The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1872-05-17

COCoANUr OIL.

the tree abounds. II yields a delicious
food, q nutritious drink, a rich oil, and
fibers which are manufactured into
thread, twine, ropes, and all kinds Of
strong useful cordage.
Boiling the pulp breaks open the
cells. As the oil il liberated il rises to
be skinned of. A few years ago the
Dutch Government ordered census Of
the cocoanut trees in Java and Ma
deira, which footed up twenty millions,
being an average Of three TO every ma
tive inhabitant.
Vast quantities OF the oil are burned
in lamps throughout the whole Indian
Archipelago. A tumbler half filled
with water has oil poured in to the
brim. Two lighted sticks are the wicks,
which burn brilliantly. Every native
glories in a display of lamps in the
house and about the grounds at the APP
proach of night.
When first taken out of the boiling
pot the oil has q rich flavor, but soon
becomes rancid. So copious is the sup
ply, however, it can always be had fresh
and sweet for the table. Like olive oil
in Syria, it is butter, lard or oil, accord.
ing to circumstances, in cookery. Soap
is made with it, lamps supplied, leather
dressed, and cosmetics are fabricated
for identifying the homely faces of
women.
ANTIQUITY OF BIRDS.
Those most competent to give an
opinion, supported by the disclosures of
the rocks, which are records in the
great volume of nature more enduring
than public libraries, are satisfied that
the first birds on earth were waders,
and not organized for flying. They
were very large, too, and their legs
long, fitting them for searching for food
on the margins of muddy lakes and
lacustrine shores. This is inferred from
the foot-marks of those monster bipeds
found on the red sandstone in the Con-
necticut valley. The stride from one
step to another shows they were tall,
ind known in geological science as
Q, 1ithiehnites. There may have been
Others on q smaller scale of construc-
ton. But they were extinct, probably,
or disappearing with the advent of
birds and wings. The ostrich, ETC., are
tolerable representatives of the non
flying birds of old red sandstone ages,
both in their stilted legs, toes, resem-
bling ornithichnite tracks, and their
undeveloped pectoral stumps, which
are merely the anatomical beginning of
wings exhibited in higher families, their
successors.
When birds appeared that could soar
in the air an internal modification of
structure came with expanded wings,
and the weight and exterior form were
essentially changed and diminished in
size. The condor is probably a type of
the most gigantic of flying birds whose
appearance belongs to the tertiary for
nation of the globe.
BEING DEVELOPED.
Education is simply exercising the
brain-vsrying the movements so that
each new impression produces new &C.
ton or q repetition of them in the or
gan by which the mind is manifested.
Without such efforts the individual re-
mains ignorant. In other words, there
is no progress, which simply means
there is no mental development. A
capacity for intellectual progression de-
ponds on the volume of brain matter
and the size of ganglionic convolutions.
The brain of q monkey, or a sheep, for
example, in their form are the same as
in man, but the volume is very far less.
Certain prominence, arrangement Of
ventricals, and the origin of special
nerves of sense are not essentially diff
ferent.
Mental capacity, therefore, as exhib
tied in man, is due to the amount of
cerebral matter rather than to the form
of the hemispheres, or the precise
shape of ganglionic arrangements within
the skull, otherwise ali the lower ami.
mails would be susceptible to impress
sions that would develop progress in
thought. They cannot be Intellectually
elevated because deficient in that ele. |
ment-a great amount of which gives |
man his commanding position, rendering |
it really doubtful in the estimation Of |
some philosophers whether men are
animals.
From reptiles to humanity the brain
presents always the same original pat
tern, but increasing in volume till it at
tains it maximum in the annals of in |
tellectual fame. 1t is favorite theory |
with few that the man of celebrity q |
million of years hence will be infinitely |
superior to the stock from which he |
emanates in our day. Constant progress |
will give q mental development hardly |
inferior to the common notion Of the |
intelligence of angels.
CELESTIAL SPACE.
When astronomers assure us that the
diameter of the circles which the PLAN |
cts describe in their perpetual revolu-
tons round the sun, are millions upon
millions Of miles-how is it possible for
the mind to take in an idea of the
space or room in which such globes as
those of eighty and ninety thousands OF
miles in diameter are running thirty
times more rapidly thsn cannon ball,