Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/146

138 The successors of the Manchu conquerors are now reigning in China, and it can hardly be said that any Manchus exist in Asia. Those who serve are treated at the court like slaves, while the powers are very careful not to show any lack of respect to the Chinese. The Manchu language, in spite of efforts to give it some literary and political importance, has been thrown into the background, and is hardly more than one of the rude jargons of central Asia.

The Baskets of Lichtenfels.—One of the largest basket markets in the world is situated in the little town of Lichtenfels, in the mountains of upper Franconia, Bavaria. The industry was introduced there toward the close of the last century by a citizen who, desiring to take advantage of the fine growth of willow trees in the neighboring valley of the chain, began weaving baskets on a small scale corresponding with his means. The business gradually developed in extent and in variety and artistic character of the designs; the products were sent to the larger markets, and even France was almost exclusively supplied from Lichtenfels till the war of 1870, and is still supplied thence to a considerable extent. The gradually increasing demands soon made it necessary to procure foreign raw material. The finer varieties of willow reeds had to be imported from Hungary and France and from countries beyond the sea. Straw for the finer woven articles was ordered from Spain and Italy, and the palm leaves used for ornamenting the better class of wares from the tropics. In this manner the evolution of the house industry, as it is called, of Lichtenfels proceeded, and has resulted in the employment at this time of about sixteen thousand men, women, and children, who produce every variety of basket from the simplest to the most elegant. Factories, as usually spoken of, are few. The manufacturer delivers the raw material to the people who are to make the baskets at their own home—that is, he weighs out for them the willow reeds, colored straw, palm leaves, etc., and gives them the designs according to which they are to be made, and at a stated time the workers—who mostly live in neighboring villages—bring their work to the manufacturer and receive their pay. The industry is encouraged through the schools of design that have been established and are supported by the state, in which the young people of the neighborhood are educated in all branches of it.

Fjords, Fjörds, and Fohrden.—Fjords according to a memoir by Herr P. Dinse, of Berlin, are long, narrow bays or sea inlets, penetrating an elevated or mountainous coast; their sides slope steeply both above and below water, giving a troughlike cross-section, while the longitudinal section shows an irregular relief of gentle ridges and shallow troughs. In all true fjords the depth inside is greater than that of the stretch of sea immediately beyond the mouth. There are several varieties of this type. Thus, two fjords entering the coast at an angle may meet/forming a sound separating an island. Again, the bar of the mouth may be slightly elevated so as to become dry land, and a fjord lake or loch results. Minor subdivisions include the fjärd and schären types by the Gulf of Bothnia, differing only in the relative frequency of islands and continuous coast and the föhrden type of the low coasts of Denmark. These are entirely different from the inlets of the ria type, which occur on the coasts of Spain, northwestern Ireland, and elsewhere. A ria is a more or less wedge-shaped inlet, gradually widening and uniformly deepening from its head to the sea, showing no trace of an included basin. It is noted, however, that prolonged sedimentation might ultimately convert a fjord into a ria. The distribution of fjords as distinguished from rias is subject to the general statement that there are no fjords except on the coasts of lands which show signs of recent glacial action. The coasts where they occur are those of Scandinavia, the west of Scotland, northwest of Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Labrador, and the coast of Maine, the west coast of North America from Alaska to Vancouver Island, the west coast of South America from Chiloe to Cape Horn, Kerguelen, the antarctic lands, and the southern part of the west coast of the South Island in New Zealand.

Cave Exploration.—Spelæology is the name given by M. E. A. Martel to the study of caves—a study which he regards as of much greater significance than has hitherto