8. The almond (Amygdalus) grows on a tree about twenty or thirty feet high, a native of the East and of Africa, but has now become completely wild in the whole south of Europe. It is planted for the sake of its beautiful flowers, which resemble those of the peach in form and color. The wood of the tree is hard and of a reddish color, and is used by cabinet-makers. But it is chiefly valued on account of the kernel of its fruit, well known by the name of almonds, an important article of commerce. It is mentioned in the Old Testament, and appears to have been cultivated from a very early period. It was introduced into Britain as a fruit-tree before the middle of the sixteenth century, but it is only in the most favored situations in the south of England that it ever produces good fruit. It is successfully cultivated in southern California. Almonds are either sweet or bitter. The bitter appear to be the original kind, and the sweet to be an accidental variety, perpetuated and improved by cultivation.
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| Almond. | Life-size. | COPYRIGHT 1899, NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO. |
| Chestnut. | Filbert. | Pecan. |
| Brazil nut. | Peanut. | Hickory nut. |
| English walnut. | ||
THE BIRTH OF ATHENA.
BY EMILY C. THOMPSON.
IT IS a study, interesting to some of our modern scholars, to fathom the depths of obscurity and bring up from the hidden past, from the minds of men long departed, their conceptions of the beings whom they worshiped. Still more interesting is it to surmise and conjecture the origin of these marvelous beings. Charming books have been written upon these subjects and they prove fascinating to the reader who, with vivid imagination, can follow the theories of each author and the long fantastic proofs. The gods of the Greeks, those anthropomorphic beings, throbbing with life, radiant with beauty, the ideal of all that is fair and lovely, and yet the prey of human passions and desires, are a never-ending source of delight to classical students.
All theories start from the supposition that the gods had their origin either in physical or mental phenomena. Many try to trace out the effect which the world of nature with its wonders, its beauties, and its fearful realities, has had upon the savage and primitive mind, and how from these impressions arose the main gods of the Greek religion. Of course there are scholars on the other side who will not admit that there is any physical aspect of any of the gods. So the conflict rages, exciting, even absorbing, but inconclusive. The method of proof must depend largely upon the actual remains of that civilization which are still left for us in the literature and art of that people. The Greeks had an established theogony very early, as we know by the "Theogony" of Hesiod, which still remains. In this the parents of the gods were traced far back, to Gaia, the earth, and Uranus, the sky, who themselves were sprung from Chaos. A minute relationship was figured out between all their deities which is to us almost too perplexing to follow. Many names in this theogony are names taken from nature, as those above, and so the scholars get a basis for their investigations.