Vol. XXIII. No. 9.] 



POPULAR SOTET^CE NEAVS. 



131 



Asia, between Babylon and Egypt and the smaller 

 states of Palestine, of Syria, of Mesopotamia, and 

 even of Eastern Kappadokia. And this intercourse 

 was carried on by means of tlie Babylonian lan- 

 guage, and the complicated Babylonian script. 

 This implies that, all over tlie civilized East, there 

 were libraries and schools where the Babylonian 

 language and literature were taught and learned. 

 Babylonian appeared to have been as much the 

 language of diplomacy and cultivated society as 

 French has become in modern times, with the dif- 

 ference that, whereas it does not take long to learn 

 to read P'rench, the cuneiform syllabary reciuired 

 years of hard labor and attention before it could be 

 acquired. We can now understand the meaning of 

 the name of the Canaanitish city which stood near 

 Hebron, and which seems to have been one of the 

 most important of the towns of Southern Palestine. 

 Kirjath-Sepher, or 'Book-town,' must have been 

 the seat ot a famous library, consisting mainly, if 

 not altogether, as the Tel el-Amarna tablets inform 

 us, of clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform charac- 

 ters. As the city also bore the name of Debir, or 

 'Sanctuary,' we may conclude that the tablets were 

 stored in its chief temple, like the libraries of Assy- 

 ria and Babylonia. It may be that they are still 

 lying under the soil, awaiting the day when the 

 spade of the excavator shall restore them to the 

 light. The literary influence of Babylonia in the 

 age before the Israelitish conquest of Palestine 

 explains the occurrence of the names of Babylonian 

 deities among the inhabitants of the West. Moses 

 died on the sununit of Mount Nebo. which received 

 its name from the Babylonian god of literature, to 

 whom the great temple of Borsippa was dedicated ; 

 and Sinai itself, the mountain 'of Sin,' testifies to 

 a worship of the Babylonian Moon-god, Sin, amid 

 the solitudes of the desert. Moloch or Malik, was a 

 Babylonian divinity like Rimmon, the Air-god, 

 after whom more than one locality in Palestine was 

 named, and Anat, the wife of Anu, the Sky-god, 

 gave her name to the Palestinian Anah, as well as 

 to Anathoth, the city of 'the Anat-goddesses.'" 



In a careful reading of the tablets, Canon Sayce 

 came upon many ancient names and incidents known 

 up to the present only from their appearance in the 

 Bible. All these he carefully described, as well as 

 several references in the tablets to the Hittites. 



In regard to another point, he said : "Ever since 

 the progress of Egyptology made it clear that 

 Rameses 11. was the Pharaoh of the oppression, it 

 was difficult to understand how so long an interval 

 of time as the whole period of the eighteenth dy- 

 nasty could lie between him and the 'new king' 

 whose rise seems to have been followed almost im- 

 mediately by the servitude and oppression of the 

 Hebrews. The tablets of Tel el-Amarna now show 

 that the difficulty does not exist. Up to the death 

 of Khu-en-Aten, the Semite had greater influence 

 than the native in tlie land of Mizraim." 



[Original in The Popular Science A'eivg.] 

 A SPIDER-HUNTING WASP. 



UY L. S. FRIERSON. 



Not long since, while I was enjoying a siesta on 

 the porch, my attention was suddenly attracted by 

 seeing a very large spider running up the body of a 

 tree about ten feet away. The spider seemed to be 

 very much excited, and, after he had run up the body 

 of the tree about six feet, he ran out on a side limb, 

 and, after he bad gone about eight feet out on this 

 limb, he dropped ortto the ground. No sooner had 

 he struck the ground than he commenced a head- 

 long flight through the grass of the lawn." After he 

 had run about five feet on the ground, I saw a very 

 large wasp, about two inches long, following the 



track of the spider on the tree. The wasp was riui- 

 ning and Happing his wings in a nervous manner, 

 but was not flying at all. In a few minutes the 

 wasp arrived at the spot where the spider had 

 dropped oft', which, by the way, was about ten feet 

 from the ground. Here the wasp became very 

 much excited, and ran rapidly back and forth about 

 a minute. Then he took flight, flew to the root of 

 the tree, where I saw him at first, and ran up the 

 track again. Soon he arrived at the jumping-ofl 

 place, and again became very excited, running 

 round and round, and flapping his wings nervously. 

 Suddenly the wasp stopped, and appeared to be 

 thinking. Certainly his actions bore out this con- 

 clusion, for he closed his wings and dropped otf the 

 limb, just where the spider had dropped. Arriving 

 at the ground, he recommenced his search, and, 

 after a few futile attempts, he struck the scent, and 

 away he went, just exactly as a hound woidd have 

 followed a deer. After j-unning about ten feet on 

 the ground he overtook his prey. 



■The spider either saw or heard his enemy coining, 

 for. without waiting to be overtaken, he threw him- 

 self upon his back, with his feet in the air, and in 

 this posture awaited the attack. The wasp lost no 

 time in beginning, but, to my surprise, seemed to be 

 somewhat afraid of the spider. The wasp took to 

 his wings, and would fly round and round the 

 spider, and would now and then make a sudden 

 thrust at him. The spider would, at these times, 

 jump forward, and seemed to be trying to catch the 

 wasp. The wasp was too agile, however, to be 

 caught. Suddenly the wasp made an attack, stung 

 the spider, and, in less than half a second, the 

 spider was perfectly dead. Electricity could not 

 have killed him quicker. The wasp, after satisfying 

 himself that his prey was dead, sat on the grass 

 near by and proceeded to rest himself, for his violent 

 ertbrts had exhausted him. After resting about two 

 minutes, he approached the spider, and, after exam- 

 ining him critically with his antenme, straddled 

 him, and proceeded to bear him away. 



