Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/448

 the thick figure of a bird with outstretched wings. The Arabs say it is a buzzard or a falcon, but Mr. Doughty suggests that the effigies are those of the mortuary owls of the old Arabians. Mr. Doughty's visit has disposed of the singular fables propagated by the Arabs as well as by Turkish and Persian pilgrims, and which, he says, have been accepted in some works of learned Orientalists in Europe.

Cases of Remarkable Precocity.—From an entertaining paper in "Chambers's Journal" we select a few instances of "precocious cleverness." Anne Maria Schurmann was, in her day, the boast of Germany. At the age of six, and without instruction, she cut in paper the most delicate figures; at eight, she learned in a few days to paint flowers, which, it should be added, were highly esteemed; and two years later it cost her only five hours' application to learn the art of embroidering with elegance. Her talents for higher attainments, we are told, did not develop themselves till she was twelve years of age, when they were discovered in the following manner: Her brothers were studying in the apartment where she sat, and it was noticed that, whenever their memories failed in the recital of their lessons, the little girl prompted them without any previous knowledge of their tasks except what she had gained from hearing the boys con them over. In her education she made extraordinary progress, and is said to have perfectly understood the German, Low-Dutch, French, English, Latin, Greek, Italian, Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldean, Arabic, and Ethiopian languages. Her knowledge of science and her skill in music, painting, and sculpture were also extraordinary; and her talent for modeling was shown by the wax portrait she contrived to make of herself with the aid of a mirror.

Another prodigy was Dorothy Schlozer, a Hanoverian lady, who was thought worthy of the highest academical honors of the University of Göttingen, and had the degree of Doctor in Philosophy conferred upon her when she was only seventeen years of age. Before she was three years old she was taught Low-German; and three years later learned French and German; and, after receiving ten lessons in geometry, was able to answer abstruse questions. Other languages were next acquired with singular rapidity; and before she was fourteen she knew Latin and Greek, and had become a good classical scholar. She also made herself acquainted with almost every branch of polite literature, as well as many of the sciences. As an instance of this lady's indefatigable industry, it may be mentioned that she visited the deepest mines in the Harz Forest in the common garb of a laborer, to gain proficiency in mineralogy.

It is said that Blaise Pascal, one of the most profound thinkers and accomplished writers of France, exhibited precocious proofs of genius, especially in mathematics, from his earliest childhood. Having been purposely kept in ignorance of geometry, lest his propensity in that direction should interfere with the prosecution of other studies, his self-prompted genius discovered for itself the elementary truths of the forbidden science. When quite a boy, he was discovered by his father in the act of demonstrating on the pavement of an old hall where he used to play, and by means of a rude diagram he traced with a piece of coal a proposition which corresponded to the thirty-second of the First Book of Euclid. At the age of sixteen he composed a tractate on conic sections, which excited great admiration. Three years later he invented his celebrated arithmetical machine; and at the age of twenty-six he had composed the greater part of his mathematical works, and made those brilliant experiments in hydrostatics and pneumatics which ranked him among the first natural philosophers of his time.

Discrimination and Memory of Sounds.—Some very extraordinary feats of memory are by the "Scientific American" credited to a youth named Hicks, residing in Rochester, New York. Hicks has not lived long in Rochester, having removed thither lately from Buffalo; yet he is able to give the numbers of nearly three hundred locomotives on hearing their bells. During the day he is employed at so great a distance from the railway that he rarely hears a passing train; but at night he can hear every train, as his house is situated near the