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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Advocate, 1924-8-14, Page 7The Marvel That is the Eye of . Man. The Marvel•That is the Eye of Man... ! e Ori auf the fatuity of vision is t denince depths of geological an- ty. 1'he creature which first de- oped a memo organ for reoeiviing e rapia ether -waves of light cannot sow be traced, Its last remain# have been destroyed in the vast churnings and boiling of the earth's crust which preceded the Cambrian epoch. The Cranbrian rocks themselves are full of fossils, mostly of that cross between a king crab and a wood louse which we callseeZeobite. And the trilobites • were en ed with eyes of great com- plexity, ` consasting of thousands of jJeuses, which must have taken mil - Mans of years to develop from more rudimentary organs. We do know that green plants are sensitive to light, but their "vision" caenat in any cane exceed the general '^aressdon o2 lµminosity which we 'have in a thick fog, The animal world acquired vision in .order the better to seek its prey or to escape from its enemies. It was no` doubt the latter purpose which was served by that lost "third eye," the pineal eye in the top of the head, the remains of which are conspicuous in the chameleon and are faintly discern- ible even in man. A Complicated Organ. The eye of man is a composite or- gan of a fourfold complexity, It has some 1.00,000,000 separate receivers, some of which are adapted to vision in semidarkness, while the rest are spe- cialized to perceive the three primary colors in a good light, The former are the "rods" of the retina, minute oylin- Rers of pilea of discs clothed in a pier- ' igment which becomes. yellow and finally white under the action of light and has to be renewed before vision, can continue. The color -sensitive ele- ments or "cones" are chiefly concen- trated in the "yellow spot" of the re- tina, which we instinctively use for clearest vision. Develops Near -Sightedness, It is only recently that the peculi- arities of "red -vision" have been fully elucidated. Astronomers have been + ♦ practicing "averted vision" for some time and have found that a faint star is more clearly discerned when it is not gazed at directly, for in the latter case its image iso received on the cones covering the yellow spot, and these are often insufficiently sensitive. Ghosts, will -o' the wisps, fleeting visiions in darkened rooms and the so-called "N - rays are now all classed as phenom- ena o -od-vision. Had the sun lost most c1' its light, or had mast become an exclusiively night -hunting vellum! since his appearonce on earth, his optical egaipiment would no doubt by this time show nothing but rods on bis retina. Instar, man has evolved into a be - !neva. a quick and keen perception CR cdl'or and a fine distinction of detail at a comparatively+ short range. His constant occupation with clone -range 'work tends, to made him near-sighted, a modification which is an adaptation rather than a defect. • The human eye is not a perfect in- etrument. As a telescope, a micro- ecop•e or a camera obscure, it has de- fects such as • a good instrument nrnker would not tolerate, but as a N�combination of all three it is unsur- passed. In the course of its age -long evolution it has adapted itself to sun, ♦ • light to an extent which we have only 1.11 recent years been able to appreci- ate. It is most sensitive to the green lsh-yellow rays of sunlight—which, qualitatively, is the same as daylight —and its rod -vision is well adapted to starlight and moonlight, though the latter is equivalent to the light of only a single candle ten feet away. Yet this wonderful human sense - organ is in many respects inferior to similar organs possessed by animals. We acknowledge this every time we talk of a man passeesing the "vision of a hawk." It is the brain behind the eye, and more particularly the visual area of the cerebral cortex at the back of the head, which conifers upon man his superiarity, It is when visions Flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude that the sense of, sight becomes of paramount importance. The human eye, aided by the human brain, sees countless details of beauty and utility where a lens endowed organ peroeives only a barren waste of meaningless. light and shade. It has been said with some truth that "the human brain is the work of the human hand" !!n the sense that man's freely moving hand ,maps out space -relations and brings about the co-ordination between eight and touch which builds up . a micro -cosmic replica of the external world in which: the brain may exer- cise its. functions. The brain, thus educated, is enabled widen the soope and range of its .