is the great distinction established between them and planets. Instead of being opaque, heavy, and important bodies like our planets, they are of great lightness, and extreme tenuity. One day, a comet carried away by its rapid march, traversed the system of Jupiter, the satellites and the planets for some hours surrounded by the comet; and when the body had passed over them, they had not undergone the slightest deviation in their path. When Maupertuis, wishing to explain the origin of Saturn's ring, thought he had conceived an ingenious idea in attributing this appendage to the tail of a comet which was wound round the planet, he did not dream of the extreme rarity of these impotent vapors.

The distinctive character of comets lies especially in the length of their course, and in the immense duration of their journeys round the sun, through the celestial regions. The following lines are by the poet Conder :

Mysterious visitant, whose beauteous light

Among the wondering stars so strangely gleams!
Like a proud banner in the train of night,

The emblazon'd flag of Deity it streams—

Infinity is written on thy beams;

And thought in vain would through the pathless sky

Explore thy secret course.

Too vast for Time to grasp.

Thy circle seems

Oh, can that eye

Which numbers hosts like thee, this atom earth descry?

CHAPTER VII.

MONSTERS AND SUPERSTITIONS.

Former Belief in Astrology-Strange Fancies-Olaus Magnus and his AbsurditiesDroll Description of the Great Sea-Serpent-The Monster Attacking a ShipStatement by a Bishop-Cooking a Meal on the Back of a Leviathan-Legendary History of Trees and Plants-Trees Bearing Water-Birds-Story of a Marvelous Tree in Scotland-Belief of Scientific Men in Ridiculous Fables-Queer Lightning Rod-Charlatans and Greenhorns-Roots of the Mandragora Carved into Fantastic Shapes-Life Preserver of Gods and Animals—Alarming Eclipses.

W

E have seen in the preceding chapter that the human mind can turn its imaginations into supposed facts, and accept absurdities as logical conclusions. We might have enlarged upon the superstitious notions regarding comets. There was a time when celestial omens were consulted on all possible occasions, and a firm belief in astrology was common even among those who were best educated and most intelligent.

As evidence of this disposition to believe in the marvelous and even the absurd, we give here an account of some of the strange fancies concerning monstrous creatures which were thought to exist in the sea. Thus in a renowned work published in 1555, Olaus Magnus makes some amazing statements about the great sea-serpent, then believed to roam the great deep.

The author does not rest satisfied with giving a description of this creature; he delineates it, and in his engravings we see the reptile issuing from the waves, and landing itself upon the ships in order to devour the crews. Elsewhere the Bishop of Upsala represents cetacea which crush ships in their formidable jaws!

And yet though it seems incredible, our epoch, in respect to the history of marine monsters, leaves the old legends of the middle ages far behind. In fact it is impossible to dream of anything more fabulous than what Denis de Montfort in comparatively recent times gave out as a feast for the credulous. His mind must really have been diseased.

The lucubrations of this naturalist have found a place in the great edition of Buffon's works. He there states, without the least hesitation, that in the northern seas there are cuttle-fish of such a size that a whale is a pigmy in comprison with them. According to him these mollusks

are even of such prodigious dimensions, that when they rest motionless and half out of the water their bodies, which ages have covered with tufts of marine plants, have sometimes been taken for islands floating on the surface of the waves. It is even related in some old Scandinavian chronicles that sailors, deceived by this treacherous sign, have been known to anchor their ships on the flanks of these sea monsters, and land on their backs.

In those times of credulity, when the life of the sailor was so full of anxiety and terror, such facts were held to be quite authentic. Thus we see Olaus Magnus represent in one of his works a company of fishermen warming themselves and cooking their food at a glowing fire lighted on the body of one of these fantastic creatures; but the author has sketched

ANCIENT SEA-SERPENT: FACSIMILE FROM OLAUS MAGNUS.

a cetacean, not a polypus. Gesner, a zoologist of the middle ages, seems to believe such fables, for he reproduces the figure given by the learned Swede.

In the wide field of absurdities, Denis de Montfort displays credulity almost surpassing belief. He asserts, with a strong sense of conviction, that amid these great seas there are gigantic cuttle-fish, which, by means of their immense arms thickly covered with suckers, encircle ships and wreck them by plunging them into the abyss.

The naturalist even attributes the inexplicable disappearance of some of our ships to these formidable tenants of the ocean. He is so convinced of the truth of this fact, that he devotes one of the plates of Buffon's work to the exhibition of it. We there see a monstrous cuttle-fish with flaming eyes, the horrible arms of which are twined round the masts of a ship

of war, which they are tightly straining, while the animal looks as if it would devour it.

Trees themselves and plants, notwithstanding their calm and peaceful life passed in the broad light of day, have still their legendary history and their superstitious traditions. Some have become celebrated on account of the strange animated progeny which has been attributed to their leafy tops; others for their medical or cabalistic power. Rousseau complained that plants had been defiled by transforming them into disgusting remedies. We should be more correct in accusing those who attribute ridiculous virtues to them.

Several water-birds were long considered to be the produce of certain trees which grow in the marshes or borders of the sea. Our credulous

MONSTER ATTACKING A SHIP: FROM OLAUS MAGNUS.

forefathers were persuaded that there was one of these growing in Scotland or the Orkneys, the fruits of which, as large as eggs and having the same shape, opened at maturity and allowed each little duck to escape.

The vulgar would not have dared to doubt such a fact, for it was quoted by the most renowned scholars. Sebastian Munster attests the truth of it in his great work on " Cosmography."

"We find," he says, "trees in Scotland which produce a fruit enveloped in leaves, and when it drops into the water at a suitable time, it takes life and is turned into a live bird, which they call a tree-bird." In order to produce a still fuller proof, the writer himself gives a drawing of it! We see the young ducks opening the fruits in order to escape, whilst the newly-hatched ones swim in the water near at hand!

But the case becomes still more serious when we see the most learned

ornithologist of his time, Aldrovandus, propagate such ridiculous fables in his great work. He there maintains that sea-ducks are the product of certain trees, and he even represents these with the fruits which they bear. But by an unpardonable error for a naturalist, these pretended fruits from which the birds are issuing are only barnacles, crustaceans which live at the bottom of the sea, and with which he nevertheless overloads the miraculous boughs! After this one may well ask, which is the most censurable-the savant who transcribes such absurdities, or the public who believe in them?

Some plants have also become celebrated in the annals of charlatanism. There were plants that warded off evil, plants that caused injury, and magical plants. Antiquity possessed a long list of these, and we have not fallen behind it.

On one side we find a venerated plant, the St. John's-wort, which,

MARINE DRAGON: FROM MAGNUS.

gathered at the moment pointed out by the legend and hung over the outer door, preserved the house from lightning. On the other was a long list of cabalistic plants, among which the thorn-apple, ought to be mentioned in the first rank. This was the frightful poison which sorcerers made use of to intoxicate their senses.

But no magical herb ever enjoyed more celebrity than the mandrake, an indispensable ingredient in all the philtres employed by the old sorcerers. Antiquity had already conducted us to this dark road, by maintaining that the roots of this plant were of human form. To speak the truth, they in no way resemble a man, but the credulity of the learned and the astuteness of charlatanism have supplied what was requisite to give a certain amount of credulity to the opinions of the ancients. It was after they had rudely shaped themselves into human likeness that the magicians employed them in their incantations, and it was also under this form that the vulgar thought they were found at the foot of gibbets