FOREST AND STREAM. 



201 



One never should be without a compass ; though in some 

 persons animal magnetism is so strong that they determine 

 the cardinal points instinctively. Indeed there are individ- 

 uals who cannot sleep with their heads to the south, but 

 instantly detect a bed so placed. Back-woodsmen acquire 

 by practice and careful observation a certain craft in 

 reading signs which is almost infallible. As a rule, but 

 not always, moss grows more densely on the north side of 

 trees, nature providing against the cold that comes from 

 that quarter. But a more reliable sign is the limbs of trees, 

 which grow longest on the south side, those on the north 

 side being exposed to the wintry blasts which twist, scathe 

 and stunt them. A laurel swamp is the worst conceivable 

 is place in which to get lost. The tendency to travel in circles 

 well known. It is a plrysiological freak not easily explained. 

 In an article on this subject which we clipped from the 

 Scientific American fifteen years ago, the writer, who is a 

 Texan, says: — 



Bewildered persons frequently travel in a perfect cir- 

 cle, sometimes keeping the same track until they have 

 made half a dozen equal rounds; at other times mak- 

 ing the circle larger or smaller each time. It is not, by 

 any means, always the case, when a person is lost; but it is 

 so frequent that it is within the experience of every one 

 who has been much in the woods. In calm and cloudy 

 weather and in a country of much sameness of appearance, 

 the best woodsmen get so bewildered as to "take the cir- 

 cles." Persons not accustomed to the woods will some- 

 times do so, when the sun is shining and a steady breeze 

 blowing: On the level or gulf prairies of this country on a 

 calm, foggy morning, no man can travel without a road. 

 It is an incident of every day occurrence in the spring and 

 fall seasons, that men are thus becalmed on the prairie as 

 off ectually as are ships at sea ; nor will a compass mend the 

 matter, for it cannot be carried steadily enough to keep its 

 meridian, and the course it points cannot be kept for fifty 

 yards; if a man attempts it he will make a circle and come 

 back to the place he started from. The circle will be large 

 or small generally in proportion to the density of the fog — 

 sometimes only a hundred }^ards in diameter; at other times 

 a mile, but seldom more. The circles thus made are per- 

 fect. This kind of wandering seems to arise from an at- 

 tempt to go a straight course when there is nothing to guide 

 the senses, or when the usual guides of sun, wind, or the 

 general contour of the country are disregarded. It rarely, 

 befalls children, who do not attempt to get on a course, but 

 only run from one visible point to another equally per- 

 ceptible 



Many apparently trivial traits in the disposition of ani- 

 mals, which are of great use to woodsmen are omitted in 

 books of natural history ; chiefly from ignorance no doubt. 

 One of these is the disposition of the horse, when frighten- 

 ed, to run against the wind, if any is blowing. Thousands 

 of horses which would be otherwise irrecoverably lost an- 

 nually on this frontier, are recovered by observing this 

 simple rule in pursuit, All animals have similar inexpli- 

 cable traits in their disposition; and men are no exception 

 to the rule. White men, when they are scared, will re- 

 treat in the same direction in which they came. The Indians 

 know this, and lay their plans accordingly; and many a 

 gallant company has been cut to pieces simply from igno- 

 rance of this fact. But those who understand these mat- 

 ters, when they find it necessary to make a hasty retreat, 

 always do so in a straight line, and in a direction different 

 from the one in which they came. 



We frequently see notices in Northern papers of children 

 being lost. Such things rarely occur on this frontier; 

