Read Ebook: The Chautauquan Vol. 05 May 1885 No. 8 by Chautauqua Institution Chautauqua Literary And Scientific Circle Flood Theodore L Editor

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In short, the sum of all the energies of nature is a constant quantity, although it manifests itself in a thousand different ways. The foregoing reflections indicate that the researches of modern science all point to a grand unity in God's universe. Let us conclude by briefly referring to some instances of plan or design in the

GROUPING OF LAWS.

The most characteristic feature of all science is that it arranges facts in an orderly manner, under principles or laws.

Observe another group of laws in physics: Variation, in accordance with an exact proportion.

Gravity varies inversely as the square of the distance; heat varies inversely as the square of the distance; light varies inversely as the square of the distance, and sound varies also in exactly the same ratio.

Who can contemplate this exact mathematical arrangement, extending through many departments of matter, without concluding that "Nature is but the name for an effect whose cause is God?"

THE EYES BUSY ON THINGS ABOUT US.

BY JOSEPHINE POLLARD.

A distinguished writer has said: "The eyes are of no use without the observing power," and surely no faculty we possess is capable of so much cultivation as the sight. The facility with which the eye can express the emotions of the soul has been the theme of poets of all ages, who have not hesitated to confess which style of eyes pleased them the most. Says one:

"I everywhere am thinking Of thy blue eye's sweet smile; A sea of thoughts is spreading Over my heart the while."

And others:

"His eyes are songs without words."

"A suppressed resolve will betray itself in the eyes."

"An eye can threaten like a loaded and leveled gun, or can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams of kindness, it can make the heart dance with joy."

"Eyes are bold as lions, roving, running, leaping, here and there, far and near. They speak all languages; wait for no introduction; ask no leave of age or rank; respect neither poverty nor riches, neither learning nor power, nor virtue nor sex, but intrude, and come again, and go through and through you in a moment of time. What inundation of life and thought is discharged from one soul into another through them!"

There are

"True eyes Too pure and too honest in aught to disguise The sweet soul shining through them;"

and "eyes that have murder in them, whose flash is the forerunner of thunder." One has "an eye like Mars, to threaten and command," and other eyes are "the homes of silent prayer."

But the variety in color and expression of the eye is as nothing compared to difference in the power of observation. Those ancient companions, "Eyes and No-Eyes," the story of whose wanderings conveyed a valuable lesson to young and old, were but prototypes of people who go through the world to-day, some of whom see everything, while others see nothing at all. Poets, who could write so beautifully of the eyes, must first have trained their own vision to perceive the beauty or baseness they described, and it is the exercise of this far-seeing, penetrating, analytical power that is the prerogative of genius.

The specialist devotes himself to the closest examination of details. The naturalist does not let the smallest insect escape him, and his trained eye perceives the least peculiarity that denotes the varieties of species.

A person with ordinary eyesight takes up a rose, a lily, or a daisy, and only admires color, shape, or perfume; while the botanist examines the flower in every part, and tells who was its grandfather or grandmother, and feels as tender an interest in it as if it were a human being.

The artist has to train his eye to look for beauty where apparently none appears. He must have an eye for color, for form, for expression, for whatever line he proposes to follow, and he will never rise to eminence if he is satisfied with a hasty, careless, superficial glance.

Turner was one day painting a landscape with the richness of color that was his specialty, when an English girl who was painting near him left her easel and came to look over his shoulder. "Why, Mr. Turner," said she, "I don't see any of those colors in the grass or the trees."

"No?" said Turner. "Don't you wish you could?"

It is astonishing that with so much of beauty as there is around us, so many people are found who travel through the world without having used their eyes to any profit whatever. The training needs to be begun in early life; children should be taught how to observe; and as some are duller than others they need to have things pointed out to them, until the habit of examining closely becomes fixed, and like second nature.

What a wonderful field for study there is in the sky above us! Look at the clouds; here, in great, heavy masses; there assuming strange shapes, and taking on an infinite variety of coloring. See the setting sun; never twice alike; a marvel of beauty and grandeur; a feast for even young eyes.

