Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/150

142 produced by words which become fashionable for a time, and are made to carry a great variety of meanings, and frequently no definite meaning. Such a word is 'culture.' Arnold has defined it, and Huxley has lectured on his definition, and Mr. Arnold has lectured in reply. Still, though it is used every day, no one can tell exactly what it means. The common notion attached to it is that of traveling in Europe and looking at picture-galleries. In educational circles the word 'discipline' is thrown at you on all occasions. It is the answer given to all educational inquiries; but its meaning to most minds is not clear. It generally stands for memorizing the rules of Latin prosody and committing the names of the Greek divinities. Another false notion which we absorb with our instruction is that all knowledge comes from books—that knowledge originates in books. The existence of this belief may be denied, because a second thought shows its absurdity; but the fallacy has taken possession of the mind of most students of books and controls their practical life. Knowledge is sought by them in books, and in books alone. The man educated only in books does not know how to find a truth except by means of a book. It is a fallacy to think that the best education is an education to interpret books, and not an education to interpret nature."

Solar Storms and Sun-Spots.—Whatever may be said in the matter of terrestrial weather-prediction, astronomers have learned to foretell with considerable correctness the occurrence of the mighty solar storms which produce what are called sun-spots; that is, they can tell what years will be characterized by many sun-storms and what years by few, for ten or twelve years in advance. The great sun-spots which were seen in the later months of 1882 were predicted at least twelve years before; and astronomy is far better assured that in the years 1898 and 1894 there will be many sun-spots than meteorologists are that any given month in the future of the present year will be of the normal character. But though the periodicity of the spots seems to be established, the reason of it is still wholly unknown. We have learned, from the observations of Professor Langley and the story told by the spectroscope, that so much of the light of the body of the sun is absorbed by its atmosphere that its color is changed from the real bluish violet to the yellowish white that we see; that the vapors in that atmosphere are largely metallic, and the rains on the sun are rains of metallic drops; that its storms rage over regions as large as the whole surface of the earth, and travel with a velocity compared with which the swiftest atmospheric movements on the earth are as rest; and that its constant emission of light and heat represents the equivalent of a consumption of fuel so far beyond what man can conceive that figures can give no idea of it. A connection seems to be fairly established between solar storms and magnetic disturbances on the earth. Yet there are storms, revealed by the protuberances on the edge of the solar disk, that are not felt on the earth; but this is because they rage on a part of the sun not turned toward the earth, and spend their effects in other portions of space. Whenever the face of the sun turned toward the earth has shown evidence of perturbation, our planet has responded quickly enough—quite as quickly as it responds to the rays of solar light. It seems clear, also, that the temperature of the earth as a whole is affected by the absence or presence of many spots on the sun's surface. But that there is any connection between the rain and wind cycles, the periods of famine and financial crisis, the recurrence of disasters and shipwrecks, bad vine-years, etc., as some have assumed to infer, has not yet been established; and the observations on these points are so contradictory as to have no value.

Microbes in Bricks.—Director Parize, of the agricultural station at Morlaix, France, has discovered that the crumbling of soft bricks and other earthen articles, which has been ascribed wholly to the action of moisture, is largely promoted, if it is not caused, by the growth of microbes. His attention was called to the fact in examining some mucedines [sic] which had grown upon a brick partition in a close, moist place, when he remarked some swellings or blisters in the plaster, from which a fine, red dust escaped when it was broken. Nothing but the brick-dust could be seen with the ordinary magnifier, but the application of