-lltbful organs of .sense. From paleo- lithic times onward pictoral art has created symbolic representations of fleeting events idestined to. render the eight of then permanent and: unfor- gettable. The microscoape has enabled the observer to convert himself, when- ever he chooses, into a homunculus several thousand times small)? than himself and to live for a. timelin an appalling world of strange and swarm- ing life, The teleaco-pe in its most ad- vanced form eselliects as much of the light of a star into a single eye as falls upon the pupils o2 the whole populahion cf I1laiichester. It brings tl:o r. -•;n witnia the distance which separates Ireland from Wales, and enlarges it to an extent more than suf- ficient to make it fill the whole sky., New Worlds to Conquer, These are the •commonplaces of human achievement. More recent days have added greater and more wonderful resources. The cinemato- graph has done far time what the telescope did for space. Its latest .development acts, indeed:, like a time microscope, which enables us to draw out rapid movements so as to examine them at leisure. Andy quite apart from these visible things, we have be- gun to attack things invisible and bring them within our range of vision. Roentgen rays, aided by fluorescent screens, reveal the secrets normally hidden behind human flesh and skin. The selenium cell and the optophone render visual effects accessible even til those who are deprived of the sense of sleet. The bolometer, the thermop- ible and the photographiic plate open up entire realms or radiation whose very existence was unsuapeoted a couple of generations ago, Where will it all end•? Whither are we tending? Are there any worlds left to conquer? The last questilon will probably raise a ensile bn the faces of the next generation. Nature's Lucky -Bag. As a people we get inba the habit of taking things for granted. For in- stance, we seldom realize that we are indebted to Nature for other things than our daily food. But if we think for a few moments we shall see that, at every turn, we should be very badly off if it were not for Nature's wonder- ful gifts. Who would ever dream that the pretty, colored, shivery table -jelly, looking on our tables like fairy fare, was once connected with cows' and calves' feet, and, in some instances, comes from bone and hide clippings. The size used in. paste and glue is a poorer 2eind of gelatine, which is made from parchment clippings, old leather, and rabbit and. fish skin. Fur coats are made from the skin of thick -furred animals, such as the seal, beaver, mole, and even the hum- ble rabbit and rat. Squirrels., and not .camels, are re- sponsible far the "camel hair" paint brushes which are named after Mr. Camel, who invented them. The hairs used come from the tip of the scluir- rel's "brush." The elephant's tusks provide us with ivory .of the very best kind. The tusks c2 the walrus, narwhal, and hip- popotamus yield slightly inferiior krone of ivory, which are used for making knife handles and ornaments. Many other articles of a like nature are made of highly polished bone. Artificial flowers axe sometimes made from the iridescent scales of fishes; while some fish also give us cit "Train" oil, which is used as a lubricant far maohiuery, is procured from the blubber of the whale; and, of course, you are all familiar with cod- liver oil! Theo, toxo, a very reliable burning oil is procured from the cock- chafer. ockchafer. All our clothes are indirectly given us !Sy animals, as wool from sheop, and even dogs' hairs can be made up into clothing material. Silk made by that ugly creature, the silk -worm, is so largely eyed that in the South of France hundredsof houses ame given over entirely to breeding these grubs. Your bath sponge was once alive at the bottom of the sea; and your coral necklace was. made by thousands of marine insects. Another insect, the cochineal, which lives on the cactusplants of Mexico, yields a wonderful, harmless dye when dried and boiled. New Methods. Dorcas -"I suppose, in your cam- paign for the State Senatorship you'll go around kissing all the babies in your district." Philippa—"Nope. Old stuff. Babies can't vote. But the hien can." The Perfect Servant. It seems to us that the perfect ser- vant—frown the theoretical point of view—has been identified. As a mat- ter of fact he vrould have been more satisfactory even to his master if he had been less perfect and a Little more human. Dickens used to tell a story of his biographer, John Forster. Forster had. a devoted and skillful servant, Henry, who was always most correct in every- thing he did. It was therefore aston- ishing one night when Forster was en- tertainiing several writers at dinner to see the scrupulous Henry make er- ror after error. He upset a plate of soup, and .Forster uttered a cry of alarm. He fogot to serve the sauce for the flsdu, and his master said, "Why, Beery!" Altogether he made the excellent