Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/441

Rh than men, and the length of their migrations in time and distance was equaled, perhaps, by those of fishes and marine animals. The simple motives that governed these movements were the same as constituted the incentive to human movements over the earth. The coming and going of birds and marine creatures are likewise the occasion of an enormous amount of human bustle and running about. Most of the domestication of animals is prompted by a desire to have them at our doors, and to make us independent of their migrations. Land animals, as well as birds and sea animals, were often obliged by natural conditions to travel great distances, and men followed them in order to live upon them. In every tribe there are stories of travelers who made long voyages and returned. Dr. Boas says that the myths of the northwest coast of America point across the Pacific. Besides the traditions that fix upon the present habitat as the primal home, there is a class of migration myths. The perfection of devices also prolongs travel. The East Greenlanders journey around to West Greenland to get snuff, and will consume four years in a single excursion there and back, often, according tc Nansen, remaining no longer than an hour at the trading station before taking up their homeward march. The Manchus and Manyarg, who navigate the Sungari River, spend from eight days to a month, according to the destination, in their journeys; the Turki, near East Cape, from four to six months. According to Seton Karr, the tribes of northwest British Columbia were afraid to quit their tribal territory, but now Indians are willing to accompany the white man through regions that are as strange and unknown to them as to him. The extent and direction of aboriginal journeys have been in some places cut off, and in others greatly stimulated, by contact with the Caucasian race.

Utilization of Wind Power.—A summary of the conclusions reached by M. Maximlian Plessuer from a study of the economies of wind as a source of power is given by M. Henry de Varigny in a paper on Air and Life, published by the Smithsonian Institution. The irregularity of the wind forms the chief objection to placing reliance upon it, but much depends upon localities. There are places and large regions where it is fairly regular. It seldom fails at the seashore, and the trade winds are nearly constant; while in most parts of the globe it becomes more regular as the altitude increases. Hence, upon the whole, a considerable part of the world is well suited for investigations upon the best methods of deriving power from the winds. The first requisites of a wind-power machine are some sort of a motor driven by the wind, and an accumulator to store the energy and yield it at the required moment. Dismissing the old windmill and the æolian wheel as not fully coming up to the mark, M. Plessuer turns to sails as affording a possible solution of the problem. "The utilization of the power of the winds," he writes, "and its transformation into mechanical work are only possible by means of sailing vehicles, driven by wind upon a circular railway, the power generated by such rotation being transmitted to an axle and thence to machinery." On this railway a circular train, made of small cars coupled together, each carrying a mast and two sails at right angles with each other, is driven by the wind. The sails are automatically trimmed, and automatically also they expand or contract, or rather take in the wind or withdraw from it. As long as the wind blows the train continues rotating, and if it is connected with a central axle the latter may work dynamos and charge electrical accumulators. A similar apparatus might be arranged in water, boats taking the place of the cars, and, since the wind power is transformed into electricity, the latter may be stored and kept in reserve, or transferred to a distance to perform ten, twenty, or fifty miles away any work that may be required.

"Our Friends the Monkeys."—Why, asks M. Paul Mégnin in La Nature, should we not call monkeys our friends? They have been calumniated and had all sorts of evil qualities attributed to them, because when we make pets of them we encourage and cultivate their odd traits, and spoil them as children are spoiled. All monkeys have not equal degrees of intelligence, but most of them are capable of a development equal to if not above that possible to any other