 This is an excerpt from Alexander von Humboldt's personal narrative of travels to the equinoctial regions of America, during the year 1799 to 1804. It's taken from Chapter 2.19, and I entitle it, Body Painting of the Orinoco Indians. This is recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection, Volume 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Red paint being in some sort the only clothing of the Indians, two kinds may be distinguished among them according as they are more or less affluent. The common decoration of the Carribs, the Atamax, and the Gerurus is Anoto. Properly Anoto. This word belongs to the Tamanac Indians. The Mayperies call it Mejepa. The Spanish missionaries say Onotarse to rub the skin with Anoto. Called by the Spaniards Achote and by the planters of Cayenne, Roku. It is the coloring matter extracted from the pulp of the Bixa Oralana. The word Bixa, adopted by botanists, is derived from the ancient language of Haiti, the island of Saint Domingo. Roku, the term commonly used by the French, is derived from the Brazilian word Uruku. The Indian women prepare the Anoto by throwing the seeds of the plant into a tub filled with water. They beat this water for an hour and then leave it to deposit the coloring fecula, which is of an intense brick red. After having separated the water, they take out the fecula, dry it between their hands, knead it with the oil of turtles' eggs, and form it into round cakes of three or four ounces weight. When turtle oil is wanting, some tribes mix with the Anoto the fat of the crocodile. Another pigment, much more valuable, is extracted from a plant of the family of the Bignogne, which Monsieur Bonplan has made known by the name of Bignogne Chica. It climbs up and clings to the tallest trees by the aid of tendrils. Its bilabiat flowers are an inch long, of a fine violet color, and disposed by twos or threes. The bipenate leaves become reddish in drying. The fruit is a pod, filled with winged seeds, and is two feet long. This plant grows spontaneously and in great abundance near Mepuris, and in going up the Oronoco, beyond the mouth of the Guaviare, from Santa Barbara to the lofty mountain of Duita, particularly near Esmeralda. We also found it on the banks of the Casacuri. The red pigment of Chica is not obtained from the fruit, like the Onoto, but from the leaves, macerated in water. The coloring matter separates in the form of a light powder. It is collected, without being mixed with turtle oil, into little lumps eight or nine inches long, and from two to three high, rounded at the edges. These lumps, when heated, emit an agreeable smell of benzoin. When the Chica is subjected to distillation, it yields no sensible traces of ammonia. It is not, like indigo, a substance combined with azote. It dissolves slightly in sulfuric and myriadic acids, and even in alkalis. Ground with oil, the Chica furnishes a red color that has a tint of lake. Applied to wool, it might be confounded with matter red. There is no doubt but that the Chica, unknown in Europe before our travels, may be employed usefully in the arts. The nations on the Oronoco, by whom this pigment is best prepared, are the Celebus, the Guipunavis, or Guipunavis, they call themselves Uipunavi, the Caveris, and the Piroroas. The processes of infusion and maceration are in general very common among all the nations on the Oronoco. Thus the Maipuris carry on a trait of barter with the little loaves of Puruma, which is a vegetable fecula, dried in the manner of indigo, and yielding a very permanent yellow color. The chemistry of the savage is reduced to the preparation of pigments, that of poisons, and the dulcification of the amylaceous roots, which the aroides and euphorobiaceous plants afford. Most of the missionaries of the upper and lower Oronoco permit the Indians of their missions to paint their skins. It is painful to add that some of them speculate on this barbarous practice of the natives, in their huts pompously called conventos. In the missions the priest house bears the name of the convent. I have often seen stores of Chica, which they sold as high as four francs the cake. To form a just idea of the extravagance of the decoration of these naked Indians, I must observe, that a man of large stature gains with difficulty enough by the labor of a fortnight to procure in exchange the Chica necessary to paint himself red. Thus, as we say, in temperate climates of a poor man, he has not enough to clothe himself, you hear the Indians of the Oronoco say, that man is so poor that he has not enough to paint half his body. The little trade in Chica is carried on chiefly with the tribes of the lower Oronoco, whose country does not produce the plant which furnishes this much-valued substance. The caribs and the automax paint only the head and the hair with Chica, but the salivates possess this pigment in sufficient abundance to cover their whole bodies. When the missionaries send on their own account small cargos of cacao, tobacco, and chakichiki, ropes made with the petioles of a palm tree with pinnate leaves, from the Rio Negro to Angostura they always add some cakes of Chica, as being articles of merchandise in great request. The custom of painting is not equally ancient among all the tribes of the Oronoco. It has increased since the time when the powerful nation of the caribs made frequent incursions into those countries. The victors and the vanquished were alike naked, and to please the conqueror it was necessary to paint like him and to assume his color. The influence of the caribs has now ceased, and they remain circumscribed between the rivers Caroni, Cayuni, and Paraguamusi, but the Caribbean fashion of painting the whole body is still preserved. The custom has survived the conquest. Does the use of the Anato and Chica derive its origin from the desire of pleasing and the taste for ornament so common among the most savage nations? Or must we suppose it to be founded on the observation that these coloring and oily matters with which the skin is plastered preserve it from the sting of the mosquitoes? I have often heard this question discussed in Europe, but in the missions of the Oronoco and wherever within the tropics the air is filled with venomous insects, the inquiry would appear absurd. The carib and the salibe, who were painted red, are not less cruelly tormented by the mosquitoes and the zancudos than the Indians whose bodies are plastered with no color. The sting of the insect causes no swelling in either, and scarcely ever produces those little pustules which occasion such smarting and itching to Europeans recently arrived. But the native and the white suffer equally from the sting till the insect has withdrawn its sucker from the skin. After a thousand useless essays Monsieur Bonplin and myself tried the expedient of rubbing our hands and arms with the fat of the crocodile and the oil of turtle eggs, but we never felt the least relief and were stung as before. I know that the Laplanders boast of oil and fat as the most useful preservatives, but the insects of Scandinavia are not of the same species as those of the Oronoco. The smoke of tobacco drives away our gnats, while it is employed in vain against the zancudos. If the application of fat and astringent substances preserve the inhabitants of these countries from the torment of insects, as Father Guimia alleges, why has not the custom of painting the skin become general on these shores? The pulp of the annatto and even the chica are astringent and slightly purgative. Why do so many naked natives paint only the face, though living in the neighborhood of those who paint the whole body, the caribs, the salivaries, the tarmanacs, and the maypures? We are struck with the observation that the Indians of the Oronoco, like the natives of North America, prefer the substances that yield a red color to every other. Is this predilection founded on the facility with which the savage procures, ocreus earths, are the coloring fecula of annatto and of chica? I doubt this much. Indigo grows wild in a great part of equinoctial America. This plant, like so many other leguminous plants, would have furnished the natives abundantly with pigments to color themselves blue like the ancient Britons. The half-clad nations of the temperate zone often paint their skin of the same color as that with which their clothes are dyed. Yet we see no American tribe painted with indigo. It appears to me probable, as I have already hinted above, that the preference given by the Americans to the red color is generally founded on the tendencies which nations feel to attribute the idea of beauty to whatever characterizes their national physiognomy. Men whose skin is naturally of a brownish red love a red color. If they be born with a forehead little raised and the head flat, they endeavored to depress the foreheads of their children. If they be distinguished from other nations by a thin beard, they try to eradicate the few hairs that nature has given them. They think themselves embellished in proportion as they heighten the characteristic marks of their race or of their national confirmation. This is the end of body painting of the Orinoco Indians. The etymology of the name Imu by James R. MacLimont, recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection Volume 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Chris Caron. The etymology of the name Imu by James R. MacLimont. The name Imu has an interesting history. It occurs in the forms Amia and Emi in the Percas, his pilgrimage, in 1613. In Banda and other islands, says Percas, the bird called Emiah or Emi is admirable. We should probably pronounce Emi in two syllables as Emi. This Emi or Emiah was doubtless a cassowary, probably that of Siram. The idea that it was a native of the Banda group appears to have existed in some quarters, at the beginning of the 17th century. But the idea was assertly in an Iran-urus one, so large a struthuia of this bird, at the cassowary requires more extensive feeding grounds and greater seclusion than this was to be found in any island of the Banda group, and as at the present day, so in the past, Siram was the true home of the Merlion cassowary, which found and which finds in the extensive forests of that island, the home adapted to its requirements. It is, however, equally certain that at an early date to the Siram cassowary, was imported into Amboyna, and probably into Banda also, and we know of an early instance of its being introduced into Java, and from Java into Europe. When the first Dutch expedition to Java had reached that island, and when the vessels of which it was composed were lying at anchor off Sindaya, some Javins brought a cassowary on board, Schleinger's ship as a gift saying that the bird was a rare one, and that it would swallow fire, at least so they were understood to say, but that they really did say so