Vol. XXIII. No. S.] 



>OPULAR S(;IEN0E NEWS. 



115 



Savs a meteorologist: "A period of nearly forty 

 j'ears has been sultlcient to satisfy the least specula- 

 tive philosophers that the coincidence is so real as 

 to prove a natural relation among the phenomena, 

 and to place magnetic observations and solar ob- 

 scurations in the first rank of meteorological require- 

 ments." 



It is related that while a (jerman astronomer was 

 patiently noting down the sun's appearance, year 

 after year, a small body of Englishmen were, with 

 equal patience, notingdown, in various observatories 

 in both hemispheres, at the same moment of every 

 alternate hour, day and night, for some years, all 

 the particulars of terrestrial magnetical- disturb- 

 ances. When the magnetic observations were 

 reduced, some were found to belong to the hour of 

 the day, some to the day of the month, and some to 

 the day of the year; but an important class remained 

 unaccounted for, and these, at first, seemed to be 

 irregular. As time went on, and the observations 

 were continued, these irregular variations arranged 

 themselves in order. They gradually grew smaller 

 and lesjj frequent, year after year, for five years, and 

 then as gradually increased for another five years. 

 These years of greatest and least distubance were at 

 length found to be those during which there were, 

 respectively, the largest and smallest number of 

 solar spots. 



What a field for future discoveries does not this 

 glimpse into natural phenomena give to the 

 meteorologist! In the vast field of active forces, 

 marshalled and passed in review, — the quantity and 

 form of clouds, the very great alteration of form, 

 the direction of the wind, the state of the tempera- 

 ture, the amount of heat or cold, the appearance of 

 halos, of rainbows, of electrical and magnetic 

 changes, of the temperature and density of the air, 

 of the refraction of the air which produces mirage, 

 of the amount of dewfall, of rain, of snow, of hail, — 

 there appears the old ever new, and the new ever 

 old : the fact that no force can be permanently 

 retained. 



According to the ancient poets, Proteus was Nep- 

 tune's herdsman, — a most extraordinary prophet; 

 an old man, who understood things past, present, 

 and future. He lived in a vast cave, where he told 

 over his sea-calves at noon, and then went to sleep. 

 Whoever consulted him had no other wayof obtain- 

 ing an answer but by binding him with manacles; 

 when he, trying to free himself, would change into 

 all kinds of shapes and miraculous forms, — as of 

 fire, water, wild beasts, — till at length he resumed 

 his own shape again. Lord Bacon, in his Wisdom 

 o/ Me .-l/ifVeH^s, thus translates this fable: Proteus 

 represents matter, servant of Neptune, as working 

 in a fluid state, and sleeping after telling over his 

 flocks, as having once fixed the various species of 

 things, and then ceasing their production. Now, 

 "if any skillful minister of Nature shall apply force 

 to matter, and by design to torture and vex it, in 

 order to its annihilation, it being brought under 

 this necessity, changes and transforms itself into a 

 strange variety of shapes and appearances ; * * 

 * so at length, running through the whole circle 

 of transformations and completing its period, in 

 some degree restores itself if the force be continued." 



This fable is equally true of matter and of force. 

 And in the transmutations of water vapor, air, 

 electrical and magnetic forces, heat motion, and in 

 noting the unvarying laws which govern these 

 changes, the province of the meteorologist lies. To 

 make known these laws, and to class phenomena 

 with precision, so that such-and-such causes \nay 

 certainly be known to produce such-and-such effects 

 at a given time, gives incalculable value to his work 

 and to his predictions. 



[Orij^inal in The l*i>putar Science Xeivs.] 



TRANSFIGURATION OF MATTER AND 



TRANSFORMATION OF FORCE. 



HY UR. S. F. LANDREY. 



Certain facts point strongly, if not infallibly, to 

 the possible trans-conversion of the three material 

 kingdoms of nature into each other, especially at 

 the blending boundaries; how much farther is sug- 

 gested, if not proven, by the theory of evolution. 

 The elytra of certain beetles (the Necrophores) have 

 been found possessing tannin in their composition. 

 Amanita inuscoria (a fungus) possesses the smell 

 of decaying flesh in its putrefactive state. Cellulose, 

 a characteristic vegetable compound, has been traced 

 in the external covering o( the seii-squirt. Chloro- 

 phyl and other vegetable material has been found to 

 occur in undoubted animals — in Stenter (an infuso- 

 rian), and in Hydra virdis, amongst the coelonterata. 

 Certain fungi retain o.xygen and set free carbon, 

 contrary to general \egetable law. Diatoms have 

 silicious coverings, possess animal motion, and a 

 vegetable composition ; they belong, therefore, 

 really, to the base of the three kingdoms. Sponges 

 are aniilials in structure, but fixed like vegetables to 

 the rocks whereon they grow. They were long con- 

 sidered as vegetables of a low order. With all the 

 care that could be taken, I could never convince 

 myself of any other than a vegetable transfiguration 

 for infusorial animalculiu, and their reconversion 

 from the silt and detritus of hydrated decomposition 

 into real plants of a low type of organization. 