dinner . seem a slovenly, and poor re- past. When at the end of it he leaned over Forster's chair and said in a tre- mutaus voice: "Please, sir, can you spare me now? My house has been on fire for the last two hours." Exit Romance. Now that Lhasa is no more the For- bidden City, Bagdad, is no longer 'iso late& by deserts impassable to any- thing but Timbuetoa is an air station, and Kunnassi' has opened a magnificent college, the Westernising of the world seems to be going on at catch a pace that romance will soon have to take a back seat orget into communication with Mars in order to oven fresh fields. Of course, the aerapiane has done much to knock the mystery out of things. When one can fiy over a for- est which was hitherto impenetrable, that fact alone takes. all the romance. out of the dark and dismal wood. Similarly with the desert. There is a fortnightly aeroplane service be- tween Palestine, Egypt' and Bagdad,.. which takes very little account of the terrors of the desert, which have frightened folk for thousands of years. To -day, too, landed proprietors visit their distant estates in Iraq by motor- car, whereas • a few years ago they, dared not go in; any fashion without an 'armed guard. There are• taxi -cabs in the Mesopotamian towns, and gaso- line motor -launches en the Tigris. There is also a university in Bed- ded, as there is in that other memory - haunted city of Khartoum. But the most wonderful change has come over Kumassi, or Ooomasse, as the newspapers called it when Sir Garnet (afterwards Viscount) Wolse- lay's expedition went there in the first Ashanti War, Then it was a veritable city of blood, if a collection of mud and straw huts could be :called a city at all. To -day it has electric light and a splendid college. Needless to say, it is now as safe to live in Iumassi as to live in London, and the fierce and blood -thirsty Ash - antis have become law-abiding citi- zens. Yet there are still people who 'say civilization is on its last legs. Modesty Was a Characteristic of Many of the Great Masters. Modesty is a trait in character which many people of the twentieth century lack. Indeed this, theme provides newspaper writers nowadays with the opportunity of making vitriolic at- tacks upon present day manners bob- bed hair and kindred subjects. These writers, if they so desired, could point to many of the world - famed composers as great exponents of modesty. For example, Verdi was never heard to speak of his operas, it Is said, as "My Trovatore," ..,or "My Rigoletto." When asked if he thought his name would become immortal, Gounod once said; "No, I have done nothing to up- lift manldud." Once beseiged by ad- mirers for his autograph, he replied, "Why do you want it? It is not of a great man." Weber avoided persons who he knew would refer to his compositions as great works. He liked to get away from people who know him, and often requested that his music be not played within his hearing. Liszt said of music,"It is often but a road to sorrow and despair," mean- ing that sec many composers do not succeed. Rubinotein was of a sad temperament, as was also Chapin; and bath were "painfully" modest. Chopin said, "If my work is of read value it may be heard after I am gone; but I hope they will never prefix to my name any other title than 'mon- sieur.' I dislike to hear any man ad- dressed as a 'master,' and still more to be spoken of. as 'the great.' " Music soothes es well as fires the soul of man. Of the Marseillaise Hymn, Roger de Lisle wrote, "It is a good hymn, I suppose; but as to its becoming immortal, why should it?" Mascagni said of lits Cavalleria, "Oh, it will bring nue money, not fame. Fame belongs to an age that is pass- ed." Yet the • Intermezz•o is to -day among the best-known pieces of music that have come to us since Gounotl's Faust made Paris proclaim him "A great of greatest composers." Schubert wrote of his Serenade, "It really pleases me! why I cannot say." What greater examples of modesty than these would one want? Technical schools in Tokio,. Japan, are now holding special classes in architecture for girls. The Prince of Wales, probably the best advertised man in the world, opened the business sessions of the great international advertising conven- tion at Wembley, England, recently, where he was faced by an assembly of more than 6,000 delegates, Hebridean Colonization The present tendency in Canada to- wards the achievement of a more sat- isfactory settlement and speedier as- similation of new settlers cannot be better illustrated than in the manner of the settlement of the many hun- dreds of crofters from the islands of the Hebrides who in the past couple of years have located on farms in Western Canada.' The movements of these crofter farmers has been an eminently satisfactory one, removing these hard-working and