15 



NATURAL SCIENCE NEWS. 



some delicious morsel (and diat- 

 oms are its frequent food) it pours 

 itself over its meal, and coalescing 

 at all points around it, thus swal- 

 lows its food by fluxion. To use 

 a homely illustration it is much as 

 if a piece of living mobile dough 

 were to creep around an apple and 

 to knead itself together into a con- 

 tinuous envelope in to form an ap- 

 ple dumpling. Watching the food 

 thus enveloped by the gelatinous 

 substance of the amoeba we see it 

 grow fainter and fainter as its nu- 

 tritious constituents become dis- 

 solved by the corrosive action of 

 the same transparent but chemi- 

 cally active jelly; and when all the 

 goodness has been got out of the 

 meal the body of the eater flows 

 away from the indigestible remains 

 in just the same way that it flowed 

 around the original morsel. 



"We have in this creature, then, 

 eating without a stomach, moving 

 without muscles and without limbs, 

 feeling without nerves, and, we 

 may add, breathing without lungs, 

 and nutrition without blood. The 

 amoeba is a being of no constant 

 outline, of no fixed shape, which 

 changes its form according to its 

 moods and its needs, and turns its 

 outside into its inside whenever it 

 pleases, which is without organs, 

 without tissues, without unlike 

 parts, a mere speck of living mat- 

 ter all alike all over. And yet in 

 the midst of this simplicity it en- 

 joys all the fundamental pow- 

 ers and fulfills all the essential 

 duties of an animal body, and is, 

 moreover, bound by chains of 

 close-joined links with those com- 

 plicated forms of animal life which 

 are provided with special mechan- 

 isms for the most trifling of their 

 wants. 



"The dormant capabilities of 

 this organless being are indirectly 

 and interestingly shown by the 

 shells, which, in allied forms, are 

 built up by the agency of similar 

 homogeneous living matter, and 

 which are in many cases 'struct- 

 ures of extraordinary complexity 

 and most singular beauty.' Pro- 

 fessor Huxley in his lectures most 

 justly says: 



"'That this particle of jelly is 

 capable of combining physical 

 forces in such a manner as to give 

 rise to those exquisite and almost 

 mathematically arranged struct- 

 ures — being itself structureless and 

 without permanent distinction or 

 separation of parts — is, to my 

 mind, a fact of tne profoundest 

 significance, ' " 



Arctic and Antarctic Oceans. 



Among the navigators and scien- 

 tific men of former times it was 

 disputed whether salt water was 

 capable of being frozen. Exper- 

 ience — in many cases a stern 

 teacher — has set that question at 

 rest, proving that within the polar 

 circles the sea is, for hundreds of 

 miles, covered with masses of ice, 

 which form a sullen, unyielding 

 barrier to the poles. Maury des- 

 cribes the agencies at work in 

 these terrible solitudes in a famous 

 passage: "There icebergs are 

 framed and glaciers launched; 

 there the tides have their cradle, 

 the whales their nursery; the winds 

 complete their circuits, and the 

 currents of the sea their round in 

 the wonderful system of oceanic 

 circulation: there the aurora is 

 lighted up, and the trembling 

 needle brought to rest; and there 

 too, in the mazes of that mystic 

 circle, terrestrial forces of occult 

 power and of vast influence upon 

 the well-being of man are contin- 

 ually at play. Within the arctic 

 circle are the pole of the winds 

 and the poles of the cold; the pole 

 of the earth and of the magnet. 

 It is a circle of mysteries; and the 

 desire to enter it — to explore its 

 untrodden wastes and secret cham- 

 bers, and to study its physical as- 

 pects — 'has grown into a longing." 



Marine ice is whittish, opaque, 

 and rough on the surface, and con- 

 sists of thin flakes of a porous 

 spongy texture. From the quan- 

 tity of strong brine enclosed in its 

 substance, it is very heavy and 

 dense, and projects only one-fifth 

 above water. When sea-water be- 

 gins to freeze, it partially deposits 

 its salt, which, thus set free, re- 

 tards the process of congelation 

 below. Old floes are almost fresh, 

 but a thaw renders them brackish. 

 The polar seas do not congeal un- 

 til the temperature falls to 28^ 

 degrees of Fahrenheit, which takes 

 place in September in the north, 

 and March in the south; though 

 even in summer, a slight increase 

 of cold is sufficient to form young 

 ice several inches thick. The sun 

 sets early in November, and the 

 severity of the arctic winter begins 

 in December, continuing to the 

 end of January, during which time 

 the thermometer ranges to about 

 40 degrees below zero. A week or 

 two of milder weather comes on; 

 but the middle of February brings 

 with it the sun, immediately fol- 

 lowed by the most intense cold of 

 the whole winter, After that, the 



sun's influence begins to be felt, 

 and in July the ice breaks up. 

 During the three summer months, 

 the sun never sets, but noon and 

 midnight are equally illumed by 

 brilliant sunshine. A few stars 

 appear in September. The dark- 

 est part of the winter is from the 

 middle of December to the middle 

 of January, when the aurora trans- 

 forms the sky into a vault of fire, 

 and paraselenas appear, surround- 

 ing the moon with blazing crosses, 

 circles, and mock-moons, scarcely 

 surpassed by the wonderful de- 

 ceptions of the solar rays. The 

 intense cold of February is accom- 

 panied by considerable twilight; 

 and in the latitude of Banks' Land, 

 there is even at the end of January 

 tolerable light from 9:30 a. m. to 

 2:30 p. m., so much so, that at 

 noon Arcturus is the sole star un- 

 quenched by the increasingdaylight. 

 The only navigable time is from 

 July to September within the 

 northern, and January, February, 

 and part of March within the 

 southern circle. During the rest 

 of the year, the arctic regions are 

 impenetrably sealed by vast fields 

 of ice, both "floe" and "pack," 

 covering every foot of water, from 

 the shallowest inlet to the wide ex- 

 panse of Baffin's Bay or Melville 

 Sound. 



The interior of Greenland is oc- 

 cupied by vast glaciers which en- 

 croach on the coast, filling the 

 deep dark fiords with frozen snow. 

 As summer advances, those por- 

 tions of the glacier that project in- 

 to the sea are undermined by the 

 waves, and fall with tremendous 

 noise, rocking in the foaming wat- 

 er till they gain equilibrium, when, 

 perfect icebergs, they float here 

 and there, impelled by winds and 

 currents. Many are borne by the 

 polar current southward. They 

 meet the warm waters of the Gulf- 

 stream in latitude 50 degrees, 

 where they melt, and deposit the 

 loads of earth and stones borrowed 

 from the Greenland soil. Accord- 

 ing to Maury, this has probably, 

 in course of time, formed the 

 Grand Bank of Newfoundland. 

 They are in incredible numbers. 

 As many as five hundred have 

 been counted in sight together, 

 ranging from fifty to three hundred 

 feet in hight, and of all sizes up to 

 a mile in extent. Their appear- 

 ance is very beautiful and no less 

 extraordinary. Gothic churches, 

 Egyptian temples, aerial palaces 

 with pillars and arched windows 

 festooned with . crystal draperies, 

 are only some of the inconceivable 

 varieties of form displayed, while 