is somewhat doubtful. However, the sailors put the matter to the test by administering to the bird a dose of Hollands, perhaps the Hollands was ignited and administered in the form of liquid fire, but it was not expressively stated that this was the case. This cassowary was brought alive to Amsterdam in 1597, and was presented to the estates of Holland at the Hague. A figure of it, under the name EME, appears in the fourth and fifth German editions of the account of this voyage of the Dutch to Java by Hulcius, published at Frankfurt in 1606 and 1625. The figure is a fairly accurate representation of an immature cassowary. Once comes, let us ask the name EME and the later form EMEW, the new historical English dictionary suggests a derivation from a Portuguese word, IMA, signifying a crane, but no authority is quoted to prove that IMA signifies, or ever signified, crane. On the other hand, various Portuguese dictionaries which have been consulted render IMA by Cassowar, or state that the name IMA is applicable to several birds of which the crane is not one. Magalhias de Gandavo, in his Historia da Provincia, Sancta Cruz, published in 1576, uses the name HEMA in writing of the Reia Hernandu. It is worthy of note that the Arabic name of the cassowary is Naimah, and that there were many Arab traders in the Malayan Archiblago at the time when the Portuguese first navigated it. The Portuguese strangely distorted melee and Arabic names, and it would not be surprising if they reproduced as NIMA, if they reproduced NIMA as Unaimah. Salvadori, referring to history, General Devoit VIII, page 112, states that the cassowary which has brought a live to Europe by the Dutch in 1597 belonged first to Count Salms van Gravahange, then to the Elector Ernest van Kulen, and finally to the Emperor, Rudolph II, Ornate, Della Papusia, Idele Maluche, the third, page 481. End of the etymology of the name Imu. Forecasting the weather from Camping for Boys by Henry William Gibson, recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection, Volume 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Camping for Boys by Henry William Gibson, Chapter 19. Forecasting the weather. Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating. There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. Ruskin. It is said that this weather table by Buzzacot is so near the truth as seldom or never to be found to fail. Forecasting the weather. If the new moon, first quarter, full moon, or last quarter, comes between 12 and 2 a.m., in summer, fair, in winter, frost, unless wind southwest, 2 and 4 a.m., in summer, cold and showers, in winter, snow and stormy, 4 and 6 a.m., in summer, rain, in winter, rain, 6 and 8 a.m., in summer, wind and rain, in winter, stormy, 8 and 10 a.m., in summer, changeable, in winter, cold rain if wind west, snow if east, 10 and 12 p.m., in summer, frequent showers, in winter, cold and high wind, 12 and 2 p.m., in summer, very rainy, in winter, snow or rain, 2 and 4 p.m., in summer, changeable, in winter, fair and mild, 4 and 6 p.m., in summer, fair, in winter, fair, 6 and 8 p.m., in summer, fair if wind northwest, in winter, fair and frosty if wind north or northeast, 8 and 10 p.m., in summer, rainy if south or southwest, in winter, rain or snow if south or southwest, 10 and 12 a.m., in summer, fair, in winter, fair and frosty. Clouds. Every cloud is a weather sign. Low clouds, swiftly moving, indicate coolness and rain. Soft clouds, moderate winds, fine weather. Hard-edged clouds, wind. Rolled or ragged clouds, strong wind. Mackerel sky, 12 hours dry. Rain. Look out for rain when the tree frog cries. Fish swim near the surface. Walls are unusually damp. Flies are troublesome and sting sharply. A slack rope tightens. Smoke beats downward. Sun is red in the morning. There is a pale yellow sunset. Rain with east wind is lengthy. A sudden shower is soon over. A slow rain lasts long. Rain before 7, clear before 11. Sun drawing water, sure sign of rain. A circle around the moon means storm. When the grass is dry at night, look for rain before the light. When the grass is dry at morning light, look for rain before the night. When the dew is on the grass, rain will never come to pass. Fog in the morning, bright sunny day. Swallow flying high means clearing weather. If the sun goes down cloudy Friday, sure of a clear Sunday. Busy spiders mean fine weather. The winds. East wind brings rain. West wind brings clear, bright, cool weather. North wind brings cold. South wind brings heat. Birds fly high when the barometer is high and low when the barometer is low. Direction of wind. The way to find which way the wind is blowing, if there is only very slight breeze, is to throw up little bits of dry grass, or to hold up a handful of light dust and let it fall, or to suck your thumb and wet it all round and let the wind blow over it, and the cold side of it will then tell you which way the wind is blowing. Weather Bureau. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Weather Bureau publishes a classification of clouds in colors which may be had for the asking. If you are near one of the weather signal stations, daily bulletins will be sent to camp upon request, also the weather map. A set of flag signals run up each day will create interest. The flags are easily made or may be purchased. Keep a daily record of temperature. A buoy in charge of the Weather Bureau will find it to be full of interest, as well as to offer an opportunity to render the camp a real service. He will make a weather vane, post a daily bulletin board, keep a record of temperature, measure velocity of wind and rainfall. If you have lost your bearings and it is a cloudy day, put the point of your knife blade on your thumb nail and turn the blade around till the full shadow of the blade is on the nail. This will tell you where the sun is and decide in which direction the camp is. Points of compass. Face the sun in the morning, spread out your arms straight from body. Before you is the east, behind you is the west, to your right hand is the south, to the left hand is the north. A homemade weather prophet. For a homemade barometer, you need a clean, clear glass bottle. Take one drachm, transcribers footnote 1. Drachm, drachma, drachm. U.S. customary system equal to 1.16 of an ounce or 27.34 grains, 1.77 grams. Apothecary weight equal to 1.8 of an ounce or 60 grains, 3.89 grams. And footnote, each of camphor gum, saltpeter and ammonia salts and dissolve them in 13 drachms of pure alcohol. Shake till dissolved, then pour in bottle and cork tightly. Hang the bottle of mixture against the wall facing north and it will prove a perfect weather prophet. When the liquid is clear, it promises fair weather. When it is muddy or cloudy, it is a sign of rain. When little white flakes settle in the bottom, it means that the weather is growing colder and the thicker the deposit, the colder it becomes. Fine, starry flakes foretell a storm and large flakes are signs of snow. When the liquid seems full of little thread-like forms that gradually rise to the top, it means wind in sudden storm. U.S. Department of Agriculture Weather Bureau explanation of flag signals. No. 1 alone indicates fair weather stationary temperature. No. 2 alone indicates rain or snow stationary temperature. No. 3 alone indicates local rain stationary temperature. No. 1 with No. 4 above it indicates fair weather warmer. No. 1 with No. 4 below it indicates fair weather colder. No. 2 with No. 4 above it indicates warmer weather rain or snow. No. 2 with No. 4 below it indicates colder weather rain or snow. No. 3 with No. 4 above it indicates warmer weather with local rains. No. 3 with No. 4 below it indicates colder weather with local rains. No. 1 with No. 5 above it indicates fair weather cold wave. Number 2 with number 5 above it indicates wet weather, cold wave. Forecasts made at 10 a.m. and displayed between 12 and 1 p.m. forecast the weather for the following day until 8 p.m. Plant barometers. The dandelion is an excellent barometer, one of the commonest and most reliable. It is when the blooms have seeded and are in the fluffy feathery condition that its weather profit facilities come to the fore. In fine weather, the ball extends to the full, but when rain approaches, it shuts like an umbrella. If the weather is inclined to be showery, it keeps shut all the time, only opening when the danger from the wet is passed. The ordinary clover and all its varieties, including the tree foil and the shamrock, are barometers. When rain is coming, the leaves shut together like the shells of an oyster and do not open again until fine weather is assured. For a day or two before rain comes, their stems swell to an appreciable extent and stiffen so that the leaves are born more upright than usual. This stem swelling when rain is expected is a feature of many towering grasses. The fingers of which the leaves of the horse chestnut are made up keep flat and fan-like so long as fine weather is likely to continue. With the coming of rain, however, they droop as if to offer less resistance to the weather. The scarlet Pimpernel, nicknamed the Poor Man's Weather Glass or Wind Cope, opens its flowers only to fine weather. As soon as rain is in the air, it shuts up and remains closed until the shower or storm is over. End of Forecasting the Weather Entry December 31, 1865, from A Journey to Brazil by Luie Agassi. Recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection, Volume 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leni. Entry December 31, 1865, from A Journey to Brazil by Luie Agassi. The Palms, as a natural group, stand out among all other plants with remarkable distinctness and individuality. And yet, this common character, uniting them so closely as a natural order, does not prevent the most striking difference between various kinds of palms. As a whole, no family of trees is more similar. Generically and specifically, none is more varied, even though other families include a greater number of species. Their differences seem to me to be determined in a great measure by the peculiar arrangement of their leaves. Indeed, palms with their colossal leaves, few in number, may be considered as ornamental diagrams of the primary laws, according to which the leaves of all plants throughout the whole vegetable kingdom are arranged. Laws now recognized by the most advanced botanists of the day, and designated by them as philotaxis. The simplest arrangement in these mathematics of the vegetable world is that of the grasses, in which the leaves are placed alternately on opposite sides of the stem, thus dividing the space around in equal halves. As the stem of the grasses elongates, these pairs of leaves are found scattered along its length, and it is only in ears or spikes of some genera that we find them growing so compactly on the axis as to form a closed head. Of this