Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-12-14
OUTSIDE SKELETONS.
Two Members of the Animal King
dom That Are Very Peculiar.
THE OYSTER AND HIS SHELL.
Peculiar Construction of the Crab and
Some of His Habits.
GOSSIP OF WORLDS BEYOND THE sun
WRITTEN FOR THE p1spArcH.,

is generally considered good form" to wear
the skeleton on the inside of the body. But
the rule is not invariable. Certain members
of the family, some Of them most highly
esteemed in social circles, prefer to wear the
skeleton on the outside, after the fashion of
a mans winter ulster. Familiar examples
of these innovators of conventional style are
the oyster, the crab and the lobster. From
their standpoint of utility the skeleton is of
more service outside than inside; and lovers
of these succulent crustaceans find no fault
with the arrangement.
But nature makes no mistakes. Every
thing of living kind, from the whale to the
is adapted to It's nvironment-its
circumstances in life. The oyster, for
instance, as it lies in its little bed, would be
as helpless as baby if it were not for the
queer arrangement by which its skeleton
the equivalent of man's-is made in the
form of shell to protect it from hungry in
truders of the deep. Man is the only animal
that takes an unfair advantage of the oyster.
He burglariously breaks into the oysters
house and gobbles the esculent as robin
does worm. There are many lovers of
oysters that live in the water, but as they
have neither hammer nor knife they can
only Except some rascais that bore through
the shellD gaze at the solid entrenchment
with hungry look and keen-eyed appetite.
BORN ONLY TO DIE.
The oysters shell is a strange formation.
In its infancy the animal has no shell and
is endowed with tolerably good swimming
apparatus. The young are Matched within
the shell and at spawning time the water at
the oyster banks is discolored like cloud
with the myraids of infantile oysters ex-
PEELED from the parent shells. If all these
young ones could live the coasts would soon
be blockaded with oysters, but most of them
are either devoured by fishes or destroyed
by failure to find suitable lodgment. When
the oyster gets old enough to think about
settling down and enjoying life the swim
ming apparatus begins to disappear and the
construction of the shell ulster commences.
The animal makes its shell in regular lay
ers. The extreme outside layer, as you may
have noticed, is the smallest of all. 1t is
is made under and put in place BY pressure
from the next. This process continues until
the shell is complete.
The oyster cannot see or hear, so far as we
know. 1t doesn't need to. Neither has it a
head, though 1t has mouth; and it also has
a heart and some other necessary internal
The name OF the brave in
divIduai who first swallowed an oyster is
lost in the maze OF antiquity. We know
that the Romans cultivated oysters in arti-
fetal beds as oystermen now do; but the
favorite bivaive was probably known and
enjoyed ages before the time of Romulus.
1t is not improbable, indeed, that the same
curiosity which led Adam and Eve to try
the forbidden apple. also led them to tackle
the mysterious oyster.
ODD NOTIONS OF THE CRAB.
The crab is sort of distant relative of
the oyster. having similar ideas about the
etiquette of skeleton wearing. 1t is one of
the strongest Of marine animals. 1t has
FIVE pairs of legs, its eyes are on the ends of
foot stalks, and for dining purposes it Is
provided with three pairs of jaws. Fortu-
nately nature has not added the power of
speech to this wealth of jaw. "a 'F'
The variety known as the hermit crab is
the quaintest of all. This class are provided
upper side. The object OF this economyis is
not easily understood, unless it be to make
the animal industrious. Anyway, the ne
cessity for an under covering leads the
hermit crab to hustle on its own account,
and in order to makeup for natures seeming
stinginess it looks about for a dlsused she'll
OF some kind and attaches its body thereto
by the tail. This stolen suit 1t drags about,
and if there Is misft the fastidious little
animal will cast the shell aside and try other
ones until its dudish taste is thoroughly salts.
fed.
THREE ASTRONOMICAL QUESTIONS.
If you will kindly omit three questions
he Of tha
swer almost any reasonable inquiry relative
to the mysteries OF the universe. The three
fundamental things which the astronomer
does not pretend to know are: First, how
was the universe begun? Second, how big
is it? Third, what will be its end? The
astronomer can tell you exactly how far away
from US are the moon, the sun and the
planets; and he can do more wonderful
things than that. He can tell you how
stars and planets are made, what they are
made of and how much they weigh.
Our knowledge about world-making is of
comparatively recent date, although some
astronomers in the days of our grandfathers
were pretty we'll satisfied that the stars are
evolved in some way from the vast expanse
of nebulous matter which the telescope re-
veals in various parts of the heavens. 1t is
but recently, however, that astronomers have
as to the manner in which nebulus raw ma
terial is worked up to the stage of a compact
body, spherical in form when completed. 1t
would take too much space to herein satis-
factorily explain the process of star-making,
as astronomers believe it to be, but the glst
of the explanation is here:
PROCESS OF sTAR-MAKING.
Bodies of nebulous matter that float in
the depths of space-probably cast-off re-
mains of dead and dissipated worlds-are
gradually drawn together by the attraction
of gravitation. As they draw near they
acquire a rotary or spiral motion,
and the process of attraction, with this mo-
tion, leads to concentration of the particles,
to condensation, and eventually to solidif-
cation. One OF the most interesting of re-
cent astronomical discoveries is that of
spiral nebula. y The conclusion is that in
the spirals the observer sees the very begin
ming OF the work Of star-makiug.
We know. as nearly as we can know any
thing concerning the heavens. that the mat
ter OF which worlds are made cannot be lost.
We know that if world should actually
burn up, as postage stamp would be con-
sumed in blazing CRATE, not one particle of
the matter composing that world would be
lost. Combustion would simply cause
changes, and every ounce of con.
stituent parts would be good material out of
which to make new world.
MATERIALS OF THE STARS.
Can you imagine anything of mans in
vention more wonderful than an instrument
that will distinguish the elements of SUBJ
stance at distance of more than 1000. .O0O.-
900, 900 miles? Such an instrument is in
nse and its resuits are practic,ll,. M car,o;r