Page images
PDF
EPUB

long tube. The phlox family, wild and cultivated, is a large one, and they adapt themselves to almost any soil or location.

Along the garden fence a row of giant artichokes reared their heads of flowers, made up of 12-20 yellow rays. This is a member of the sunflower family, and its edible stem-tubers were dug up, boiled and pickled, and made a decidedly pleasant relish. Few people distinguish between the artichoke and the ordinary wild sunflowers, the entire family flowering in early autumn

GOLDEN ROD.

roads and woodland paths. Some varieties
prefer the rich soil and moist shade of the
river bank; others are proudest along the
dry and dusty highway. But in every and all
places they are the yellow diamonds in au-
tumn's jewel box. Their friends are so
many that it is scarcely necessary to make
even a passing comment on the plant itself
and its manner of growth.

(Copyright by A. W. Mumford, Chicago.)

They are, however, a family of very erect perennial herbs with single alternate leaves and numberless small, yellow heads

along every roadside from east to west and north to south. The disk or center of the common sunflower is brown; of the artichoke, yellow.

Up near the garden proper a sickly golden-rod va Solidago nemori'isy looked disgusted with its associates-mainly cabbages and tomatoes—and so I took little pleasure in that particular member of my little happy family of plants.

There are nearly one hundred species of this autumn wer which makes with asters so beautiful a border for our country

in spikes, compound panicles or
racemes, giving the flower stem
the appearance of a golden tipped
or flowering wand.

Along the creek banks and
swamps, or sometimes farther
back in the dryer woodland, the
small boy finds the black haw-
shrub. Down go the cat-tail
flags he has gathered, and up he
goes on fence or stump to fill his
pockets with the sweet, black,
flattish-oval fruit, containing a
very little soft pulp and a thin
shelled stone. The shrub or small
tree is the Viburnum prunifolium
in the central West, and its leaves
are a slightly pointed oval with
sharply cut borders. Early in the
spring it bears compound cymes
of white flowers. Another mem-
ber of this same family, the
liburnum opulus, or cranberry
tree, with 3-lobed leaves, wedge-
shaped at the base, grows on
the low lands along the creeks.
I have seen several specimens of
this variety in northern Illinois
bearing many quarts of red cran-
berry-flavored drupes. Served as
cranberries are prepared, they
make a very edible sauce.

cylindrical spikes, are ready for winter bouCat-tails, with their long, brown, quets in September or October, and with nothing but their own sheathing leaves, are a picturesque bit for the artist's brush. But marsh, a pair of rubber boots must be unless they are to be left in their native donned. So far as temporary appearance is concerned, they may be gathered earlier, but the spikes will shrivel as they dry.

for the housewife, if she knows the various The summer outing is the harvest time edible and aromatic weeds.

We have wandered along the creek where

FRINGED GENTIAN.

(Copyrighted by A. W. Mumford, Chicago.)

water lilies float; we have seen the goldenrod and asters and sunflowers on the highways, and in the field the tradescantia and the wild yellow lily (Lilium canadense); we have gathered berries and trailing sprays of creepers; but deep in the dark forest, or on a shaded hillside, unmolested, stands the dainty Adiatum pedatum, a maiden-hair fern with stripes black and glossy. Its slender polished stem stands erect about nine inches in height, and then forks into several branches bearing on the one side slender pennate divisions. These, as well as the more common varieties of ferns, bear transplanting to shady lawn nooks quite well. And now, who was it who wrote: "Farewell, dear flowers! sweetly your time ye spent,

Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament; And, after death, for cures.'

[ocr errors]

The time has come, and all too soon, when "The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the woods and by the stream no more."

The frost-nipped sumach warms the sombre hillside with its crimson sprays, and the blue gentian flower

"Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last."

A word of suggestion by way of farewell: If you find a rare flower, that is, one that you think is rare because you have seen no other like it-don't pull it up root and branch. Leave some for somebody else next year. It is not love, but inherent vandalism, that induces us to carry home armfuls of wilted and insulted flowers.