Let us go down by the seashore and watch the great waves come in. The sea is broad, and grand, and deep; but is that all? Note how it reflects the color of the sky; mark the waves that rise afar, and show their white manes like wild horses of the sea, and dash on the shore like a charge of cavalry. How they come galloping, galloping on! Watch for the ninth wave, and look out for yourself! Observe the height that each succeeding wave obtains when the tide is on the rise, and how the character of the beach is changed after a severe storm of wind or rain. There is a volume of interesting study in a handful of sand, a tuft of moss, a small patch of grass, or a bunch of seaweed.

Ruskin, that exceedingly close observer of art and nature, and eminently sharp critic of men and things, gives us some excellent instruction in the art of looking below the surface. "There is no bush," he says, "on the face of the globe exactly like another bush; there are no two trees in the forest whose boughs bend into the same network, nor two leaves on the same tree which could not be told one from the other, nor two waves in the sea exactly alike. And out of this mass of various yet agreeing beauty, it is by long attention only that the conception of the constant character--the ideal form--hinted at by all, yet assumed by none, is fixed upon the imagination for its standard of truth. Ask the connoisseur, who has scampered over all Europe, the shape of the leaf of an elm, and the chances are ninety to one that he can not tell you, and yet he will be voluble of criticism on every painted landscape from Dresden to Madrid, and pretend to tell you whether they are like nature or not. A man may recognize the portrait of his friend, though he can not, if you ask him apart, tell you the shape of his nose or the height of his forehead.

"The color of plants is constantly changing with the season, and that of everything with the quality of light falling upon it; but the nature and essence of the thing are independent of these changes. An oak is an oak, whether green with spring or red with winter; a dahlia is a dahlia, whether it be red or crimson; but let one curve of the petals, one groove of the stamens be wanting, and the flower ceases to be the same. Two trees of the same kind, at the same season, and of the same age, are of absolutely the same color; but they are not of the same form, nor anything like it."

How few of us observe these things! and how much we miss daily and hourly through lack of this special training of the eye!

A geologist was with a party of friends in the Yosemite valley and called their attention to the play of the light from a campfire on the underside of the leaves of the trees above them. It was a beautiful revelation, and all wondered that they had never noticed it before.

If you are living in the country you should educate the eye to study nature in all its phases, and every day add something to your store of knowledge. Observe the habits of birds, and their haunts; watch the ants and other insects; familiarize yourself with plant life so that you can tell a weed from a flower, and a medicinal herb from a poisonous plant.

If a dweller in the town, observe varieties of architecture, the materials used in the manufacture of houses; compare modern with ancient styles; and lose no opportunity of obtaining information in regard to all that is new and strange. Wherever you are, be less intent on reading novels than in observing wherein you can improve your surroundings. The slattern, with her nose in a book, is blind to the cobwebs that hang from the ceiling, and the rags and dirt visible to every one else. She is cultivating the eyes of her imagination, and reveling in scenes of fairy-like splendor, and has no eyes for the common things of every day life. Her powers of observation are exceedingly limited, and her home is no better for her being in it. She is content to lead an idle life, and does not see in how many ways she might amuse and improve herself.

The trained housekeeper has made good use of her eyes, and by noticing trifles has brought her department to a high state of perfection. It is not enough that she has a natural taste for it; she must be continually looking after things with the searching gaze of an inspector-general. Her practised eyes see when the table-cloth is awry, or the dishes not in their places; when the furniture needs renovating, or the dust has accumulated, and she feels that her reputation is at stake if the defects are not speedily remedied.

An expert in precious stones can tell almost at a glance the value and weight of each gem, and is not easily deceived by counterfeits.

The physician can so train his eye that he has merely to look closely at the patient to determine the nature of his disease; while the microscopist, the geologist, and the astronomer acquire such accuracy from their close and long continued investigations that they can detect the least change in the appearance of the heavens above or the earth beneath.

