SCIENTIFIC.

Otago Witness, Issue 1653, 28 July 1883, Page 28

SCIENTIFIC.

— The Poet Laureate has told us that the " hills are shadows and they flow, from form to form, and nothing stands ;" and his words have a very practicle illustration in a rambling dune of sand situated in the Eastern part of Churchill County, Nevada, U.S. The hill is about four miles long, by one wide, and from 100 co 400 feet high. It comprises millions of tons of sand, each partical no bigger than a pin's head, and so soft and clean withal, that it will find its way out of a sack if jolted. The mountain, we are told, is so dense that tha sand gives a musical sound under the footfall, and often a bird lighting on it or a lizard running along the slopes, dislodges a train of sand which slides downward with a hum resembling the vibration of a telegraph wire. The whole hill is Blowly travelling from west to east under the shifting action of the wind blowing over it. From the time it was first discovered, several years ago, until now, it appears to have moved about a mile.

— One of the most remarkable statements of modern times comes from the most renowned savant of the French Academy of his examination of meteoric specimens, he finds them composed of real sandstone. Now this means a great deal, for sandstone comes from the destruction of previous rocks ; it is the washings, ground down results, from volcanic throes. So that it appears, in short, that meteors and comets are portions of demolished, worn out worlds. These meteoric fragments resemble almost the sandstone which holds the copper of the Lake Superior region. It is manifest, then, that these meteors come from a world much like our own. Is this the end ? Is this what is to become of a worn out world ? Let us now go farther out into the region of the fixed stars. In the ancient pyramid of Gheezen something like a telescopic tube was constructed through which the pole star was constantly in view. Through that tube there can now no star be seen. It is not that the heavens have moved out of place, but the pyramid, the earth, have shifted during these thousands of years. We speak of the apparent motions of the heavens, but that star is there fixed in its proper place. Just here we can appieciate the new astronomy. With the spectroscope we can discern the motions of the "fixed" stars, and in a single minute we can direct a movement which the naked eye could not preceive in thousands of years. When a star is approaching the earth the spectroscope shows the green tending to blue and when it is receding the green pales into yellow. Sirius is the largest star to the naked eye. It is one of the nearer fixed stars, yet it is hundreds of thousands of millions of miles away. It is twenty times larger than the sun in diameter, and eight thousand times larger in bulk. There are four types of stars, in their chemical constitution. One of these classes is younger than our sun, and in this class is Sirius. In the days of Ptolemy is was red ; now it is white or bluish. Sirius' is slowly moving away from vs — about ten miles a second. In Orion we find the same type of stars as the sun. Our new astronomy began with Galileo and his insignificant telescope. Now we have one forty-five feet long, with a' thirty-inch object glass. From all our varied studies we learn that the present universe is the successor of those that preceded it, and is but the predecessor of those to come after. It is one point in the grand sequence of eternal events. All of our studies lead us to be careful of presumptuous speculations. We are told that everything points to a degradation of heat, to a running down of a clock which there is no hand to rewind. When we are told that the sun makes man, and that we shall end with it, we may well protest against any such conclusions. In that fabled race of mites, who lived but an hour, their Herbert Spencer may have prophesied that the declining sun would bury the race of mites with it in eternal night, but, in spite of such predictions, it is a fact that the sun did rise again the very next morning. — Boston Herald.

— Some months ago it was announced that a French archaeologist, M. Le Plongeon by name, had made surprising discoveries in the Peninsula of Yucatan. The expedition was undertaken, we believe, at the instance of the French Government, or at least with its assistance, and researches prosecuted for several years have brought to light records which lend additional strength to the claims of America to an antiquity far greater than that of which the so-called " Old " World can boast. Many of the finest ruins are still inaccessible, being within the territory of hostile Indians, whose poisoned arrows and warlike characteristics render scientific invasion impracticable without armed protection. In one of the cities, Ake by name, whose temples were m use at the time of the Spanish conquest, are " katuns," or time-columns, each marking a period of one hundred and sixty years. Of these there are thirty-six in one of the buildings, marking a lapse of nearly six thousand years. As these columns were connected with religious ceremonies, it is not likely that any irregularities interrupted the regular placing of the stones. Another certificate of antiquity is found in the occurrence of the head of the mastodon as a religous symbol or object of worship. Now, geologists tell us, on what they regard as indisputable evidence, that the animal was extinct as much as ten thousand years ago, and the |inference is certainly fair that the builders of these temples could have known of its existence only through direct tradition. At all events, it is difficult to understand how they could otherwise have produced its image. There is, moreovor, an identity almost absolute between the manners and customs indicated by these early Yucji tunt-se recoids and those of Chaldoa, Pf>i>ia, Burmali, and Siain, and the Masonic fratetnitv will, it is said, bi* enabled to add a few t.hiHisand years to tb'-ir > ecord in consequence of Dr Plongeon's discoveries. When Commander Gorringe found alleged Masonic symbol* under tile obelisk, FreeuiasonH complacently reminded us that they had always said so, and we may assume that they will not "let on" that they are in the least surprised at this additional proof of their respectable antiquity, Far be it

from us to cast ridicule upon an eminently honourable fraternity ; but if this kind of thing is to go on, would it not be well to claim the fig-leaf of Scripture as the original symbolic apron of Masonry ?