower. They went on the fall 

 hunt when the hair on the game was thick 

 and warm, out of which the women made 

 the clothing. The women buried in caches 

 whatever they wished to leave. Food, etc., 

 was placed in a blanket, which was gathered 

 at the corners and tied with a thong; then 

 the bundle was allowed to fall at the bottom 

 of the cache. Then the women went over 

 the corn fields to see that all the work had 

 been finished. They prepared pack-saddles 

 and litters and mended moccasins and other 

 clothing. The day for the departure having 

 arrived, the women loaded their horses and 

 dogs and took as great weights on their own 

 backs as they could conveniently transport. 

 MASON Woman's Share in Primitive Cul- 

 ture, int., p. 9. (A., 1894.) 



3771. WORK UNFINISHED Tools 

 of Ancient Miners Found as Left in Distant 

 Age. In one case the roof of a passage had 



given way. On removing the chalk which 

 had fallen in, the end of the gallery came 

 in view. The flint had been hollowed out 

 in three places, and in front of two of these 

 recesses, pointing towards the half-excavated 

 stone, were two deer-horn picks, lying just 

 as they had been left, still coated with chalk 

 dust, on which was in one place plainly 

 visible the print of the workman's hand. 

 The tools had evidently been left at the close 

 of a day's work; during the night the gal- 

 lery had fallen in, and they had never been 

 recovered. 



" It was a most impressive sight," says 

 Mr. Greenwell, " and one never to be for- 

 gotten, to look, after a lapse, it may be, of 

 3,000 years, upon a piece of work unfinished, 

 with the tools of the workmen still lying 

 where they had been placed so many centu- 

 ries ago." AVEBURY Prehistoric Times, ch. 

 4, p. 79. (A., 1900.) 



3772. WORK WROUGHT BY THE 



SUN ON EARTH Calculation in Horse-pow- 

 er. The sun is the mighty source from 

 which proceed all the forces which set in 

 motion the earth and its life. It is its 

 heat which causes the wind to blow, the 

 clouds to ascend, the river to flow, the forest 

 to grow, the fruit to ripen, and man himself 

 to live. The force constantly and silently 

 expended in raising the reservoirs of rain 

 to their mean atmospheric height, in fixing 

 the carbon in the plants, in giving to 

 terrestrial Nature its vigor and its beau- 

 ty, has been calculated from a mechanical 

 point of view; it is equal to the work of 

 217,316,000,000,000 horse-power; 543 milli- 

 ards (543,000,000,000) of steam-engines, 

 each with an effective power of 400 horses, 

 would have to work day and night without 

 intermission: such is the permanent work 

 of the sun upon the earth. FLAMMABION 

 Popular Astronomy, bk. iii, ch. 3, p. 245. 

 (A.) 



3773. WORKER, INSIGNIFICANT, 

 ACHIEVES VAST RESULTS Progress 

 against Resistance Coral Islands. Every 

 one must be struck with astonishment when 

 he first beholds one of these vast rings of 

 coral rock [the atolls], often many leagues 

 in diameter, here and there surmounted by 

 a low, verdant island, with dazzling white 

 shores, bathed on the outside by the foaming 

 breakers of the ocean, and on the inside 

 surrounding a calm expanse of water, which, 

 from reflection, is generally of a bright but 

 pale green color. The naturalist will feel 

 this astonishment more deeply after having 

 examined the soft and almost gelatinous 

 bodies of these apparently insignificant coral 

 polypifers, and when he knows that the 

 solid reef increases only on the outer edge, 

 which day and night is lashed by the break- 

 ers of an ocean never at rest. DARWIN 

 Coral Reefs, int., p. 1. (A., 1898.) 



3774. WORLD, A DIVIDED -Barrier 

 which the Inorganic Cannot Cross Biogen- 

 esis. What essentially is involved in saying 



