LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ^^Ta UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The Elzevir Librari'- D-:^^ tf\ r^^^^^ Weekly, $10.00 a Year. vdi.v N0.2SL rrice lO wentS. oa i2,\m SCIENCE A RUSKIN ANTHOLOGY COMPILED BY WM. SLOANE KENNEDY NEW YORK: JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER. The Alden Book Co., Chicago. • I SCIENCE A IIUSKIN ANTHOLOGY COMPILED BY WM. SLOANE KENNEDY '^ I have ahvays thought that more true force of persuasion might he ob- tained by rightly choosing and arranging loliat others have said, than by painfidly saying it again in one''s own way.'''' — RusKiN, Fors Clavigera, Vol. I., p. 281. NEW YORK : JOHN B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER 1886. <0 Copyright, 1886, BY JOHN B. ALDEN. (! O N T E N T S Chapter I. Serpents, Birds, 425 427 B-^'tany, Chapter II. Minerals, Chapter HI. 440 (!1(>U(1S, Chapter IV. 446 Bits of Thought, Chapter V. 453 A RUSKIN ANTHOLOGY. PART IV.-SCIENCE. CHAPTER I. Serpents and B1RD3. SERPENTS. A SPECTRAL Procession of spotted Dust.— The serpent crest of the king's crown, or of the god's, on the piUars of Egypt, is a mystery ; but the ser- pent itself, gliding past the pillar's foot, is it less a mystery? Is there, indeed, no tongue, except the mute forked flash from its lips, in that running brook of horror on the ground ? . • . That rivulet of smooth silver — how does it flow, think you ? It literally rows on the earth, with every scale for an oar ; it bites the dust with the ridges of its body. Watch it, when it moves slowly : — A wave, but with- out wind ! a current, but with no fall ! all the body moving at the same instant, yet some of it to one side, some to another, or some forvv^ard, and the rest of the coil backwards ; but all with the same calm will and equal way — no contraction, no exten- sion ; one soundless, causeless, march of .sequent rings, and spectral procession of spotted dust, with dissolution in it fangs, dislocation in its coils. Startle it ; — the winding stream will become a twisted arrow; — the wave of poisoned life will lash through the grass like a cast lance. It scarcely breathes with its one lung (the other shrivelled and abortive); it is passive to the sun and shade, and is cold or hot like a stone ; yet " it can outclimb the monkey, outswim the fish, outleap the zebra, out- wrestle the athlete, and crush the tiger." It is a 425 426 A BUSKIN ANTHOLOGY. divine hieroglyph of the demoniao power of the earth — of the entire earthly nature.. As the bird is the clothed power of the air, so this is the clothed power of the dust ; as the bird the symbol of the Sf)irit of life, so this of the grasjp and sting of death. — Athena, p. 58. A HOXEYSUCKLE WITH A HEAD PUT OlST. — I Said that a serpent was a honeysuckle w^ith a head jjut on. You perhaj)S thought I was jesting ; but no- thing is more mysterious in the compass of creation than the relation of flowers to the serpent tribe. . . . In the most accurate sense, the honeysuckle is an anguis — a strangling thing. The ivy stem increases Avith age, without compressing the tree trunk, any more than the rock, that it adorns ; but the wood- bine retains, to a degree not yet measured, but almost, I believe, after a certain time, unchanged, the first scope of its narrow contortion ; and the growing wood of the stem it has seized is contorted with it, and at last paralyzed and killed. — Deuca- lion, p. 189. Deadly Serpents all have sad Colors. — The fatal serj)ents are all of the French school of art — French gray ; the throat of the asp, French blue, the brightest thing I know in the deadly snakes. The rest are all gravel color, mud color, blue-x:>ill color, or in general, as I say, French high-art color. — Deucalion, p. 191. A Serpent in Motion. — You see that one-half of it can move anywhere without stirring the other ; and accordingly you may see a foot or two of a large snake's body moving one way, and another foot or two moving the other way, and a bit be- tween not moving at all; which I, altogether, think we may specifically call "Parliamentary" motion. — Deucalion, p. 193. A Serpent's Tongue. — But now, here's the first thing, it seems to me, we've got to ask of the scientific people, what use a serpent has for his tongue, since it neither Avants it to talk with, to taste with, to hiss with, nor, so far as I knov/, to SGIENGE—SERPENTS AND BIRDS. 427 lick with, and least of all to sting with ; and yet, for people who do not know the creature, the little vibrating forked thread, flashed out of its mouth, and back again, as quick as lightning, is the most threatening i^art of the beast; but what is the use of it ? Nearly every other creature but a snake can do all sorts of mischief with its tongue. A woman worries with it, a chameleon catches flies with it, a snail files away fruit with it, a humming- bird steals honey with it, a cat steals milk with it, a pholas digs holes in rocks with it, and a gnat digs holes in us with it ; but the poor snake cannot do any manner of harm with it whatsoever; and what is his tongue forked for ? — Deucalion, p. 185. How Eels swim.— Nothing in animal instinct or movement is more curious than the way young eels get up beside the waterfalls of the highland streams. They get first into the jets of foam at the edge, to be thrown ashore by them, and then wrig- gle up the smooth rocks — heaven knows how. If you like, any of you, to put on greased sacks, with your arms tied down inside, and your feet tied together, and then try to wriggle up after them on rocks as smooth as glass, I think even the skilfulest members of the Alpine Club will agree with me as to the difficulty of the feat ; and though I have watched them at it for hours, I do not know how much of serpent, and how much of fish, is mingled in the motion. — Deucalion, p. 188. BIRDS. The bird is little more than a drift of the air brought into form by plumes ; the air is in all its quills ; it breathes through its whole frame and flesh, and glows with air in its flying, like blown flame : it rests upon the air, subdues it, surpasses it, outraces it ; — is the air, conscious of itself, conquer- ing itself, ruling itself. Also, into the throat of the bird is given the voice of the air. All that in the wind itself is Aveak, wild, 423 A RUSKIN ANTHOLOGY. useless in sweetness, is knit together in its song. As we may imagine the wild form of the cloud closed into the perfect form of the bird's wings, so the wild voice of the cloud into its ordered and com- manded voice ; unwearied, ripi)iing through the clear heaven in its gladness, interpreting all intense passion through the soft spring nights, bursting into acclaim and rapture of choir at daybreak, or hsping and twittering among the boughs and hedges through heat of day, like little winds that only make the cowslij^ bells shake, and ruffle the petals of the wild rose. Also, upon the plumes of the bird are put the colors of the air : on these the gold of the cloud, that can- not be gathered by any covetousness; the rubies of the clouds, that are not the price of Athena, but «re Athena ; the vermilion of the cloud-bar, and the flame of the cloud crest, and the snow of the cloud, and its shadow, and the melted blue of the deep wells of the sky— all these, seized by the creating spirit, and woven by Athena herself into films and threads of plume ; with wave on wave following and fading along breast, and throat, and opened wings, infinite as the dividing of the foam and the sifting of the sea-sand ; — even the white down of the cloud seeming to flutter up between the stronger plumes, seen, but too soft for touch. — Athena, p. 56. A Bird's Beak.— I do not think it is distinctly enough felt by us that the beak of a bird is not only its mouth, but its hand, or rather its two hands. For, as its arms and hands are turned into wings, all it has to depend upon, in economical and prac- tical life, is its beak. The beak, therefore, is at once its sword, its carpenter's tool-box, and its dressing-ease ; i)artly also its musical instrument j all this besides its function of seizing and prepar- ing the food, in which function alone it has to be a trap, carving-knife, and teeth, all in one. — Love's Ueinie, p. 16. The Marriage of the Hair-brush and the Whistle. — Feathers are smoothed down, as a field SCIENCE— SERPENTS AND BIRDS. 429 of corn by wind with rain; only the swathes laid in beautiful order. They are fur, so structurally placed as to imply, and submit to, the perpetually swift forward motion. In fact, I have no doubt the Darwinian theory on the subject is that the feathers of birds once stuck up all erect, like the bristles of a brush, and have only been blown flat by continual flying. ]N"ay, we might even suffi- ciently represent the general manner of conclusion in the Darwinian system by the statement that if you fasten a hair-brush to a mill-wheel, with the handle forward, so as to develop itself into a neck by moving always in the same direction, and within continual liearing of a steam-whistle, after a cer- tain number of revolutions the hair-brush will fall in love with the whistle ; they will marry, lay an egg, and the produce will be a nightingale. — Love's Meinie, p. 20. No Natural History of Birds yet writtex.