Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/297

Rh question for a child to ask, but one which men of science hesitated in answering. When did the moraines come that rise like railroad embankments among the orchards and cornfields of Savoyard valleys? Was their material excavated by the moving ice, or did the ice serve as a sledge to transport the rocks that fell from the peaks and ridges around them? The matter was one capable of direct observation. It was not the largest glaciers that had the greatest moraines, but rather those that lay under lofty ridges, and particularly those where the surrounding rocks were specially subject to disintegration by weather. He agreed with those who regarded glaciers as polishers rather than diggers, and drew a distinction between abrasion and erosion. The formation of lake basins could be accounted for without the agency of ice. In fact, lake basins did not occur where they ought to, if the theory of formation by erosion was correct. Alpine towns occupied basins which had not been dug out by glaciers, but preserved by a frozen covering from being filled up by the action of torrents. Snow and ice protected the ground they covered from disintegration by ice and floods. At the same time subg-lacial torrents performed singular feats in cutting deep and narrow rock channels, and thus contributed to the soil they carried. The color of their water was, however, mainly due to the fineness of the particles of the mud derived from the grinding of the bowlders subjected to the glacier mill. In winter the water that flowed out of a glacier was clear. It was supplied, not as had been supposed, by the continual melting of the ice, but was the issue of subterranean springs in the glacier's bed.

Running Amok.—The condition under which the Malays run amok, as described by Dr. Ellis, of the Government Hospital, Singapore, in the Journal of Mental Science, seems usually to be preceded by a period of mental depression, sometimes with suspicion, and the patient, when he breaks out, slashes at, stabs, and sometimes mutilates all who come in his way, irrespective of creed or nationality. The weapons used are a short spear, a Malay kris, or a chopper, and in the old days—even now in the uncivilized parts of the peninsula—it was the custom to have long, forked sticks, which were used against the man who was running amok, to stop him and pin him to the ground. Such men, when caught, are now tried regularly and sent to an asylum; but formerly little mercy was shown them, and they were killed at once, as though they were mad dogs. The condition seems to resemble in many particulars the automatic condition which is sometimes left after an epileptic fit; this, in some cases, takes the form of running, or "procursive epilepsy"; and, if we imagine such a patient armed with a knife and imbued with a homicidal impulse, we have practically all the conditions necessary for the Malayan pathological development. The Malayan, in his sound state, professes to have no recollection of the assaults he has committed. The condition of running amok is becoming less common than it was a few years ago.

Leaves and Rain.—Mr. E. Stahl, says Garden and Forest, has been making a study of leaf-forms in relation to the rainfall, chiefly in the Botanic Gardens of Buitenzorg, and he says that while a large leaf-surface partly provides for the removal of water by transpiration, there are other distinct methods by which plants are helped to dispose of any excess of water accumulating upon them as speedily as possible. One of these is the adoption of the sleeping position by leaves, such as those of the sensitive plant, so that when the horizontal leaves bend upward the raindrops run off by the base of the leaf. Most frequently, however, excessive moisture is drained off by long points to the leaves. These points occur on the lobes of divided leaves, but are most remarkable on long ovate leaves. In some plants the prolonged midrib has the form of a wide channel, but generally it is that of a tapering and narrow point, slightly curved ot the end. As the water trickles down the inclined narrow points it passes from the upper to the under surface before dropping from the leaf, and the bent tip accelerates this action. Stahl tested this theory by experiments, and found that the leaves of Justicia picta which he carefully rounded retained moisture for an hour, while those with the dropping points left on were dry in twenty minutes or less. This rapid removaremoval [sic] of water from the leaf lightens its weight,