Page:The fairy tales of science.djvu/21

 old story-tellers whose wondrous legends we delight to linger over.

In more credulous times, however, these monsters of enchantment were religiously believed in, and no one doubted that they had their lairs in the dark and impenetrable forests, in the desolate mountain passes, and in those vast and gloomy caverns which are even now regarded with superstitious dread by the ignorant.

At length the lamp of science was kindled, and its beneficent rays penetrated the darkest recesses of the earth; roads were cut through the tangled woods, busy factories sprang up in the lonely glens, and curious man even ventured to pry into the secrets of those terrible caves. The monsters of romance were nowhere to be found. Triumphant science had banished them from the realms of fact, with the same pitiless severity that the uncompromising St. Patrick had previously displayed towards the poisonous reptiles of Ireland.

The poor ill-used Dragon has now no place to lay his scaly head, the Griffin has become a denless wanderer, and the Fiery Serpent has been forced to emigrate to a more genial clime!

Fortunately truth is stranger than fiction; the revelations of modern science transcend the wildest dreams of the old poets; and in exchange for a few shadowy griffins and dragons, we are presented with a whole host of monsters, real and tangible monsters too, who in the early days of the world's