— We have no natural history of birds written yet. It cannot be written but by a scholar and a gentle- man ; and no English gentleman in recent times has ever thought of birds except as flying targets, or flavorous dishes. ... In general, the scientific natural liistory of a bird consists of four articles : First, the name and estate of the gentleman whose gamekeeper shot the last that was seen in England; Secondly, two or three stories of doubtful origin, printed in every book on the subject of birds for the last fifty years ; Thirdly, an account of the feathers from the comb to the rump, with enumer- ation of the colors which are never more to be seen on the living bird by English eyes ; and, lastly, a discussion of the reasons why none of the twelve names which former naturalists have given to the bird are of any further use, and why the present author has given it a thirteenth, which is to be universally, and to the end of time, accepted. — Love's Meinie, p. 7. The Eagle. — Wlien next you are travelling by express sixty miles an hour, past a grass bank, try i;]0 A RUSKIN ANTHOLOGY. to see a grasshopper, and you will get some idea of an eagle's oj^tical business, if it takes only the line of ground underneath it. Does it take more ? — Eagle's Nest, p. 74. The Robix. — If you think of it, you will find one of the robin's very chief ingratiatory faculties is his dainty and delicate movement — his footing it featly here and there. Whatever prettiness there may be in his red breast, at his brightest he can always be outshone by a brickbat. But if he is rationally proud of anything about him, I should think a robin must be proud of his legs. Hundreds of birds have longer and more imposing ones, but for real neatness, finish, and precision of action, commend me to his fine little ankles, and fine little feet. — Love's lleinie, p. 18. The SwALiiOW. — The bird which lives with you in your own houses, and which purifies for you, from its insect pestilence, the air that you breathe. Thus the sweet domestic thing has done, for men, at least, these four thousand years. She has been their companion, not of the home merely, but of the hearth and the threshold ; companion only endeared by departure, and showing better her loving-kindness by her faithful return. Type sometimes of the stranger, she has softened us to hospitality ; type always of the suppliant, she has enchanted us to mercy; and, in her feeble presence, the cowardice, or the Avrath, of sacrilege has changed into the fidelities of sanctuary. Herald of our summer, she glances through our days of glad- ness ; nuinberer o our years, she would teach us to apply our hearts to wisdom; — and yet, so little have we regarded her, that this very day, scarcely able to gather from all I can find told of her enough to explain so much as the unfolding of her wings, I can tell you nothing of her life — nothing of her journeying. I cannot learn how she builds, nor how she chooses the i:)lace of her wandering, nor how she traces the i^atli of her return. Remaining thus blind and careless to the true ministries of the SCIENGE-SERFENTS AND BIRBS. 431 humble creature whom God has really sent to serve us, we in our pride, thinking ourselves sur- rounded by the pursuivants of the sky, can yet only invest them'v^ith majesty by giving them the calm of the bird's motion, and shade of the bird's plume: — and after all, it is well for us, if, when even for God's best mercies, and in His temples marble-built, we think that, ''with angels and archangels, and all the company of Heaven, we laud and magnify His glorious name " — well for us, if our attempt be not only an iusult, and His ears open rather to the inarticulate and unintended praise, of "the Swallow, twittering from her straw- built shed." — Loire's Meinie, p, 53. I never watch the bird for a moment Mdthout finding myself in some fresh puzzle out of which there is no clue in the scientific books. I want to know, for instance, how the bird turns. What does it do with one wing, what with the other ? Fancy the pace that has to be stopped; the force of bridle-hand put out in an instant. Fancy how the wings must bend with the strain ; what need there must be for the x^erfect aid and work of every feature in them. There is a problem for you, stu- dents of mechanics — How does a swallow turn ? . . . Given the various projiortions of weight and wing; the conditions of possible increase of muscular force and quill-strength in proportion to size ; and the different objects and circumstances of flight — you have a series of exquisitely complex problems, and exquisitely perfect solutions, which the life of the youngest among you cannot be long enough to read through so much as once, and of which the future infinitudes of human life, however granted or extended, never will be fatigued in admiration. . . . The mystery of its dart remains always inex- plicable to me ; no eye can trace the bending of bow that sends that living arrow. — Love's Meinie, pp. Z'}, 43, 40. 432 A liUSKIN ANTHOLOGY. CHAPTER II: ' Botany.* It is better to know the habits of one plant than the names of a thousand ; and wiser to be ha^opily faniihar with those that groAv in the nearest field, than arduously cognizant of all that plume the isles of the Pacific, or illumine the Mountains of the Moon. — Proserpina, p. 139. Ruskin's Tribulations i:\' the Study of Bot- AiSTY. — Balfour's Manual of Botany. "Sap" — yes, at last. '' Article 257. Course of fluids in exogenous stems." I don't care about the course just now : I want to kno^y where the fluids come from. " If a plant be plunged into a weak solution of acetate of lead.' — I don't in the least Avant to know what happens. "From the minuteness of the tissue, it is not easy to determine the vessels through which the sap moves." Who said it was ? If it had been easy, I should have done it myself. " Changes take place in the composition of the sap in its up- ward course." I dare say; but I don't know yet what its composition is before it begins going up. "The Elaborated Sap by Mr. Schultz has been called latex.'''' I wish Mr. Schultz were in a hogs- head of it, with the top on. " On account of these movements in the latex, the laticiferous vessels have been denominated cinenchymatous." I do not venture to print the expressions which I here mentally make use of. — Proserpina, p. 37. A sudden doubt troubles me, whether all poi:>pies have two i)etals smaller than the other two. Whereupon I take down an excellent little school- book on botany — the best I have yet found, think- ing to be told quicklj^; and I find a great deal about opium; and, apropos of opium, that the juice of ^ See also Part II., Chapter II. SCIENCE— BO TA NY. 433 common celandine is of a bright orange color ; and I pause for a bewildered five minutes, wondering if a celandine is a poppy, and how many petals it has: going on again — because I must, without making up my mind, on either question — I am told to " observe the floral receptacle of the Calif ornian genus Eschscholtzia." Now I can't observe any- thing of the sort, and I don't want to ; and I wish California and all that's in it were at the deepest bottom of the Pacific. Next I am told to compare the popi:>y and water-lily; and I can't do that, neither — though I should like to ; and there's the end of the article ; and it never tells me whether one pair of petals is always smaller that the other, or not. — Proserpina, pp. 53, 54. Perfume, or Essence, is the general term for the condensed dew of a vegetable vapor, Avhich is with grace and fitness called the "being" of a plant, because its properties are almost always character- istic of the species ; and it is not, like leaf tissue or wood fibre, approximately the same material in different shapes ; but a separate element in each family of flovv^ers, of a mysterious, delightful, ordan- gerous influence, logically inexplicable, chemically inconstructible, and wholly, in dignity of nature, above all modes and faculties of form. . . . Yet I find in the index to Dr. Lindley's Introduction to Botany — seven hundred pages of close print — not one of the four words "Volatile," "Essence," "Scent," or "Perfume." I examine the index to Gray's Structural and Systematic Botany, with pre- cisely the same success. I next consult Professors Balfour and Grindon, and am met by the sanje dignified silence. Finally, I think over the possi- ble chances in French, and try in Figuier's indices to the Histoire des Plantes for " Odeur " — no such word! "Parfum" — no such word ! "Essence" — no such word ! " Encens " — no such word ! I try at last " Pois de Senteur," at a venture, and am re- ferred to a page which describes their going to sleep. — Proserpina, pp. 241, 243. 43i A BUS KIN' ANTHOLOGY. Botanic Noivienclature. — Perhaps nothing is more carious in the liistory of the human mind than tlie way in which the science of botany has become oppressed by nomenclature. Here is perhaps the lirst question which an intelligent child would think of asking about a tree : " Mamma, how does it make its trunk?" and you may open one botanical work after another, and good ones too, and by sensible men — you shall not find this child's question fairly put, nmch less fairly answered. You will be told gravely that a stem has received many names, such as culmus, stipes, and truncus ; that twigs were once called flagella, but are now called raiinili ; and that Mr. Link calls a straight stem, with branches on its sides, a caulis excurrens; and a stem, w'hich at a certain distance above the earth breaks out into irregular ramifications, a caulis delique- scens. All thanks and honor be to Mr. Link ! But at this moment, Avhen Ave want to know wliy one stem breaks out "at a certain distance," and the other not at all, Ave find no great help in those splendid excurrencies and deliquescencies. — Modern Painters, V., p. 65. On heat and force, life is inseparably dependent ; and I believe, also, on a form of substance, Avhich the philosophers call " jDrotoplasm." I Avish they AA'^ould use English instead of Greek Avords. When I Avant to know Avhy a leaf is green, they tell me it is colored by "chlorophyll," Avhicli at first sounds very instructive; but if they would only say plainly that a leaf is colored green by a thing Avhich is called " green leaf," Ave should see more precisely hoAv far we had ^ot.