 though children often wander, and there are but few 

 neighbors to help to search for them. Perhaps the cause 

 of humanity might be subserved by publishing a few rules 

 to be observed in such searches. Any child will make a 

 track or trail plain enough to be followed by the eye over 

 any ground, unless there be much passing of men or ani- 

 mals to spoil the trail; and it can be followed by almost 

 any person of good sight, although he may not have had 

 any previous experience. Go to the place where the child 

 was last seen and look for the trail, glancing along the 

 ground with a sharp scanning look; when it is found, a 

 faint kind of a line will be seen, which may be followed at 

 a fast walk until a well-defined track occurs. If the trailer 

 stops to look for a track he will probably lose the trail, and 

 must go back and take it up again with the same scanning 



fiance along the ground. The trails which hunters and 

 ndians follow skillfully, is not so much composed of 

 tracks or footprints, as of indescribable little signs, such as 

 leaves and blades of grass bent or turned, twigs broken, 

 and other things so small and faint that they cannot be 

 shown to any one, yet which, when all put together, make 

 a kind of line along the ground, which line can be seen by 

 a rapid glancing look, but which will disappear when 

 looked at steady. The trail of a human being is more 

 easily followed than that of any other creature, because 

 there is a kind of 'purpose in it different from the trail of ir- 

 rational animals. A child will change its course around 

 every thick clump of bushes, and go nearly straight when 

 the ground is open. If it is scared and running, it will 

 run from the wind, if much is blowing, and from any voice 

 it hears; in such cases, therefore, it is not good policy to 

 call much upon the lost child's name. 



HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE. 



IN the Tribune, under date of October 30th, there is an 

 able letter from Virginia, written in the clearest, plain- 

 est style and backed up by the strongest arguments, which 

 gives to Maury what he is so fully entitled to, the distinc- 

 tion of having been the first to comprehend the use of the 

 telegraph as a means of not only getting meteorological in- 

 formation, but of distributing it, Tire classification of all 

 meteorological data had been to him the study of his life ; 

 in the telegraph he found the instrument for its collection 

 and diffusion. 



Maury's labors were not exclusively devoted to the study 

 of (lie ocean currents, but were of the most comprehensive 

 kind. Twenty years ago, when called to the Brussels Con- 

 fere in e, Maury urged the formation of a system of meteor- 

 ological observations embracing both the sea and land, it 

 being evident to him that the same laws governed them. 

 "Early in 1858," says the correspondent to the Tribune, 



writing on this subject, "Maury had produced such an im- 

 pression in the Northwest of using the telegraph for the 

 purpose of making weather forecasts according to the pres- 

 ent plan, that no less than eight of the lake cities, Buffalo 

 among them, memorialized Congress in the same year — 

 1858— <to establish a general system of daily telegraphic re- 

 ports for discussion at a central office. In 1859 Maury, at 

 Decatur, Ala,, at a public meeting used these words: 

 "Some years ago I proposed, you recollect, a system of ag- 

 ricultural meteorology for the farmers, and of daily weather 

 reports by telegraph from all parts of the country for the 

 benefit of mankind." Are any stronger proof s necessary 

 in order to show that to Maury alone is due the honor of 

 having originated the present plan of weather signals? 



To General Myer should be awarded full praise for the 

 organization of a system which is, however, as yet in its 

 infancy, the perfect development of which may only be ar- 

 rived at in a century yet to come. But the germ of thought, 

 the creative power which first brought practical meteorol- 

 ogy to where it is now is to be credited to Maury alone. 



Political differences are insignificant in a question of this 

 kind. Who cares now whether Newton had a Round-head 

 or Cavalier tendencies ? It is time we had forgotten our 

 own troubles. But surely the day will come when the 

 grand conception by means of which the very elements are 

 not only shorn of their powers, but even made subservient 

 to man's ends, will cause the name of Matthew F. Maury 

 to be classed not only among the greatest of America's il- 

 lustrations, but of the age we live in. 



HOW OLD IS MAN ? 



NTHROPOLOGY, or the study of man, has received 

 additional strength, as a science, from the publication 

 of Sir Charles Lyell's last edition of the geological eviden- 

 ces of the antiquity of man. This book was first written 

 fully forty years ago, when anthropology as a positive 

 study was almost unknown. By its bold flight of thought 

 at that time, Lyell's views of the age of man were con- 

 sidered ingeniously paradoxical. To-day a better knowl- 

 edge of geology, and the assistance given by philology 

 have added such a mass of evidence as to place the views 

 of this most distinguished of English scientists entirely be- 

 yond the vague position of speculative hypothesis. 



In the researches of the history of man, the leading ques- 

 tion — the fundamental one — is "How old is man ?" 



