The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-06-28
cUR1os1T1Es OF SCIENCE.
INTERCOURSE wITH..PLANETs.

In the wild flights of fancy the
Thought has been excited in regard to
the possibility of knowing more of
these great moving planetary bodies in
the armament than has already been
chronicled.
Certain it is there is mighty gulf
between them and this world that can
never be crossed, as balloons cannot
rise enough to get beyond the attrac-
ton of the earth to pass into the sphere
it. Therefore, if anything more def
mite is known respecting their physical
aspect, composition, products, inhabit-
ants, or other particulars illustrative of
their true character, it must beacquired
through telescope explorations.
Since there is really no apparent
power of those instruments, the larger
the object glass and the more perfect
the lenses, all of which are constantly
improving and tending toward degree
of perfection not yet attained, 1T is
reasonable to suppose if there are large
structures, extensive forests, broad
rivers, or living beings in the plants,
future students of astronomy will dis
cover IL ttthlliS d vel uoAioW
view of Creative Wisdom to settle
down with the contracted notion that
unnumbered planetary bodies, by the
side of which our earth is an H.
significant speck, were only made to
to twinkle in the sky for the gratifica-
ton of few star-gazers, bats and owls.
BURROwING ANIMALS AND INSECTS.
An astonishing number and variety
of solitary worms, slugs, beetles, ETC.,
moles, mice, squirrels, including in
Vulnerable earth-diggers, have their
homes from few inches to a foot or
two below the surface of the ground.
Apparently to our short sighted COM
prehension to natures grand system of
economy, they are useless, needless,
and pestiferous annOyances.
A true philosopher, however, sees in
their habits, their instructive regularity
of action, instrumentalities for bringing
about important results on which OPP
erations of the most complicated kind
are essentially depending. They are
each in their own individual sphere of
activity preparing the soil for sustain
ing higher forms of vegetable and ami
NAL life. They pillow burrows, make
openings for the iDgress of water for
fertilizing roots, and, in short, the sur
face of the earth in temperate zones
would, without their incessant toll, be-
come so hard, compact and imperviOus,
serious consequences would be ap-
parent, which civilized man, with all
his resources in art, could not accom-
plish so we'll and so perfectly as those
insignificant and quiet operators.
There is harmony-an adjustment
of means to ends-in the arrangement
of natures scheme of doing all for the
best, which challenges our admiration
while it astOnishes the prOfoundest
thinker.
BLOODSUCKERS.
Leeches are familiar things to those
who have been much under medical
treatment for acute diseases within
the last thirty years. They seem to be
going out of fashion even among
fashionable doctors, it being pretty well
established that the punctures made by
their saw-teeth, by which piece of
the wall of bloOdvessel is taken out
sometimes produces an anomalous in
harnmatiOn as bad as the malady for
which they are prescribed.
Mr.. BrickmOre, a scientific traveller,
passed through section of country
near Sumatra where leeches was so eX-
cessively numerous as to be q terror.
They even dropped down from trees on
passing animals and men, depicting
them rapidly, and if not quickly re-
moved would drain all the blood in the
body.
His horses became striped with their
own blood. A dog looked as if he had
been run through a pool of clOtted
gore. OF all the pests in the tropics,
whether mosquitoes, black flies, ants,
snakes or viler velmin, these leeches
are the most annoying and disgusting.
How they were ever introduced into
the practice of medicine is just as sur
prising as some other absurdities sane
toned by science in an age of common
sense and cultivated intelligence, and
by turning to books of authority it
will be found that pulverized skull
bones of an executed criminal, and
very much later, even in modern
times, Observation-Disclosures in
sects-were a famous remedy in indis-
pensatoIies published under scientific
authority.