law of growth, the palm nose as the baccaba of para, oinocarpus disticus, is an admirable illustration. Its leaves being disposed in pairs one above another at the summit of the stem, but in such immediate contact as to form a thick crown. On account of this disposition of the leaves, its appearance is totally different from that of any other palm with which I am acquainted. I do not know any palm in which the leaves are arranged in three directions only, as in the reeds and sages of our marshes, unless it be the jacitara des monkus, whose winding slender stem, however, makes the observation uncertain. An arrangement in five different directions is common in all those palms which, when young, have only a cluster of five fully developed leaves above the ground, with a spade-like sixth leaf rising from the center. When full grown, they usually exhibit a crown of ten or fifteen leaves and more, divided into tires of five, one above the other, but so close together that the whole appears like a rounded head. Sometimes, however, the crown is more open, as in the Maximiliana Reglia e Najá, for instance, in which the stem is not very high, and the leaves, always in cycles of five, spread slightly, so as to form an open vase rising from a slender stem. The Açaí, Euterpe Eudulis, has an eight-leaved arrangement, and has never more than a single cycle of leaves, though it may sometimes have seven leaves when the first of the old cycle has dropped before the ninth, with which the new cycle begins, has opened. Or nine, if the first leaf of the new cycle, the ninth in number, has opened before the first of the old cycle has dropped. These leaves, of a delicate pale green, are cut into a thousand leaflets, which tremble in the lightest breeze, and tell you that the air is stirring, even when the heat seems breathless. A more elegant and attractive diagram of the phyllotaxis of three eighths probably does not exist in nature. The common coquana tree has its leaves arranged according to the fraction of five-thirteenths. But though the crown consists of several cycles of leaves, they do not form a close head, because the older ones become pendent, while the younger are more erect. The pupunya, or peach palm, guirielma, follows the phyllotaxis of eight-twenty-firsts, but in this instance all the leaves are evenly arched over, so that the whole forms a deep green vault, the more beautiful from the rich color of the foliage. When the heavy cluster of ripe, red fruit hangs under this dark vault, the tree is in its greatest beauty. As the leaves of this palm are not so closely set in the younger specimens as in the older ones, its aspect changes at different stages of growth. The leaves in the younger trees being distributed over a greater length of the trunk, while in the adult taller ones they are more compact. This arrangement is repeated in the javari and tukuman astrocarium, but in these the closely set leaves stand erect, broom-like, at the head of the long stalk. In the mucaja acrocomia, the leaves are arranged according to the fraction thirteen-thirty-fourths. Thus, under the same fundamental principle of growth, an infinite variety is introduced, among trees of one order, by the slight differences in the distribution and constitution of the leaves themselves. In the musaquei or skitaminei, the bananas, another order of the same class of plants, a diversity equally remarkable is produced in the same way, namely by slight modifications of this fundamental law. What can differ more in appearance than the common banana, musa paradisiaca, with its large, simple leaves so loosely arranged around the stem, so graceful and easy in the movements, and the banana of Madagascar, pravinala madagascariensis, commonly known as the traveler's tree, which, like the baccaba of Pará, has its leaves alternating regularly on opposite sides of the trunk, and so closely packed together as to form an immense flat fin on a colossal stem. Yet, in all these plants, the arrangement of leaves obeys the same law, which is illustrated with equal distinctness by each one. This mathematical disposition of leaves is thus shown to be compatible with a great variety of essentially different structures, and though the law of phylotaxis prevails in all plants, being limited neither to class, order, families, genera, nor species, but running in various combinations through the whole kingdom, I believe it can be studied to a special advantage in the group of palms on account of the prominence of their few large leaves. The most abundant and characteristic palms of the Rio Negro are the Javari, Astrocarium Javari, the Murumuru, Astrocarium Murumuru, the Wawasu, Ataleia Speciosa, the Inaja, Maximiliana Regia, the baccaba, the Inocarpus baccaba, the Pashiuba, the Arteia Exoriza, the Carana, Mauritia Carana, the Caranaí, Mauritia Róreda, the Ubin, Guionoma, and the Kuruá, Ataleia Spectábilis. Of these, the two latter are the most useful. The remarkable Piassaba, Leopoldinia Piassaba, occurs only far above the junction of the Rio Negro and Rio Branco. We obtained, however, a specimen that had been planted at Itachiassu. The many small kinds of Ubin, Guionoma, and Marajá, Bactris, and even the Jará, Leopoldinia are so completely overshadowed by the larger trees that they are only noticed when clustered along the riverbanks. Bussous, Manicária, Açaís, Euterpe, Mukajá, Acrocomia grow also on the Rio Negro, but it remains to be ascertained whether they are specifically identical with those of the lower Amazons. So peculiar is the aspect of the different species of palms that from the deck of the steamer they can be singled out as easily as the live oaks or pecan nut trees, so readily distinguished on the lower course of the Mississippi, or the different kinds of oaks, birches, beaches, or walnut trees which attract observation when sailing along the shores of our northern lakes. It seems, however, impossible to discriminate between all the trees of this wonderful Amazonian forest, partly because they grow in such heterogeneous associations. In the temperate zone we have oak forests, pine forests, birch, beech, and maple woods, the same kinds of trees congregating together on one soil. Not so here. There is the most extraordinary diversity in the combination of plants, and it is a very rare thing to see the soil occupied for any extent by the same kind of tree. A large number of the trees forming these forests are still unknown to science, and yet the Indians, those practical botanists and zoologists, are well acquainted, not only with their external appearance, but also with their various properties. So intimate is their practical knowledge of the natural objects about them, that I believe it would greatly contribute to the progress of science if a systematic record were made of all the information thus scattered through the land, and encyclopedia of the woods as it were, taken down from the tribes which inhabited them. I think it would be no bad way of collecting, to go from settlement to settlement, sending the Indians out together all the plants they know, to dry and label them with the names applied to them in the locality, and writing out, under the heads of these names, all that may thus be ascertained of their medicinal and otherwise useful properties, as well as their botanical character. A critical examination of these collections would at once correct the information thus obtained, especially if the person entrusted with the care of gathering these materials, had so much knowledge of botany as would enable him to complete the collections brought in by the Indians, adding to them such parts as might be wanted for a complete systematic description. The specimens ought not to be chosen however, as they have hitherto been, solely with reference to those parts which are absolutely necessary to identify the species. The collections to be complete ought to include the wood, the bark, the roots, and the soft fruits and alcohol. The abundance and variety of timber in the Amazonian valley strikes us with amazement. We long to hear the sawmill beasing these forests, where there are several hundred kinds of woods admirably suited for construction, as well as for the finest cabinet work, remarkable for the beauty of their grain, for their hardness, for the variety of their tins and their veiny, and for their durability. And yet so ignorant are the inhabitants of the value of timber, that when they want a plank, they cut down a tree and chop it to the desired thickness with a hatchet. There are many other vegetable products, besides those already exported from the Amazons, which will one day be poured into the market from its fertile shores. The clearest and purest oils are made from some of the nuts and palm fruits, while many of the palms yield the most admirable, fibrous material for cordage, singularly elastic and resistant. Besides its material products, and of these the greater part rot on the ground for want of hence-together them. The climate and soil are favourable for the growth of sugar, coffee, cocoa and cotton. And I may add that the spices of the East might be cultivated in the valley of the Amazons, as well as in the Dutch possessions of Asia. End of entry, December 31st 1865 from A Journey to Brazil by Luia Gacy. The July Grass by Richard Jeffries. Recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection, Volume 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ruth Golding. The July Grass by Richard Jeffries. A July fly went sideways over the long grass. His wings made a burr about him like a net. Beating so fast, they wrapped him round with a cloud. Every now and then, as he flew over the trees of grass, a taller one than common stopped him, and there he clung. And then the eye had time to see the scarlet spots, the loveliest colour, on his wings. The wind swung the Bennett and loosened his hold, and away he went again over the grasses, and not one job did he care if they were Poa, or Festica, or Bromus, or Hordeum, or any other name. Names were nothing to him. All he had to do was to whirl his scarlet spots about in the brilliant sun, rest when he liked, and go on again. I wonder whether it is a joy to have bright scarlet spots, and to be clad in the purple and gold of life. Is the colour felt by the creature that wears it? The rose, restful of a dewy mourn before the sunbeams have topped the garden wall, must feel a joy in its own fragrance, and know the exquisite hue of its stained petals. The rose sleeps in its beauty. The fly whirls his scarlet-spotted wings about, and splashes himself with sunlight like the children on the sands. He thinks not of the grass and sun. He does not heed them at all, and that is why he is so happy. Any more than the barefoot children ask why the sea is there, or why it does not quite dry up when it ebbs. He is unconscious. He lives without thinking about living. And