[graphic]

FREEDOM OF SPEECH AMONG UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS.-In reference to the strictures passed by President W. R. Harper of the University of Chicago upon several kinds of abuse of freedom of speech committed by university professors (see page 1656), Professor J. H. Wigmore, Dean of the Northwestern Law School, wrote to the Chicago "Record-Herald" of July 9th as follows:

"Dr. Harper's definition of the abuse of personal privilege seems to me entirely fair. Every one of the instances mentioned by him are of abuses that are constantly occurring. No doubt these abuses need to be frequently censured and constantly guarded against. The quality of tact is just as important in the university professor as in the statesman. I should like to suggest, however, that the duty of the other party to the situation should not be ignored. I mean the duty of the university government toward the principle of free speech. A university should never so act toward a professor as to give ground for the public feeling that he is being punished for the sake of his opinions. Such a result is deplorable, because it closes the mouths of many sound-minded professors, compelling them to refrain from honest and proper utterances, for fear of unjust censure. Let me illustrate by the case of a judge. A judge cannot be sued for wrongful judgment, even though he acts maliciously and corruptly. This is not because the law wishes to protect corrupt judges, but because it wishes to preserve for the honest judge absolute freedom in the performance of his duty. So it is with the professor, and the university has a duty sometimes to suffer a foolish man to speak without rebuke in order that the great body of teachers may do their daily work without fear. So far as I am aware the universities of this country scrupulously observe this duty. Certainly the University of Chicago has stood firmly for professional freedom of speech."

[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small]

P

Field Geology.

BY

OLIVER CUMMINGS FARRINGTON, Ph. D.
Curator of Geology, Field Columbian Museum.

ROBABLY no feat of the science of
geology is more often referred to with
admiration by those who have not
specially studied the subject than the ability
of the paleontologist to reconstruct from
a single bone the entire animal of which it
once formed a part. While the statement
that this can be done would in any but ex-
ceptional cases be an exaggeration of the
strict truth, it is essentially true and may,
though this is less generally known, be ap-
plied to geological observations in general.
In the bone the paleontologist sees that cer-
tain prominences indicate the size and dis-
tribution of certain muscles. These in turn
indicate others, and so one feature points out
another, until a fairly complete whole is
formed.

of a volcano or once was a part of some living being, all may be learned by the inspection of a single specimen. The same is true of countless objects which one trained in geology meets in his way. It is this power of using the present as a key to unlock the past, which has made geology acquisition of this accomplishment may be what we at present know it to be, and the gained by anyone with a little patient and careful study.

So from the shape and surface of a single pebble the geologist can reconstruct a world of conditions under which it was formed.

For instance, the climate of the time or times of whose passage it bears marks, its formation, whether in the depths of the sea or on its shore, its transportation, whether by rivers or by ice, its origin, whether it welled up out of the earth's interior in the eruption

We are walking along a country road in walked along such roads before, and our the northern United States. We have thoughts have probably turned to the flowers, the birds, the sky, or we have simply been intent on reaching the next town. and think simply about the road itself. "The To-day, however, let us change our custom about in a road, except its quality as a highroad," you say, "what can there be to think

way?"

Q. Well, let us see. What is the road made of?

A. Soil.

O. What is soil?

A. Decomposed rock.

Q. Yes, perhaps. What kinds of soil are there?

A. Clayey, sandy and gravelly soils. Q. Yes, very good. What kind of soil is the road made of where we are walking

now?

A. Gravelly.

Q. What was it a few yards back?
A. Clayey.

Q. Do you think it remarkable or significant that the soil should be of gravel in one place and clay in another? A. Well, yes, I had not thought of that.

seen will afford an insight into the history and origin of the leading natural features of all the adjacent territory.

In the region in which the reader is supposed to be traveling, an insight into the origin of one of its leading features will be most quickly gained, if he will continue his walk until he finds a place where the road has been cut through a bank, leaving a section of it bare. The character of the bank where it is thus exposed will probably be found to more or less resemble that shown in the accompanying engraving. A miscel

[graphic][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

laneous collection of boulders of various shapes and sizes is seen, accompanied by and interspersed with sand and clay. Not only are the boulders and pebbles of different shapes and sizes, but they are of different colors and degrees of hardness as well, showing that they were formed from many kinds of rock. Some can easily be scratched with a knife, others not at all; some are of the same grain throughout, others show large crystals scattered in a fine ground mass; some have dividing planes along which they can be split into parallel layers,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

1670

[graphic][graphic][graphic][graphic][graphic][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
« PreviousContinue »