gives us a power that is rare in nature. 

 We can tell whether things are hot or 

 cold, rough or smooth, sharp or blunt, 

 wet or dry, and gather many other items 

 of interest which the other senses are 

 incapable of compassing. 



A monkey can wind his tail about a 

 nut and tell by the sense of touch 

 whether it is worth his while to crack 

 it. The elephant moves the tips of his 

 trunk carefully over ihe surface of what 

 he wishes to examine and gets knowl- 

 edge he can depend upon. But it is 

 the hand of man that shows the highest 

 order of development of touch. By it 

 blind men know their friends and read 

 their books, bank clerks detect the 

 qualities of the notes they handle, and 

 a thousand deft acts in the arts are ac- 

 complished. 



The true skin is covered with minute 

 projections called papillae. They may 

 be traced in the palm by the ridges of 

 the scarf skin. They are arranged there 

 in rows so that while the naked eye 

 does not discern the projections indi- 

 vidually the rows of them may be no- 

 ticed on the surface of the scarf skin. 

 Some of these papillse contain blood 

 vessels and others corpuscles of touch. 

 Some papillae are small and simple, 

 others compound. In one square inch 

 of the palm have been counted 8,iOO 

 compound and 20,000 smaller papillae 

 arranged in regular rows. There seem 

 to be different end organs for different 

 sensations. There are different spots 

 which may be touched with a fine 

 pointed pencil of copper which is quite 

 hot and no feeling will result. Perhaps 

 the same identical spots touched by the 

 same point, after having been immersed 

 in ice water, will give sensations of cold. 

 Hot spots and cold spots maybe found 

 and marked upon the skin. There are 

 more hot spots than cold ones. Either 

 of these when disturbed electrically 

 will give sensations of heat or cold 

 when neither heat nor cold is applied. 



Ashe mentions an experiment which 

 shows that the body is not equipped 

 exactly alike on both sides, for when 

 both hands are placed in hot water the 

 heat seems greater to the left than to 

 the right hand. Aristotle wrote of the 

 peculiar feeling produced by placing 

 the ends of the first and second fingers 



upon a small substance like a pea. 

 With the fingers in their natural posi- 

 tion you feel one small round body. 

 Place the same fingers upon the same 

 pea, but with one finger crossed over 

 the other so as to touch the pea on the 

 other side, and you distinctly feel two 

 peas. Another of the freaks of touch 

 may easily be tried by placing the 

 palms together so that fingers and 

 thumbs are against their fellows. Close 

 the hands partly and open them again 

 repeatedly and in a short time instead 

 of each finger's feeling another finger 

 there will seem to be an oiled pane of 

 glass between the hands keeping the 

 fingers about a quarter of an inch apart. 

 The delusion subsides when you look 

 at your hands. 



Leather was very early known in 

 Egypt and Greece*, and the thongs of 

 manufactured hides were used by all na- 

 tions for ropes, harness, and other in- 

 struments. The renowned Gordian knot, 

 330 B. C., was of leather thongs. A 

 leather cannon was made in Edinburgh 

 at the time of the American revolution. 

 Although it was fired three times and 

 found to answer, and other firearms 

 were made of this material, it never be- 

 came common. Had it not been for 

 Mother Goose the leather gun might 

 have dropped from the memory of man. 



Leather is made from the true skin 

 and tannic acid. The processes of tan- 

 ning have recently undergone such 

 changes and improvements that it is out 

 of the question to follow them briefly. 

 The union of the white fibres of gelatin, 

 gluten, and kindred substances with the 

 tannic acid, forms insoluble compounds 

 which have great resistance and 

 strength. This acid is found in oak 

 and hemlock bark, and also in that of 

 many other trees such as willow, ash, 

 larch, sumac, and terra japonica. Tea 

 is one-fourth tannic acid. 



Deer skin makes the finer kinds of 

 morocco, while sheep and goat skin 

 make the grades that are used in book- 

 binding. Seal skin makes a superior 

 kind of enamelled leather for boots, 

 bags, dressing-cases, and ornamental 

 articles. Hog skin is so full of oil that 

 it resists the tannic acid, yet saddles are 

 made from it, and it has other uses. 

 The F'rench glove makers produce a 



