“ ’Tis a quaint thought, and yet perchance, Sweet blossoms, ye have sprung From flowers that over Eden once Their pristine fragrance flung. ” “In the beginning God created the heaven and earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light!” There is no greater mystery than the mystery of creation. Nowhere is its story told more eloquently and more scientifically than in the opening words of Genesis. All the fruitage of centuries of research but reaffirms this ancient narrative. In the early days of this planet, when its crust was scarcely hardened from the molten state, there reigned what might be called the age of water. The entire surface of the globe was covered with a sea...
A strong and stable sawing trestle is one of the most important accessories of the carpenter’s shop, whether amateur or professional. The saw is constantly being used, and for it to do its work accurately the material must be properly supported, so that it cannot sway or shift. Anybody who has been in the habit of using a wobbly chair or box to saw on will be surprised to find how much more easily wood can be cut when resting on a trestle like that illustrated by Figs. 1 to 3. The top, a , of the trestle is 29 inches long, 4 inches wide, and 2 inches thick. At one end it has a deep nick, to serve much the same purpose as the notched board used in fretworking; also to hold on edge such things as doors while their edges are planed up. Pushed back against the wall...
Probably the earliest independent work in Arabic Spain to embrace the whole of medical knowledge of the time is the encyclopedic al-Tasrīf, written in the late 10th century by Abū al-Qāsim al-Zahrāwī, also known as Abulcasis. Consisting of 30 treatises, it is the only known work of al-Zahrāwī and it brought him high prestige in the western world. Here we are concerned only with his last treatise, on surgery. With its many drawings of surgical instruments, intended for the instruction of apprentices, its descriptions of formulas and medicinal preparations, and its lucid observations on surgical procedures, this treatise is perhaps the oldest of its kind. Scholars today have available a translation of the text and reproductions of the drawings, but many of the latter are greatly modified from the originals. This study reproduces examples of al-Zahrāwī’s original illustrations, compares some with early drawings based on them, and comments on passages...
With his nephews as willing companions and eager listeners, Uncle Paul continued his walks and talks in the pleasant summer afternoons. “Bread is made of flour,” he began, “and flour is wheat reduced to powder under the millstone. What an interesting mechanism that is, the flour-mill, driven by water, by the wind, sometimes by steam! What wearisome effort, what waste of time, if we had not this invention and were forced to do its work of grinding by sheer strength of arm! “I must tell you that in ancient times, for want of knowing how to grind wheat, people had to content themselves with crushing it between two stones after parching it a little over the fire. The coarse meal thus obtained was cooked in water to a sort of porridge and eaten with no further preparation. Bread was unknown. “Later the plan was hit upon of kneading the meal...
The first to describe a case of division of the parietal bone in apes was Johannes Ranke, in 1899. [1] The skull in question is that of an adolescent female orang, one of 245 orang crania in the Selenka collection in the Munich Anthropological Institute. The abnormal suture divides the right parietal into an upper larger and a lower smaller portion. "The suture runs nearly parallel with the sagittal suture," but, as the illustration shows ( Fig. 1 ), it descends in its posterior extremity towards the temporo-parietal suture, and terminates in this a few millimetres in front of the lambdoid suture. The abnormal suture shows but little serration, and the articulation of the two divisions of the parietal bone is squamous in character, the lower portion overlapping the upper. Below the junction of the abnormal with the coronal suture, the latter takes a pronounced bend forward. A similar bend...
Snakes, Ophidia —regarded by some authorities as an order of the class Reptilia , by the author as a sub-order of the order Squamata , which includes besides the Lizards, Lacertilia , the Chameleons, Rhiptoglossa , and the extinct Dolichosauria and Mosasauria —may be defined as greatly elongate scaly Reptiles without limbs, or with mere vestiges of the hind pair, without movable eyelids, without ear-opening, with elongate, deeply forked tongue retractile into a basal sheath, with transverse vent and paired copulatory organs, and with the two halves of the lower jaw independently movable, connected at the symphysis by an elastic ligament. The latter character alone distinguishes them from all Lizards, but no single Lizard possesses all the others in combination. In their most highly developed form these Reptiles are adapted for rapid reptation and for swallowing prey much exceeding their own calibre; hence the bones of the skull, on which...
With the present day zeal for popularising interest in common things (called nature study) there has arisen the demand for knowledge practically useful and thoroughly up-to-date, yet in a form free from much of the technical terminology and treatment which are essential in the student's more fully developed scientific handbook. The "House-fly" is a fit subject for a simplified study of this kind, and the present booklet is an attempt to afford information very different to that of the "popular" works, which only were accessible to the writer's hands between fifty and sixty years ago; the writers of those old books all followed the lead of the reverend and learned contributors to the famous and monumental "Bridgwater Treatises." "The Wonders of Nature explained," "Humble Creatures" (a study of the earth-worm and the house-fly, in popularised language), "The Treasury of Knowledge," "Simple Lessons for Home Use," were the kind of cheaper...