 "Who ate Roger Williams.'" becomes, therefore, a 

 pertinent question of scientific value. All animal 

 bodies are susceptible of conversion into soil, soil 

 into materials of vegetable growth, and these are 

 again introduced into animal organisms and assirti- 

 ilated by them. Moreover, whoever will watch the 

 deposits of mineral crystallizations held in solution, 

 gradually assuming their facets. I'rom lines of con- 

 joined granules, will learn that even here are gran- 

 ular bodies seen under one set of forces and condi- 

 tions assuming mineral forms of structure; while 

 portions of the same solutions may be made to 

 assimilate with animal or vegetable organisms. We 

 speak more particularly of those minerals that are 

 not deleterious to those organisms, but ordinarily 

 form part and parcel of their composition. Some 

 cryptogams (fungi) absorb mineral matters directly 

 from the soil, without material change. Certflin 

 compositif deposit inuline in the form of radiate 

 sphero-crystals. Calcic carbonate, in the form of 

 cystoliths, is deposited in the leaves of certain mem 



be referred to some one force, may be the resultant 

 of some unknown combination of chemical micro- 

 criths or their unseen action under specialized con- 

 ditions. For thousands of years it has been declared 

 the blood is the life, (Gen. 9 : 4, etc.) Physiologists 

 have regarded fibrination as a vital action, and oxy- 

 gen has been proven a vitalizing element ; but nitro- 

 gen, an unstable element, is certainly a .sexual 

 difl'erentiating agent. "God breathed into man's 

 nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living 

 soul," certainly points with no uncertain intelligence 

 to the atmospheric combination of these two ele- 

 ments, for the origin, duration and transmutation 

 of vitality. 



Protoplasm, or bioplasm, certainly requires a tem- 

 perature of from near 32°— 130" F. for its first con- 

 dition. H2O, or water, enters into all living tissues, 

 and oxygen, in its free state, is an indispensable ele- 

 ment, if we omit the exceptions of certain fungi. 

 Protoplasm, according to Huxley, can be made to 

 contract by electricity, and I have personally known 

 heat to restore apparently dead fishes to life; so 

 that, whether life be an eftect or a cause of organi- 

 zation, matters little, if time will only reveal which 

 it may be. 



We must "learn to labor and to wait." Life be- 

 gins invariably in an unseen point or granule. The 

 question only remains to be asked and answered, 

 can microscopes be made powerful enough to com- 

 pel the granule to give up the secret of its origin.' 

 It certainly would puzzle the wisest man to declare 

 between the ova of a kangaroo, dog, reptile, and 

 man, which would be human and which would 

 prove to be the animal. Sexuality is nothing more 

 than a specialized polarization of I'orce, and, among 

 bees, a matter of choice. Life is of air and water; 

 protoplasm of earth, air, and water. Certainly 

 appropriate are the words of Tyndale : "Science 

 ought to teach us to see the invisible as well as the 

 visible in nature : to picture to our mind's eye those 

 operations that entirely elude the eye of the body; 

 to look at the very atoms of matter, in motion and 

 in rest, and to follow them forth into the world of 

 the senses." 



bers of the nettle family. In rhubarb, oxalis, etc., 

 are raphides of calcic oxalate. These are eaten and 

 appropriated by men and animals, and, at their dis- 

 solution, are again re.stored to the mineral kingdom. 

 Transfiguration is :i constiintly proven quantity of 

 the three kingdoms; transformation (or, possibly, 

 transfer of forces) has been well nigh proven. The 

 yet deeper sciences of ]>sychology and biology are 

 slowly yielding to the possibilities of psychical 

 transformation and somatic correlation with mind 

 and life. Granules, as cytoblasts or entasthoblasts, 

 are the common property — the "regnum protisti- 

 cum" — of all the kingdoms. The granular basis is 

 the "king in the cave," who sits with his feet on the 

 body of a dead youth, whose feet and head beyond 

 the rock, on either side, rest in the stream of obliv- 

 ion. The simile would be a complete one if the 

 youth were always and forever alive. The forces of 

 light, heat, actinism, motion, electricity, galvanism, 

 magnetism, — nearly all the imponderable agents in 

 nature, — have been well nigh proven to be mutually 

 transformable, the one into the other. 



Who, therefore, can intelligently declare whether 

 life itself is not a mere subtle form of a physical 

 force .' "The residue quantity," which cannot always 



CHINESE MYTHS. 

 A Chinese native paper, says Science, published 

 recently a collection of some zoplogiail myths of 

 that country, a few of which are worth noting. In 

 Shan-si there is a bird, which can divest itself of its 

 feathers and become a woman. At Twan-sin-chow 

 dwells the Wan-mu Niao (mother of mosquitoes), a 

 fish-eating bird, from whose mouth issue swarms of 

 mosquitoes when it cries. Yung-yhow has its stone- 

 swallow, which flies during wind and rain, and in 

 fine weather turns to stone again. Another bird, 

 when killed, gives much oil to the hunter, and when 

 the skin is thrown into the water it becomes a living 

 bird again. With regard to animals, few are so 

 useful as the "Jih-kih" ox, foui^d in Kansuh, from 

 which large pieces of flesh are cut for meat and 

 grow again in a single day. The merman of the 

 Southern Seas can weave a kind of silky fabric 

 which keeps a house cool in summer if hung up in 

 one of the rooms. The tears of this merman are 

 pearls. A large hermit-crab is attended by a little 

 shrimp which lives in the stomach of its master; if 

 the shrimp is successful in its depredations the crab 

 flourishes, but the latter dies if the shrimp does not 

 return from his dally excursions. The "Ho-lo" is a 

 fish having one head and ten bodies. The myths 

 about snakes are the strangest of all. Thus the 

 square snake of Kwangsi ha-s the power of throwing 

 an inky fluid when attacked, which kills its assail- 

 ants at once. Another snake can divide itself up 

 into twelve pieces, and each piece, if touched by a 

 man, will instantly generate a head and fangs at 