A curious phase of human thought, and by no means an 

 unnatural one, is here discoverable. Man's comprehension 

 as to the vastness of numbers seems to be at all times quite 

 vague. Between a million of years and a billion of years, 

 though appreciating numerically the difference when it is 

 expressed by written figures, the measure of such a notation 

 of time is, to many, almost incomprehensible. 



In regard to placing the antiquity of man's presence on 

 the earth, there has seemed 'to have been a tendency to 

 choose the lowest possible estimate. Now, strange to say, 

 when calculating the positions of the stars, the inclination 

 of the human mind has been to place them at the greatest 

 possible distances from the earth, from the sun, or from 

 one another. It was perfectly easy for us to accept the 

 theory that such and such a star was millions on millions of 

 miles distant from us, while when we studied man's first 

 presence on the earth, the bold geologist who should have 

 dared to have made man's advent on this globe to recede a 

 mere thousand of years or so, would have had his dictum 

 received not only with considerable doubt, but, strange to 

 say, would have been taxed with irreverence. 



To have gone past the traditional six thousand years, 

 was thought to have been a reckless endeavor to unsettle 

 preconceived ideas. But as has been most wisely asked, 

 "How can the truth of this vital question as to man's age 

 be possibly arrived at by always adhering to the lowest es- 

 timates? Shall we be always safe by calculating wrongly?" 

 With exceeding accuracy from the lacustrine habitations of 

 man found in Switzerland, the evidences are almost posi- 

 tive that they were built some 5,000 to 7,000 years ago, and 

 a wide margin for error is allowed. At sixty feet deep in 

 the Nile aluvium, fragments of brick have been found. 

 Calculations of how long it has taken the Nile mud to de- 

 posit to such a depth were not difficult. In a century the 

 data were almost positive that 3| inches represented the 

 thickness of the deposit. Sixty feet then represented a pe- 

 riod of 30,000 years, according to M. Rosiere, Agassiz, 

 when studying human remains found in Florida, coming 

 from a lacustrine structure, declared them to be fully 10,- 

 000 years old. A human skeleton discovered under four 

 buried forests, seems to point to an age of 50,000 years ago. 



But these traces of the antiquity of man, whether posi- 

 tive or not, are as if but of yesterday, in comparison with 

 other evidences which are much more definite in character. 

 In Torquay is Kent's Cavern. It is a cavern where stalag- 

 mites are constantly forming. The carbonate of lime dis- 

 solved in. water containing an excess of carbonic acid, drip- 

 ping through the upper surface of the cave is deposited as 

 solid carbonate of lime. This simple chemical process, 

 though constant, is a very slow one, a pellicle or film of 

 lime being formed of exceeding thinness. In this particu- 

 lar cave, where this process has apparently been going on 

 forever, names of persons which have been cut two hun- 

 dred years ago into the stalagmites are still visible, though 

 covered over by a coating or varnish of fresh carbonate of 

 lime. Very careful estimates of how long it would take to 

 form an inch of stalagmite led the British Association to de- 

 termine that a foot could be only produced in 20,000 

 years. Now far below the stalagmite floor, specimens of 

 man's handicraft have been found. At the very lowest es- 



timate, the flint weapons in Kent's Cavern were made half 

 a million of years ago. 



Isolated cases of this character might perhaps take away 

 from the general value of such estimates of man's age, but 

 when we find them multiplied, we must give them a certain 

 positive value. The evidences of man in Northern Europe 

 before the ice period, seem doubtful, or if he did exist, all 

 traces of him have been lost. 



With questions of how far the pre-hisforic man differed 

 from the present man we have little to do, save to indicate 

 some curious researches made in the late Lyons Congress, 

 where De Mortillets' opinions in regard "to the existence 

 of a species of man different from the present race," found 

 advocates and opponents. The argument is upheld strong- 

 ly by linguistic proofs, and has for its basis the much dis- 

 puted Development theory. It may be summed up as fol- 

 lows: "That a certain number of animals without the fac- 

 ulty of language were capable of acquiring it, and did ac- 

 tually acquire it, and were entitled to be called men. Then 

 came a certain divergence, Those who had the power of 

 transmitting their thoughts by means of words, improved 

 until they became in time the men of to-day, while the 

 other portion declined mentally, though gaining certain 

 physical advantages, until they became anthropomorphoid 

 apes — chimpanzees or gorillas." 