— Athena, p. 51. Why is Cinnamox aromatic axd Sugar saa^eet ? —It is of no use to determine, by microscope or retort, that cinn-amon is made of cells Avith so many Avails, or grape-juice of molecules Avith so many sides; — AA'e are just as far as ever from understand- ing Avliy these particular interstices should be aromatic, and these special paralielopipeds exhilar- ating, as we were in the savagely unscientific days SCIENCE— BOTANY. 435 when we could only see with our eyes, and smell with our noses. — Proserpina, p. 159. The Biographies op Plants.— Our scientific botanists are occupied in microscopic investigatious of structure which have not hitherto completely explained to us either the origin, the energy, or the course of the saj) ; and which, however subtle or successful, bear to the real natural history of plants only the relation that anatomy and organic chem- istry bear to the history of men. . . . What we especially need at present for educational purposes is to know, not the anatomy of plants, but their biography — how and where they live and die, their tempers, benevolences, malignities, distresses, and virtues. — Lectures on Art, p. 70. Sap. — At every pore of its surface, under ground and above, the plant in the spring absorbs moist- ure, which instantly disperses itself through its whole system *' by means of some permeable quality of the membranes of the cellular tissue invisible to our eyes even by the most jDOwerful glasses ; " in this way subjected to the vital power of the tree, it becomes sap, properly so called, v.diich passes down- wards through this cellular tissue, slowly and secretly ; and then upwards, through the great vessels of the tree, violently, stretching out the supple twigs of it as you see a flaccid water-pipe swell and move when the cock is turned to fill it. And the tree becomes literally a fountain, of which the springing streamlets are clothed with new- woven garments of green tissue, and of which the silver spray stays in the sky, — a spray, now, of leaves. — Froserinna, p. 38. The Koot of a Plant.— The feeding function of the root is of a very delicate and discriminating kind, needing much searching and mining among the dust, to find what it wants. If it only wanted water, it could get most of that by spreading in mere soft senseless limbs, like sponge, as far, and as far down, as it could — but to get the salt out of the earth it has to sift all the earth, and taste and 436 A BUSKIN ANTHOLOGY. touch every grain of it that it can, with fine fibres. And therefore a root is not at all a merely passive sponge or absorbing thing, but an infinitely subtle tongue, or tasting and eating thing. That is why it is always so fibrous and divided and entangled in the clinging earth. — Proserpina, p. 26. The FiiOWER the Fixal Cause of the Seed.— The Spirit in the plant — that is to say, its power of gathering dead matter out of the wreck round it, and shaping it into its own chosen shape — is of course strongest at the moment of its flowering, for it then not only gathers, but forms, with the great- est energy. . . . Only, with respect to plants, as animais, Ave are wrong in speaking as if the object of this strong life were only the bequeathing of it- self. The flower is the end or proper object of the seed, not the seed of the flower. The reason for seeds is that flowers may be; not the reason of flow- ers that seeds may be. The flower itself is the creat- ure which the spirit makes ; only, in connection Avith its perfectness, is placed the giA^ng birth to its successor. ... The main fact, then, about a floAver is that it is the part of the plant's form dcA'eloped at the mo- ment of its intensest life : and this inner rapture is usually marked externally for us by the flush of one or more of the i^rimary colors. What the character of the fioAver .shall be, dejDends entirely upon the portion of the plant into A\diich this rapture of spirit has been put. Sometimes the life is put into its outer sheath, and then the outer sheath becomes AAdiite and pure, and full of strength and grace; sometimes the life is put into the common leaA'^es, just under the blossom, and they become scarlet or liurple; sometimes the life is put into the stalks of the fioAver, and i\\ej Hush blue; sometimes into its outer enclosure or calyx; mostly into its inner cup; but, in all cases, the presence of the strongest life is asserted by characters in AA'hich the human sight takes pleasure, and Avhicli seem prepared with dis- tinct reference to us. or rather, bear, in being de- SCIENCE— BOTANY. 437 ligiitful, evidence of having been produced by the power of the same spirit as our own. — Athena, p. 54. Fruit. — I find it convenient in this volume, and wish I had tliouglit of the expedient before, wlien- ever I get into a difficulty, to leave the reader to work it out. He will perhaps, therefore, be so good as to dafine fruit for himself. — Modern PoAnters, v., p. 112. All the most perfect fruits are developed /ro??i ex- quisite forms either of foliage or fioioer. The vine leaf, in its generally decorative power, is the most important, both in life and in art, of all that shade the habitations of men. The olive leaf is, without any rival, the most beautiful of the leaves of timber trees ; and its blossom, though minute, of extreme beauty. The apple is essentially the fruit of the rose, and the peach of her only rival in her own color. The cherry and orange blossom are the two types of floral snow. — Proserpina, p. 163. An Orange. — In the orange, the fount of fragrant juice is interposed between the seed and the husk. It is wholly independent of both; the aurantine rind, with its white lining and divided compart- ments, is the true husk ; the orange pips are the true seeds ; and the eatable part of the fruit is formed between them, in clusters of delicate little flasks, as if a fairy's store of scented wine iiad been laid up by her in the hollow of a chestnut shell, be- tween the nut and rind ; and then the green changed to gold. — Proserpina, 155. The Poppy. — 1 have in my hand a small i-ed poppy which I gathered on Whit Sunday on the palace of i\\e Caesars. It is an intensely simple, in- tensely floral, flower. All silk and flame: a scarlet cup, perfect-edged all round, seen among the wild grass far away, like a burning coal fallen from Heaven's altars. You cannot have a more complete, a more stainless, type of flower absolute; inside and outside, all flower. No sparing of color anywhere — no outside coarseness — no interior secrecies; open as the sunshine that creates it ; flne-finished on both 438 A BUSKIN ANTHOLOGY. sides, down to tlie extremest point of insertion on its narrow stalk; and robed in the purple of tlie Caesars. Gather a green poppy bud, just when it show^s the scarlet line at its side; break it open and unpack the poppy. The whole flower is there com- plete in size and color; its stamens full-grown, but all packed so closely that the fine silk of the petals is crushed into a million of shapeless Avrinkles. When the flower opens, it seems a deliverance from torture : the two imprisoning green leaves are shaken to the ground; the aggrieved corolla smooths itself in the sun, and comforts itself as it can; but remains visibly crushed and hurt to the end of its days. — Proserpina, pp. 52, 58. The Onion and the Garlic as Ethical Fac- tors. — The star-group, of the squills, garlics, and onions, has always caused me great wonder. I cannot understand why its beauty, and serviceable- ness, should have been associated with the rank scent which has been really among the most pow- erful means of degrading peasant life, and separ- ating it from that of the higher classes. — Athena, p. 67. The Oat. — Here is the oat germ — after the wheat, most vital of divine gifts; and assuredhs in days to come, fated to grow on many a naked rock in hitherto lifeless lands, over which the glancing sheaves of it will shake sweet treasure of innocent gold. And who shall tell us how they grow^; and the fashion of their rustling pillars — bent, and again erect, at every breeze. Fluted shaft or clustered pier, how poor of art, beside this grass-shaft — built, first to sustain the food of men, then to be strewn under their feet ! — Proserpina, p. 106. The Martyr Moss.— You remember, I doubt not, how often in gathering what most invited gather- ing, of deep green, starry, perfectly soft and living wood-moss, you found it fall asunder in your hand into multitudes of separate threads^ each with its bright green crest, and long root of blackness. That blackness at the root — though only so notable SCIENCE -EOT ANY. 439 ill this wood-moss and collateral species, is indeed a general character of the mosses, Avitli rare excep- tions. It is their funeral bkickness ; — that, I per- ceive, is the way the moss-leaves die. They do not fall — they do not visibly decay. But they decay in- visibly, in continual secession, beneath the ascend- ing crest. They rise to form that crest, all green and bright, and take the light and air from those out of which they grev.