SCIENCE READINGS

Science includes many fields. Physics, chemistry, botany, zoölogy, astronomy, mechanics, geography - these are only a few of its subdivisions. All of us are interested in learning more about the laws of nature; about flowers, birds, stars, new inventions, foreign lands, and strange peoples, all of which are included in the domain of science. We are under heavy obligation to the writers who have chosen to interpret these subjects to us in an interesting manner. A few of these outstanding authors are Thoreau, Burroughs, Jordan, Audubon, Todd, Gray, Joaquin Miller, and Stefansson, on this side of the Atlantic; the Frenchman, Henri Fabre; the British writers, Tyndall, Ball, Huxley-the list is too long to complete here.

The following group of extracts will serve to show a bit of the variety of the fine literature that has for its theme the wonderful works of Nature. Any library will place at your command interesting books that deal with those fields of science which appeal most to your liking. May your reading therein be broad and varied.

THE STORY OF A SALMON

BY DAVID STARR JORDAN

David Starr Jordan (1851- ) is an American educator and author. He has long been connected with our leading universities either as a teacher of science or as an administrator. He was president of the University of Indiana and also of Leland Stanford University. His special field of science is the study of fish. He was Assistant U. S. Fish Commissioner for a number of years, and also U. S. Commissioner in charge of fur-seal and salmon investigations. The following story is the life history of a salmon, a subject Dr. Jordan is peculiarly capable of treating scientifically and entertainingly.

FLOWING down from the southwest slope of Mount

Tacoma is a cold, clear river, fed by the melting snows of the mountain. Madly it hastens down over white cascades and beds of shining sands, through birch woods and 5 belts of dark firs, to mingle its waters at last with those of the great Columbia. This river is the Cowlitz; and on its bottom, not many years ago, there lay half buried in the sand a number of little orange-colored globules, each about as large as a pea. These were not much in themselves, but great in their possibilities. In the waters above them little suckers and chubs and prickly sculpins strained their mouths to draw these globules from the sand, and viciouslooking crawfishes picked them up with their blundering hands and examined them with their telescopic eyes. But 15 one, at least, of the globules escaped their curiosity, else this story would not be worth telling.

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(Science Sketches by David Starr Jordan, A. C. McClurg & Co., Publishers.)

a

The sun shone down on it through the clear water, and the ripples of the Cowlitz said over it their incantations, and in it at last awoke a living being. It was a fish, curious little fellow, not half an inch long, with great, staring eyes, which made almost half its length, and with a s body so transparent that he could not cast a shadow. He was a little salmon, a very little salmon; but the water was good, and there were flies and worms and little living creatures in abundance for him to eat, and he soon became a larger salmon. Then there were many more little salmon 10 with him, some larger and some smaller, and they all had a merry time. Those who had been born soonest and had grown largest used to chase the others around and bite off their tails, or, still better, take them by the heads and swallow them whole; for, said they, "Even young salmon 15 are good eating." "Heads I win, tails you lose" was their motto. Thus, what was once two small salmon became united into a single larger one, and the process of "addition, division, and silence" still went on.

By and by, when all the salmon were too large to be 20 swallowed, they began to grow restless. They saw that the water rushing by seemed to be in a great hurry to get somewhere, and it was somehow suggested that its hurry was caused by something good to eat at the other end of its course. Then they all started down the stream, salmon 25 fashion, which fashion is to get into the current, head upstream, and thus to drift backward as the river sweeps along.

Down the Cowlitz River the salmon went for a day and a night, finding much to interest them which we need not 30 know. At last they began to grow hungry; and coming near the shore, they saw an angleworm of rare size and

beauty floating in an eddy of the stream. Quick as thought one of them opened his mouth, which was well filled with teeth of different sizes, and put it around the angleworm. Quicker still he felt a sharp pain in his gills, followed by a 5 smothering sensation, and in an instant his comrades saw him rise straight into the air. This was nothing new to them; for they often leaped out of the water in their games of hide and seek, but only to come down again with a loud splash not far from where they went out. But this one To never came back, and the others went on their course wondering.

At last they came to where the Cowlitz and the Columbia join, and they were almost lost for a time; for they could find no shores, and the bottom and the top of the water 15 were so far apart. Here they saw other and far larger salmon in the deepest part of the current, turning neither to the right nor to the left, but swimming right on upstream just as rapidly as they could. And these great salmon would not stop for them, and would not lie and float with 20 the current. They had no time to talk, even in the simple sign language by which fishes express their ideas, and no time to eat. They had important work before them, and the time was short. So they went on up the river, keeping their great purposes to themselves; and our little salmon 25 and his friends from the Cowlitz drifted down the stream.

By and by the water began to change. It grew denser, and no longer flowed rapidly along; and twice a day it used to turn about and flow the other way. Then the shores disappeared, and the water began to have a different and 30 peculiar flavor, a flavor which seemed to the salmon much richer and more inspiring than the glacier water of their native Cowlitz. There were many curious things to