In another portion of our columns will be found notice 

 of a skull, said to have been found in Kansas, imbedded in 

 the solid rock. Should future examination prove it to be 

 a human skull, it will add much additional interest to this 

 already most absorbing study, especially as an evidence of 

 man's antiquity in America. If we are credited with hav- 

 ing some of the crust of the earliest world yet known 

 above the surface of the sea, the exact locality of which is, 

 we believe, somewhere in the neighborhood of St, Catha- 

 rines, in Canada, perhaps we may yet upturn the primitive 

 skull, and the newest world be proved to be the home of 

 the oldest man. 



— -•*♦- 



— We deviate for our established rule not to print 

 editorial notices that may be construed as advertisements, 

 to call the attention of our readers to a rare opportunity to 

 purchase the Fish Farm of a professional pisciculturist, the 

 whole complete and paid for, well stocked, and supplied 

 by one of the purest and most copious springs in the 

 countiy. The gentleman desires to sell to a Club and man- 

 age the concern for it. We regard this opportunity, which 

 is a legacy of the hard times, as exceptional, and deserving 

 the consideration of sportsmen or fish culrurisls. Address 

 this office. 



$W We trust our readers will appreciate the good 

 quality and general usefulness of the information we are 

 giving them in our paper from week to week, as well as the 

 novelty and freshness of it. Since our first issue we have 

 introduced them to regions little known — our Great West, 

 the Lake Superior region, Anticosti, the Saguenay, and 

 other places remote and seldom visited, covering sufficient 

 new ground and geographical range to entitle our paper, if 

 it were a book, to a p'ace in the Historical Library. We 

 wish to call particular attention to the articles we are now 

 printing on Florida, extending to districts never explored 

 and almost mythological in character. We shall give the 

 whole State, lengthwise and athwart, such ventilation this 

 winter as it has never before had in books or papers. We 

 have arranged to pay the expenses of a gentleman who will 

 take up his abode in " Tiger Tail's" camp, taking with him 

 drawing materials and photographic apparatus which will 

 some day serve to illustrate in book form the information 

 we shall print of this wonderful region ; and although his 

 investigations will not extend to confines so remote as those 

 of Livingston and Baker, they will nevertheless prove more 

 interesting, and we hope fully as useful. If the London 

 Times, the New York Herald, or the Government, were to 

 undertake this mission which we propose to accomplish by 

 our own enterprise and private expense, the achievement 

 would call forth world-wide comment; but we suppose 

 that coming merely within the limited, modest endeavor of 

 Forest and Stream, few people will ever hear of it, 



Aid for Memphis — Amateur Gymnastic Tournament. 

 — We would call special attention to an exhibition given by 

 the gentlemen of the National Amateur Gymnastic and 

 Athletic Tournament Association, to be held at the Acad- 

 emy of Music on Saturday, November 8th. The entries 

 embrace amateurs from N T ew York, Brooklyn, Boston 

 Albany, Pittsburgh, and Providence. Prizes will be given 

 of gold medals, diplomas, etc. The judges of the games 

 will be Prof. John Wood, Prof. Wm. Wood, Prof. Geo. 

 Goldie, Princeton College; Mr. Hessler of New York Turn- 

 verein, and J. C. Babcock of New York Athletic Club; 

 Prof. Bumham, manager of games and stage; Mr.. Willis 

 Van Tine, treasurer and manager of house. The exercises 

 consist of jumping, lifting dumb-bells, vaulting, club 

 swinging, climbing the rope, trapeze performances, and 

 general gymnastics. A display of calisthenics will end the 

 performances. 



Aside from the certain excellence of the performances, 

 it should be remembered that the proceeds of the exhibi- 

 tion are to be given to the Memphis sufferers. We sincere 

 ly trust the Academy will be crowded. 



-fc.o.0^ _ 



— A new economical use for the fungus which grows on 

 trees has been indicated. Caps are made out of the beaten 

 out interior mass of Polyporus fomentarius, the amadou or 

 German tinder of commerce, which is described as beino- 

 both warm and light, It is stated that large use is made in 

 Hungary of this material for caps and waistcoats, and it is 

 also used for caulking boots. 