Pl. II. PALM FRUITS W. Fitch lith. Ford & West Imp. 1. Raphia tædigera. 2. Mauritia flexuosa. 3. Manicaria saccifera. 4. Lepidocaryum tenue. 5. Astrocaryum tucuma. 6. Leopoldinia pulchra. Pl. III. PALM FRUITS. W. Fitch lith. Ford & West. Imp. 1. Attalea spectabilis. 2. Maximiliana regia. 3. Spathe of Maregia. 4. Guilielma speciosa. 5. Iriartea exorhiza. P alms are endogenous or ingrowing plants, belonging to the same great division of the Vegetable Kingdom as the Grasses, Bamboos, Lilies and Pineapples, and not to that which contains all our English forest trees. They are perennial, not annual like most of the above-named plants, and probably reach a great age. Their stems are simple or very rarely forked, slender, erect, and cylindrical, not tapering as in most other trees; they are hardest on the outside, and are marked more or less distinctly with scars or rings, marking the situation of the fallen...
No fact of natural history is more interesting, or more significant of the poetry of evolution, than the distribution of birds over the entire surface of the world. They have overcome countless obstacles, and adapted themselves to all conditions. The last faltering glance which the Arctic explorer sends toward his coveted goal, ere he admits defeat, shows flocks of snow buntings active with warm life; the storm-tossed mariner in the midst of the sea, is followed, encircled, by the steady, tireless flight of the albatross; the fever-stricken wanderer in tropical jungles listens to the sweet notes of birds amid the stagnant pools; while the thirsty traveller in the desert is ever watched by the distant buzzards. Finally when the intrepid climber, at the risk of life and limb, has painfully made his way to the summit of the most lofty peak, far, far above him, in the blue expanse of...
LONDON WALTER SCOTT 24 WARWICK LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW 1887 Darwin’s ancestry; his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, a successful physician, and author of “The Botanic Garden,” “The Temple of Nature,” &c.; his father, Robert Waring Darwin, also a successful physician; his maternal grandfather, Josiah Wedgwood, the celebrated potter; his mother’s education and training; Charles Robert Darwin, born at Shrewsbury, Feb. 12, 1809; Mrs. Darwin dies in July, 1817; her eldest son, Erasmus, friend of the Carlyles; Charles Darwin’s education by Mr. Case, and at Shrewsbury Grammar School; his character as a boy; is sent to Edinburgh University in 1825 Darwin a member of the Plinian Society, of Edinburgh; makes natural history excursions; his first scientific paper read March 27, 1827; friendship with Dr. Grant; Jameson’s lectures on zoology; Darwin enters Christ’s College, Cambridge, in 1828; his friendship with Prof. Henslow; his account of Henslow; Darwin at this time specially an entomologist;...
INTRODUCTORY The human foot, it appears to us, is one of those members of the body that have never received their due share of consideration. Like certain downtrodden members of the social body, it seems to have been looked upon as having fewer “rights that were entitled to respect” than those organs which occupy a higher place, as the hands and eyes. No other part has been so abused by pinching, squeezing, chafing, freezing, and corning . The waist, of one sex especially, has suffered a good deal of compression, but not so much, we think as has the foot. It might perhaps be contended that the lowest parts of the system perform a function equally necessary with that of those above them and are therefore entitled to as tender care; but whether this be so or not, it is at least certain they are “pressed to earth” in a...
"In addition to the intrinsic merits of the book, of which we can personally speak in the superlative degree as one of the most pleasantly-written of the many pleasant natural history books our language is so rich in—describing, as it does, the 'Broad District'—a country unlike any other part of England, and a very paradise to the Botanist, Entomologist, and Ornithologist. This new edition is edited by Mr. Thomas Southwell, the active Secretary of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society, whose full and accurate knowledge of the natural history of Norfolk better fits him for the task than any other man we know of."— Science Gossip. "The book in its original form is well known to naturalists, and it would be difficult to find another volume of its size which conveys in so agreeable a manner so much accurate and trustworthy information on the subject of which it treats. We...
While one of us (Dalquest) was in a dugout canoe that was being paddled up a small unnamed tributary of the Rio Coatzacoalcos, through dense jungle, he grasped a decayed and termite damaged tree-trunk projecting approximately three feet above the surface of the water to steady the canoe. At that instant two bats were detected in one of the many small holes in the trunk, which was eight to nine inches in diameter. It was a simple matter to enlarge the hole and extract the animals. Superficially they resembled silvery-haired bats ( Lasionycteris ) but their naked interfemoral membranes and other features suggested that they belonged to the genus Myotis . Subsequently, study in the laboratory showed this to be the fact and revealed also that they are of an heretofore unnamed species which may be known as: Myotis argentatus , new species Type. —Male, adult, skin with skull, No....
