THE SUMMER WINDS.
Blown Hoftly down from the green hill's crown ,
Uplifted towards the sky ,
Fnlnt whispers move through the waiting trees ,
The summer winds pass by.
O'or nnd o'er from the pine groves dark ,
Through the maples out on the ridge ,
And down where the bonding elm boughs
Meet the willows grouped by the bridge.
Beyond the stream to woodlands dim
That Ho in the valley's breast ,
The whisper passes and goes away
Then comes again in its quost.
A nd something sweet from the sky-touched hill
Steals gently to the ear.
The quiet whisperings through the trees
Of zephyrs flitting near
A message bring and its joy repeats
Where the thoughtful , walking apart
From clamors that ring through toiling earth ,
Seek natnrn's welcoming heart ,
Midst leaves that move like light-winged
thoughts
Ne'er ceasing in swiftest flight ,
They pass through shimmering veils o'erhead
Like hidden rays of the light.
Envoys sent from the sky and hill
I hear yon o'er and o'er !
You thrill my heart as if friends long lost
Held speech with mo once moro.
Your laden breath brings a tenderness
And the moving leaves murmur "Hushl"
The air holds a balm of gracious peace ,
And thoughts of life's heedless rush ,
Of cares grown old and of sorrow's pain ,
Seem dim ; uplifted , they float away.
Your whispered joy in the trees I hear ,
The fitimmor'H gift to the day.
MAUY FRENCH MORTON.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
Berlin has a cancer commission , and
Dr. Paul Ehrlich lias been provided
with $10,000 a year to enable him to
carry out his special study of the dis
ease.
A simple decoction of hemp was used
in China 1700 years ago as an anaesthet
ic in surgical operations , according to a
newly-discovered Chinese manuscript in
ft Paris library.
Lisbon's plague of rats which resist
ed cats , traps and poison seems to have
succumbed to an infections disease ,
harmless to man , which has spread
among the rodents with great rapidity
since the first inoculation of a few of
them. This plan of extermination is to
be tried on ships.
The automatic train recorder of the
Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company con
sists of a ruled record paper , divided in
to five-minute spaces , and revolved by
olock work. In front of the paper is a
series of needles , each operated by an
electromagnet and connected with a di
vision of the road. As a train passes a
suitably arranged insulated rail in any
division , the corresponding electromag
net is energized and a dot is made on
the paper.
*
That the moon actually has an in-
flneuce upon the weather , an eminent
Australian meteorologist , Mr. H. O.
Russell , is quite prepared to believe.
The rainfall on the coast of New South
Wales is irregular , but in the interior
three distinct periods have been traced ,
beginning with 1851 , 1870 and 1889. In
the first six years of each period the
rain was abundant , this being the time
when the moon was nearing its farthest
point south in declination. But other
years , after the moon had started north ,
were dry , and the drouth in 1885 to 1890
was severe enough to cause the starva
tion of 25,000,000 sheep.
The present state of radiography has
been outlined by Dr. S. Henry Smithan
English expert. After making thous
ands of eleotrographs , or skiagraphs , he
has discarded all other apparatus in fa
vor of a 14-inch-spark Ruhmkorff coil , a
lithanode accumulator and a home
made Wehnelt break , using the
mechanical break worked from
the accumulator for soft tissues ,
the Wehnelt direct from the mains
through a resistance for the bones and
thick parts. He insists , contrary to a
recent London hospital opinion , that all
pictures should be true photographs ,
timed to show in detail the bone-ulcer
or other feature to be studied. It is
now possible to locate all foreign bodies ,
to show fractures and dislocations , and
to prove in some * cases stone in the blad
der or kidneys , but a negative result
does not always prove the absence of
stone. Aneurism of the heart and di
sease of the lungs may be shown occa
sionally , though not infallibly. Cura
tive effects have been produced in sev
eral cases of stiff joints , with exposures
of thirty seconds at intervals of three
days , and in this promising field of use
fulness there seems to be much to learn.
Burns and harm to patients generally
result from ignorance of the operator.
What other creatures feel and know
still offers a wide field for investigation ,
Lord Avebury , unlike Descartes and
other great authorities , is forced to con
clude that animals possess some glim
mers of reason , and that their minds
differ from ours more in degree than in
quality , while he has demonstrated that
they may have senses quite unknown to
us. He has shown by tests that they
hear higher notes than are audible to us
and see ultra-violet rays that do not
effect our eyes. Our organs enable us
to perceive vibrations in the atmosphere
from about 80,000 to 82,000 per second ,
which give us the impression of sound ,
and beyond 400 millions of millions per
second , which give us the impression of
light. The intermediate vibrations , to
which we are insensible , may give to
responsive organs several senses as diff
erent from ours as sound is from sight.
To our animal friends they may trans
form our familiar world into a very diff
erent place , full of music wo cannot
hear , of colors we cannot see , and of
sounds wo cannot conceive.
Summing up the epoch-making work
of the London Royal Institution in con
nection with low temperatures , Miss
Agnes M. Clorke reminds us that the re
searches , which in 189IJ were being devoted -
voted by Profs. Dewar and Fleming to
resistances of materials in the greatest
attainable cold , were continued through
a gift in 1895 of $100,000 from an Anier.-
ican , Mr. Thomas G. Hodgkins , and
two later donations from the Goldsmiths'
Company. The liquefaction of hydro
gen proved to be colorless , only a four
teenth as heavy as water , with a boiling
point of 252.5 ° C.and it was soon solid
ified and found to have a freezing point
about 15 degrees O. above absolute zero.
Helium , the new gas , has taken the
place of hydrogen as the last of the so-
called permanent gases. Thip has stood. ,
unchanged a temperature of 262 degrees j
O. , but it is hoped soon to cool it to ,
within 6 degrees O. of absolute zero. j
An outcome of these investigations has |
been the discovery that the air contains
1 part of hydrogen in 8,000 , together
with four previously unsuspected gases.
Just now the external ear is receiving
the attention as an alleged index of
human capacity and tendencies that has
been given in turn to the bumps of the
head , the lines of the hand , and so on.
Dr. Arthur Keith , who has been investi
gating the subject from a scientific
standpoint , divides ears into two strong
ly contrasted types , marking the op
posite poles of development. In one ,
which he calls the orang-type , the ear
is small and shell-like , with narrowed
descending helix and in-rolled margin ;
in the other , or chimpanzee-type , the
ear is large and broad , and the margin
is not in-rolled. Though the orang-
type may seem to justify the impression
that the human ear is a decaying
strncturethe central or active part is
more highly developed than ever , the
truth probably being that man is evolv
ing a new type of ear. A striking pe
culiarity of some ears noted by Dar
win is the remnant of a tip pointing
backward from the top , and this seems
to be a reversion to an ancestral type.
In general , most females have ears of
the orang-type , while the chimpanzee-
type is chiefly characteristic of males.
Considering the researches thus far
made , with the influence of age , sex ,
race , etc. , Dr. Keith finds only one de
duction possible that a slightly greater
proportion of criminals exists among
people with ear tips and retrograde ( or
orang ) helices than among others. The
evidence , which cannot yet be applied
to individuals , is. just enough to give
suspicion that a few criminals are
criminals , as Lombrosa has contended ,
because of defective brain development.
