380 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 507. 



may by degrees be firmly established. We 

 may anticipate the sneer that speculations on 

 the nature of matter do not help much in deal- 

 ing with what is called ' practical politics,' 

 apparently because it consists chiefly of un- 

 practical and impracticable verbiage. Per- 

 haps not ; but the intellectual habit and the in- 

 tellectual capacity which impel and enable a 

 man immersed in work to keep himself ac- 

 quainted with the changing aspects of science 

 upon which such speculations depend, do most 

 potently help him in whatever business it may 

 be his lot to transact. The precise color of his 

 speculations is not very material, since it de- 

 pends upon personal idiosyncracies of which 

 the man himself could give none but the most 

 inadequate account. In essence these specu- 

 lations are as old as human thought, and all 

 through the ages we find the most powerful 

 intellects ranged on opposite sides. In form 

 the speculations are constantly changing, and 

 so are the names of the opposing parties. 

 What we have to ask about a man is not on 

 which side he stands, but what mastery he 

 shows of the contemporary scientific achieve- 

 ment which gives to the secular controversy 

 the form it wears for the men of his own time. 

 That mastery, according to its degree, makes 

 him an efiicient intellectual force in whatever 

 field he may choose to exert himself. — London 

 Times. 



AN ANCIENT FICTION. 



The astonishing longevity of popular delu- 

 sions in natural history is nowhere better 

 illustrated than by the credence given even by 

 educated f oUc at the present day to alleged dis- 

 coveries of frogs, toads and other animals 

 within hermetically sealed cavities, such as in- 

 side overgrown hollows of trees or closed in- 

 terior spaces of rock. 



Dr. Traquair, director of the Edinburgh 

 Museum, mentions a letter published in the 

 London Times a few years ago by the late 

 Miss Amelia B. Edwards, the eminent Egyptol- 

 ogist, on the finding of a live toad deep down 

 in boulder clay at Greenock, and refers to 

 another accomplished author who took um- 

 brage because some one ventured to question 

 his assertion that live frogs occur in the Old 



Eed Sandstone. Dr. Traquair is right in sup- 

 posing beliefs of this nature to have consider- 

 able antiquity, although he professes igno- 

 rance as to how far back they can be traced 

 into the past. 



Probably not many will be surprised to 

 learn that this popular delusion has a contin- 

 uous history in literature of at least four 

 hundred years ; and if we include the so-called 

 ' subterranean fish ' of Narbonne, to which a 

 special chapter is devoted in Rondelet's 

 ' Ichthyology ' (1554), a form of it is traceable 

 as far back as the time of Aristotle. The 

 occurrence of live fish underground, and the 

 singular mode of taking them with the spade 

 instead of the net, or hook and line, is men- 

 tioned repeatedly by classic authors, the most 

 particular account being that of Polybius 

 (' History,' xxxiv.). Older than these, though 

 of scarcely germane nature, are the Biblical 

 and secular legends of miraculous suspension 

 of vital functions, of which the tale of the 

 Seven Sleepers is an example. 



References might be given to more than a 

 score of sixteenth to eighteenth century writ- 

 ers who make more or less particular mention 

 of the occurrence of live animals in cavities 

 long closed to the air, the list including such 

 prominent names as Conrad Gesner,* Agri- 

 cola,! Eraneis Bacon,:j: Athanasius Kircher,§ 

 Libavius|| and Astruc.f It is not, however, 

 worth while to take further notice of these 

 early accounts, unless it be one which is re- 

 markable for its naivete and evident truthful- 

 ness. This narrative is to be found in the 

 surgical works (book xxv., cap. 18) of Am- 

 broise Pare, court physician of Henry III., 



* ' De omni rerum fossilium, etc.,' Zurich, 1565. 



t ' De Animantibus subterraneis,' .Cap. XXXV., 

 Wittenberg, 1614. 



t ' Natural History,' opus posthumum, cent, vi., 

 § 570. Bacon says here : ' The ancients have 

 affirmed that there are some herbs that grow out 

 of stone ; which may be, for that it is certain that 

 toads have been found in the middle of freestone.' 



§ ' Mundus subterraneus,' lib. viii., Amsterdam, 

 1664 and 1678. 



II ' Singularium,' part i., de carne fossile; part 

 iv., de Batrachiis, cap. 25. 



H ' Mgmoires pour I'Histoire naturelle de la 

 Province de Languedoc,' part iii., chap. 10, Paris, 

 1737. 