^; and those, their ancestors, darken and die slowly, and at last become a mass of mouldering ground. In fact, as I loerceive far- ther, their final duty is so to die. The main work of other leaves is in their life — but these have to form the earth out of which all other leaves are to grow. Not to cover the rocks with golden velvet only, but to fill their crannies with the dark earth, through which nobler creatures shall one day seek their being. — Proserinna, p. 17. Leaves ribbed aj^d undulated. — When a leaf is to be spread wide, like the burdock, it is sup- ported by a framework of extending ribs like a Gothic roof. The supporting function of these is geometrical ; every one is constructed like the gir- ders of a bridge, or beams of a floor, with all man- ner of science in the distribution of their substance in the section, for narrow and deep strength; and the shafts are mostly hollow. But when the ex- tending space of a leaf is to be enriched with fulness of folds, and become beautiful in Avrinkles, this may be done either by pure undulation as of a liquid current along the leaf edge, or by sharp " drawing" — or " gathering" I believe ladies would call it— and stitching of the edges together. And this stitching together, if to be done very strongly, is done round a bit of stick, as a sail is reefed round a mast; and this bit of stick needs to be compactly, not geometrically strong; its function is essentially that of starch — not to hold the le?uf up olf the ground against gravity; but to stick the edges out, stiffly, in a crimped frill. And in beautiful work of this kind, which we are meant to study, the stays 440 A JiUSKIN ANTHOLOGY, of the leaf — or stay-bones — are finished, off very sharply and exquisitely at the points ; and indeed so much so, that the^ x^rick our fingers when Ave touch them ; for they are not at all meant to be touched, but eidmii'ed.—Froserjnna, pi^. 80, 81. CHAPTER III. Minerals. Crystals. — The crystalline power is essentially a styptic powder, and wherever the earth is torn, it heals and binds; nay, the torture and grieving of the earth seem necessary to bring out its full energy; for you only find the crystalline living power fully in action, where the rents and faults are deep and many. — Ethics of the Dust, p. 114. The mineral crj^stals group themselves neither in succession, nor in sympathy; but great and small recklessly strive for place, and deface or distort each other as they gather into opponent asperities. The confused crowd fills the rock cavity, hanging to- gether in a glittering, yet sordid heap, in which nearly every crystal, owing to their vain conten- tion, is imperfect, or imiDure. Here and there one, at the cost and in defiance of the rest, rises into un- warped shape or unstained clearness. — Modern Painters, V., i3. 48. The goodness of crystals consists chiefly in purity of substance, and perfectness of form : but those are rather the effects of their goodness, than the goodness itself. The inherent virtues of the crys- tals, resulting in these outer conditions, might really seem to be best described in the words we should use respecting living creatures — "force of heart" and "steadiness of purpose." There seem to be in some crystals, from the beginning, an un- conquerable purity of vital power, and strength of crystal sj)irit. Whatever dead substance, unaccep- tant of this energy, comes in their way, is either SCIENCE—MINERALS. 441 rejected, or forced to take some beautiful subordi- nate form ; the purity of tlie crystal remains unsul- lied, and every atom of it bright with coherent energy. Then the second condition is, that from the begin- ning of its whole structure, a fine crystal seems to have determined that it will be of a certain size and of a certain shape ; it persists in this plan, and completes it. Here is a iDerfect crystal of quartz for you. It is of an unusual form, and one which it might seem very difficult to build— a pyramid with convex sides, composed of other minor pyra- mids. But there is not a flaw in its contour through- out; not one of its myriads of component sides but is as bright as a jeweller's facetted work (and far finer, if you saw it close). The crystal points are as sharp as javelins ; their edges Avill cut glass with a touch. Anything more resolute, consummate, determinate in form, cannot be conceived. Here, on the other hand, is a crystal of the same substance, in a perfectly simple type of form — a plain six sided jn-ism ; but from its base to its point, — and it is nine inches long, — ithasnever for one instant made up its mind what thickness it will have. It seems to have begun by making itself as thick as it thought possible with the quantity of material at command. Still not being as thick as it would like to be, it has clumsily glued on more substance at one of its sides. Then it has thinned itself, in a panic of economy; then putfed itself out again ; then starved one side to enlarge another ; then warped itself quite out of its first line. Opaque, rough-surfaced, jagged on the edge, distorted in the spine, it exhibits a quite human image of decrepi- tude and dishonor ; but the worst of all the signs of its decay and helplessness, is that half-way up, a parasite crystal, smaller, but just as sickly, has rooted itself in the side of the larger one, eating out a cavity round its root, and then growing back- wards, or downwards, contrary to tlie direction of the main crystal. Yet I cannot trace the least dilference in purity of substance between the first 442 A BUSKIN ANTHOLOGY. most noble stone, and this ignoble and dissolute one. The impurity of the last is in its will, or want of will. — Ethics of the Dust, p. 58. The Marbles.— The soft white sediments of the sea draw themselves, in process of time, into smooth knots of sphered symmetry; burdened and strained under increase of pressure, they pass into a nascent marble ; scorched by fervent heat, they brighten and blanch into the snowy rock of Paros and Carrara. — Ethics of the Dust, p. 140. These stones, which men have been cutting into slabs, for thousands of years, to ornament their principal buildings with, — and which, under the general name of "marble," have been the delight of the eyes, and the Avealth of architecture, among all civilized nations — are precisely those on which the signs and brands of these earth-agonies have been chiefly struck; and there is not a purple vein nor flaming zone in them, which is not the record of their ancient torture. — Ethics of the Dust, p. 116. The substance appears to have been prepared expressly in order to afford to human art a perfect means of carrying out its purposes. They are of exactly the necessary hardness — neither so soft as to be incapable of maintaining themselves in deli- cate forms, nor so hard as always to require a blow to give effect to the sculptor's touch ; the mere pressure of his chisel produces a certain effect upon them. The color of the white varieties is of exquis- ite delicacy, owing to the partial translucency of the pure rock ; and it has always appeared to me a most wonderful ordinance — one of the most marked pieces of purpose in the creation — that all the variegated kinds should be comparatively opaque, so as to set off the color on the surface, while the white, which if it had been opaque would have looked somewhat coarse (as, for instance, common chalk does), is rendered just translucent enough to give an impression of extreme purity, but not so translucent as to interfere in the least SCIENCE— MINERALS. M3 with the distinctness of any forms into wliich it is wrought- Tlie colors of variegated marbles are also for the most part very beautiful, especially those composed of purple, amber, and green, with white ; and there seems to be something notably attractive to the human mind in the vague and veined laby- rinths of ^their arrangements. They are farther marked as the prepared material for human work by the dependence of their beauty on smoothness of surface ; for their veins are usually seen but dimly in the native rock ; and the colors they assume under the action of weather are inferior to those of the crystallines : it is not until wrought and polished by man that they show their character. Finally, they do not decompose. The exterior sur- face is sometimes destroyed by a sort of mechanical disruption of its outer flakes, but rarely to the ex- tent in which such action takes place in other rocks ; and the most delicate sculptures, if executed in good marble, will remain for ages undeterio- rated. — Modern Faiiiters, IV., p. 141. Minerals and Minerals.— When I was a boy I used to care about pretty stones. I got some Bristol diamonds at Bristol, and some dog-tooth spar in Derbyshire ; my whole collection had cost perhaps three half-crowns, and was worth consider- ably less ; and I knew nothing whatever, rightly, about any single stone in it ; — could not even spell their names: but words cannot tell the joy they used to give me. Now, I have a collection of min- erals worth, perhaps, from two to three thousand l^ounds ; and I know more about some of them than most other people. But I am not a whit liaii- pier, either for my knowledge, or possessions, for other geologists dispute my theories, to my grievous indignation and discontentment ; and I am miser- able about all my best specimens, because there are better in the British Museum. — Fors Clamgera. The Colors of Clay, Lime, and Flint.