Just here I put in a say-so, and captured wasp and 

 spider, and immolated both to my scientific curios- 

 ity. This occurrence would seem to show that the 

 wasp can track_by smell, and can likewise reason, 

 else why did he drop from the limb.' I regret to 

 say that I neglected to kee|> the spider, and observe 

 whether he had been really killed, or only put into 

 the lethargic condition, into which our dirt-daubers 

 put their spiders. 



I am not versed in entomology sufficiently to give 

 the technical names of either wasp or spider. The 

 spider was very large, his abdomen being about 

 half an inch long. 



Frierson's Mill, La., July lo. 



SATURN'S RINGS AS VIEWED BY SCIENCE 

 TODAY. 



It has been shown by several lines of investiga- 

 tion that Saturn's rings consist of indei)endent 

 meteorites, moving, each in its orbit,' about the 

 planet, and this conclusion may be safely accepted 

 as correct. But every field of thought is now seeth- 

 ing with the evolutionary ferment, and, as we can- 

 not rest satisfied with any conclusion as a finality, 

 we here merely find ourselves at the starting |)oint 

 of new speculations. 



What, then, is the history of the.se rings, and what 

 their future fate.' They are clearly intimately re- 

 lated to the planet, and their history would be 

 complete if we could, with the mind's eye, watch 

 their birth from the planet and follow their subse- 

 quent changes. Now, although the details of such 

 a history are obscure, yet at least a shadowy outline 

 of it may be confidently accepted as known. 



In the remote past, all the matter which now 

 forms the Saturnian system of planet, satellites, .md 

 rings was far more ditVused than at present. There 

 was probably a nucleus of denser matter, round 

 whicli slowly revolved a mass of rarefied gases and 

 meteorites. The central portion was intensely hot, 

 with heat derived by condensation from a state of 

 still greater dispersion. 



As this nebula cooled it contracted, and therefore 

 revolved more quickly. If you watch the water 

 emptying itself from a common wash-hand basin 

 when the plug at the bottom is removed, 3'ou will 

 see an example of such quickened rotation. When 

 the basin is full, the water is commonly revolving 

 slowly in one or the other direction, but, as the level 

 falls and the water approaches the hole, it spins 

 more quickly, and the last drops are seen to whirl 

 round with violence. 



The revolving nebula is flattened at the poles, like 

 an orange, and the amount of flattening increases 

 as it contracts and spins quicker. At a certain 

 stage it can no longer subsist in a continuous mass, 

 and an annular portion is detached from the equa- 

 tor, leaving the central ball to continue its contrac- 

 tion. 



We are pretty safe in saying that the rings of 

 Saturn took their origin in some such mode as this. 

 But it cannot be maintained that we understand it 

 all, for we have not more than a vague picture of the 

 primitive nebula, and the mode in which the matter 

 aggregated itself into a ring and detached itself is 

 obscure. M. Roche has done, perhaps, more than 

 any one else to impart mathematical precision to 

 these ideas, but even he has not been wholly suc- 

 cessful. 



This theory, commonly called the nelnilar liypoth- 

 esis, was advanced independently both by the 

 philosopher Kant and by Laplace. Various modi- 

 fications have been suggested by others, but the 

 theory, in whatever form, is replete with difficulties, 

 and must at present be only regarded as an ap|>rox- 

 imation to the truth. 



If the past history of the ring is not wholly clear, 

 it is at least more ascertainable than its future 

 development. It is nearly certain that the ring 

 now presents a markedly difterent appearance from 

 that which was seen by its discoverers. Indeed the 

 only doubt lies in the uncertainty as to the amount 

 of allowance which must be made for diflerences of 

 observers and of instruments. Huygens described 

 the interval between the bright ring and the planet 

 as rather exceeding the width of the ring, but this is 

 now flagrantly incorrect. It is improbable that 

 Huygens was incorrect, although, on the other 

 hand, by the most delicate micrometric measure- 

 ments, Struve has been unable to detect any change 

 in an interval of thirty years of this century. 



We may call to mind that Maxwell showed that a 

 spreading of the rings both outward and inward 

 was a theoretical result of the inevitable inq)acls 

 between the constituent meteorites, which he used 

 to describe as a shower of brickbats. Thus, whelher 

 or not the innnense changes susixjcted since 1651) 

 are true, it remains almost certain that changes of 

 this kind are in progress. 



I venture, then, to hazard a iiiw words of s|)ecula- 

 tion as to the future of the rings. The outward 

 spreading will in time carry many meteorites beyond 

 Roche's limit; here there will no longer be an 

 obstacle to aggregation into a celestial body, such 

 aggregation will probably ensue, and a ninth satel- 

 lite will be formed. The inward spreading will in 

 time carry the meteorites to the limits of Saturn's 

 atmosphere, where, heated by (riction as lliev rush 

 through the air, they will disintegrate and fall on 

 to the planet as dust. Afttr a lime, of which no 

 estimate can be formed, the ring will have vanished. 



