As a matter of fact we use but a small portion of our lung capacity. Let any one experiment with himself and observe that after he has inspired the accustomed quantity of air he can continue for some time to inspire more air, and also when he has expired the accustomed quantity of air in normal breathing, he can continue to expire a great deal more air. Professor Jeffries Wyman, the famous lecturer on comparative anatomy at Harvard, used to tell us that we ordinarily inspired about twenty cubic inches of air but we could inspire one hundred cubic inches more by an effort; also that having expired the ordinary quantity we could expire a hundred cubic inches more and when the lungs were removed from the body, an extra hundred cubic inches could be forced from them. A surgeon friend tells me that many men live and work with the greater portion of both lungs diseased, and unable to perform their functions.
It would be an interesting inquiry to ascertain what other species of the animal kingdom has so wide a range as man. The dog evidently follows him in all altitudes and at all temperatures.
The group of insects to which the bees, wasps, and ants belong, have always been recognized as standing highest in intelligence among the invertebrates. In the great work of Dr. and Mrs. Peckham on wasps are shown manifestations of intelligence among the wasps that are simply startling, and the remarkable work of Miss Adele M. Fielde on the ants adds greatly to the evidences of their unique intelligence. The ant stands among the invertebrates much as man does among the vertebrates. One has only to state concretely that ants practise a division of labor; distinguish certain colors; estimate numbers; recognize friends and enemies; harvest seeds, and, it is said, raise them, hence are called agricultural ants; have insect cows and milk them; collect leaves which they chop up for the purpose of raising a kind of fungus upon which they live; organize raids and fight battles in masses; enslave other species; build covered ways and tunnels; and perform other acts of a similar nature.
Bearing these statements in mind it is an interesting fact that at altitudes in Arizona, where man finds it impossible to live except by fetching water from regions below, the ant, equally dependent on water, has survived on these high tablelands, and manages to raise huge colonies. In wandering over the mesa at Flagstaff, at an elevation of over 7,000 feet, the extreme dryness of the ground is indicated by long cracks which appear on the surface. Here, where hardly any insect is found except an occasional roaming butterfly, the ant has survived and is met with in great numbers. Even a rare solitary insect known as the velvet ant, and consequently without communal aid, is found chirping merrily amidst these arid surroundings.
In this connection, it is interesting to observe that creatures endowed with the highest intelligence, both vertebrate and invertebrate, manage to survive in considerable numbers in regions devoid of water. One conveys it to his habitations from lower levels, the other digs wells or manages to utilize the moisture from the roots of trees.
[XIV]
MY OWN WORK
Snow caps of solid carbonic acid gas, a planet cracked in a positively monomaniacal manner meteors ploughing tracks across its surface with such mathematical precision that they must have been educated to the performance, and so forth and so on, in hypotheses each more astounding than its predecessor, commend themselves to man, if only by such means he may escape the admission of anything approaching his kind.
Percival Lowell.
I am led to present these few brief memoranda of my own work in order to meet questions which would naturally be asked as to whether I had ever seen Mars through a telescope, and if so did I make out any markings or canals.