57Q 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ling of Douglas firs, in great bare preci- 

 pices of pinkish-white limestone to rugged 

 mountain forms at once." The level of 

 perpetual snow among them is given by the 

 Rev. W. S. Green, who visited them to ex- 

 amine their glaciers, at about seven thousand 

 feet, and the upper limit of the forest at six 

 thousand feet, while the principal peaks rise 

 to between ten and eleven thousand feet. 

 The starting-point of Mr. Green's excur- 

 sions was the Glacier Hotel station of the 

 railway, in front of the great lllecewaet 

 Glacier, 4,122 feet above the sea. Seek- 

 ing some commanding point whence a view 

 might be gained of what lay beyond the 

 upper snow-field, the author reached a little 

 peak on the southern shoulder of Mount Sir 

 Donald, six hundred feet below the main 

 summit (10,645 feet). Hence " we had," he 

 says, " one of the most interesting views it 

 is possible to imagine. Kow for the first 

 time we saw what the glacier regions of the 

 Selkirks really meant. From the base of the 

 peak we were on, the great snow-field ex- 

 tended for over ten miles. Beyond it to the 

 southward, and away in unending series, far 

 as the eye could reach, rose range after 

 range of snowy peaks with glaciers in the 

 hollows; peaks and glaciers were simply 

 innumerable. Looking westward and north- 

 ward, a similar prospect presented itself." 

 Of these glaciers, Mr. Green has mapped the 

 Sir Donald, Geikie (four miles long and one 

 thousand yards wide), Deville, Dawson, Van 

 Home, Asnekan, and Lily. All the glaciers 

 show evidences of shrinking. Measurements 

 made at the foot of the Great lllecewaet 

 Glacier indicated that the ice had moved 

 along twenty feet in thirteen days. 



Mental Powers of Criminals. — The bear- 

 ing of education on the character and reforma- 

 tion of criminals is discussed by Dr. Hamilton 

 D. Way in a paper on the physical and indus- 

 trial training of that class, which is published 

 by the Industrial Education Association. The 

 author assumes that " it is a mistake to sup- 

 pose that the criminal is naturally bright. 

 Moral failure and blunted intellect, as a rule, 

 go hand in hand. If bright, it is usually in 

 a narrow line and self -repeating." The crim- 

 inal's malpractice has its origin in blunted 

 or non-developed nervous areas, and is in- 

 dicative of wrong-headedness. "Whatever 



may be said of the motives or incentives 

 that led to crime, the fact remains that the 

 head of the criminal is wrong. The time 

 has gone by in which to argue that to edu- 

 cate the criminal is to make him a more ac- 

 complished and successful scamp. "It is 

 through physical and mental training and 

 their composite labor that the slumbering 

 germs of manhood are fructified, maturing 

 under a firm and unrelaxing discipline." 

 The criminal's mind, " while not diseased, is 

 undeveloped, or it may be abnormally devel- 

 oped in certain directions ; the smartness 

 resulting therefrom partaking of low cun- 

 ning and centering about self. He is defi- 

 cient in stability and will-power, and inca- 

 pable of prolonged mental effort and appli- 

 cation. His intellect travels in a rut, and 

 fails him in an emergency. His moral 

 nature shares in the imperfections of his 

 physical and mental state." A training i3 

 advocated by the author that will awaken 

 the slumbering faculties, and thus set the 

 mind in a normal condition. This training 

 had best not be given by persons connected 

 with the prison, for it might thereby be un- 

 pleasantly associated with penal features, 

 but by teachers brought in for the purpose. 

 Dr. Way gives an interesting relation of ex- 

 periments which he has made with prisoners 

 in accordance with these views, the average 

 results of which are very encouraging. 



The Advantages of Insensibility.— An 



English writer has recently suggested that 

 we are wont to give excessive praise to the 

 faculty of sensibility, while we depreciate its 

 opposite, or the want of it, insensibility. It 

 is clear, he maintains, that almost every 

 shade of insensibility has a side of advan- 

 tage as well as of disadvantage. The world 

 forgets how very much tender sensibility 

 often interferes with the calm judgment 

 necessary for right action and the cool pres- 

 ence of mind which is essential to effective 

 execution. What shall we say of the sur- 

 geon or the nurse who is so sensitive that 

 the sight of suffering disturbs the judg- 

 ment and makes the hand tremble when a 

 steady hand is most essential to efficient 

 work. It is obvious that, for every purpose 

 of alleviating pain itself, a certain measure 

 of insensibility to sympathetic pain is in the 

 highest degree advantageous, if not neces- 