— Nature seisms to have set herself to make these three sub- 444 A BC/SKIN ANTHOLOGY. stances as interesting to ns, and as beautiful for us, as she can. The clay, being a soft and changeable substance, she doesn't take much pains about, as we have seen, till it is baked ; she brings the color into it only when it receives a permanent form. But the limestone and flint she paints, in her own Avay, in their native state : and her object in paint- ing them seems to be much the same as in her painting of flowers ; to draw us, careless and idle human creatures, to watch her a little, and see what she is about — that being on the whole good for us, her children. For Nature is always carry- ing on very strange work Avith this limestone and flint of hers : laying down beds of them at the bot- tom of the sea ; building islands out of the sea ; filling chinks and veins in mountains with curious treasures ; petrifying mosses, and trees, and shells; in fact, carrying on all sorts of business, subter- ranean or submarine, which it would be highly desirable for us, who profit and live by it, to notice as it goes on. And apparently to lead us to do this, she makes picture-books for us of limestone and flint ; and tempts us, like foolish children as we are, to read her books by the pretty colors in them. The pretty colors in her limestone-books form those variegated marbles wdiich all mankind have taken delight to iDolish and build with froui the beginning of time ; and the pretty colors in her flint-books form those agates, jaspers, cornelians, bloodstones, onyxes, cairngorms, chrysoprases, which men have in like manner taken delight to cut, and iDolish, and make ornaments of, from the beginning of time ; and yet, so much of babies are they, and so fond of looking at the pictures instead of reading the book, that I question whether, after six thou- sand years of cutting and x^oiishing there are above two or three people out of any given hundred, who know, or care to know, how a bit of agate or a bit of marble was made, or i^ainted. How it was made, may not be always very easy to say ; but wath what it was painted there is no man- ner of question. All those beautiful violet veinings SCIENCE— MINERALS. 445 and variegations of the marbles of Sicily and Spain, the glowing orange and amber colors of those of Siena, the deep russet of the Rosso antico, and the blood-color of all the precious jaspers that enrich the temples of Italy ; and, finally, all the lovely transitions of tint in the pebbles of Scotland and the Rhine, which form, though not the most pre- cious, by far the most interesting portion of our modern jewellers' work ; — all these are painted by I nature with this one material only, variously pro- |\ portioned and applied— the oxide of iron that stains ► your Tunbridge springs.— jT/ie Two Paths, p. 110. C OJiPETiTio^^^ vs. Co-OPERATiox.— Exclusive of animal decay, we can hardly arrive at a more abso- lute tyjje of impurity, than the mud or slime of a damp, over-trodden path, in the outskirts of a manufacturing tov/n. I do not say mud of the road, because that is mixed with animal refuse; but take merely an ounce or two of the blackest slime of a beaten footpath, on a rainy day, near a manu- facturing town. That slime we shall find in most cases composed of clay (orbrickdust, which is burnt clay), mixed with soot, a little sand and water. All these elements are at helpless war with each other, and destroy reciprocally each other's nature and power : competing and fighting for place at every tread of your foot ; sand squeezing out clay, and clay squeezing out water, and soot meddling every- where, and defiling the whole. Let us suppose that this ounce of mud is left in perfect rest, and that its elements gather together, like to like, so that their atoms n]ay get into the closest relations possible. Let the clay begin. Ridding itself of all foreign substance, it gradually becomes a white earth, already very beautiful, and fi^ with help of con- gealing fire, to be made into finest porcelain, and painted on, and be kept in kings' palaces. But such artificial consistence is not its best. Leave it still quiet, to follow its own instinct of unity, and it becomes, not only vv'hite but clear ; not only 446 A BUSKIN ANTHOLOGY. clear, but hard ; not only clear and hard, Lut so set that it can deal with light in a wonderful way, and gather out of it the loveliest blue rays only, re- fusing the rest. We call it then a sapphire. Such being the consummation of the clay, we give similar permission of quiet to the sand. It also be- comes, first, a white earth ; then proceeds to grow clear and hard, and at last arranges itself in mys- terious, infinitely fine jparallel lines, which have the power of reflecting, not merely the blue rays, but the blue, green, purple, and red rays, in the great- est beauty in wdiich they can be seen through any hard material whatsoever. We call it then an opal. In next order the soot sets to work. It cannot make itself white at first ; but, instead of being dis- couraged, tries harder and harder ; and comes out clear at last ; and the hardest thing in the world : and for the blackness that it had, obtains in ex- change the power of reflecting all the rays of the sun at once, in the vividest blaze that any solid thing can shoot. We call it then a diamond. Last of all, the water purifies, or unites itself ; contented enough if it only reach the form of a dew- drop ; but if we insist on its proceeding to a more perfect consistence, it crystallizes into the shape of a star. And, for the ounce of slime which we had by political economy of competition, we have, by political economy of co-operation, a sapphire, an opal, and a diamond, set in the midst of a star of snow. — Modern Painters, V., pp. 176, 177. CHAPTER IV. Clouds. All clouds are so opaque that, however delicate they may be, you never see one through another. Six feet depth of them, at a little distance, will wholly veil the darkest mountain edge. . . . And this opacity is, nevertheless, obtained without SCIENCE - CL UBS. 447 destroying the gift they have of letting broken light through them, so that, between lis and the sun, they may become golden fieecos, and float as fields of light.— i¥orier?^ Painters, V., pp. 137, 138. All lovely clouds, remember, are quiet clouds — • not merely quiet in appearance, because of their greater height and distance, but quiet actually, fixed for hours, it may be, in the same form and place. I have seen a fair-weather cloud high over Coniston Old Man — not on the hill, observe, bat a vertical mile above it— stand motionless, changeless, for twelve hours together. From four o'clock in the afternoon of one day I watched it through the night by the north twilight, till the dawn struck it with full crimson, at four of the following July morning. — Art of England, p. 105. OuTLixixa A Cloud. — How is a cloud outlined ? Granted whatever you choose to ask, concerning its material, or its aspect, its loftiness and luminous- ness— how of its limitation ? What hews it into a heap, or spins it into a web ? Cold, it is usually shapeless, I suppose, extending over large spaces equally, or with gradual diminution. You cannot have in the open air, angles, and wedges, and coils, and cliffs, of cold. Yet the vapor stops suddenly, sharp and steep as a rock, or thrusts itself across the gates of heaven in likeness of a brazen bar ; or braids itself in and out, and across and across, like a tissue of tapestry; or falls into ripples, like sand; or into waving shreds and tongues, as fire. (3n what anvils and wheels is the vapor pointed, twisted, hammered, whirled, as the potter's clay ? By what hands is the incense of the sea built U]) into domes of marble 1— Modern Painters, V., p. 134. Cloud Lustres.— The gilding to our eyes of a burnished cloud depends, I believe, at least for a measure of its lustre, upon the angle at which the rays incident upon it are reflected to the eye, just as much as the glittering of the sea beneath it — or the sparkling of the windows of the houses on the »\\ove.—iStorm Cloud, Lect. II. 448 A BUSKIN ANTHOLOGY. Attached Clouds. — The opposed conditions of the higher and lower orders of cloud, Mitli the bal- anced intermediate one, are beautifully seen on mountain sumiiiits of rock or earth. On snowy ones they are far more complex : but on rock summits there are three distinct forms of attached cloud in serene weather ; the first that of cloud veil laid over them, and falling in folds through their ravines (the obliquely descending clouds of the entering chorus in Aristoi^hanes) ; secondly, the ascending cloud, which develops itself loosely and independently as it rises, and does not attach itself to the hillside, while the falling veil cloud clings to it close all the way down ; — and lastly the throned cloud, which rests indeed on the mountain summit, with its base, but rises high above into the sky, con- tinually changing its outlines, but holding its seat perhaps all day long. — Storm Cloud, Lect. II. Cirrus Clouds. — Their chief characters are — First, Symmetry : They are nearly always ar- ranged in some definite and evident order, common- ly in long ranks reaching sometimes from the zen- ith to the horizon, each rank composed of an infinite number of transverse bars of about the same length, each bar thickest in the middle, and terminating in a traceless vaporous point at each side ; the ranks are in the direction of the wind, and the bars of course at right angles to it ; these latter are com- monly slightly bent in the middle. — Secondly, Sharp- ness of Edge : The edges of the bars of the upper clouds which are turned to the wind, are often the sharpest which the sky shows ; no outline what- ever of any other kind of cloud, however marked and energetic, ever approaches the delicate decis- ion of these edges. — Thirdly, Multitude : The deli- cacy of these vapors is sometimes carried into such an infinity of division, that no other sensation of number that the earth or heaven can give is so impressive. — Fourthly, Purity of Color : They are coniposed of the purest aqueous vapor, free from all foulness of earthly gases, and of this in the lightest SCIENCE— CLOUDS. 