769 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Years 



Zones 



learn the nasality and other vices of speech 

 bred in him by the associations of his grow- 

 ing years. Hardly ever, indeed, no matter 

 how much money there be in his pocket, can 

 he even learn to dress like a gentleman 

 born. The merchants offer their wares as 

 eagerly to him as to the veriest " swell," 

 but he simply cannot buy the right things. 

 An invisible law, as strong as gravitation, 

 keeps him within his orbit, arrayed this year 

 as he was the last; and how his better-bred 

 acquaintances contrive to get the things 

 they wear will be for him a mystery till his 

 dying day. JAMES Psychology, vol. i, ch. 4, 

 p. 121. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



3798. ZERO-SIGN, VALUE OF Great 

 Advance in Mathematics Due to a Sign for 

 Nothing. [The] invention of a sign for 

 nothing was practically one of the greatest 

 moves ever made in science. It is the use 

 of the zero which makes the difference be- 

 tween the old arithmetic and our easy 

 ciphering. We give the credit of the inven- 

 tion to the Arabs by using the term Arabic 

 numerals, while the Arabs call them Indian, 

 and there is truth in both acknowledgments 

 of the nations having been scholars in arith- 

 metic one to the other. But this does not 

 go to the root of the matter, and it is still 

 unsettled whether ciphering was first .de- 

 vised in Asia, or may be traced further back 

 in Europe to the arithmeticians of the school 

 of Pythagoras. As to the main point, how- 

 ever, there is no doubt that modern arith- 

 metic comes out of ancient counting on the 

 columns of the abacus, improved by writing 

 a dot or a round O to show the empty 

 column, and by this means young children 

 now work calculations which would have 

 been serious labor to the arithmeticians of 

 the ancient world. TYLOR Anthropology, 

 ch. 13, p. 315. (A., 1899.) 



3799. ZONE, ABYSMAL The Lowest 

 Depths of the Great Oceans The Unknown 

 Realm That Yet Baffles Science. The last 

 well-marked zone is the abysmal, extending 

 from the 500- fathom line "to the greatest 

 depths of the ocean, one of enormous super- 

 ficial area, one that it is most difficult to 

 investigate, and one about which we know but 

 little. In the present state of our knowledge 

 we cannot divide it into any well-marked 

 subzones, nor even into geographical regions 

 or subregions. It is not divided into sec- 

 tions by any important geographical bar- 

 riers, and the general characters presented 

 by its fauna are practically the same all 

 the world over. HICKSON Fauna of the 

 Deep Sea, ch. 3, p. 50. (A., 1894.) 



3800. ZONES, TEMPERATE, THE 

 CHIEF ABODES OF LIFE The as- 

 tronomical contrast between the north and 

 the south divides distinctly the different 

 parts of the world into two separate groups. 

 Almost the whole extent of the three north- 

 ern continents belongs to the temperate 

 zone, and it is only their most advanced 

 peninsulas which are pushed forward-Am 

 the one side into the frigid, and on the other 

 into the torrid zone. With regard to the 

 three southern continents, they present their 

 chief development between the tropics or in 

 the south temperate zone. They receive the 

 greatest amount of annual heat, and con- 

 sequently become the theater of the most 

 remarkable phenomena of planetary vi- 

 tality. There the cross action of the winds 

 and rains between the two hemispheres takes 

 place, and hurricanes take their rise; there 

 immense deserts extend over vast areas; 

 there, too, vegetation manifests all its pro- 

 ductive energy, and the terrestrial fauna 

 attains its greatest force and its highest 

 beauty. RECLUS The Earth, pt. ii, ch. 10, 

 p. 75. (H., 1871.) 



