Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/171

 principles of myth-making may still be learned from the peasants of Europe.

When, within the memory of some here present, the science of man was just coming into notice, it seemed as though the study of races, customs, traditions, were a limited though interesting task, which might, after a few years, come so near the end of its materials as no longer to have much new to offer. Its real course has been far otherwise. Twenty years ago it was no difficult task to follow it step by step; but now even the yearly list of new anthropological literature is enough to form a pamphlet, and each capital of Europe has its anthropological society in full work. So far from any look of finality in anthropological investigations, each new line of argument but opens the way to others behind, while these lines tend as plainly as in the sciences of stricter weight and measure toward the meeting-ground of all sciences in the unity of nature.—Nature.

 

Radiant Matter exerts Strong Mechanical Action where it strikes.

E have seen, from the sharpness of the molecular shadows, that radiant matter is arrested by solid matter placed in its path. If this solid body is easily moved, the impact of the molecules will reveal itself in strong mechanical action. Mr. Gimingham has constructed for me an ingenious piece of apparatus which, when placed in



the electric lantern, will render this mechanical action visible to all present. It consists of a highly-exhausted glass tube (Fig. 11), 