The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-03-01
IN AM ANcIENr LAND.


To that same mystic river. From the
OF those unfathomed bowers OF beauty.
The Strains of lovelt music 1t is night
And now the eastern moon has climbed
Flooding tie ancient land. LOokl Far
The signing of the waters, in the. niche
Robed in the flowing garments of her
AS m t1tio and mute as though she
A marble caryatid. her white arms
Upraised as If in prayer. The music
And on the tier of stairs. in breathiess
Ascends the hurrying figure of a youth.
He reaches now the palace gates; he
Up Though the splendid halls and reach
The aicove of his love. falls at her feet
Just as the roaming clouds Grace the
And daTken all those white Assyrian
Harry Randolph Blythe. in the Boston
Transcript.
The Work of Microbes.
Few persons can realize at first what
an immense number and variety OF
microbes there are. not only around
U.S. in air and dust and water. but also
in US and on US and in and on every
living thing. The work, the huge sys-
tenn of chemical change and the clrcu-
lation of the elements. carbon oxygen
hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur, Whlcn
they carry on is incessant, varied and
complex. Those five elements are the
main and essential constituents or ali
living things. Surprising there were
no microbes, there would be no pure
faction, no breaking down Of the dead
bodies of animals and plants Whlch
were once alive into gas and sub
stances soluble in water.
They, by a series of steps In Whlcn
different kinds of bacteria or microbes
are successfully concerned, convert the
proteids and the facts and sugars OF
dead plants and animals into less clad
crate bodies organic acids, aromatic
bodies, and other compounds (some
highly poisonous to man), and at last,
when what were highly complex com
binations of hundreds of atoms IN
each molecule have been reduced by
the action of first one and Their of an.
other kind of microbe into compare
lively simple substances of twenty or
thirty atoms to the molecule, the coup
de grace is given by certain special
microbes. which convert these later
compounds into still simpler combi-
nations, namely, ammonia and nj
trates, which are fairly stable, so that
the whole elaborate chemical fabric or
living matter in a few hours or days
after death is broken down until 1t
reaches the stable mineral condi-
ton, practically carbonate and nitrate
of ANN Onia-Smel SaltSi
If there were no microbes this would
never occur. The earth would be cum
bered with the dead bodies of past
generations of animals and plants-un-
decomposed And very soon all the
organic elements. all the carbon and
nitrogen, if not all the hydrogen and
oxygen, on the face of the earth would
be fixed in these corpses and the green
plants would perish from the whole
world for want of sustenance. For 1t
is the green plants which feed on, and
absolutely must have as their food, the
carbonic acid, ammonia and nitrates,
into which the microbes resolve all liv-
ing things when dead. 1t is the green
plants which from those simple COM
pounds build up again the more COM
pick molecules, the sugars, fats, albu-
mems and proteids, and provide for the
nourishment and increase of the most
complex of all-the living matter hid
den in protoplasm.-Sir Ray Lankes-
ter, in the London Telegraph.
National Decadence.
Mr.. w. H. S. Jones. whose theories
regarding the malarial origin of the
decadence of Greece were received
with considerable GOODNESS by histori-
subject and has also extended his
speculation to Rome. He believes that
malaria did not exist in early times in
Greece, at least in any notable degree.
He has found only two doubtful ref
erences to 1t before 500 B. c. In At
tica at the end of the fifth century it
began to be prevalent. Aristophanes
refers to 1t, and the Peloponnesian
wars served to spread it through the
country.
After about 400 B. C. Greek medi-
cine went to pieces, and, according to
DR.. Wilmington, who discusses Greek
therapeutics in Mr.. Jones' book, this
breakdown may have resulted from
the prevalence of malaria, with which
the Esculapians of the period were
quite unable to cope, as they had no
Inf al q
upon many populous regions, and as
the cases increased the omnipresent
anopheline mosquitoes became Lniver-
sally infected. The hopeless condition
of the Greeks just prior to the Roman
conquest was. in Mr.. Jones opinion,
certainly in part due to the grip ma
| laria had on the country. 1t is true,
almost without exception, that the
permanent inhabitants of a region
badly infected with malaria are de-
graded, both mentally and physically.
Dickens description of Eden and its
inhabitants was no whit exaggerated.
In the light of our recently ac-
| Quired knowledge regarding the wide
spread partnership between insects and
germs, it can hardly be doubted that
disease has played part In the NIL
grafton of peoples and the decline of
| empires. Many uninhabited wastes of
the present Biographies contain the
ruins of past civilizations. Others, rich
and highly fertile, are now untenanted
| by man, and apparently always have
been, because of some deadly insect
| Indigenous to the region. Still others,
lately successfully invaded by the white
settler. resisted all his efforts at coloni-
cation until the Sanitarian came to his
aid with insecticides and germicides. In
view of these facts, Mr.. Jones' theories
seem by no means improbable, al
though it can hardly be said that he
has proved them.-New York Sun.
Typewriters in Manila.
Typewriters, or marquinas de escri-
Dir, as the Fflipinos say, were novelties