if the sunshine were a hundred hours long, still it would not be long enough. No never enough of sun and sliding shadows that come like a hand over the table to lovingly reach our shoulder. Never enough of the grass that smells sweet as a flower, not if we could live years and years equal in number to the tides that have ebbed and flowed, counting backwards four years to every day and night. Backwards still, till we found out which came first, the night or the day. The scarlet-dotted fly knows nothing of the names of the grasses that grow here where the sword nears the sea. And thinking of him, I have decided not to willfully seek to learn any more of their names, either. My big grass book I have left at home and the dust is settling on the gold of the binding. I have picked a handful this morning of which I know nothing. I will sit here on the turf and the scarlet-dotted flies shall pass over me as if I too were but a grass. I will not think. I will be unconscious. I will live. Listen! That was the low sound of a summer wavelet striking the uncovered rock over there beneath in the green sea. All things that are beautiful are found by chance, like everything that is good. Here, by me, is a praying rug just wide enough to kneel on of the richest gold in woven with crimson. All the sultans of the East never had such beauty as that to kneel on. It is indeed too beautiful to kneel on, for the life in these golden flowers must not be broken down even for that purpose. They must not be defaced, not a stem bent. It is more reverent not to kneel on them. For this carpet prays itself. I will sit by it and let it pray for me. It is so common, the bird's foot lotus, it grows everywhere, yet if I purposely searched for days I should not have found a plot like this, so rich, so golden, so glowing with sunshine. You might pass by it in one stride, yet it is worthy to be sought of for a week, and remembered for a year. Slender grasses branched round about with slender abows, each tipped with pollen and rising in tears, cone-shaped, too delicate to grow tall, cluster at the base of the mound. They dare not grow tall, or the wind would snap them. A great grass, stout and thick, rises three feet by the hedge, with a head another foot nearly, very green and strong and bold, lifting itself right up to you. You must say, what a fine grass! Grasses whose horns succeed each other alternately, grasses whose tops seem flattened, others drooping over the shorter blades beneath, some that you can only find by parting the heavier growth around them, hundreds and hundreds, thousands and thousands. The kingly poppies on the dry summit of the mound take no heed of these, the populace, their subjects so numerous they cannot be numbered. A barren race they are, the proud poppies, lords of the July field, taking no deep root, but raising up a brilliant blazin' of scarlet heraldry out of nothing. They are useless, they are bitter, they are allied to sleep and poison and everlasting night, yet they are forgiven because they are not commonplace. Nothing, no abundance of them, can ever make the poppies commonplace. There is genius in them, the genius of colour, and they are saved. Even when they take the room of the corn we must admire them. The mighty multitude of nations, the millions and millions of the grass stretching away in inter-tangled ranks, through pasture and mead from shore to shore, have no kinship with these their lords. The ruler is always a foreigner. From England to China the native-born is no king. The poppies are the normans of the field. One of these on the mound is very beautiful, a width of petal, a clear silkiness of colour, three shades higher than the rest. It is almost dark with scarlet. I wish I could do something more than gaze at all this scarlet and gold and crimson and green, something more than see it, not exactly to drink it or inhale it, but in some way to make it part of me, that I might live it. The July grasses must be looked for in corners, and out of the way places, and not in the broad acres, the size has taken them there. By the wayside on the banks of the lane, near the gateway, look too in uninteresting places behind incomplete buildings on the mounds cast up from abandoned foundations, where speculation has been and gone. There weeds that would not have found resting place elsewhere grow unchecked, and uncommon species and unusually large growths appear. Like everything else that is looked for, they are found under unlikely conditions. At the back of ponds, just inside the enclosure of woods, angles of cornfields, old quarries, that is where to find grasses, or by the sea in the brackish marsh. Some of the finest of them grow by the mere roadside, you may look for others up the lanes in the deep ruts, look too inside the hollow trees by the stream. In a morning you may easily garner together a great sheaf of this harvest. Cut the larger stems as slant, like the reeds imitated deep in old green glass. You must consider as you gather them the height and slenderness of the stems, the droop and degree of curve, the shape and colour of the panicle, the dusting of the pollen, the motion and sway in the wind, the sheaf you may take home with you, but the wind that was among it stays without. End of the July grass. Reading by Bologna Times. The Little Wolf of the Air by Charles G. D. Roberts The pool lay shimmering and basking in the flood of the June sun. On three sides, east-west and north, the willows and birches gathered close about it, their light leafage hanging motionless in the clear, still heat. On the south side it lay open toward the thick grassed meadows where bees and flies of innumerable species flickered lazily over the pale crimson clover blooms. From the clover blooms and the vetch blooms, the wheel-raid daisies and the tall umbels of the wild parsnip, strange perfumes kept distilling in the heat and pulsing in across the pool on breaths of air too soft to ruffle its surface. Above this unruffled surface the air was full of dancing life. Nats hung in little whirling nebulae. Mosquitoes, wasp-like flies and whirring shard-winged beetles passed and repassed each other in intricate lines of flight, and here and there, lucently flashing on long transparent-band wings, darted the dragonflies in their gem-like mail. Their movements were so swift, powerful, and light that it was difficult, in spite of their size and radiant color, to detect the business that kept the dragonflies so incessantly and tirelessly in action. Sometimes two or three would hurdle out for a brief expedition over the blossoming meadow. Often one would alight for a moment on a leaf or twig in the sun, and lie there, gleaming its two pairs of wings, flatly outspread in a way that showed every delicate interlacing of the nerves. Then it would rise again into the air with a bold vehement spring, and whenever it began its flight, or whenever it abruptly changed the direction of its flight, its wings would make a dry, sharp, rustling sound. The business that so occupied these winged and flashing gems, these darting iridescences, was in truth the universal business of hunting. But there were few indeed among all the kindred of earth, air, and water, whose hunting was so savage and so ravenous as that of these slender and spirit-like beings. With appetites insatiable, ferocity implacable, strength and courage prodigious for their stature, to call them the little wolves of the air is perhaps to wrong the ravening grey pack whose howling striked terror down the corridors of the winter forest. Mosquitoes and gnats they hunted, every moment devouring them in such countless numbers as to merit the gratitude of every creature that calls the mosquito its foe. But every summer fly also was acceptable prey to these indomitable hunters. Every velvet-bodied moth, every painted butterfly, and even the invenomed wasp, whose weapon, no insect can to withstand, was not safe. If the dragonfly could catch her engrossed in some small slaughter of her own, and, pouncing upon her from above, gripped the back of her armed abdomen in his great grinding jaws, her sting could do nothing but dart out vainly like a dark licking flame, and she would prove as good a meal as the most unresisting blue-bottle or horse-fly. Down to the pool, through the luxurious shadows of the birches, came a man, and stretched himself against a leaning trunk by the waterside. At his approach all the business of life and death and mating in his immediate neighborhood came to a halt, and most of the winged kindred, except the mosquitoes, drew away from him. The mosquitoes to whom he had become, so to speak, in a measure acclimatized, attacked him with less enthusiasm than they would have displayed in the case of a stranger, and failed to cause him serious annoyance. He fixed himself in a position that was thoroughly comfortable, and then lay quite still. The man's face was under the shadow of the birch tree, but his body lay out in the full sun, and the front of his soft white summer shirt made a patch of sharp light against the surrounding tones of brown and green. When a dig for a time remained quite still, the patch of whiteness attracted attention, and various insects alighted upon it to investigate. Presently the man noticed a very large steel-blue dragonfly on rustling wings, balancing in the air a few feet in front of him. At this moment, from a branch overhead, a hungry shrike dashed down. The dragonfly saw the peril just in time, and instead of fleeing desperately across the pool to be almost inevitably overtaken by the strong-winged bird, it dashed forward and perched for refuge on a fold of the dazzling white shirt. The foiled shrike, with an angry and astonished twitter, flew off to a tree across the pool. For perhaps a minute the great fly stood with moveless, widespread wings, scintillating aerial hues as if its body was compacted of a million microscopic prisms. The transparent tissue of its wings was filled with a finer and more elusive iridescence. The great rounded globos, overlapping jaws, half as big as the creature's whole head, kept opening and shutting as if to polish their edges. The other half of its head was quite occupied by two bulging, brilliant spheres of eyes which seemed to hold in their transparent yet curiously impenetrable depths a shifting light of emerald and violet. These inscrutable and enormous eyes, each one nearly as great in circumference as the creature's body, rolled themselves in a steady stare at the man's face, till he felt the skin of his cheeks creep at their sinister beauty. It seemed to him as if a spirit, hostile and evil, had threatened him from beneath those shining eyes, and he was amused to experience, for all his entrust, a sense of half-relief when the four beautiful wings hurtled crisply and the creature darted away. It would seem, however, that the fold of white shirt had