_First Issued in this Cheap Form in 1920_ _Originally published by Messrs. Adlard & Son in 1913_ _First published by Methuen & Co. Ltd. 1914_ _Second Edition 1915_ _Third Edition 1920_ PREFACE The present volume is a reprint of that issued in 1912 with the title, "Science from an Easy Chair: Second Series." It consists, like its predecessors, of chapters originally published by me in the _Daily Telegraph_, which I have revised and illustrated by a large number of drawings. In order to render the issue of the present cheap edition possible, it has been found necessary to restrict its size a little by the omission of chapters dealing with Glaciers, Ferns and Fern-seed, and the history of the Sea-squirts or Ascidians, which are contained in the original larger book. My hope is that this collection of papers, "about a number of things," may meet with as kind a reception from my readers as that which they have accorded to its predecessors. E. RAY LANKESTER _July 1, 1920_ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. A DAY IN THE OBERLAND 1 Fertilization of Sage--The Edelweiss--The Jungfrau's Breast--Contortions of Rock-strata--The Jungfrau Railway--Mountain Sickness. II. SWITZERLAND IN EARLY SUMMER 13 Alpine Flowers--Flowers of the Meadows and Woods--The Herb Paris. III. GLETSCH 19 From Baveno to the Rhone Glacier--A Glacier by the Roadside--Changes in the Glacier. IV. THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE 25 The Cinematograph--Ancient Representations of Gallop--The Dog in Mycenaean Art--What ought an Artist to do?--Attention as a Condition of Seeing--Judgment and Prejudice--Natural and Artificial Paces--Photographs by Electric Spark--Use of Instantaneous Photographs--Errors as to the Size of the Moon--The Painter and the Moon--The Moon on the Stage. V. THE JEWEL IN THE TOAD'S HEAD 55 The Decay of Credulity--A Sceptical Physician--How to Test a Toadstone--Other Magical Stones--Medicinal and Magical Stones. VI. ELEPHANTS 65 The Indian and the African Elephant--Size of Modern Elephants--Ears and Teeth of Elephants--Earliest Elephants brought to Europe--The Elephant's Legs--Tusks used in Digging--Elephants used in War--Geological Strata since the Chalk--Ancestral Mammals--The Typical or Ancestral Set of Teeth--The Peculiarities of the Teeth of Elephants--Extinct Relatives of Elephants--Ancestors of Elephants--Origin of the Elephant's Trunk. VII. A STRANGE EXTINCT BEAST 92