156 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



used for robes, as linings for garments, etc. About 500,000 skins are 

 taken yearly. The hair of the badger is fine, silky, and very long, 

 especially behind. At the roots it is of a yellowish gray, black in the 

 middle, and white at the tip. The skins were formerly made into 

 pouches by the Highlanders. The dressed skins make the best pistol- 

 furniture, and the hair is much used to make artists' brushes for spread- 

 ing the colors and softening the shades in painting. Some 50,000 skins 

 are sent to market annually. 



The white or polar bear is an enormous animal, weighing sometimes 

 1,000 or 1,500 pounds ; is wholly carnivorous, and feeds upon seals 

 and other animals. The fur is long, fine, soft, woolly, and of a silvery- 

 white color tinged with yellow. Its skin makes a magnificent robe. 

 In the northern regions the skins of bears furnish the most useful and 

 comfortable winter apparel. They are made into beds, coverlets, caps, 

 gloves, and other articles of clothing. The black bear has hair com- 

 paratively soft and glossy. Its skin is used for hammer-cloths of 

 carriages, pistol-holsters, rugs, caps, etc. The cinnamon bear of the 

 Rocky Mountains has a more valuable fur than that of the black bear, 

 of which it appears to be a variety. 



There are various other animals that furnish robes of different 

 quality and appearance, such as the wolverine, or glutton, the wild-cat, 

 the coyote, or prairie-wolf, the different varieties of the white wolf, 

 which is sometimes called the mountain or timber wolf. The growing 

 scarcity of wild animals, and the resources of modern art, are gradu- 

 ally introducing into use various fabrics as artificial robes, many of 

 them convenient and comfortable, and some of them even elegant and 

 very desirable. 



. 4*+ 



CORRELATION OF VITAL WITH CHEMICAL AND 



PHYSICAL FORCES. 1 



By JOSEPH LE CONTE, 



PBOFESSOB OF GEOLOGY AND NATUBAL HISTOBY IN" THE UNIVEESITY OF CAUFOBNIA. 



VITAL force ; whence is it derived ? What is its relation to the 

 other forces of Nature ? The answer of modern science to these 

 questions is : It is derived from the lower forces of Nature ; it is re- 

 lated to other forces much as these are related to each other — it is cor- 

 related with chemical and physical forces. 



At one time matter was supposed to be destructible. By combus- 

 tion or by evaporation matter seemed to be consumed — to pass out of 

 existence ; but now we know it only changes its form from the solid 



1 An abstract of two Lectures given to the class in Comparative Physiology in the 

 Unirersity of California. 