highly desir- able people from their native homes, where the outlook was most unpromis- ing, and .adding them to Canada's population with the greatest assurance of their permanent success. Taking advantage of the untoward .circumstances in the northern lands,' the Canadian Pacific Railway under- , took to move. numbers of the inhabit- ants of the Hebrides to Western Can- ada, and .through the co-operation of the Federal Government and the sym- pathetic assistance of various private bodies, their settlement was accomp- lished. The desires expres•sed for community settlement were met, •as far as circumstances would permit, and the crofters established on far}ns in two districts near Calgary and Ed- monton. Here, in the brief time which has elapsed, they have won uniform success in their farming efforts, are satisfied with their conditions and prospects and have given encourage- ment to a further movement. In the past twelve months something like 700 crofters and their families have been moved and settled in Western Canada. Scottish Immigrant Ald Society. The Rev. Father R. A. MacDonnell, who has throughout been the prime agent in accomplishing the movement, accompanying parties from Scotland, travelling through with them to West- ern Canada, and, personally supervis-' ing their settlement, was largely re- spousibe for the formation of the Scot- tish Immigrant Aid Society to carry an the work of moving these people, and is its, managing ,director. After being responsible for the movement of several small parties of Hebridean crofters already this year, he has re- turned to Scotland and will return in .{1ugust with a party expected to num- ber about 600, which he will settle on farms, in Alberta. The manner of their settlement will be a novel one in Canadian coloniza- tion, and the Scottish Immigrant Aid Society is setting out to effect a real and gratifying settlement work. Their aim is the establishment of an Heb-; ridean farming colony which, having regard to the settlement of former set- tlers from the islands, they will have no great- difficulty in accomplishing. The basis of their work is the assum- ption that the greatest drawback to 'satisfactory •colonization is the lack of housing accommodation for new settlers, and assistance to them, for the first few years, after they take up farming operation. The Fire Lit—Larder Full. Four directors of the Society have contributed $16,000, and this sum is expected to be swelled by contribu- tions from others interested in Cana- dian colonization and the settlement of Hebridean crotters. With this pre- liminary amount fourteen cottages are to be built, and funds secured by the Society, through participating in the British Empire Settlement Act, will enable then to erect an additional hundred cottages. These are to be built on land in Alberta west of Red Deer. The Society secures a twenty- year lease on the land and erects thereon a cottage for the prospective settler who had been a farmer, crofter, or farm laborer in the old land. The settler gets a lease of the cottage and plot for one year, renewable for a second year, and, under exceptional circumstances, a third. These cot- tages are to be homes for the settlers whilst they are Teaming the ways of the country and the farming methods o Western Canada. . Hebridean crofters arriving from their northern island homes, after travelling the thousaada of miles by land and sea, instead of having to undergo the customary hardships of pioneering, will find a home awaiting each of them, with a fire burning and the house stocked with provisions. In Canada's experience with the first Hebrideans lies the best of assur- ances of the success of Father Mac- Donnell's Alberta colony. re— Latch-Key Latch -Key Lore. Most of us, when we use a latch -key in entering a house, have no thought of the hietarical significance of the ac- tion. Yet the latch -key has a symbol- ism entirely its own. Examine the images of the Egyptian deities in the British Museum, and you will notice in the hands of some of them a cross with a circular handle. It represents the Ankh, or key of life, one of the oldest of all religious sym- bols, denoting the power to open and close the doors of heaven. The key has a magical meaning for the Greeks and Romans. Their gods were often given the title of Key - bearer as, for examine, James, the god of gates, who was supposed to unlock the doors of war and peace. In early Chilstiain history the symbol at the Seery was associated with St. Peter, with his two keys of gold and iron. In the Middle Ages the key was used to assist in the identificatiain of guilty persons. If, for instance, a theft had been oonmmitted, a key was laid on the open page of a Bible, when it was supposed to move towards the culprit. Wedding rings had their or- igin in the key presented to the