Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/735

Rh pebble-bed is not the result of wave-action. 3. The movement of the deep waters of the sea, as a rule, is so slight that only the very finest sediment can be affected by it. The instances where great currents may transport pebbles and sand are exceptional, and confined to rather shallower water. The larger coast currents may, however, transport mud to considerable distances, but in directions parallel with the main trend of the shores. 4. Except where very large rivers discharge their water into the ocean, or in some special cases of 3, sediment is deposited comparatively near the shores of continents, according to the Challenger's sounding in no important amounts farther away than one hundred and fifty miles. 5. Thus rain and rivers are generally more important agents of denudation and transportation than the sea. 6. The coarser materials of rocks are capable of being transported by streams to a considerable distance without serious diminution of volume. 7. Deposits of gravel and coarse sand, of considerable vertical thickness and great vertical extension, are more likely to indicate the immediate action of a river than of a marine current.

The Happiness of Animals.—It is hard to conceive that the question, "Are animals happy?" should be seriously asked by any one who is acquainted with animals, or comprehends what constitutes happiness. Yet there are some writers—for scientific journals, too—who treat the question as open to debate, or are even inclined to answer it in the negative. Mr. Briggs Carlill, who thinks it worth while to take it up in the "Nineteenth Century," has no difficulty in giving a decidedly affirmative answer. Two general considerations, he says, precede all arguments on the subject, and may be disposed of in the beginning. They are, that animals do not commit suicide, though they might, and know how to do it; and that they increase and multiply—which they would not do were their condition miserable. Animals are, it is true, deprived of man's mental pleasures, which are the highest ones to those who appreciate them; but then they are, in partial compensation, spared from worry. With man, the local pleasures, or those of sensation and convenience, largely preponderate over mental pleasures, while of his pains, mental troubles constitute much the largest part. Suppose the mental powers gradually to diminish, while the bodily powers remain unimpaired till the mind no longer troubles itself about unseen things; we shall then approach the constitution of the higher mammalia. All animals enjoy the taking in of food. More highly developed ones have another opening for pleasure in the faculty of discovering sources of food; animals which catch their prey, the additional excitement of pursuit and capture; ruminants enjoy the chewing of the cud. Exercise counts for a good deal in the youth of all animals, and continues throughout life in the majority to afford enjoyment of the keenest description, while many of them have the delight that the power of swift motion gives. "Constantly throughout the animal world we notice that delight in the use of muscle and limb which in man scarcely survives his majority, but which in them lasts far into maturity. We are accustomed unconsciously to recognize their prerogative in this respect when we apply the phrase 'animal spirits' to a boy who is full of life and energy, and who enjoys a run over the hills on a breezy day." All animals, also, enjoy to a full extent the pleasures connected with the perpetuation of their species and the care of their young—the latter of which are akin to some of man's mental pleasures. What is there to set off against these pleasures which accompany alike the activities preservative of individual life and those preservative of the species? Principally, these four things—famine, exposure to weather, bodily injury, and violent death; things not altogether unknown to man. But the suffering in all these cases is of short duration, and is usually tempered by circumstances in the animal's age, condition, or power of adaptation, while the keenest element of it—the thinking about it—is wholly absent; so that its intensity is so much less in animals than in man that, even if the individual instances of it are more frequent, the balance of advantage would probably remain with the brutes. The author's conclusion, therefore, is, that "so far as bodily pains and pleasures are concerned, if in humanity there be a surplus of pleasure