to bite a second time in the same place it will, by so doing, cure the ills inflicted by the first bite. This is of course nonsense, as are the other superstitious beliefs and quack remedies above outlined. No snake and no part of any snake has any curative or medicinal quality whatever and persons who trust in them are doing so at the peril of their own welfare."

On the other hand, Professor Surface has proved in the course of his investigations that many astonishing assertions regarding snakes are perfectly true. For instance, it is a fact that some serpents

RIBBON SNAKE.

swallow their young. It is only fair to the apparently unnatural snake mother to say, however, that she does this for the protection of her babies and not because. she is hungry. A case came under the notice of Professor Surface of a garter snake which was in the habit of swallowing her young every time the boys of a school near where she made her home came up and frightened her. As the young snakes were always in evidence, however, when the boys appeared again, the assumption was that she permitted the babies to escape as soon as the danger was past.

Snakes will play "possum," or pretend to be dead when hard pressed. They have been seen to turn on their backs and lay still for half an hour, at the end of which time they will cautiously turn over, apparently satisfied that the danger has passed.

The fangs of serpents when drawn to render them harmless will develop and become dangerous again within a few weeks after pulling. If these be drawn, others will grow again, and this will be repeated several times.

The fact that snakes are able to live a year or even more without food has been demonstrated by Professor Surface. A specimen of copperhead was kept by him for a year and three months without his succeeding in getting it to eat any of the food offered to it.

A curious point made by Professor Surface is that the venom of the rattlesnake and copperhead is not poisonous when taken internally, unless an internal scratch should let it into the blood. The 'dreaded effects occur only when the poison is injected into the blood system.

A snake literally walks on the end of its ribs. That is to say, according to Professor Surface, the ribs are jointed to the backbone and as they extend down. over each side of the body their ends are in connection with the ventral plates which have projecting edges at their rear margins. As these plates hold to the objects beneath the animal its body is brought forward upon the supporting and movable ribs. In this method of locomotion is to be found the explanation of why snakes cannot run on smooth

glass nor upon such objects as brussels carpet. Glass is so smooth that the ventral plates are unable to hold to it and after they have been thrown forward the snake cannot carry itself along. In attempting to crawl on brussels carpet the surface of which is composed of small upright stiff threads the piling springs backward by the pressure of the ventral plates when the reptile attempts to move itself forward, and it thus fails to find a leverage just as upon the smooth glass.

As to the best steps to take when bitten by a venomous snake Professor Surface advises that a ligature be tied as tightly as possible between the wound and the heart to keep the poison from being carried to the vital organ in the circulatory system. The next step is to suck or squeeze out all the poison possible, and the third to rub permanganate of potash into the wound. For a heart stimulant the professor recommends an injection of one-twentieth of a grain of strychnia. Whiskey, the sovereign remedy for snake bite, Professor Surface considers a help, but by no means a reliable method of treatment.

Nearly all the members of the snake. family Professor Surface finds to be valuable to man instead of an enemy with no good qualities about him. The smaller and more innocent snakes feed on insects and keep the farm land clear of pests that are harmful to growing vegetation. Even the much abused rattlesnake the professor considers an important adjunct to farm life, as it aids in holding in check the mice and rats that are so destructive to crops of various kinds.

HAT this great spinning top on which we dwell is wobbling upon its axis and that the north pole is constantly shifting its position, are facts proved by an elaborate series of investigations now being made in various parts of the world. The longest series of systematic observations contributing data to such a con

clusion have been made ceaselessly since July, 1893, at the Naval Observatory, Washington. For research along the same lines there has more lately been established about the earth a chain of stations located at Gaithersburg, Maryland; Cincinnati, Ohio; Ukiah, California; Mizusawa, Japan; Tschardjui, Turkestan; and Charloforte, Italy. In each of this series of observatories is mounted a "zenith telescope" used for timing the passage of stars across the great arch of the heavens. At the Naval Observatory the research is conducted by aid of a "prime vertical transit," the only one in use in the Western Hemisphere.

The interesting problem for whose solution these scattered stations are co-operating is this: Are the poles progressing toward warmer zones? You are surprised, no doubt, that there should be any uncertainty as to this. You have always regarded the north and south poles as the fixed hubs. of our vast grindstone, and have always believed that the latter has continued its grind, millennium in and millennium out, without loosening or wobbling upon its bearings.

The research has proceeded far enough to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that old earth is like a barrel with loose hoops. These hoops are

our parallels of latitude, which we see in series on our geography globes, and which span Mother Earth above and below her equatorial waistline.

Take the city of Philadelphia, for example. It is crossed by the great barrel hoop known as "40 North." Now, suppose that parallel to be a real strap of iron, and that you have punched a hole into it, inserting a stake. Say that this stake marks the corner of some one's lot -as those degrees of latitude accepted by surveyors really do. Could this be done, the owner of the city lot would note that the stake traveled about continually. He would have to mount his house and fences on casters, hitching them to the stake, that they might keep within limits. This would be the case if surveyors changed their maps every time. the parallels of latitude moved, which would mean daily alterations. All houses and fences on earth would then have to be on wheels and their owners would have little time for other work than shifting them into their proper places.

Now, all of this means simply this: The poles are moving and taking the parallels with them.

Two centuries before Christ there was an ingenious geographer, Eratosthenes,

who drew as a base line a parallel of latitude from the Pillars of Hercules -Straits of Gibraltar-toward the east, projecting it north of Sicily across the south of Greece and onward across Asia. This being done, he noted that the positions of places with reference to this line differed considerably from those assigned by his predecessors. Of course the position of the line was measured from the angles of the fixed stars. Four centuries later the same places, with reference to Eratosthenes' line, had shifted again, three, four and even five degrees.

All of this shifting of latitudes led to discussions throughout the remainder of ancient and the whole of medieval times, and at about the year of Columbus' discovery of America a European astronomer, De Ferrare, stated that progressive changes in the positions of the poles were taking place. He predicted that the torrid and frigid regions of the earth would, in a manner, exchange places. But later astronomers explained all of these polar wobblings and latitude shiftings by branding the observations on which they were based as defective. Eighty years ago the great astronomer, Laplace, repeated this repudiation.

But geologists later penetrated into the