Ro- man bride by her husband, as a sign of her authority in his household. -,�mcysarau+- "ca -9 A general vies' is shown of the field and stands of the giant Colenbes Stadium, France, where the world war of sports took place. Representatives of all the great nations look part in the opening parade. I An Artist in a Diving Su t. When Mr. Zarh R 1?ritohard, the painter of underwater seascapes, vieent to Tahiti he tried to borrow`. the dieing' ' equipment .. belonging to the natt o 'Prince 01 chiettalu, Naris Salmon. But r Naris let bine have it only on his Iay+ ing a wager that be could paint under. water a scene That Naris, himself; .n admirable swimmer and diver, s'h.o'ald recognize as trine. Naris, who was entirely 'skeptical, went along in . the barge and helped fasten Mr. Priteha,rd into the diving dress, which was not a full suit, but a helmet, a breast -plate and a tight waterproof upper gar- ment. The artist, was already expert- eneing qualms concerning the ade- quacy of the equipment when Narii, with the circular, capper -framed glass window of the helmet in hie hand, said: "Now listen, You `ug this life Iine once—mare air; twice—less air; three tines—we go ahead; four times --1 will paint here; five times—sharks:" "He spoke without the least emo- tion," says Mr. Pritchard in his narra- tive of the incident in a recent number of Asia. " 'What!' I cried, 'Sbarks! Have I got to gaunt one, two, three, four, five when a shark, the swiftest of .swimmers, lis cording for me? Can't it be once for sharks?' Clash cane the glass almost on my nose, and then an emphatic, 'Shut up!' " Mr. ' Pritchard won the wager— which at once converted Barri and hie crew into :ardent friends and ohani pions—and he encoutered no sharks. On a later occasion, however, another creature of the tropic seas gave him an extremely bad minute. "Taa, my diver, took pre one day to a sort of undearwater cul-de,sac with, ooral warp. Narrow, vertical fissures in the rock stood out blue against the dead yellow structure at the bath. I saw to my astonishment what thought was a stee, anemone hanging, vertically against one of the blue fns• sus -es. I bad always seen such a crea- ture attached horizontally and wide' open in daylight. This was closed. It was round and bulging and was grow - Ing larger every moment. And then I saw below the round. mass gazing straight at me two hideous eyes!. looked again. The loathsome creature was pushing itself out from the deep bine cavern through the narrow its., sure. Soon one or more of its eight arms ten or fifteen feet long would reach out, and there would be an ends of me! I confess I madly unhooked my an- cher stone and rose to the canoe, striking my head on the bottom of it in my panic. Taa drew me in as fast as he could while I elnouted breathless- ly, 'Octopus!' I seemed to have an in- terminable length of leg to pull in! Taa snatched up his long octopus, spear, a slim three -sided French bay- onet on the end of a twenty -foot hard- wood pole. He hurled it with the sure, swift aim of the Tahitian. It struck: The beast struggled and writhed against the wall, but presently worked free of the spear, which Taa recover ed. The bayonet had struck between its body and one of the arms, and in the struggle to loosen itself the crea- ture had jammed the bayonet against the fissure and while trying to draw back into the cavern had bent. the steel so that it was curved when with- drawn. For days afterward the water in the lagoon was smoky brown from the liquid the octopus had emitted'. while fighting for its life." .r Then He Got Red. He (as• they strolled along)—"«'hat was the first thing you saw turn green this, spring, dearest?" She—"'Why—er—the ring you gave me last winter, dear." o— Open-Air Parliament. The Manx -Parliament, or Tynwald, whi•cil met recently, claims• to be the oldest legislative assembly in the world, having been founded in the year 938 by a certain King Orry. It is held on Tynwald Hill, an arti- ficial mound constructed of soil brought from each of the seventeen parishes in the Islands The measures passers there obtain the force of law in Manxiand, after receiving the Royal Assent. The oerem.any, which includes the enthronement on his chair of state of the Lieutenant -Governor, is stately and impressive. Unfortunately, how- ever its .solemnity has been ecrnlewhat marred of late years by crowds of "trippers," who flock to it xis to a lair. New .Rubber "Lands. Vast tracts of potentials rubber -grow- ing lends have been found in the Philippine Islands. Ninety per cent. of the world's supply of rubber is pro. duced by British colonial and other foreign producers. During the last four years British ^eron?anes have 'flown more than two million miles and have carried up wards of 80,000 passengers, apart from the transport of mr.ils and other freight.