found favor in those mysteriously gleaming eyes. For a minute or two later the same fly returned to the same spot. The man recognized not only its unusual size and its splendor of color, but a broken notch on one of its wing-films, the mark of the tip of a bird's beak. This time the dragonfly came not as a fugitive from fate, but as a triumphant dispenser of fate to others. It carried between its jaws the body of a small green grasshopper, which it had already partly eaten. Fixing the enigmatic radiance of its eyes upon the man's face, the dragonfly calmly continued its male, using the second joints of its front pair of legs to help manipulate the rather awkward morsel. Its great round jaws crushed their prey resistlessly, while the inner mouth sucked up the juices so cleanly and instantaneously that the repast left no smallest stain upon the man's spotless shirt. When the feast was over there remained nothing of the victim but a compact, perfectly rounded, glistening green ball the size of a pea made up of the well-chewed, shell-like parts of the grasshopper's body. It reminded the man of the round castings of fur or feathers which an owl ejects after its undiscriminating banquet. Having rolled the little green ball several times between its jaws to make sure there was no particle of nourishment left therein, the dragonfly coolly dropped it into a crease in the shirt bosom and rustled away. A chance that this particular and conspicuous individual of the little wolves of the air was a female. A half hour later, when the man had almost grown tired of his watching, he again caught sight of the great fly. This time she alighted on a half-submerged log, one end of which lay on shore by the man's feet, while the other end was afloat in deep water, where it could rise and fall with every change in the level of the pool. Quivering and gleaming with all her subtle fires, the dragonfly stood motionless on the log for a few seconds. Then she backed down close to the water's edge, thrust her long, slender abdomen a good inch into the water, and curled it under her as if she were trying to sting the hidden surface of the log. In reality, as the man at once understood, she was busy laying eggs, eggs that should presently develop into those masked and terrible larvae of hers, the little wolves of the pool. She laid the eggs in a row under the log where there was no danger of the water receding from them. She moved along the log daintily, step by step, and her wings fluttered over the task. The man had taken out his watch as soon as he saw what she was about, in order that he might time the egg-laying process, but he was not destined to discover what he wanted to know. The dragonfly had been at her business for perhaps two minutes, when the man saw a large frog rise to the surface just below her. He liked all dragonflies, and for this one in particular he had developed a personal interest. Suddenly and violently he jumped to his feet, hoping to chase her away from the approaching doom, but he was just too late. As he jumped, the big frog sprang, and a long darting, cleft tongue clutched the busy fly, dragging her down. The frog disappeared with his prize, to come to the surface again at the edge of a lily-pad a few feet off, and blink his goggle eyes in satisfaction. He had avenged, though about that he cared as little as he knew, the lives of a thousand tadpoles. End of The Little Wolf of the Air by Charles G. D. Roberts Curious Facts and Magnetism from Scientific American, March 29, 1879 Recorded for the LibriVox Coffee Break Collection, Volume 3, this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tom Vichelli Curious Facts and Magnetism from Scientific American, March 29, 1879 The Meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences, February 17. The article in the March Number of Harper's Magazine, entitled Gary's Magnetic Motor, was incidentally alluded to, and Professor C. A. Seely made the following remarks. The article claims that Mr. Gary has made a discovery of a neutral line, or surface, at which the polarity of an induced magnet, while moving in the field of the inducing pole, is changed. The alleged discovery appears to be an exaggerated statement of some curious facts, which, although not new, are not commonly recognized. If a bar of iron be brought up and on near a magnetic pole, the bar becomes an induced magnet, but an induced magnet quite different from what our elementary treatisees seem to predict. On the first screening, it is a magnet without a neutral point, at only one kind of magnetism, that of the inducing pole. Moreover, the single pole is pretty evenly distributed over the whole surface, so that if iron filings be sprinkled on the bar, they will be attracted at all points and completely cover it. Now, if while the bar is covered by filings, it be moved away from the inducing pole, the filings will gradually and progressively fall beginning at the end, nearest the inducing pole, and continuing to some point near the middle of the bar. The filings at the remote end will generally be held permanently. When the bar is carried beyond the field of the inducing pole, it is simply a weak magnet of ordinary properties, that is of two poles and a neutral point between them. A plausible and simple explanation of this case is that the inducing pole holds, or binds, the induced magnetism of opposite name, so that it has no external influence. The two magnetisms are related to each other, as are the positive and negative electricities of the laden jar. Let the inducing pole be north. The south of the bar will be attracted by it and bound, while the north of the bar becomes abnormally free and active. On moving the bar from the pole, the bound magnetism is released, and a part becomes residual magnetism. Now, when the residual balance is the free magnetism, which is of opposite name, we are on Gary's neutral line. In a restricted sense, there is a change of polarity over the half of the bar, contiguous to the inducing pole. On the other half, there is no change of pole in any sense. Experiment with the shingle nail in place of the filings along Gary. Bring the nail to the induced bound pole, and it may be held, except at the neutral line. Now, if one will read the magazine article with such ideas as these, he will feel pretty sure that the writer of it has used words recklessly. That Gary has not made an original discovery, and that the neutral line, whatever it be, has only an imagined relation to the principle of the motor. The Gary motor, as a perpetual motion scheme of course, is not worthy of serious notice from a society devoted to science. It has no noteworthy novelty of construction or conception. Mr. Gary is afflicted with the very old illusion of the cut-off or shielded magnetism, which is the cost less than what comes from it. His cut-off is the sheet of iron, which we know simply acts as an armature. End of Curious Facts in Magnetism from Scientific American. Modification of Our Climate from Scientific American Supplement No. 841, Feb. 13, 1892 by Joseph Wallace. Recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection, Vol. 3, this is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michael Wolfe. Modification of Our Climate by Joseph Wallace. Every now and then some weather sage predicts extremely cold winters, and another ventures to say that the sun is gradually losing heat and in time Arctic cold will prevail over the globe. Whatever may have been the changes during the vast cycles of time prior to the advent of man, or whatever may be the changes in the time to come, one thing is quite certain, that our climate has been much modified within the past two or three thousand years. There have been fifteen climatic changes since the beginning of the glacial age, each change lasting ten thousand five hundred years, and each change reversing the season in the two hemispheres, the pole which has enjoyed continuous summer being doomed to undergo perpetual winter for ten thousand five hundred years, and then passing to its former state for an equal term. The physical changes upon the Earth's surface during the past eighty thousand years modified the changes of climate even in the Arctic regions, so that the intense cold of the former epochs was much modified during the latter epochs. Reckoning these climatic changes in their order, we had entered the epoch of a more genial temperature about fifteen hundred years ago, and if no disturbing change takes place during the present epoch, we may reasonably expect a gradual modification of our winters for nine thousand years to come. The changes to intense cold from perpetual summer during the greater part of the glacial period are supposed to have been caused by the high temperature of the north pole, as compared to that of the south pole owing to the distribution of land around the two, the south having almost none. Dr. Kroll thinks it was caused by the varying inclination of the Earth's axes which produced a relative position of the two poles towards the sun to be periodically reversed at distant periods. Dr. James Geike agrees with Kroll on the reverse of seasons every ten thousand five hundred years during certain periods of high ellipticity of the Earth's orbit. But it may be asked, how could the fauna and flora propagate themselves under such conditions? The flora itself, at the quaternary age, was of extreme vigor. We know this from the little which has left us, but more especially from the presence of a large number of herbivorous animals, stags, horses, elephants, rhinoceros, etc., which animated the plains and valleys of Europe and America at the same time. Evidently they could not have lived and propagated themselves without abundant vegetation for nourishment and development. That which has deceived the adherence of the glacial theory as understood in its absolute sense, is they have generally placed a too high estimate on its extent and intensity. It means but a little effort of the reasoning powers to come to the conclusion that the Earth had cooled to the degree that all animal and vegetable life could exist upon it, and that a portion of the Earth's surface permanently covered with snow and ice was absolutely indispensable to the existence, perpetuity and well-being of animal and vegetable life. Again they have attributed to the glaciers, the rocks, gravels and other material which they have found spread here and there long distances from the mountains. The transportation of the so-called erratic rocks has appeared inexplicable in any other way and the piles of rock and gravel have been considered so many moraines, that is deposits of diverse material transported by the glaciers. They do not regard the probability of other agents taking the place of glaciers and undervalue the moving power of water. Water in liquid state has often produced analogous effects and it has