Miscellaneous.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 484, 23 August 1905, Page 7

Miscellaneous.

IDOLATRY IK JAPAN ALONG the saered toad of Nikko, in Japan, is an idol about which centres one of the most curious worships in the world. Upon the surfaoe of the statue are seen little pieoes of what appear to be dried paper. If you stand by the idol for a while and wait for a worshipper to come along, you will see what these bits of paper are. The devotee halts in front of the image, then soribbles a prayer on a bit of paper. The wad he then ohews up into a ball and hurls at the god. If it hits the face and stioks the prayer is sure to be granted, and the pious pilgrim goes away happy. If the ball stioks to some portion of the body the omen is not quite so propitious, and if it falls to the ground there is absolutely no hope. ■j PAWN BROKERS' SIGNS, Six hundred years ago or so, a Tusoan dootor of medicine got some money and proceeded to set himself up in the world; and in a hundred years his family was of considerable importance in Florenoe. They were not ashamed of their origin, and displayed on their coat of arms three golden pills; their name, too, de medioi, showed their origin, for it meant ' descendants of the dootor,' or ' medious.' Besides being merely nobles, the family dealt in money, lending it at high interest on personal security. In time these persons who lent money on such seourity adopted the three golden pills of the medioi family as the sign of their business, and now pawnbrokers all over the oivilised world display them. THE ZODIACAL LIGHT.

Although the phenomenon known as the Zodiacal Light is not easily observable from these latitudes, the plea which the Gresham Leoturer on Astronomy put forth in the ' Nineteenth Century' for its further investigation will exoite interest. Not only is the light remarkable in its fidelity to the path of the Zodiao and the regularity of its seasonal variations in brightness, but it is oonnected apparently with two phenomena—the Zodiacal Band and the Gegensohein—even more puzzling than itself. That it is no mere freak of the atmosphere most are assured. Almost all modern investigators hold that it is due to sunlight reflected from myriads of solid partioles of matter. Where this matter 'hang out,' and what are its form and its extent ? Is it a tail, or a disc, or a ring ? Is it an appanage of the earth or of the sun; and, if of the latter, is the earth within it or without it? Simultaneous observations,• such as Mr Ledger suggests, from different longitudes, may do muoh to clear up the mystery.

HOW LARGE IS THE UNIVERSE? 'lnfinite,' answers a oertain German theorist. But an infinite spaoe is inconceivable, and no science or philosophy oan be based on the inconceivable. Professor Simon Newcomb reverts to this fascinating topic, and he comes to the conclusion that there are probably 125,000,000 stars in the heavens; that they possibly lie within a fphere having a radius 200 million times the distance of the sun; an outer distanoo from whioh light would travel in 3,300 years at the rate of 186,000 miles per second. This view seems, at any rate, admissible for all the stars that are visible. 'Were the universe infinite, and the stars scattered equally through all spaoe, the heavens would blaze with the light of countless millions of stars '—for light is never lost. 1 But the dark bodies may intercept their light,' it is argued. Professor Newcomb shows that the dark bodies are not numerous enough for the purpose, else we should not see the Milky Way as well as we do, The region of visible stars seemingly has a boundary, though one hard to draw,

PHYSICAL PLEASURE AND PAIN. The difference between .pleasure and pain is by no means eleai to the physiologist, lb is sometimes expressed, to quote an artiole by M. Bridon in the ' Revue Scientifique,' by saying that pain involves the use of oonstriotor musoles, while in pleasure the musoles used produce expansion. Among the most primitive organisms there are no musoles except constrictors; the musoles of pleasure do not exist. The life, therefore, of a vortioella, or other single-celled organism, 'must be a life of indifferenoe varied by pain; there is in it not even the germ of joy. Later in organio evolution the extensor muscle beoomes differentiated from this first form by gradual transition, At some time later it beoomes predominant, becomes supple and perfected in its turn.. We oan take examples of this gradual growth. The heart, for inatanse, has in itself no sensations of pleasure; it manifests only the violenoe of passion, it responds only to agitation. Similarly, to take another example of the gradual upward tendency, M, Bourdel thinks that the play or gaiety of young living things, kittens or ohildren, is not the expression of pleasure, but is largely automatic—animal, in fact. His crystallisation of the theories he holds is expressed by saying that« pleasure is a sentiment of. ascending evolution; pain is the sentiment of the organism's strife against the oauses of decay.'

WHEN THE BLIND RECEIYE LIG)<T. Few but have speculated over the phrase in which the man blind from his birth who saw for the first time described his sensation of vision. ' He saw men as troes walking.' What sensations would sight give to a man of not untutored senses who should suddenly reoeive this addition to them! The question reoeives a most ourious and interesting answer in an artiole whioh Professor Latta, of Glasgow, contributes to the Journal of Psychology on the oase of a man who, having sufiereoV from a oataraot since his birth, recovered his Bight at the age of 30. The artiole must be read in its entirety by anyone who wishes to grasp the significance of the minutely reoorded sequence of impressions, but we may give a few extraots. We must premise that the patient before operation was quite unable to distinguish objeots, though he could distinguish day from night and oould looate a light. ' For about ten days after the operation the patient appeared quite dazed, and oould not realise that he was seeing. The size of everything in the ward seemed very muoh exaggerated, and on that account he had very great difficulty in interpreting what he saw. The first thing he aotually perceived was the faoe of the house surgeon. He says that at first hs did not know what, it was, but that when the dootor asked him to look down, the sense of hearing guided his eye straight to the point whenoo the sound oarae, and then, reoalling what he knew from having felt his own face, he realised that this must be a mouth, and that he must be looking at a face.' He was quite ignorant of colour, but learned to distinguish hues very quiokly. The distinction between a sphere and a oube, a ball and a toy briok, he hesitated on; but at last rightly described one as'round,' the other as 'square.' He had difficulties in estimating distanoe as well as size; as he looked out of a high window he felt as if he oould touch the ground with a stick. Perhaps, most interesting. 'He did not retain his faoulty ofimoving easily about in

. ii m I. pmm£mqmmpmm*Ml<*~*m!***#l*> the dark. Before he oould guide himself fearlessly through a ward, but now ho has been able to see he says he has lost all tna« feeling of confidence, and when hia eyes are shut he is afraid to move, and is impelled to open them to asoertain where he is going,; MQOFISK SUPERSTITION. At the last meeting of the Anthropological Institute, Prof. Westermarolc read a paper, illustrated by lantern shaes, on «The Magic Element in Moorish Art. Like other .nations in the Mediterranean region, the author Baid, the Moors had a strong belief in the baneful influence of the evil eye, not only upon human beings, but upon horses, oattle, oropa, and even on in» animate objeots. The most potent defence was to extend the fingers towards the possessor of the evil eye, and to utter words equivalent to 'five in your eye.' This turned baok the malign influence on its possessor. Henoe, oharms and amulets took the form of a hand with outstretohed fingers, and this representation beoame conventionalised into lines and even dots. The number five itself was also a protective oharm, as was the figure of an eye, represented by its shape, and sometimes by a square or a triangle. Another effective amulet was a ctobs, with equal beams intersecting at right 'angles, and supposed to disperse the evil influenoe to the four winds. Prof. Westermarok showed how the oommon decorative patterns of the native tribes and the geometrioal arabesques of Moorish art might all be traced baok to more or less oomplioated arrangements of the oirole, Bquare, triangle and conventional symbols of the hand and eye.