KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



1G3 



high, by fifteen feet in diameter, and could 

 not have been of less than three hundred 

 tons weight, all supported on a truncated cone, 

 about two and a half, by three and a half feet 

 diameter. Such a prodigious weight upon so 

 insignificant a base, was well calculated to 

 strike the beholder with awe. 



All extraordinary productions in nature 

 are, by the vulgar, ascribed to the Druids or 

 the devil; and so have Brimham Rocks 

 been. Desiring to have as little to do with 

 the latter "gentleman" as possible, I will 

 merely add, with regard to the Druids, that 

 they may have assisted to cut and fashion 

 the rocks, but they never brought the masses 

 there ; for on descending toward the side of 

 the hill, we find it composed of the same 

 millstone grit, and presenting a lamillar 

 structure, parallel to that of the supposed 

 idols. The very structure of the stone goes 

 a long way to establish their right to be con- 

 sidered natives of the spot; for wherever 

 masses of stone are quarried for building or 

 other purposes, the grain or cleavage of the 

 stone is parallel to the length ; and would 

 thus, in the majority of the blocks at Brim- 

 ham, be perpendicular instead of being hori- 

 zontal, as it invariably is. Professor Phillips, 

 when writing of the millstone grit series, in 

 his Geology of Yorkshire, thus pathetically 

 refers to the subject under notice : — 



" The wasting power of the atmosphere is 

 very conspicuous on these rocks ; searching 

 out their secret laminations; working per- 

 pendicular furrows, and horizontal cavities; 

 wearing away the bases, and thus bringing a 

 slow but sure destruction on the whole ex- 

 posed masses. The rocks of Brimham are in 

 this respect very remarkable ; for they are 

 truly in a state of ruin : those that remain 

 are but perishing monuments of what have 

 been destroyed ; and it is difficult to conceive 

 circumstances of inanimate nature more 

 affecting to the contemplative mind than 

 the strange forms and unaccountable com- 

 binations of these gigantic masses." — D. 



PHRENOLOGY FOR THE MILLION. 



No. XXI --PHYSIOLOGY OF THE BRAIN. 



BY F. J. GALL, M.D. 



{Continued from page 135.) 



" A single organ," says Bonnet in his Palin- 

 genesia, " may have been constructed with such 

 art, as alone to give to the animal a great 

 number of ideas, to diversify them greatly, and 

 to associate them strongly together. It may even 

 associate them with so much more force and ad- 

 vantage, as the fibres, which are to be the seat of 

 it, find themselves more strongly united in a 

 single organ. 



" The trunk of the elephant is a beautiful 

 example, which will admirably illustrate my 

 position. It is to this single instrument, that 



this noble animal owes his superiority over all 

 other animals; it is by the possession of it, that 

 he seems to hold the middle place between man 

 and the brute. What pencil could express all the 

 wonders effected by this sort of universal in- 

 strument, better than that of Nature's painter? 



" This trunk" says he, " composed of mem- 

 branes, nerves, and muscles, is, at the same time, 

 a member capable of movement, and an organ of 

 sentiment. The elephant can lengthen , shorten, 

 bend, and turn it in every direction. The extre- 

 mity is terminated by an appendage of the form 

 of a finger : it is by means of this kind of finger, 

 that the elephant does everything which we do 

 with our fingers; he picks up from the ground 

 the smallest coins ; he gathers herbs and flowers, 

 choosing them one by one ; he unties knots, opens 

 and shut doors by turning the keys, and pushing 

 the bolts; he even learns to trace regular cha- 

 racters, with an instrument as small as a pen. 



" In the middle of this finger-shaped append- 

 age, is a concavity, at the bottom of which are 

 found the common conduits of smell and respira- 

 tion. The elephant has, therefore, his nose in his 

 hands, and has the advantage of joining the 

 power of his lungs to the action of his fingers, of 

 drawing up liquids by a strong suction or of 

 lifting very heavy, solid bodies, by applying to 

 their surface the extremity of his trunk, and 

 forming a vacuum by a strong inspiration. 



" Delicacy of touch, acuteness of smell, facility 

 of motion, and power of suction, are found then 

 at the extremity of the elephant's nose. Of all 

 the instruments with which nature has so liberally 

 endowed her favored children, the trunk is, 

 perhaps, the most complete and the most admi- 

 rable ; it is not only an organic instrument, but a 

 triple sense, whose united and combined func- 

 tions are, at the same time, the cause, and pro- 

 duce the effects of that intelligence and those 

 faculties which distinguish the elephant and ele- 

 vate him above all other animals. He is less 

 subject than any other animal to the errors of the 

 sense of sight, because he promptly rectifies them 

 by that of touch, and because, making use of his 

 trunk, as a long arm, to touch bodies at a dis- 

 tance, he obtains, like us, real ideas of distance 

 by this means." 



The eloquent historian of the elephant next 

 unites in a single view the various services 

 which this great animal derives from his trunk. 

 " The touch," says he, " is that of all the senses 

 which has the most relation to knowledge ; the 

 delicacy of the touch gives the idea of the sub- 

 stance of bodies ; the flexibility in the parts of 

 this organ gives the idea of their external form ; 

 the power of suction, that of their weight; the 

 smell, that of their qualities ; and the length of 

 the arm or trunk, that of their distance : thus, by 

 a sole and a single member, and, to use the ex- 

 pression, by a single and simultaneous act, the 

 elephant feels, perceives, and judges of several 

 things at once. Now a multiplied sensation is 

 equivalent, in some sort, to reflection ; therefore, 

 though this animal be, like all others, deprived of 

 the power of reflecting, still as his sensations are 

 found combined in the organ itself, as they are 

 contemporaneous, and, as it were, indivisible from 

 each other, it is not astonishing, that he should 

 have of himself a species of ideas, and that he 



