Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/718

 Dr. Hammond will not fly to the conclusion that I suppose this woman to have been the superior, mentally, of those remarkable men. I do not myself lay so much stress upon mere brain-weight as the doctor does, but I simply meet his case as a matter of charity, and because it is easy to do so.

One other point, and I am done for the present. I shall shortly review the matter at greater length in a more readable form. The doctor says: "I stated . . . that the human head does not grow after the seventh year. . . . Instead of head" (the italics are the doctor's, although he says the use of them is a feminine characteristic and most objectionable), "I should have said brain, and then the point involved would have been more correctly stated." Perhaps it would have been, although that, also, is questioned by competent authority, but for the moment I have nothing to say as to that.

It is unfortunate, however, that a "scientist" should permit himself to resort to this sort of trickery in words. Perhaps it would have been more exact to say brain instead of head in that connection, but the doctor did not say brain, and he did not mean brain at that time, and until he was absolutely cornered on that point. How do I know? Allow me to quote the rest of the sentence in which it occurred, and which I omitted before, only because I, unlike the doctor, was limited as to space, and thought verbosity unnecessary, not dreaming that he would resort to such a trick. Here is his original sentence: "A fact which is somewhat astonishing to those not aware of it is, that the head of a boy or girl does not grow in size after the seventh year, so that the hat that is worn at that age can be worn just as well at thirty." (I regret that I had to use italics here to call the doctor's attention to his own meaning, since he does not like italics. I do not myself; but there are times when they seem to be very necessary.)

Now, unless the doctor is in the habit of fitting his hats to his brains and not to his head, this last explanation is simply a bit of artful dodging, and surely unworthy of any one who is in search of simple truth. 2em

Editor Popular Science Monthly:

There was to be seen in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in 1841, and for several years afterward, a vegetable phenomenon which puzzled the rural observers and the few professed naturalists of the county. Two beech staddles, some six inches in diameter, grew within a foot of each other. About eight feet from the ground a lateral branch of one of them, growing tightly athwart the trunk of the other, had become incased by that trunk, so as to present the appearance of being thrust through it. Some one had cut off the absorbing stock two or three feet above the surface-soil, so that it hung by that lateral branch, and might be easily swung to and fro, thus:

The severed stock continued to live and grow, not only above the supporting limb, but between the limb and the severance below.

It was manifest that the top of the sundered tree was supplied through the transverse branch in the ordinary method of upward growth; but not so apparent how the lower portion continued its existence. If by the same agency, then seemingly by a reversal of the laws of vegetable circulation. It would not have been strange that shoots should appear on the severed stock the second season after the separation, since sap sufficient to start them might be retained in its tissues, particularly if the excision were done during the winter, which may have been the fact—this I do not know; but that this life should continue in the lower portion for successive years, is the mystery of the matter. I saw it during the third or fourth season after the separation, and can testify to life therein, though not the vigor of a thrifty young tree. The supporting trunk had increased much more than its mutilated companion. This shrinkage of vitality might have resulted in ultimate death, had not further experiment been precluded by the thoughtless removal of both for fire-wood by an ignorant chopper.

Will some of your learned correspondents explain to us rural marvelers this growth from downward-moving sap, or, apparently, from no sap at all obtained directly from mother earth?

Editor Popular Science Monthly:

In "The Popular Science Monthly" for February, 1887, you say: "Everybody, nearly, has been reading 'King Solomon's Mines,' but perhaps not very many have