But the astronomer may have his eyes so fixed on the stars that he can not observe what is going on below; the geologist may be able to analyze a stone and tell to which stratum it belongs, and yet take no interest in anything that is above ground; and the devoted student of the microscope may be so entranced by the wonders continually opening before him, that he is utterly oblivious to all else surrounding him. Without this habit of observation, the world would have had no Galileo, no Humboldt, no Newton, no Agassiz, no Hugh Miller, no Edison, and no progress. But all are not gifted in the same way; and often the sphere we move in or the place in which we are born, determines and decides our calling, and controls our habits to a very great extent. It is natural that one accustomed to an open country should have his eyes attracted toward the heavens, which are constantly revealing new wonders; and that one brought up among the rocks should take to hammering them to bits, boy-like, to see of what they are made, or how they look inside.

The differences between men consist in a great measure in the intelligence of their observation. The Russian proverb says: "He goes through the forest and sees no firewood." "The wise man's eyes are in his head," says Solomon, "but the fool walketh in darkness." It is the mind that sees as well as the eye. Where unthinking gazers observe nothing, men of intelligent vision penetrate into the very fiber of the phenomena presented to them, attentively noting differences, making comparisons and recognizing their underlying idea. Many before Galileo had seen a suspended weight swing before their eyes with a measured beat; but he was the first to detect the value of the fact.

One of the vergers in the cathedral at Pisa, after replenishing with oil a lamp which hung from the roof, left it swinging to and fro; and Galileo, then a youth of only eighteen, noting it attentively, conceived the idea of applying to it the measurement of time. Fifty years of study and labor elapsed before he completed the invention of his pendulum--the importance of which, in the measurement of time and in astronomical calculations, can scarcely be overrated. In like manner, Galileo having heard that a Dutch spectacle-maker had presented to Count Maurice, of Nassau, an instrument by means of which distant objects appeared nearer to the beholder, began to inquire into the cause of such a phenomena, and this led to the invention of the telescope, and proved the beginning of the modern science of astronomy.

While Captain Brown was occupied in studying the construction of bridges, with the view of contriving one of a cheap description to be thrown across the Tweed, near which he lived, he was walking in his garden one morning when he saw a tiny spider's web suspended across his path. The idea immediately occurred to him that a bridge of iron ropes or chains might be constructed in like manner, and the result was the invention of his suspension bridge.

So James Watt, when consulted about the mode of carrying water by pipes under the Clyde, along the unequal bed of the river, turned his attention one day to the shell of a lobster presented at table, and from that model he invented an iron tube, which, when laid down, was found effectually to answer the purpose.

Sir Isambard Brunel took his first lessons in forming the Thames tunnel from the tiny ship-worm; he saw how the little creature perforated the wood with its well-armed head, first in one direction and then in another, till the archway was complete, and then daubed over the roof and sides with a kind of varnish, and by copying this work on a large scale, Brunel was at length enabled to construct his shield and accomplish his great engineering work.

It is the intelligent eye of the careful observer which gives these apparently trivial phenomena their value. So trifling a matter as the sight of seaweed floating past his ship enabled Columbus to quell the mutiny which arose amongst his sailors at not discovering land, and to assure them that the eagerly sought New World was not far off.

It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit in life. When Franklin made his discovery of the identity of lightning and electricity, it was sneered at, and people asked, "Of what use is it?" To which his reply was, "What is the use of a child? It may become a man!" The great Cuvier was a singularly accurate, careful, and industrious observer. When a boy he was attracted to the subject of natural history by the sight of a volume of Buffon, which accidentally fell in his way. He at once proceeded to copy the drawings, and to color them after the descriptions given in the text. At eighteen he was offered the situation of tutor in a family residing near F?camp, in Normandy. Living close to the seashore, he was brought face to face with the wonders of marine life. Strolling along the sands one day he observed a stranded cuttle-fish. He was attracted by the curious object, took it home to dissect, and thus began the study of the molluscae, in the pursuit of which he achieved so distinguished a reputation. He had no books to refer to excepting only the great book of nature which lay open before him. The study of the novel and interesting objects which it daily presented to his eyes made a much deeper impression on his mind than any written or engraved descriptions could possibly have done. Three years thus passed, during which he compared the living specimens of marine animals with the fossil remains found in the neighborhood, dissected the specimens of marine life that came under his notice, and, by careful observation, prepared the way for a complete reform in the classification of the animal kingdom.