often been the error of the glacialists to confound the one with the other. The erratic rocks and the moraines are undoubtedly the ordinary indications of the ancient gravels, but taken isolatedly they are not sufficient proof. In order to convince they should be accompanied with a third indication which is the presence of striated rocks which we find in the neighbourhood of our actual glaciers. When all these signs are together then there is hardly a possibility of error, but one alone is not sufficient because it can be the effect of another cause. No doubt the temperature was really lower at the quaternary age and at the epoch generally assigned to man's advent in European countries, but the difference was not so great as some say. A lowering of four degrees is sufficient to explain the ancient extension of the glaciers. We can look on this figure as the maxim, for it is proved today that humanity played the main role in the glacial phenomena. The beds of rivers and the alluvia are there to tell that all the water was not in a solid state at that time, that the glaciers were much more extended than in our days, and that the courses of the rivers were infinitely more abundant. When this is understood we can reasonably reduce the extension of the ancient glaciers, the lowering of the temperature at the quaternary age, and account for the uninterrupted life of the fauna and flora. However we must not fall into the opposite excess and assert, as some have done, that the glacial period is comparatively recent, the traces of which are too plain and fresh in some localities to assign to it an age prior to man, and that the temperature has rather lowered itself since this epoch. The ancient extension of the glaciers has been followed by a corresponding growth and extension of animal life, thus proving that the permanence of glaciers is a wise provision and absolutely essential to man and the high orders of animals and vegetation. The ancient extension does not prove alone that it was much colder than in historic times, for the animals themselves approve of this. At that time the plains of Europe and of France in particular were animated by herds of reindeer, gluttons, camels and marmots, which one does not find today except in the higher latitudes or more considerable heights. The mammoth and rhinoceros are no exception to this, for naturalists know they were organized to live in cold countries. Space will not permit us to pursue this point further or speculate on the probable climate conditions of the Ice Age, but we can carry ourselves back a few thousand years and describe the climate of Europe and neighboring countries of Africa and Asia. Herodotus describes the climate of Scythia in terms which would indicate in our day the countries of Lapland and Greenland. He shows us the country completely frozen during eight months of the year, the Black Sea frozen up so that it bore the heaviest loads, the region of the Danube buried under snow for eight months, and watered in summer by the abundant rains which gave to the river its violent courts. The historian adds that the ass cannot live in Scythia on account of the extreme cold which rains there. The following century Aristotle makes the same remarks concerning Gaul. His contemporary theophrasties tells us that the olive tree did not succeed in Greece more than five hundred furlongs from the sea. We can assure ourselves that both the ass and the olive thrive in these countries at the present day. Three centuries later Caesar speaks frequently and emphatically of the rigor of winters and early setting enough cold in France, the abundance of snow and rain, and the number of lakes and marshes which became every moment serious obstacles to the army. He says he's careful not to undertake any expedition except in summer. Cicero, Varro, Postodonius, and Strabo insist equally on the rigor of the climate of Gaul which allows neither the culture of the vine nor the olive. Diodorus of Sicily confirms his information. The cold of the winters and Gaul is such that almost all the rivers freeze up and form natural bridges over which numerous armies pass quite safely with teams and baggage. In order to hinder the passengers to slip out upon the ice and to render the marching more secure, they spread straw thereon. Virgil and Ovid insist on the severity of cold in the regions of the Danube. The first describes the inhabitants of these miserable countries withdrawing themselves into caves dressed with the skins of wild beasts. Ovid, who had passed several years of his life in that region, is more precise in his description. He says the wine has changed itself here, black sea, into a solid frozen mass. One gives it to drink by pieces. Fearing of being accused of poetic exaggeration he appeals to the testimony of two ancient governors of Moesia who could establish the fact like himself. The author who would give such accounts of the black sea in our days would risk his reputation for veracity. Italy, too, experienced its part of the cold in early days. Virgil tells us of the snows being heaped up, rivers which carried ice along in the sad winter which split the stone and bound up the course of large streams and all this in the warmest part of Italy at the base of the walls of Toronto. Horatius affirms that the Soracti, a neighbouring mountain of Rome, was whitened with thick snow, rivers frozen, and the country covered with snow. Today the snow stays very little upon the Soracti and never in the country around Rome. During the four or five centuries which followed, writers speak of the severity of climate in northern Italy, the lagoons on the Adriatic being frozen over, Algiers was much colder then than now, the Danube, Rhine, and other rivers in Europe, the Nile in Africa, the Amazon in South America, the Mississippi and Missouri in North America had quite different volumes two thousand years ago than their present actual ones, and they especially rolled much greater masses of water. There's everything to show a modification of climate in our own days. If this goes on in the futures in the past, there will be a marked difference in the temperature two or three hundred years from now. Even a degree in a thousand years would affect a great change in the course of time. The lowering of four degrees established the ancient extension of glaciers, though it did not interrupt animal or vegetable life. Fifty-four, the fifty-seven species of Malusca have outlived the glacial age and all our savage animals, even a certain number which have disappeared, date equally from the coronary and were contemporary with the great extension of the glaciers. Popular science news. End of Modification of Our Climate The Onyx Caves Part 1 from Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills by Luella Agnes Owen recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection Volume 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Onyx Caves Part 1 from Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills by Luella Agnes Owen. Northwest of Hot Springs, there is a group of three Onyx Caves, the distance to them being estimated at from seven to ten miles, if the party does not get lost, which is the usual fate of those who dispense with the service of a driver familiar with the country. In going, the longer way over the hilltops claims a preference on account of distant views with a favorable light. When the Onyx Cave Ranch is reached, its scenery is found to be charming with an ideal log house overlooking the canyon and itself overlooked by the rising slope of the wooded hill. The entrance to the cave is in the opposite wall of the canyon and is covered by a small cabin at the door of which the view demands a pause for admiration. Then the party disappears down a narrow, rough, sloping passage of sufficient height for comfort to none but know the value of comparative degrees. It soon appeared, however, that personal comfort would travel only a short distance. The mud increased with every step and in its midst was a small hole through which it was necessary to pass to the next lower level. This hole, being so small and its walls slanting, the only way to accomplish the first half of the descent was to sit down in the mud and slide, stopping halfway to examine a fine ledge of beautiful striped Onyx, white and a brownish pink, the first outcrop in the cave, but in the next level it is seen in rich abundance and variety, the colors being red, black and white, brown in several shades and pure white. All are handsome and of commercial quality and hardness, and just above them is a ledge of fine blue marble. The next chamber is called the Badlands on account of a certain resemblance to that desolate region. The way into it is through the Devil's corkscrew, the most uninviting passage because it stands on end and is about twelve feet deep with circular perpendicular walls discouragingly free of prominent irregularities, but careful study reveals a few available crags and rough edges by which the descent is made. Fortunately the party decreased in size just within the entrance. Climbing up into a hole in the wall of this room with no little difficulty, Memorial Lake is the reward of a breathless upward struggle and a satisfying one. The lake is very small, but under its clear surface can be seen numerous growing deposits of calcite while the roof of Onyx gleams with a mass of small white stalactites. Returning again to the main route and traveling to the end of a short passage, we beheld the entrance to Red Hall, a piece of rope ladder dangling halfway down a perpendicular wall, the other half having no help whatever. The way was clear so far as the length of the ladder and with trust in the future soon learned in cave work that distance was at once passed and sitting on the very narrow ledge to cogitate on the possibility of further progress, Mr. Seidey solved the problem by suggesting, rather doubtfully, that the easiest way would be to drop off and allow him to interrupt the fall. This method had twice proved the only means of advance in wind cave and can be termed rapid transit. The walls of Red Hall are of stratified limestone variegated with patches of red rock and clay of the same gay hue. It is the highest chamber in the cave and probably the largest. A hole in the wall at the floor level near the entrance to the passage beyond gives a glimpse of the cave river flowing on a slightly lower level not over two feet below the floor we stand on. The water is said to have a depth of 15 feet and a rock thrown in gave back the sound of a splash into water not shallow. Entering the passage already referred to, its dimensions decreased to a crawl and then to a squeeze so that most of its length was taken in a very humble position which permitted no regard to be paid to the ample mud or little pools of water that must be serenely dragged through as if carrying