12 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Ann 



Nothing is Annihilated. 



Denudation is the inseparable accompaniment of the pro- 

 duction of all new strata of mechanical origin. The formation 

 of every new deposit by the transport of sediment and pebbles 

 necessarily implies that there has been somewhere else a grind- 

 ing down of rock into rounded fragments, sand, or mud, equal 

 in quantity to the new strata. All deposition, therefore, except 

 in the case of a shower of volcanic ashes, is the sign of super- 

 ficial waste going on contemporaneously and to an equal 

 amount elsewhere. The gain at one point is no more than 

 sufficient to balance the loss at some other. Here a lake has 

 grown shallower, there a ravine has been deepened. The bed 

 of the sea has in one region been raised by the accumulation of 

 new matter, in another its depth has been augmented by the 

 abstraction of an equal quantity. Nothing whatever is anni- 

 hilated. For "matter," says Koucher, "like an eternal river, 

 stills rolls on without diminution." Everything perishes :: yet 

 nothing is lost. E. 



Annoyance a Law of Life. 



Everyday events manifest to very superficial observation, 

 that no created being, from the monster of the ocean ^ to the 

 insect that feebly creeps on the ground, exists free from the 

 persecutions or annoyances of another. Some may be subject 

 to fewer injuries than others, but none are wholly exempt : the 

 strong assail by power, and become assaulted themselves by 

 the minute or weak. The hornet attacks the wasp. The wasp 

 itself seizes the housefly, and the fly in its turn is conducive 

 after its manner to the death of many an animal. j. 



Mortal Effects of Multiplied Annoyances. 



Xear Golubacs, on the Danube, there is a range of caverns 

 famous for producing the minute poisonous fly too well known in 

 Servia and Hungary under the name of the Golubacser fly. These 

 singular and venomous insects, somewhat resembling musquitoes, 

 generally make their appearance during the 'first great heat of the 



