Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/785

Rh veil which we are enabled to lift, a glimpse is revealed to us of the harmonious plan of the universe. As for primary causes, they remain beyond the ken of man's mind; they lie within another domain which man's intellect will ever strive to enter and search. So is man constituted, and such he will forever continue. In vain does science reveal to him the physical structure of the universe and the order of its phenomena: he will Strive onward and upward in his innate instinctive conviction that things have not within themselves their sufficient cause, their foundation and origin; he is gradually led to subordinate them to a primary cause, a unique and universal God."

Reported Discovery of Living Moas.—A report is published in an Auckland newspaper, of October 3d, of the finding of two live moas at Browning Pass, New Zealand. The story runs that one R. K. M. Smyth, on September 26th, while hunting, saw his dog set off suddenly at a great pace, barking furiously. He followed, and soon saw two large birds, one of gigantic height, the other smaller. Seeing the dog getting the worst of the fight, Smyth ran back and called his mate to assist him. They got a leather rope, and, under shelter of a small patch of bush, got behind the larger bird and roped it at the first cast. He then took a turn round a birch tree with the rope. The large bird did not show fight to any great extent, and the smaller one remained quietly by it. After this they had very little trouble to secure the legs of the large bird, and they left it fastened to the tree two days, the young one making no effort to leave its mother. With the assistance of some shepherds the old bird was taken to the camp, the young one following. The old bird is eight feet high, and the young one five feet. The story needs confirmation: it is almost too good to be true.

How Migration changes Man.—We are indebted to Rev. I. T. Beman for a copy of an address delivered by him on the "Moulding Influences of Migration upon the Human Family," particularly as exhibited in certain Yankee settlements in Southern New Jersey. The author points out the physical differences existing between these Jerseymen and New-Englanders, as follows: "The complexion of the Yankee is blond, that of the Jerseyman dark. The Jerseyman's face is more reposeful than the Yankee's, less variable in expression, and presents a heavier physiognomy. His hair is more abundant, darker, and coarser. The Yankee has smaller jaws, more slender neck, rounder chest and limbs, more arching instep, etc. As regards mental traits, the Jerseyman is slow of thought, the Yankee quick, inventive. Yet these two populations are sprung from one original stock; circumstances have made them unlike. And the same results will be produced again in the descendants of the Vineland immigrants." "Within three generations," says the author, "the essentially Yankee character of Vinelanders will disappear, and many peculiarities of our New-Jersey neighbors, somewhat remodeled, will be grafted upon our descendants."

Prof. Marsh on the Lake-Basins of the West.—In a memoir by Prof. O. C. Marsh, on "The Ancient Lake-Basins of the Rocky Mountain Region," published in the American Journal of Science, the formation of these basins is traced back to different epochs of Tertiary time on the evidence afforded by the fauna peculiar to each. The oldest of these Tertiary lake-basins are of Eocene age. The first discovered and best known of these Eocene lake-beds is the Green River basin, lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Wasatch range, in the depression now drained by the Green River. The fauna entombed in this Eocene lake indicates a tropical climate—tapiroid mammals, monkeys, crocodiles, lizards, serpents. The author cites, as an example of the Miocene basins, an ancient lake-bed lying north of the Black Hills. The fauna here discovered indicates a climate much less tropical than that of the Eocene lakes, as is seen in the absence of monkeys, and scarcity of reptilian life. At the close of the Miocene a subsidence took place east of the Rocky Mountains. A great Pliocene lake was thus formed directly over the Miocene basin just mentioned, having nearly the same boundaries on the north and west (Black Hills and Rocky Mountains), but