them away were in agreeable privilege. Even a muddy passage ends in time and at last we gained a standing point and after a short climb we're in Ferry's Palace, a marvel of dainty beauty and worthy of the distasteful trip just taken. We stood in a narrow passage that divided the small chamber like the central aisle of a cathedral above which the white roof formed a gothic arch from which depended countless little stalactites and draperies while on either side, six feet above the passage was a floor of onyx supporting exquisite columns of which the highest were not more than three feet. Only a short distance from the Ferry's Palace is the most equally beautiful ethereal hall and connecting the two I had the pleasure to discover a small arched passage more beautiful than either. Although much of the cave was still not visited, the long drive to town demanded a return to the surface, but several stops were made on the way to admire masses of onyx and groups of curious forms in deposits of that fine stone. One high crooked chimney above the corkscrew is especially fine and correspondingly difficult for a grown person weighted down with garments dripping mud and water. But Kimball Stone, our boyfriend, scampered up like a squirrel. Two of the onyx caves had not been seen at all and Mr. Seide expressed special regret on account of the latest discovery as no woman had ever yet entered it. But the sun was low in the west and the road had some dangerous points that must be passed before dark so the wreaking skirt was removed and without waiting to drive by the great fire kindled for the purpose, we hurried off, promising to return if possible and carrying treasures in specimens besides an ancient lemon, which may not be called a fossil since soft substances are said not to fossilize. But however that may be, this is a perfect lemon whose particles have been replaced with the lasting rock in the same way as the numerous cycad trunks in the same region have been preserved to prove to us conclusively that formerly the region flourished under tropical conditions and supported an abundant animal life of tropical nature and habits. Soon after leaving the ranch we descended by a sort of goat trail road into a grandly beautiful canyon along the bed of which the road continues until it flows out as the water did in ages gone. By this time it had become quite dark and the chill of the northwest night formed a combination with saturated clothing that cannot be highly recommended as a pleasure. But the natural chivalry which prompted our young escort to insist on lending his own coat and his evident disappointment that the sacrifice was not allowed afforded a pleasure that will continue. End of The Onyx Caves Part 1 Read by Tricia G. The passenger pigeon from Roe Call of the Dead Species of American Birds Our Vanishing Wildlife by William T. Hornaday This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading by Bologna Times The passenger pigeon by William T. Hornaday The passenger pigeon Ectopistes migratoria Linnaeus We place this bird in the totally extinct class not only because it is extinct in a wild state but only one solitary individual a 20 year old female in the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens now remains alive. One living specimen and a few skins, skeletons and stuffed specimens are all that remain to show uncountable millions of pigeons that swarmed over the United States only yesterday as it were. There is no doubt about where those millions have gone. They went down and out by systematic wholesale slaughter for the market and the pot before the shotguns, clubs and nets of the earliest American pot hunters. Wherever they nested they were slaughtered. It is a long and shameful story but the grisly skeleton of its Michigan chapter can be set forth in a few words. In 1869 from the town of Hartford, Michigan three carloads of dead pigeons were shipped to market each day for 40 days making a total of 11,880,000 birds. It is recorded that another Michigan town marketed 15,840,000 birds in two years. See Mr. W. B. Merchan's book The Passenger Pigeon. Alexander Wilson, the pioneer American ornithologist was the man who seriously endeavored to estimate by computations the total number of passenger pigeons in one flock that was seen by him. Here is what he has said in his American ornithology. To form a rough estimate of the daily consumption of one of these immense flocks let us first attempt to calculate the numbers of that above mentioned as seen in passing between Frankfurt and the Indiana Territory. If we suppose this column to have been one mile in breadth and I believe it to have been much more and that it moved at the rate of one mile in a minute, four hours, the time it continued passing would make its whole length 240 miles. Again, supposing that each square yard of this moving body comprehended three pigeons the square yards in the hall space multiplied by three would give 2 billion 230 million 272,000 pigeons an almost inconceivable multitude and yet probably far below the actual amount. Happening to go ashore one charming afternoon to purchase some milk at a house that stood near the river and while talking with the people within doors I was suddenly struck with astonishment at a loud rushing roar succeeded by instant darkness which on the first moment I saw the people in the window about to overwhelm the house and everything around in destruction. The people observing my surprise coolly said, it is only the pigeons. On running out I beheld a flock 30 or 40 yards in width sweeping along very low between the house and the mountain or height that formed the second bank of the river. These continued passing length varied their bearing so as to pass over the mountains behind which they disappeared before the rear came up. In the Atlantic states though they never appear in such unparalleled multitudes they are sometimes very numerous and great havoc is then made amongst them with the gun the clap net and various other implements of destruction. As soon as it is ascertained in a town that the pigeons are furiously in the neighborhood the gunners rise en masse. The clap nets are spread out on suitable situations commonly on an open height in an old buckwheat field four or five live pigeons with their eyelids sewed up are fastened on a movable stick a small hut of branches is fitted up for the fowler at the distance of 40 or 50 yards. By the pulling of a string the stick on which the pigeons rest is alternately elevated and depressed which produces a fluttering of their wings similar to that of birds alighting. This being perceived by the passing flocks they descend with great rapidity and finding corn, buckwheat, etc. strewed about, begin to feed and are instantly by the pulling of a cord covered by the net. In this manner 20 and even 30 dozen have been caught at one sweep. Meantime the air is darkened with large bodies of them moving in various directions. The woods also swarm with them in search of acorns and the thundering of musket tree is perpetual on all sides from morning to night. Wagon loads of them are poured into market where they sell from 50 to 25 and even 12 cents per dozen and pigeons become the order of the day at dinner, breakfast and supper until the very name becomes sickening. The range of the passenger pigeon covered nearly the whole United States from the Atlantic coast westward to the Rocky Mountains. A few bold pigeons crossed the Rocky Mountains into Oregon Northern California and Washington but only as stragglers, few and far between. The wide range of this bird was worthy of a species that existed in millions and it was persecuted literally all along the line. The greatest slaughter was in Michigan Ohio and Pennsylvania. In 1848 Massachusetts gravely passed a law protecting the netters of wild pigeons from foreign interference. There was a fine of ten dollars for damaging nets or frightening pigeons away from them. This was on the theory that the pigeons were so abundant that they could not by any possibility ever become scarce and that pigeon slaughter was a legitimate industry. In 1867 the state of New York found that the wild pigeon needed protection and enacted a law to that effect. The year 1868 was the last year in which great numbers of passenger pigeons nested in that state. Eaton in the Birds of New York said that millions of birds occupied the timber along Bell's Run, near Serres Allegheny County on the Pennsylvania line. In 1870 Massachusetts gave pigeons protection except during an open season and in 1878 Pennsylvania elected to protect pigeons on their nesting grounds. The passenger pigeon millions were destroyed so quickly and so thoroughly en masse that the American people utterly failed to comprehend it and for thirty years obstinately refused to believe that the species had been suddenly wiped off the map of North America. There was years of talk about the great flocks having taken refuge in South America or in Mexico being still in existence. There were surmises about their having all gone out to sea and perished on the briny deep. A thousand times at least wild pigeons have been reported as having been seen. These rumors have covered nearly every northern state the whole of the Southwest and California. For years and years we have been patiently writing letters to explain over and over that the band-tailed pigeon of the Pacific coast and the red-billed pigeon of Arizona and the Southwest are neither of them the passenger pigeon and never can be. There was a long period wherein we believed many of the pigeon reports that came from the states where the birds once were most numerous but that period has absolutely passed. During the past five years large cash rewards aggregating about $5,000 have been offered for the discovery of one nesting pair of genuine passenger pigeons. Many persons have claimed this reward of Professor C. F. Hodge of Clark University, Orchester, Massachusetts and many claims have been investigated. The results have disclosed many mourning doves about one pigeon. Now we understand that the quest is closed and hope has been abandoned. The passenger pigeon is a dead species. The last wild specimen so we believe that ever will reach the hands of man was taken near Detroit, Michigan on September 14, 1908 and mounted by C. Campion. That is the one definite positive record of the past ten years. The fate of this species should be a lasting lesson to the world at large. Any wild bird or mammal species can be exterminated by commercial interests in twenty years time or less. End of The Passenger Pigeon by William T. Hornaday. Plants protected by insects by anonymous. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Reading Bible Honor Times Plants Protected by Insects from Scientific American Volume 40, Number 13 March 29, 1879 Mr. Francis Darwin in a lecture on self-defense among plants delivered lately at the London Institution said that one of the most curious forms of defense known is afforded by a recently discovered class of plants, which, being stingless themselves, are protected by stinging ants which make their home in the plant and defend it against its enemies. Of these the most remarkable is the Bull's Horn Acacia described by the late in his book The Naturalist and Nicaragua. A shrubby tree with gigantic curved thorns from which its name is derived. These horns are hollow and tenanted by ants which bore a hole in them and the workers may be seen running about over the green leaves. If a branch is shaken the ants swarm out of the thorns and attack the aggressor with their stings. Their chief service to the plant is in defending it against leaf-cutting ants which are the great enemy of all vegetation in that part of America. The latter form large underground nests and their work of destruction consists of in gathering leaves which they strip to form heaps of material which become covered over with a delicate white fungus on which the larvae of the ants are fed so that literally they are a colony of plant growers. The special province of the little stinging ants which live in the thorns of the acacia is therefore to protect the leaves of the shrub from being used by the leaf-cutters to make mushroom beds. Certain varieties of the orange tree have leaves which are distasteful to the leaf-cutters this property of the leaves thus forming a means of defense. Other plants are unaccountably spared by them. Grass, for example, which, if brought to the nest, isn't once thrown out by some ant in authority. The bulls aren't acacia in return for the service rendered by the stinging ants, not only affords them shelter in its thorns but provides them with nectar secreted by glands at the base of its leaves and also grows for them small yellow pear-shaped bodies about one-twelfth of an inch of its leaflets which they use as food. These little yellow bodies are made up of cells containing protoplasm rich in oil and afford the insects an excellent food. When the leaf unfolds the ants may be seen running from one leaflet to another to see if these little yellow bodies are ripe. And if they are ready to be gathered they are broken by the ants and carried away to the nest in the thorn. Several small birds also build their nests in the bull's horn acacia thus escaping from a predatory ant which is capable of killing young birds. The trumpet tree, another plant of South and Central America is also protected by a standing army of ants. And, like the above mentioned acacia, grows for its protectors small food bodies containing oil but instead of secreting nectar in its leaves it harbors a small insect, caucus whose sweet secretion is much relished by the ants. Dr. Bacari mentions an epiphyto plant growing on trees in Bordeaux the seeds of which germinate like those of the mistletoe on the branches of the tree. And the seedlings stem crowned by the cotyledons grows to about an inch in length remaining in that condition the species of ant bites a hole in the stem which then produces a gall-like growth that ultimately constitutes the home of the ants. If the plant is not fortunate enough to be bitten by an ant it dies. These ants then protect their plant home by rushing out fiercely on intruders and thus are preserved the Cecil white flowers which, in this plant are developed on the tuba-like body. The end of plants protected by insects by anons Chapter 18 of the Story of Eclipses by George F. Chambers recorded for LibriVox Coffee Break Collection Volume 3 This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Story of Eclipses by George F. Chambers Chapter 18 Strange Eclipse Customs I had intended heading this chapter Eclipse Customs amongst barbarous nations but in these days it is dangerous to talk of barbarians or to speak one's mind on points of social etiquette so I have thought it well to tone down the original title otherwise I should have the partisans of the heathen Chinese holding me up to scorn as a brethren. Did space permit a very interesting record might be furnished of Eclipse Customs in foreign parts. An eclipse happened during Lord McCartney's Embassy to China which kept the emperor and his mandarins for a whole day devoutly praying the gods that the moon might not be eaten up by the great dragon which was hovering about her. The next day a pantomime was performed exhibiting the battle of the dragon moon and in which two or three hundred priests bearing lanterns at the end of long sticks dancing and capering about, sometimes over the plane and then over chairs and tables for no mean part. Professor Russell who is quoted elsewhere in this work with respect to Chinese eclipses makes the following remarks in regard to what happens now in China when eclipses occur quote, it will be interesting here to note that present by imperial command special rites are performed during solar and lunar eclipses a president from each of the six boards with two inferior officials dressed in their official clothes proceed to the Tai Chang Su when the eclipse begins they change their robes for common garments made of plain black material and kneeling down burn incense the president then beats one stroke on a gong and the ceremony is taken up by all the attendant officials and quote a writer in chambers journal in an article entitled the Hindu view of the lady clips gives an interesting and original account of divers Hindu superstitions and ceremonies which came under his notice in connection with the total eclipse of the sun of August 18 1868 he remarks that quote, European science has as yet produced little effect upon the minds of the superstitious masses of India of the many millions who witnessed the eclipse of the 18th of August last there were comparatively few who did not verily believe that it was caused by the dragon Rahu in his endeavor to swallow up the lord of day the pious Hindu before the eclipse comes on takes a torch and begins to search his house and carefully removes all cooked food and all water for drinking purposes such food and water by the eclipse incur Rahana Seisha that is uncleanness and are rendered unfit for use some with less scruples of conscience declare that the food may be preserved by placing it in Darba or Cousa grass and quote and much more to the like effect is duly set out in the interesting article cited during the total eclipse of the sun of August 7 1869 the following incident is noted to have occurred at a station on the Chilkat river in Alaska North America frequented by Indians quote about the time the sun was half obscured the chief co clocks and all the Indians had disappeared from around the observing tent they left fishing on the river banks all employments were discontinued and every soul disappeared nor was a sound heard without the village of 53 houses the natives had been warned of what would take place but doubted the prediction when it did occur they looked upon me as the cause of the sun's being very sick and going to bed they were thoroughly alarmed and overwhelmed with an undefinable dread end quote a still more thrilling incident is thus recorded of the eclipse of July 29 1878 by a witness at Fort Sill Indian Territory US quote on Monday last we were permitted to see the eclipse of the sun in a beautiful bright sky not a cloud was visible we had made ample preparation laying in a stock of smoked blasts several days in advance it was the grandest sight I ever beheld but it frightened the Indians badly some of them threw themselves upon their knees and invoked the divine blessing others flung themselves flat on the ground face downward others cried and yelled in frantic excitement and terror finally one old fellow stepped from the door of his lodge pistol in hand and fixing his eyes on the darkened sun mumbled a few unintelligible words and raising his arm took direct aim at the luminary fired off his pistol and after throwing his arms about his head in a series of extraordinary gesticulations retreated to his own quarters as it happened that very instant was the conclusion of totality the Indians beheld the glorious orb of day once more peep forth and it was unanimously voted that the timely discharge of that pistol was the only thing that drove away the shadow and saved them from the public inconvenience that would have certainly resulted from the entire extinction of the sun end quote a certain Mr. F. Kerrigan in a book published in 1844 made the following remarks on ancient Jewish ideas respecting eclipses quote the Israelites like their benighted neighbors esteemed an eclipse of either luminary as a supernatural and inauspicious omen which filled them with the most gloomy and fearful apprehensions as may fairly be deduced from the eighth chapter of Ezekiel verse 15 quote then he brought me to the door of the Lord's house which was north and behold there sat women weeping for tamus end quote now tamus is the name under which Adonis is known in Palestine he was the favorite of Venus or Astarde the principal goddess of the Philistines and Phoenicians being killed by a wild boar the prevailing superstition of the age induced the uninformed multitude to believe that when the moon was eclipsed he was in complement to their beloved goddess Venus or Astarde who concealed behind the full moon sat weeping under a dark veil for the loss of her beloved tamus or Adonis end quote the african travelers R. and J. Lander have given a graphic account of what took place on the occasion of an eclipse of the moon of September 2 1830 as witnessed by themselves quote the earlier part of the evening had been mild serene and remarkably pleasant the moon had arisen with uncommon luster and being at the full her appearance was extremely delightful it was the conclusion of the holidays and many of the people were enjoying the delicious coolness of a serene night and resting from the laborious exertions of the day but when the moon became gradually obscured fear overcame everyone as the eclipse increased they became more terrified all ran in great distress to inform their sovereign of the circumstance for there was not a single cloud to cause so deep a shadow and they could not comprehend the nature or meaning of an eclipse groups of men were blowing on trumpets which produced a harsh and discordant sound some were employed in beating old drums others again were blowing on bullocks horns the diminished light when the eclipse was complete was just sufficient for us to distinguish the various groups of people and contributed in no small degree to render the scene more imposing if a European a stranger to Africa had been placed on a sudden in the midst of the terror struck people he would have imagined himself to be among a legion of demons holding a revel over a fallen spirit end quote end of chapter 18 of the story of eclipses