Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-11-23
TWO ODD MAMMALS.
Facts About the Bat That Flies and
the Whale That Swims.
LIFE ON THE PLANET MARS.
Astronomers Believe Higher Intelligence
Prevails There.
ELECTRICITY AMONG THE CLOUDS
WRITTEN FOR THE DISPATCH.

Properly speaking it has no wings, never
thelessits flying appurtenance is more nearly
perfect than that of any bird. 1t flies with
wonderful rapidity. darts about with such
quickness that it is difficult for the eye to
follow it, and its senses of touch and smell
are something marvellous. In watching Its
rapid and eccentric flight in the twilight
you have, no doubt, thought this strange
animal was a bird. But its bird-like ap-
pearance ends with its ability to fly. Its
young are born and nurtured just as are
puppies and kittens.
This strange flying animal is the bat. In
one of Esop's fables it is related that the
beasts and the birds once engaged in battle,
and the bat hovered above, changing from
one side to the other al the chances Of victory
changed. For this treachery the bat was
doomed to the queer life he now leads, that
of an apparent bird but a real mammalian
animal. The structure of the bat is very
| peculiar. An eminent naturalist says: IF
| the fingers of man were to be drawn out
like wire to about four feet in length, thin
membrane to extend from finger to finger,
and another membrane to fall from the little
finger to the ankles, he would make very
tolerable bat" Yes, the whole skeleton of
the bat is very similar to that of man with
the exception of the great elongatlon OF
what we now call the arms and hands.
HOW HE GETS A LIVING.
When you see the bat darting about in the
| evening he is taking his supper. He lives,
as the swallow does, on insects In the air,
and, although his sight is very poor, his
touch and smell are SO sensitive that he has
no difficulty in catching his prey, even when
d Ub., fharo
on the bat ceases to fly about in search of food.
| He doesn't need to. He seeks we'll shelf
cred nook, where he is not likely to be dis
turbed, and quietly takes nap till next
| spring.
Somewhat analogous to the bat, the man.
malian of the air, is the whale, the mann
malian Of the sea. The whale is no more a
fish than the bat is bird. Its young are born
like the kittens and puppies. but only one
at time. The young whale takes its nour-
ishment at its mothers breast, just as the
human baby does, and it is just as carefully
watched and guarded by its parents. AL
| though whales grow TO enormous size-some-
times so and even 80 feet long-the throat is
SO small that the animal couldn't swallow
bite as large as tea biscuit. (This applies
| to the common whale; the spermaceti has
mouth large enough to swallow man,
| The whalebone which dressmakers and 9TH
: ers find so useful is what may be called the
| Jaw of the common whale. 1t has no teeth
| and it lives on animalcuia-little animals
| that float in great numbers on the surface
| of the water. The whalebone is used as
sieve through which this food is strained.
| Therefore the whale which kindly took
| Jonah sin out of the wet" must have been a
spermaceti, which has big throat and jaws
| with about 100 teeth in each.
JUPITER AND MARS.
| If you will look southwark about 8
| O'Clock one of these clear November even
| ings, you will see, about half way up from
the horizon. two OF the earth's brothers.
| They are apparently very near to each other
| now, and they are the most interesting OBJ
| jects in the sky. The larger of the two is
the earth's biggest brother, Jupiter; and the
smaller is Mars, the little warlike member of
the family. AS we see these two brothers
of the earth they seem to be near enough to
pass the compliments of the evening. But
they are more than 40O, 900, 900 miles apart
When Mars is at his nearest point to the
earth he is about 100000 miles
| away. But Jupiter is distant about 475-
900, 900 miles. Jupiter is immensely larger
than Mars, and this accounts for his appear.
ing larger as we see him, even though he is
so much farther from us.
But there are other aspects of these two
brothers of the earth that are of most ab-
sorbing interest to us. Astronomers agree
| that Mars has reached a stage OF evolution
very nearly parallel with that of the earth.
In fact it is thought by some of our best
authorities that animal life not only exists
| in Mars but that it has reached point in
| advance of us, and that beings like our
selves, though far beyond US in intelligence,
may now inhabit the ruddv planet that we
see in the sky BY the side of Jupiter. OF
course We don't positively know that this is
SO; but we do know that Mars is we'll sup
| piled with water, an atmosphere supposed
to be about as dense as our own. and that all
the conditions of the planet are apparently
favorable to life practically as we have it
here.
ENGINEERING ON MARS.
Indeed, the most famous of all our astron-
omers, so far as the study OF Mars is con-
cerned, has discovered what he calls i'm
mense canals-waterways 200 or 800 miles
wide, and as straight as surveyor could
make them. 1t is this astronomers belief
that these canals are artificial, and that the
advanced intelligence of the people up there
| in the sky has enabled them to accomplish
| engineering feats that are tar beyond our
comprehension. Possibly while you are
| gazing at Mars the astronomer there NAV
be looking ut the earth with instruments as
| far superior to our telescope in far-seeing
capacity as the latter are to the naked eye.
On the other hand We know to a certainty
that Jupiter has not yet reached the stage
of evolution which makes the existence of
animal and vegetable life possible. Jupiter
is now, as all astronomers agree, in the same
condition that the earth reached ages ago
when 1t was condenslng, contracting and
cooling on the surface. The time will come,
probably millions of years hence, when
Jupiter will reach stage that may fit it for
forms of life similar to what we see on the
earth, counterpart of what astronomers be-
lieve to exist on Mars The Bible tells US
that nothing was created in vain, and scien-
tifc knowledge leads us by analogy to the
conclusion that those two brothers of the
earth, far away in the southern sky, were
made ior purpose similar to that for which
the earth was created.
CAUSES OF LIGHTNING.
Within the last few years electricity has
been employed for SO many useful purposes
that some knowledge OF its action is essen
tlal to the common education of every per-
son. The ancients generally supposed that
the lightning and the thunder were mani
iestations of the Almighty's displeasure.
All saVages still believe this. Even in the
early wears OF this century there was hardly
anything known about the causes of
electrical manifestations. Our grandtathers
thought the northern lights" or aurora
boreaiis, were caused by the sun shining on
the great ice masses at the North Pole. II
we could have asked one of those old gentle
men why the lightning streaks appeared in
the sky during thunder storm, ne would
probably have answered: II give it up"
D,,A