The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1891-08-14
WHAT IS DEW3
Scientist Has Discovered that the Popu-
lar Fancy is Wrong.

n scientist mas discovered that the P0pu-
lar Fancy is Wrong.
An iconoclast in the form of an F. r.
8. has now demonstrated that dew is
not dew; that what we ignorantly call
dew is simply watery emulation of
the leaves or grass blades upon which
they rest. In support of this very I'M
attractive theory, inquisitive scientists
took some of the sweet things growing
in the sunlight and shut them up in air
tight receivers, to weigh the moisture
given out las them. BY thus prying
into the secret processes that nature
had hidden in the night they at last
discovered the unknown origin of the
dew.
They pointed out the fact that while
some plants will be dripping with
moisture, others Just beside them will
be found quite dry. They also noted
the fact that the circling globules,
decking with liquid pearl the bladed
grass" are arranged with mathemati-
cal accuracy at the termination of the
little veins that carry the juices of the
plants to the edges of the leaves.
Another damaging point made against
the old and favored theory is that these
so-calied dew-drops injudiciously APP
pear when no dew is wanted
The evidence has been conclusive,
and the dew must go, along with other
pretty fallacies OF course the tran
spiration of growing leaves has long
been understood, but it was not until
recently generally associated in the
mind with the gentle dewS of heaven
What past ages have been content to
admire as the condensed moisture of
the purple evening air we wise ones of
the Fin de steele" know to be. robbed
of its poetry and sparkle. just plain
juices that come out of the leaves.
knowing this. one would scarcely be
tempted, as was Bettini, Goethe's wor-
shipper, to go out at sunrise and return
literally ''bathed in dew"
However, though so sadly limited in
its sphere, there is yet admitted to be a
trace of the true dew with which we
are familiar; still, it is not the dew OF
which Burns speaks in
Some evening, sober, calm
Dropping dews and breathing balm.
o. no: again science steps in to put us
right. Dew never drops: it never falls
Dew rises as a vapor from the ground
There are numerous proofs of this, sim.
pie experiments suggested by those who
have investigated the matter.
Invert a plate or tray over the grass
or soil at sunset and leave it several
hours; upon examination it will be
found that there is more moisture inside
the plate than outside. The grass out
side may be perfectly dry, but that
Under the plate will be wet BY weigh.
ing small section of the soil, it has
been found that it actually loses weight
from the escape of the moisture into
the air. Some of this vapor, in rising
from the ground, is caught at once anG
condensed on the surface of the leaves
and grass near the ground But the rest
escapes into the higher air and may be
carried for miles before it is deposited
and condensed by cool surfaces into dew
These different kinds of dew are east
ly discerned. The moisture given out
by the leaves is always in drops around
their points or edges. The real dew,
which occasionally appears, forms only
in fine, pearly film, evenly distributed
over the surfaces of the leaves.
1t must be admitted, then, that the
dew can no longer claim an airy and
royal birth within the purple ether, but
rises like any plebeian, from 1.-THE earth
and things earthly" And so the little
dewdrops seem to stand
Within the pretty fiowrets eyes
Like tears that do their own disgrace bewail
1t is hard to see the pretty fancies
that paint the gray old world in freshier
tints so ruthlcssly destroyed Science
worthily attacks the pernicious fall
lacies of ignorance, but it also threat
ems to remove every trace of poetic
feeling and imagination in our too prac-
teal age.-St, Louis Post Dispatch.