Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/880

860 that those who have left the world are sure to return to it, and that, as there are four ways, the traveler might wander aimlessly about, not knowing in which direction his home lay; therefore his friends pray for him at one of the roads, so that he may choose the right path, and not be misled by evil spirits. The mock court of Coucou was held at Palleur every year in August, at the nearest inn, and then, by adjournment, on the bridge. All the henpecked husbands and those who possessed any peculiarity were summoned before it, when the most ridiculous pleadings were had, nonsensical questions were asked, and appeals on mooted points were made to strangers present. The accused were always found guilty, sentenced to pay a fine, which must be spent at the inn, and then put into a cart, which was backed to a suitable mud-hole or pool, where they were shot out. The proceedings ended with the trial and ducking of the last man married in the village.

Types of Cliffs.—Dr. Archibald Geikie, in his book on "The Scenery of Scotland viewed in Connection with its Physical Geography," describes how the configuration of the coast is affected by the action of the sea. This work is traced around the cliffs, and the overhanging rocks which skirt the coast of parts of Caithness and Orkney are consequences of the direction of the great joints which run at right angles to the dip of the beds, so that wherever the strata descend with their planes of bedding toward the sea, the cliffs overhang. The joints are often pierced, so that the sea penetrates inward. The encroachments of tidal waters are recorded all along the coast. There are three types of sea-cliff which owe their characters to the rock forming them. First, the crystalline schists and old gneiss, which form a range of precipices running northward on the west coast of Scotland to Cape Wrath; crumpled, folded, and irregularly jointed, it is strikingly rugged, full of deep recesses and tunnels, and buttresses which extend into the sea. A second type of cliff ia formed by the Cambrian sandstones of the west coast. They rise a few miles to the east of Cape Wrath in vertical cliffs six hundred feet in height. The perpendicular joints separate masses from the main cliff, and everywhere present a red or brown tinge. A third form of cliff is produced by basalt, well seen on the west of Skye, where it rises in precipices reaching to one thousand feet above the sea. But owing to the varying durability of the basaltic rock, it weathers so as often to form steep descents, which characterize these ancient lava-streams.

Private Lunatic Asylums in Great Britain.—The fortieth report of the British Commissioners of Lunacy shows an increase both in the general number of insane patients and in the number of those confined in private asylums over the numbers reported in the previous year. The general increase is less and the increase in the number confined in private asylums is relatively still less than was the increase returned in the previous year over the year preceding it. The patronage of the private institutions seems to have been materially affected by the agitation that has been made respecting them. Medical men are averse to running the risk of being involved in actions, and decline to sign lunacy certificates. The friends of persons of unsound mind have learned to look upon the private asylums with distrust. The effect of some recent judicial decisions has been to permit many weak-minded but not dangerous persons, who would previously have been put under supervision, to go at large. But the commissioners profess to be satisfied that the impression that patients are unduly detained in these establishments is wholly unfounded, and say that the houses were generally conducted during the year to their satisfaction.

Bees as Weather Indicators.—Prof. Emmerig, of the Royal Seminary in Lauingen, Germany, recommends bees as the surest prognosticators of the weather for the day. These insects are usually among the most docile and good-humored of animals, and show no disposition to sting unless they are provoked. But, if a storm is impending, they become restless and irritable, and are dangerous to approach. Sometimes the barometers will give the most emphatic indications of a storm, while the bees will continue quiet. The storm may break somewhere else, but not where the bees have omitted to give warning of it, or, if it breaks there, it will be light.