Science in Short ChaptersWilliams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Science
Science in Short Chapters
Williams, W. Mattieu (William Mattieu)
Science
If the difference of development between the human and canine internal
antennæ produces all this difference of function, what a gulf may there
be between our powers of perceiving material emanations and those
possessed by insects! If my anatomical hypothesis is correct, some
insects have protruding nasal organs or out-thrust olfactory nerves as
long as all the rest of their bodies. The power of movement of these
in all directions affords the means of sensory communication over a
corresponding range, instead of being limited merely to the direction
of the nostril openings. In some insects, such as the plumed gnat, the
antennæ do not appear to be thus moveable, but this want of mobility
is more than compensated by the multitude of branchings of these
wonderful organs, whereby they are simultaneously exposed in every
direction. This structure is analogous to the fixed but multiplied eyes
of insects, which, by seeing all round at once, compensate for the want
of that mobility possessed by others that have but a single eyeball
mounted on a flexible and mobile stalk; that of the spider, for example.
Such an extension of such a sensory function is equivalent to living
in another world of which we have no knowledge and can form no
definite conception. We, by our senses of touch and vision, know the
shapes and colors of objects, and by our very rudimentary olfactory
organs form crude ideas of their chemistry or composition, through
the medium of their material emanations; but the huge exaggeration of
this power in the insect should supply him with instinctive perceptive
powers of chemical analysis, a direct acquaintance with the inner
molecular constitution of matter far clearer and deeper than we are
able to obtain by all the refinements of laboratory analyses or the
hypothetical formulating of molecular mathematicians. Add this to the
other world of sensations producible by the vibratory movements of
matter lying between those perceptible by our organs of hearing and
vision, then strain your imagination to its cracking point, and you
will still fail to picture the wonderland in which the smallest of our
fellow-creatures may be living, moving, and having their being.
THE ORIGIN OF LUNAR VOLCANOES.
Many theoretical efforts, some of considerable violence, have been
made to reconcile the supposed physical contradiction presented by
the great magnitude and area of former volcanic activity of the Moon,
and the present absence of water on its surface. So long as we accept
the generally received belief that water is a necessary agent in the
evolution of volcanic forces, the difficulties presented by the lunar
surface are rather increased than diminished by further examination and
speculation.
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