44» and most ethereal state in which it can be, to be visible. . . . Their colors are more pure and vivid, and their white less sullied than those of any other clouds. — Lastly, Variety : Variety is never so con- spicuous, as when it is united with symmetry. The perpetual change of form in other clouds, is monot- onous in its very dissimilarity, nor is difference striking- where no coniiection is implied ; but if through a range of barred clouds, crossing half the heaven, all governed by the same forces and falling into one general form, there be yet a luarked and evident dissimilarity between each member of the great mass — one more finely drawn, the next more delicately moulded, the next more gracefully bent — each broken into differently modelled and var- iously numbered groups, the variety is doubly striking, because contrasted with the perfect sym- metry of which it forms a part. — Modern Painters, I., pp. 290-293. The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteejn^th Cei^- TURY. — The first time I recognized the clouds brought by the plague- wind as distinct in character was in walking back from Oxford, after a hard day's work, to Abingdon, in the early spring of 1871. It would take too long to give you any account this evening of the particulars which dreAvmy attention to them ; but during the following months I had too frequent ojiportunities of verifying my first thoughts of them, and on the first of July in that year wrote the description of them which begins the Fors Claijigera of August, thus : — " It is the first of July, and I sit down to write by the dismalest light that ever yet I wrote by; name- ly, the light of this mid-summer morning, in mid- England (Matlock, Derbyshire), in the year 1871. For the sky is covered with grey clouds ; — not rain- cloud, but a dry black veil, Avhich no ray of sun- shine can pierce ; x^^^'^^y diffused in mist, feeble mist, enough to make distant objects unintelligible, yet without any substance, or wreathing, or color of its own. And everywhere the leaves of the trees are shaking fitfully, as they do before a thunder- 450 A IIUSKIN ANTHOLOGY. storm ; only not violently, but enough to show the passing to and fro of a strange, bitter, blighting wind. Dismal enough, had it been the first morn- ing of its kind that summer had sent. But during all this spring, in London, and at Oxford, through meagre March, through changelessly sullen April, through despondent May, and darkened June, morning after morning has come grey-shrouded thus. " And it is a new thing to me, and a very dreadful one. I am fifty years old, and more ; and since I Avas five, have gleaned the best hours of my life in the sun of spring and summer mornings ; and I never saw such as these, till now. And the scien- tific men are busy as ants, examining the sun, and the moon, and the seven stars, and can tell me all about them, I believe, by this time ; and how they move, and what they are made of. " And I do not care, for my part, two cojiper spangles how they move, nor Avhat they are made of. I can't move them any other way than they go, nor make them of anything else, better than they are made. But I would care much and give much, if I could be told where this bitter wind comes from, and what it is made of. For, perhaps, with fore- thought, and fine laboratory science, one might make it of something else. "It looks partly as if It were made of poison- ous smoke ; very possibly it may be : there are at least two hundred furnace chimneys in a square of two miles on every side of me. But mere smoke would not blow to and fro in that wild way. It looks more to me as if it were made of dead men's souls — such of them as are not gone yet where they have to go, and may be Hitting hither and thith- er, doubting, themselves, of the fittest place for them. ..." Since that Midsummer day, my attention, how- ever otherwise occui^ied, has never relaxed in its record of the phenomena characteristic of the plague-wind; and I now define for you, as briefly as possible, the essential signs of it : 1. It is a wind of darkness: — all the former condi- SCIENCE-CLOUDS. 461 tions of tormenting Avinds, whether from the north or east, were more or less capable of co-existing with sunlight, and often with steady and bright sunlight ; but whenever, and wherever the j^lague- Avind blows, be it but for t&n minutes, the sky is darkened instantly. — 2. It is a malignant quality of Avind unconnected Avith any one quarter of the com- pass ; it blows indifferently from all, attaching its own bitterness and malice to the Avorst characters of the proper winds of each quarter. It Avill blow either Avith drenching rain, or dry rage, from the south — Avitli ruinous blasts from the Avest— Avlth bitterest chills from the north — and with venomous blight from the east. Its oAvn favorite quarter, however, is the south-Avest, so that it is distinguished in its malignity equally from the Bise of ProA^ence, Avhich is a north Avind always, and from our own old friend, the east.— 3. It alwaj^s bloAvs tremulously y making the leaves of the trees shudder as if they Avere all aspens, but Avith a peculiar fitfulnesa Avhich gives them — and I Avatch them this moment as I Avrite — an expression of anger as well as of fear and distress. You may see the kind of quivering, and hear the ominous Avhimpering, in the gusts that i^recede a great thunder-stoj-m ; but plague- wind is more panic-struck, and feverish ; and its sound is a hiss instead of a Avail. — 4. Not only tremulous at every moment, it is also intermittent Avith a rapidity quite unexampled in former Aveather. There are, indeed, days— and Aveeks, on Avhicli it blows Avithout cessation, and is as inevitable as the Gulf Stream ; but also there are days when it is contending with healthy Aveather, and on such days it Avill remit for half an hour, and the sun will begin to show itself, and then the Avind Avill come back and cover the Avhole sky Avith clouds in ten uiinutes ; and so on every half-hour, through the Avliole day; so that it is often impossible to go on Avith any kind of draAving in color, the light being nev^er for two seconds the same from morning till evening. — 5. It degrades, Avhile it intensifies, ordi- nary storm. 452 A BUSKIN ANTHOLOGY. Take the following sequences of accurate descrip- tion of tliunderstoim, \vith loiague-wind : ''June 22, 1876.— Thunderstorm; pitch dark, with no blackness — but deep, high, fllthiness of lurid, yet not sublimely lurid, smoke-cloud; dense manu- facturing mist; fearful squalls of shivery wind, making Mr. Severn's sail quiver like a man in a fever-fit — all about four, afternoon — but only two or three claps of thunder, and feeble, though near, flashes. I never saw such a dirty, weak, foul storm. It cleared suddenly, after raining all afternoon, at half-past eight to nine, into pure, natural wea^ther, — low rain-clouds on quite clear, green, w^et hills. ''August 13, 1879. — Quarter to eight, morning. — Thunder returned, all the air collapsed into one black fog, the hills invisible, and scarcely visible the opposite shore ; heavy rain in short fits, and frequent, though less formidable, flashes, and shorter thunder. While I have written this sentence the cloud has again dissolved itself, like a nasty solution in a bottle, with miraculous and unnat- ural rapidity, and the hills are in sight again. Half-past eight. — Three times light and three times dark since last I wrote, and the darkness seeming each time as it settles more loathsome, at last stop- ping my reading in mere blindness. One lurid gleam of Avhite cumulus in upper lead-blue sky, seen for half a minute through the sulphuro s chimney-pot vomit of blackguardly cloud beneath, wdiere its rags were thinnest. "August 17, 1879.— Raining in foul drizzle, slow and steady; sky pitch-dark, and I just got a little light by sitting in the bow-window; diabolic clouds over everything : and looking over my kitchen garden yesterday, I found it one miserable mass of weeds gone to seed, the roses in the liigher garden putrefied into brown sponges, feeling like dead snails ; and the half-ripe strawberries all rotten at the stalks." "February 2'},, 1883.— Yesterday a fearfully dark mist all afternoon, with steady, south plague-wind of the bitterest, nastiest, poisonous blight, and fret- ful flutter. I could scarcely stay in the wood for the horror of it. To-day, really rather bright blue, and bright semi-cumuli, with the frantic Old Man blowing sheaves of lancets and chisels across the lake — not in strength enough, or whirl enough, to SCIENCE—BITS OF THOUGHT. 453 raise it in spray, but tracing every squall's outline in black on the silvery grey waves, and whistling meanly, and as if on a flute made of a tile. G. And now I come to the most important sign of the plague-wind and the plague-cloud : that in bringing on their peculiar darkness, they hlanch the sun instead of reddening it. . . . I should have liked to have blotted down for you a bit of plague- cloud ; but Heaven knows, you can see enough of it nowadays without any trouble of mine ; and if you want, in a hurry, to see what the sun looks like through it, you've only to throw a bad half-crown into a basin of soap and water. — fitorm-Cloitd, liCct, I., pp. 36-35. CHAPTER V. Bits of Thought, Uuskin's First Piece of Published Writij^^g, — 1 do not think the causes of the color of trans^ parent water have been sufficiently ascertained. I do not mean that effect of color which is simply op- tical, as the color of the sea, which is regulated by the sky above, or the state of tlie atmosi^here ; but I mean the settled color of transparent water, which has, when analyzed, been found pure. Now, copper will tinge water green, and that very strongly ; but water thus impregnated will not be transparent, and will deposit the copper it holds in solution upon any piece of iron which may be thrown into it. There is a lake in a defile on the north-west flank of Snowdon, Avhjch is supplied by a stream, which previously passes over several veins of copper : this lake is, of course, of a bright ver^ digrise green, but it is not transparent. Now, the coloring effect of whicli I speali, is well seen in the waters of the Rhone and Rhine. The former of these rivers, when it enters the Lake of Geneva, after having received the t<'>vrents descending from 454: A BUSKIN ANTHOLOGY. the mountains of the Valais, is fouled with mud, or white witli the calcareous matter which it holds in solution. Having deposited this in the Lake Le- man (thereby forming an immense delta), it issues from the lake perfectly pure, and flows through the streets of Geneva so transparent, that the bottom can be seen 20 feet below the surface, yet so blue, that you might imagine it to be a solution of indigo. In like manner, the Rhine, after purifying itself in the Lake of Constance, flows forth, colored of a clear green ; and this under all circumstances, and in all weathers. It is sometimes said that this arises from the torrents whicli supply these rivers gener- ally flowing from the glaciers, the green and blue color of which may have given rise to this opinion; but the color of the ice is purely optical, as the frag- ments detached from the mass apjDcar simply white. Perhaps some correspondent can afford me some information on the subject. — Magazine of Natural History, 1834. Envy among Scientific Men.