Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/878

858 luxury prevails among the aristocracy. It comes from India, where it was acquired. The architecture of the towns is decidedly monotonous. Most of the houses are exceedingly high, many of them reaching eleven stories. They are built of sun-dried bricks, and are externally decorated with chevrons and zigzag patterns. There is always a terrace on the roof, where the people sleep in the hot weather, and they are usually decorated with turrets, domes, machicolations, buttresses, etc., which give them quite a mediæval appearance. Outside in the courtyard the flocks and herds are kept, and the horses are stabled at night. The lower story is devoted to the storage of goods, the second story is inhabited by servants, the third by the guests, and above that come the harem and the family dwelling rooms. Excellent carvings are executed on the parts of the buildings convenient for them, and on the household utensils. Sultan Sallah was much taken with Mrs. Bent's accomplishments, because she could do other things besides paint herself with turmeric and antimony, and lead a listless life of seclusion and squabbles in the harem. The medical condition of the country is terribly deficient. Burning the part affected with a hot iron is a favorite remedy, called kayys, and was seen frequently applied. The doctors consider certain smells dangerous for certain wounds, and those afflicted are obliged to wear stoppers in their noses for fear of inhaling the odor. On to a wound they will tie iron or tin; and, as women are not allowed to see medical men, their husbands take a hair from their head, by which the doctors undertake to decide from what the lady is suffering. Sultan Sallah told a curious case which had come under his notice: A man, for a wager, ate all the fat of a goat, and when he was subsequently taken ill, the doctor ordered a fire of wood to be lighted all round him to melt the fat, which had congealed in his inside.

The Composition of the Primitive Atmosphere.—Contrary to the usual doctrine that the proportion of oxygen in the atmosphere is decreasing and that of carbonic acid is increasing, a theory was put forth by the late Prof, C. J. Koene, of the University of Brussels, that the proportion of carbonic acid was formerly vastly greater than it now is, while oxygen was absent from the primary atmosphere. Force was added to these conclusions by the luxuriance of the coal plants and by the frequent presence of combustible substances, such as pyrites, molybdenite, and copper pyrites, in the primitive rocks. Under this hypothesis the origin of the oxygen in the atmosphere should be sought in the activity of plant life, decomposing carbonic acid and evolving the life-giving element. In the examination of this theory. Dr. T. L. Phipson has made experiments to ascertain to what extent our modern plants can vegetate in atmospheres of carbonic acid, hydrogen, and nitrogen. Taking such plants as pea, myosotis, antirrhinum, and convolvulus, he found that they could exist for many days, and even weeks, in an atmosphere of pure carbonic acid, but did not thrive; that they appeared healthy in an atmosphere containing so much carbonic acid that an animal exposed to it would perish in a few minutes; and that they flourished remarkably well in an atmosphere containing one hundred times as much carbonic acid as in its normal condition. Convolvulus and antirrhinum in an atmosphere of pure hydrogen were healthy, while the hydrogen gradually disappeared, probably by uniting with the nascent oxygen, and the plants got covered with water. In an atmosphere of pure nitrogen vegetation was remarkably healthy for a lengthened period, and in one of carbonic acid and nitrogen mixed it was truly luxuriant. Dr. Phipson found, moreover, that the lowest orders of microscopic plants separate oxygen from its compounds—carbonic acid and water. He concludes that, primarily, when the heat was so intense that no compounds could exist, the earth was in the state of free elements, or of atoms all identical, which became differentiated as the cooling went on; that the primitive atmosphere consisted of nitrogen, into which volcanic action poured large quantities of carbonic acid and water; that free oxygen, not at first present, was supplied by the evolution from the first organic beings—plants—that appeared, they deriving it from the carbonic acid they found in the soil and the atmosphere. This oxygen, poured into the air for an incalculable series of ages, has gone on increasing in quantity from the earth's earliest history to the present time; and when it had attained to a certain amount, animal life