Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/881

Rh what it is for the sake of nearness to the great water power which rushes from the gap in the hills. The intervale was cleared and smoothed for raising perfect hay. The steep side hills have been maintained in woods because they are too steep for agriculture, and because, if they were cleared of trees, their sands and gravels would wash down upon the fertile land of the intervale. Similarly upon the upland farms the greenery along even the tiniest brooks has been preserved in order to obviate that wasteful washing away of soil which results from carrying plowing to the edges of the water-courses. Throughout the landscape before us it is most interesting to note how beauty has resulted from the exercise of common sense and intelligence. The every-day forces of convenience, use, and true economy have here conspired with Nature to produce beauty, and this beauty is of a very different and much more satisfying kind than that which tries to found itself on mere new caprice or fashion."

Perversity conquered.—The story of successful dealing with two cases of idiocy manifesting itself in violence is related by Margaret Bancroft, of Haddonfield, N. J. The first case was a deaf-mute, twenty years of age, "a sickly, wild, destructive, disgusting specimen of humanity," who had to be taken charge of day and night. He would tear or destroy three or four suits a week. An attendant, having noticed that he was fastidious about the color of the things he wore, suggested having fine clothing for him. He was fitted with a suit, and "the success was wonderful. He was perfectly delighted, blew and puffed on his clothes, and from that time, unless some very serious trouble arose with his care-taker, he never destroyed anything unless it was ugly. He was gradually led on from one step in good behavior to another—sitting to witness a play, being photographed, sitting in school during the opening exercises, drawing lines, and mat-weaving, in which, when he threaded his needle and put in one row without help, the whole school set up a hurrah. "There were many ups and downs, but from that time improvement was constant" till boy and teacher were separated in consequence of the burning of the school building. The success is a subject of wonder to all who know of the case. "It has taken unbounded patience, hopefulness, and trust, but the great secret has been love, our love for him and his love for us and trust in us." The other case was a boy who had been hurt mentally by a fall, a destructive, murderous savage, with whom, "for some time after his arrival, we felt that we had a young tiger in our peaceful home. . . . The first attempt to have him in the schoolroom was a tempest." He was tied in a chair and had to be held by two persons; then he had only to be tied; but, "after six months of this work, we could have him in the schoolroom untied for a short time. It was so in everything we attempted to do with him; in teaching him we were obliged to have one person hold him while another directed his hands. So on until we gradually got him to like his work. In marching, calisthenics, games, kindergarten work, chart work, board work, slate work, there were the same battles week after week; but now he leads the marching. . . . He is trying in all his work to use his right hand, but it is a great effort, and requires the exercise of patience on his part. He is loving and neat, takes great pride in his clothes, says his prayers, and tries to please. . . . We are proud of his table manners."

Plains in Cold Countries.—In his book on Ancient and Modern Steppes and Tundras, Prof. A. Nehring undertakes to show that such formations are marks of the post-glacial transition period, the analogues of which can be found in the central regions of Europe and North America, and even in the South. The heaths of central Europe, the puszten of Hungary, the African deserts, North American prairies and savannas, and the pampas and llanos of South America, are, according to his view, all of one class with them. Their common characteristic is not the desolation we usually conceive when the steppe or the tundra is mentioned, which is only a topographical incident, but the limitation of vegetation to herbaceous plants with scarcity of trees, and a general flatness or moderately undulating character of the surface. Sometimes island elevations occur in them, which are covered with trees, and whence streams flow. They are not depressions, but often constitute table-lands or cap the tops of mountains or high hills. As