— The retardation of science by envy is one of the most tremendous losses in the economy of the i^resent century. — Unto this Last, p. 51. RusKix's Opinion of Modern Science, written IN 1853. — Tliat modern science, Avith all its addi- tions to the comforts of life," and to the fields of ra- tional contemplation, has placed the existing races of mankind on a higher ijlatform than any that preceded them, none can doubt for an instant ; and I believe the position in wliich we find ourselves is somewhat analogous to that of thoughtful and la- borious youth succeeding a restless and heedless infancy. — Stones of Venice, HI., ^p. 166. Pure Scientific Research never Rewarded. —.My ingenious friends, science has no more to do with making steaui-engines than v/ith making breeches ; though she condescends to heli3 you a little in such necessary (or it may be, conceivablj', in both cases, sometimes unnecessary) businesses. SCIENCE— BITS OF THOUGHT. 455 Science lives only in quiet places, and with odd peo- ple, mostly poor. . . . You cannot be simple enough, even in April, to think I got my three thousa,nd pounds worth of minerals by studying mineralogy ? Not so ; they were earned for me by hard labor ; my father's in England, and many a sunburnt vineyard-dresser's in Spain. — Fors, I., p. 44. We are glad enough, indeed, to make our profit of science ; we snap uj) anything in the w^ay of a scientific bone that has meat on it, eagerly enough; but if the scientific man comes for a bone or a crust to us, that is another story. — Sesame and Lilies, p. 56. The Vibrations op the Tympanum.— It is quite true that the tympanum of the ear vibrates under sound, and that the surface of the water in a ditch vibrates too : but the ditch hears nothing for all that ; and my hearing is still to me as blessed a mystery as ever, and the interval between the ditch and me, quite as great. If the trembling sound in my ears was once of the marriage-bell which began my happiness and is now of the passing-bell wdiich ends it, the difference between those two sounds to me cannot be counted by the number of concus- sions. — Athena, p. 50. The Study of Natural History.— For one man who is fitted for the study of words, fifty are fitted for the study of things, and were intended to have a per- petual, simple, and religious delight in watching the processes, or admiring the creatures, of the natural universe. Deprived of this source of pleasure, no- thing is left to them but ambition or dissipation ; and the vices of the upper classes of Europe are, I believe, chiefly to be attributed to this single cause. — Stones of Venice^ III., p, 216. Only simple Tools needed.- A quick eye, a candid mind, and an earnest lieart, are all the microscopes and laboratories which any of us need ; and with a little clay, sand, salt, and sugar, a man may find out more of the methods of geological plie- 456 A It US KIN ANTHOLOGY. nomenon than ever were known to Sir Charles Lyell. — In 3Io7itibus Sanctis, p. 25. Nors^DEscRiPT Species of A^^imals. — Between the gentes, or races of animals, and between the species, or families, there are invariably links — mongrel creatures, neither one thing nor another — but clumsy, blundering, hobbling, misshapen things. You are always thankful when you see one that you are not it. They are, according to old philosophy, in no x3rocess of development up or down, but are necessary, though much pitiable, where they are. Thus between the eagle and the trout, the mongrel or needful link is the penguin. Well, if you ever saw an eagle or a windhover fljing, I am sure you must have sometimes wished to be a windhover ; and if ever you saw a trout or a dolphin swimming, I am sure, if it was a hot day, you wished you could be a trout. But did ever anybody wish to Ije a pen- guin ? — Deucalion, p. 182. Would peep aa^d botaxize upox their Moth- er's Grave. — Men who have the habit of cluster- ing and harmonizing their thoughts are a little too apt to look scornfully uponthe harder workers who tear the bouquet to pieces to examine the stems. This was the chief narrowness of Wordsworth's mind ; he could not understand that to break a rock with a hammer in search of crystal may sometimes be an act not disgraceful to human nature, and that to dissect a flower may sometimes be as proper as to dream over it ; whereas all experience goes to t*^acli us, that among men of average intellect the most useful members of society are the dissectors, not the dreamers. — Jlodern Painters, III., p. 309. The Spectrum of Blood. — My friend showed me the rainbow of the rose, and the rainbow of the violet, and the rainbow of the hyacinth, and the rainbow of forest leaves being born, and the rain- bow of forest leaves dying. And, last, he showed me the rainbow of blood. It was but the three hundredth part of a grain, dis- solved in a. drop of water : and it cast its measured SCIENCE— BITS OF THOUGHT. 457 bars, forever recognizable now to huinan sight, on tiie cliord of tlie seven colors. And no drop of that red rain can now be shed, so small as that the stain of it cannot be known, and the voice of it heard out of the ground. — Time and Tide, p. 110. MoDERX Scientific Knowledge an Asses' Bridge. — The fact is that the greater quantity of the knowledge which modern science is so saucy about, is only an asses' bridge, which the asses all stop at the top of, and which, moreover, they can't help stopping at the top of ; for they have from the beginning taken the wrong road, and so come to a broken bridge — a Polite rotto over the River of Death, by which the Pontifex Maximus allows them to i^ass no step farther. For instance — having invented telescopes and photography, you are all stuck up on your hobby- horses, because you know how big the moon is, and can get pictures of the volcanoes in it ! But you never can get any more than pictures of these, while in your own planet there are a thousand vol- canoes which you may jump into, if you have a mind to ; and may one day perhaps be blown sky high by, whether you have a mind or not. The last time the great volcano in Java was in eruij- tion, it threw out a stream of hot water as big as Lancaster Bay, and boiled twelve thousand people. That's what I call a volcano to be interested about, if you Avant sensational science. But if not, and vou can be content in the wonder and the power of Nature, without her terror, — here is a little bit of a volcano, close at your very doors — Yewdale Crag, which I think Avill be quiet for our time ; and on which the Anagallis tenella, and the golden potentilla, and the sun-dew grow to- gether among the dewy moss in peace. And on the cellular surface of one of the blocks of it, you may find more beauty, and learn more i^recious things, than with telescope or photograph from all the moons in the milky way, though every drop of it were anotli3r solar system. — Deucalion, pp. 142, 143. 458 A liUSi^IN' ANTHOLOGY. Mr. Darwin's Account of the Peacock's Feather. — I went to it njyself, hoiDing to learn some of the existing laws of life which regulate the local disposition of the color. But none of these apjjear to be known ; and I am informed only that peacocks have grown to be peacocks out of brown pheasants, because the young feminine brown pheasants like fine feathers. Whereupon I say to myself, " Then either there was a distinct species of brown pheasants originally born with a taste for fine fea,thers : and therefore with remarkable eves in their heads, — which would be a much more won- derful distinction of species than being born with remarkable eyes in their tails, — or else all pheas- ants would have been peacocks by chis time ! " And I trouble myself no more about the Darwinian theory. — Eagle s Nest, p. 113. Science and Song. — You have, I doubt not, your new science of song, as of nest-building: and I am happy to think you could all explain to me, or at least you will be able to do so before you pass your natural science examination, how, by the accurate connection of a larynx with a bill, and by the ac- tion of heat, originally derived from the sun, upon the muscular fibre, an undulatory motion is pro- duced in the larynx, and an opening and sliutting one in the bill, which is accompanied, necessarily, by a piping sound.— JEJagle's Nest, p. 41. There are Sciences op the Arts, too.— It has become the permitted fashion among modern math- ematicians, chemists, and apothecaries, to call them- selves ''scientific men," as opposed to theologians, poets, and artists. They know their sphere to be a separate one; but their ridiculous notion of its being a peculiarly scientific one ought not to be allowed in our Universities. There is a science of Morals, a science of Ilistory, a science of Grammar, a science of Music, and a science of Painting; and all these are quite beyond comiDarison higher fields for human intellect, and require accuracies of in tenser SCIENCE— BITS OF THOUGHT. 