Four nominal species of the genus Pipistrellus are currently recognized in North America. They are Pipistrellus subflavus (F. Cuvier) of eastern North America, Pipistrellus hesperus (H. Allen) of western North America, Pipistrellus veracrucis (Ward) from Veracruz, Mexico, and Pipistrellus cinnamomeus Miller from Tabasco, Mexico. In the past three years, specimens have been obtained in Veracruz (by Dalquest) of each of the southern species. One of these, P. cinnamomeus , previously was known from a single specimen; the other, P. veracrucis , was known only from six specimens which now are lost or misplaced. The results of our study of these recently acquired Mexican specimens constitute our principal contribution in this paper; we have done little more with the material from the United States and Canada than to codify the findings of other mammalogists with respect to the systematic status and geographic distribution. Study of the available specimens reveals that there...
Each thing created, says Emerson, has its painter or its poet. Like the enchanted princess of the fairy-tales, it awaits its predestined liberator. Every part of nature has its mystery and its beauty, its logic and its explanation; and the epigraph given me by Fabre himself, which appears on the title-page of this volume, is in no way deceptive. The tiny insects buried in the soil or creeping over leaf or blade have for him been sufficient to evoke the most important, the most fascinating problems, and have revealed a whole world of miracle and poetry. He saw the light at Saint-Léons, a little commune of the canton of Vezins in the Haut Rouergue, on the 22nd December, 1823, some seven years earlier than Mistral, his most famous neighbour, the greater lustre of whose celebrity was to eclipse his own. Here he essayed his earliest steps; here he stammered his...
Chief of the Bureau of Entomology . WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 1911. LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL U. S. Department of Agriculture , Bureau of Entomology , Washington, D. C, May 23, 1911 . Sir : I have the honor to transmit for publication a paper dealing with the subject of the house fly or typhoid fly. Previous publications of this department concerning this insect have been in circular form, but it is desired to make this information more widely available through the medium of a Farmers' Bulletin. With this intention this manuscript has been prepared, being modified and amplified from Circular No. 71 of this bureau, and I respectfully recommend its publication as a Farmers' Bulletin. Respectfully, L. O. Howard , Entomologist and Chief of Bureau . Hon. James Wilson , Secretary of Agriculture...
By Dallas Lore Sharp AUTHOR OF “WILD LIFE NEAR HOME” AND “ROOF AND MEADOW” With Drawings by Elizabeth Myers Snagg BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1908 COPYRIGHT 1908 BY DALLAS LORE SHARP ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published September 1908 To the Memory of my Friend William Frank Morrison, M. D. The Muskrats are Building We have had a series of long, heavy rains, and water is standing over the swampy meadow. It is a dreary stretch, this wet, sedgy land in the cold twilight, drearier than any part of the woods or the upland pastures. They are empty, but the meadow is flat and wet, naked and all unsheltered. And a November night is falling. The darkness deepens. A raw wind is rising. At nine o’clock the moon swings round and full to the crest of the ridge, and pours softly over. I button the...
In the course of the preparation of a synopsis of the North American terrestrial microtines by one of us (Cockrum), and the completion of a Master's thesis on the geographical variation of the red-backed mice of Wyoming by the other (Fitch) we had occasion to study the red-backed mice of the southern Rocky Mountain region (see figure 1). Results of these studies are the recognition of two heretofore unnamed subspecies of the red-backed mouse in the southern Rocky Mountain region, and a clarification of the taxonomic status of two additional kinds. 1890. Evotomys galei Merriam, N. Amer. Fauna, 4:23, October 8. 1931. Clethrionomys gapperi galei , Hall, Univ. California Publ. Zool., 37:6, April 10. 1897. Evotomys gapperi galei , Bailey, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, 11:126, May 13. Type locality. --Ward, 9500 feet, Boulder County, Colorado. Range. --The Rocky Mountains of extreme southern Alberta, Montana, northwestern and southern Wyoming, and north...
DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. T HERE is a growing immensity in the speculations of science to which no human thing or thought at this day is comparable. Apart from the results which science brings us home and securely harvests, there is an expansive force and latitude in its tentative efforts, which lifts us out of ourselves and transfigures our mortality. We may have a preference for moral themes, like the Homeric sage, who had seen and known much:— “Cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments”; yet we must end by confession that “The windy ways of men Are but dust which rises up And is lightly laid again,” in comparison with the work of nature, to which science testifies, but which has no boundaries in time or space to which science can approximate. There is something altogether out of the reach of science, and yet the compass...
BY GEORGE FRANCIS ATKINSON Professor of Botany in Cornell University, and Botanist of the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station Recipes for Cooking Mushrooms, by Mrs. Sarah Tyson Rorer Chemistry and Toxicology of Mushrooms, by J. F. Clark WITH 230 ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR, AND COLORED PLATES BY F. R. RATHBUN SECOND EDITION NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1903 Copyright, 1900, 1901, BY GEO. F. ATKINSON. AUTHOR, AND COLORED PLATES BY F. R. RATHBUN SECOND EDITION NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1903 Copyright, 1900, 1901, BY GEO. F. ATKINSON. Since the issue of my "Studies and Illustrations of Mushrooms," as Bulletins 138 and 168 of the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station, there have been so many inquiries for them and for literature dealing with a larger number of species, it seemed desirable to publish in book form a selection from the number of illustrations of these plants...