Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/930

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in the house by the women themselves, and by processes which they keep to themselves. The lady is then ready for her bath, prior to which she uses manjam, a dentifrice often prepared from betelnut and finely aromatic. This also must be prepared at home; and the ingredients and scents used are never taken at haphazard, but are such as have a well-earned reputation for fitness for the uses to which they are applied. The bath having been taken, the ladies dress themselves, according to the season, in silken or woolen cloth; sprinkle Ganges water, or water made holy by an admixture of Ganges water, on their heads, and also on their beds. This part of the morning's duty is concluded by an obeisance to the sun. The serious part of the day's work begins after this. The cook room and household room are visited and the appointed prayers recited in them; the children and sick members of the family, if there are any, are attended to; the store room is opened and the kitchen utensils and other articles needed are issued to the servants; the special dishes to be made for the family, the sick, and the children are looked after; articles required from the bazaar are sent for; the stock of provisions on hand is examined; and a close watch is kept on all the operations of the household. A good housewife will often prepare some special favorite dish for her husband with her own hands; and, although she does not eat with him, will attend to his meals to see that he is well served. If they find any leisure after attending to their religious exercises and their duties, they are at liberty to occupy themselves according to their liking. Many of the elder women read in the Hindu classics, and the younger ones engage in fancy work. There are now, as there were in the olden times, women poets and writers whose work is of high merit, but not recognized by us because it is in the native languages. A fashion is setting in of spending some time at the piano or harmonium. Much attention is paid to the toilet and to the changes of dress for the various occasions of the day; and the day closes with evening worship and readings.

the course of his experiments on the psychic development of a litter of puppies. Prof. Wesley Mills remarked that these animals, as well as those of several other kinds, even on their first day would not creep off from a surface on which they were resting if it was elevated a little distance above the ground. "When they approach the edge, they manifest hesitation, grasp with their claws or otherwise attempt to prevent themselves falling, and it may be cry out, giving evidence of some profound disturbance of their nervous system." But a water tortoise he had had for some years would at any time walk off from a surface on which it was placed. Prof. Mills accounts for the difference by supposing that land animals, depending on a firm substratum beneath them, have inherited "a sense of support"; while the amphibious tortoise is accustomed frequently to drop off from logs into water, and has not, or but little, "sense of support." Then, again, he finds the sense of support "well marked in birds that drop themselves into 'thin air,'" Birds, however, need the "sense of support" when depending on their feet quite as much as land animals.

instruments used in the observations of the British Association's committee on earth tremors are so delicate that an angle can be detected corresponding with that subtended by a chord an inch long of a circle one thousand miles in radius.