459 observation, than either chemistry, electricity, or geology. — Ariadne, p. 85. The Cult of Ugli2^^ess. — And the universal in- stinct of blapphemy in the modern vulgar scientific mind is a^bove all manifested in its love of what is ugly, and natural enthralment by the aboniinable; — so that it is ten to one if, in the description of a new bird, you learn much more of it than the enum- erated species of vermin that stick to its feathers ; and in the natural history museum of Oxford, hu- manity has been hitherto taught, not by portraits of great men, but by the skulls of cretins. — Storm Cloud, Lect. II., § 20. Science vs. Art.—" It is very fine," sculptors and painters say, " and very useful, this knocking the light out of the sun, or into it, by an eternal cataract of planets. But you may hail away, so, for ever, and you will not knock out what we can. Here is a bit of silver, not the size of half-a-crown, on which, with a single hammer stroke, one of us, two thousand and odd years ago, hit out the head of the Apollo of Clazomen?e. It is merely a matter of form; but if any of you philosophers, with your whole planetary system to hammer with, can hit out such another bit of silver as this, — we will take off our hats to you. For the present, we keep them on:'— Ethics of the Dust, p. 127. Rivers not deepe^ting but fillij^g up their Beds.— Niagara is a vast Exception— and Decep- tion. The true cataracts and falls of the great mountains, as the dear little cascades and leaplets of your own rills, fall where they fell of old ;— that is to say, wherever there's a hard bed of rock for them to jump over. They don't cut it away— and they can't. They do form pools beneath in a mys- tic way,— they excavate them to the depth which will break their fall's force— and then they excavate no more. — Deucalion, p. 13G. Decay in^ the Scale of ain'imated Life.- The decomposition of a crystal is not necessarily impure at all. The fermentation of a wholesome liquid be- 460 A BUSKIN ANTHOLOGY. gins to admit the idea sliglitly ; the decay of leaves yet more; of flowers, more; of animals, with greater painfulness and terribleness in exact proportion to their original vitality; and the foulest of all cor- ruption is that of the body of man ; and, in his body, that which is occasioned by disease, more than that of natural desith.— Jlodern Painters, V., p. 174. Geology. — Though an old member of the Geolog- ical Society, my geological observations have always been as completely ignored hy that society as my remarks on political economy by the direc- tors of the Bank of England.— J^i Montibus Sanctis. I do not believe that one in a hundred of our youth, or of our educated classes, out of directly scientific circles, take any real interest in geology. And for my own part, I do not wonder,— for it seems to me that geology t-ells us nothing really interest- ing. It tells us much about a world that once was. But, for my part, a world that only was, is as lit- tle interesting as a world that only is to be. I no more care to hear of the forms of mountains that crumbled away a million of years ago to leave room for the town of Kendal, than of forms of mountains that some future day may swallow up the town of Kendal in the cracks of them. I am only inter- ested — so ignoble a.nd unspeculative is my disposi- tion — in knowing how God made the Castle Hill of Kendal, for the Baron of it to build on, and how he brought the Kent through the dale of it, for its peo- ple and flocks to drink of. And these things, if you think of them, j'^ou will find are precisely what the geologists cannot tell you. They never trouble themselves about matters so recent, or so visible ; and while you may always obtain the most satisfactory information from them respecting the congelation of the whole globe out of gas, or the direction of it in space, there is really not one who can exj^lain to you the making of a pebble, or the running of a rivulet. — Deucalion, p. 127. SCIENCE— BITS OF THOUGHT. 4G1 There are, broadly, three great demonstrable periods of the Earth's history: That in which it was crystallized ; that in which it was sculptured ; and that in which it is now being unsculptured, or deformed. These three periods interlace with each other, and gradate into each other — as the periods of human life do. Something dies in the child on the day that it is born — something is born in the man on the day that he dies : nevertheless, his life is broadly divided into youth, strength, and decrep- itude. In such clear sense, the Earth has its three ages : of their length we know as yet nothing, except that it has been greater than any man had imagined. The First Period. — But there was a period, or a succession of j^eriods, during which the rocks which are now hard were soft ; and in which, out of entirely different positions, and under entirely different con- ditions from any now existing or describable, the masses, of which the mountains you now see are made, were lifted and hardened, in the positions they now occupy, though in what forms Ave can now no more guess than we can the original outline of the block from the existing statue. The Second Period. — Then, out of those raised masses, more or less in lines compliant with their crystalline structure, the mountains we now see were hewn, or worn, during the second period, by forces for the most part differing botli in mode and vio- lence from any now in operation, but the result of which was to bring the surface of the earth into a form approximately that which it has possessed as far as the records of human history extend. — The Ararat of Moses's time, the Olympus and Ida of Homer's, are practically the same mountains now, that they were then. The Third Period. — Not, however, without some calculable, though superficial, change, and that change, one of steady degradation. For in the third, or historical period, the valleys excavated in the second period, are being filled up, and the moun- tains hewn in the second period, worn or ruined down. In the second era the valley of the Rhone 4G2 A BUSKIA"- ANTHOLOGY. was being cut deeper every day; now it is every day being filled up witli gravel. In the second era, the scars of Derbyshire and Yorkshire were cut white and steep ; now they are being darkened by vegeta- tion, and crumbled by frost. You cannot, I repeat, sej)arate the periods with precision ; but, in their characters, they are as distinct as youth from age. — Deucalion, pp. 22, 23. The Discovery by James Forbes of the vis- cous Nature of Glacier Ice. — Professor Agassiz, of Neuchutel, had then [1841] been some eight or ten years at work on the glaciers : had built a cabin on one of them ; walked a great many times over a great many of them ; described a number of their phenomena quite correctly; proposed, and in some cases performed, many ingenious experiments upon them ; and indeed done almost everything that was to be done for them — except find out the one thing that we wanted to know. As his malicious fortune Avould have it, he invited in that year (1841) a man of acute brains — James Forbes — to see what he was about. The invitation was accepted. The visitor was a mathematician ; and after examining the question, for discussion of which Agassiz was able to supply him with all the data except those which were essential, resolved to find out the essential ones himself. Which in the next year (1842) ho quietly did ; and in 1843 solved the problem of glacier motion forever: announcing, to everybody's astonishment, and to the extreme disgust and mortification of all glacier students — including my poor self, (not the least envious, I fancy, though with as little right to be envious as any one)— ^that glaciers were not solid bodies at all, but semi-liquid ones, and ran down in their beds like so much treacle. ... But fancy the feelings of poor Agassiz in his Hotel des Neuchatelois ! To have had the thing under his nose for ten years, and missed it ! There is nothing in the annals of scientific mischance — (perhaps the truer word would be scientific dulness) — to match it ; certainly it would be difficult lor provocation SCIENCE— niTS OF THOUGHT. 468 to be more bitter, — at least, for a man who thinks, as most of our foohsh modern scientific men do think, that tliere is no good in knowinji; anything for its own sake, but only in being the first to find it out. Nor am I prepared altogether to justify Forbes in his method of proceeding, except on the terms of battle which men of science have laid down for themselves. Here is a man has been ten years at his diggings ; has trenched here, and bored there, and been over all the ground again and again, ex- cept just where the nugget is. He asks one to din- ner — and oiie has an eye for the run of a stream ; one does a little bit of pickaxing in the afternoon on one's own account — and walks off with his nug- get.— i^or^, II., pp. 90, 91. A Glacier is a River of Honey.— Above all substances that can be i)roposed for definition of quality, glacier ice is the most defeating. For it is practically plastic ; but acttially viscous; — and that tothe full extent. You can beat or hammer it, like gold ; and it will stay in the form you have beaten it into, for a time ; — and so long a time, that, on all instant occasions of plasticity, it is practi- cally plastic. But only have patience to wait long enough, and it will run down out of the form you have stamped on it, as honey does, so that actually and inherently, it is viscous, and not jjlastic. — Deucalion, p. 56. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 527 278 6