The life of Hugh Miller furnishes another illustration of the advantage of making a good use of the eyes. While Hugh was but a child, his father, who was a sailor, was drowned at sea, and he was brought up by his widowed mother. He had a school training after a sort, but his best teachers were the boys with whom he played, the men among whom he worked, the friends and relatives with whom he lived. With a big hammer which had belonged to his great-grandfather, an old buccaneer, the boy went about chipping the stones and accumulating specimens of mica, porphyry, garnet, and other stones. Sometimes he had a day in the woods, and there, too, his attention was excited by the peculiar geological curiosities which came in his way. While searching among the rocks on the beach, he was sometimes asked, in irony, by the farm-servants who came to load their carts with seaweed, whether he was getting "siller in the stanes," but was so unlucky as never to be able to answer in the affirmative. When of a suitable age he was apprenticed to the trade of his choice--that of a working stone cutter--and he began his laboring career in a quarry looking out upon the Cromarty Firth. This quarry proved one of his best schools. The remarkable geological formations which it displayed awakened his curiosity. The bar of deep-red stone beneath, and the bar of pale-red clay above, were noted by the young quarryman, who even in such unpromising subjects found matter for observation and reflection. Where other men saw nothing, he detected analogies, differences, and peculiarities which set him thinking. He simply kept his eyes and his mind open; was sober, diligent and persevering, and this was the secret of his intellectual growth.

His curiosity was excited and kept alive by the curious organic remains, principally of old and extinct species of fishes, ferns, and ammonites, which were revealed along the coast by the washings of the waves, or were exposed by the stroke of his mason's hammer. He never lost sight of the subject, but went on accumulating observations and comparing formations, until at length, many years afterward, when no longer a working mason, he gave to the world his highly interesting work on the "Old Red Sandstone," which at once established his reputation as a scientific geologist. But this work was the fruit of long years of patient observation and research.

We learn from these interesting records that, no matter how or where one is situated, he will always find opportunities for observation if he will only keep his eyes open and his mind open at the same time. It is the brain behind the eyes that makes seeing of any value. Every gift may be perfected by self-culture, and by keeping our eyes busy on things about us, by observing and comparing, we color our future lives, increase our intelligence, and are never at a loss for new worlds to conquer.

EASY LESSONS IN ANIMAL BIOLOGY.

This subdivision of the animal kingdom, containing articulated or jointed animals and insects, exceeds every other in the number and diversity of the species. The articulation may belong to their bodies, limbs, or outer covering. The tough shells of some, formed by a secretion of a hard, horn-like substance, have numerous segments, or rings, either closely joined and firmly cemented, as those about the head and thorax, or loosely cemented, as those which encompass the abdomen. The skeleton of some is external, and consists of these articulated segments, which serve the double purpose of framework and covering. The muscles, or elastic cartilages holding them together, are striated, or furnished with small grooves in the sheath or shell. If the animal has limbs, they also are jointed, and hollow.

The chief orders of the Crustacea are the Barnacles, the Water-flea, the Fourteen-footed Crustacea, and Ten-footed Crustacea.

The Crayfish may be taken as a type of the structure of the Crustacea. The body has two principal sections. The anterior, called the cephalo-thorax, extends to the first distinctly marked ring, and the shield, thus far, is comparatively smooth, the segments fitting so closely as to be practically one. In front and between the two pairs of antennae, or feelers, is a small pointed process in the place of the nasal organ, but serving some other purpose. At the base of each of the smaller antennae, on the under side, is a minute sac, the mouth of which is protected with delicate hairs. These are the organs of hearing, and near them, on the outer side, are the organs of smell. The sense of touch is in the fine cilia that fringe the mouth and the antennae.

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