Madam How and Lady Why; Or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children

at chalk is? I suppose you

That

ng in the help of a very great

gi

ou a very curious story about him and his you

er Synthesis. As for who their father and mother were, there have been so many disputes on that question that I think children may leave it alone for the present. For my part, I believe that t

y fitted, set both of them their work. Analysis was to take to pieces everything he found, and find out how it was made. Synthesis was to put

Analysis had taken them completely apart. And, my child, if Synthesis had obeyed that rule of his good

poor Analysis never grew at all, but remained dwarfed, and stupid, and all but blind for want of light; while Synthesis, and all the hasty conceited people who followed him, grew stout and strong and tyrannous, and overspread the whole world, and ruled it at their will. But the fault of all the work of Synthesis was just this: that it would not work. His watches would not keep time, his soldiers would not fight, his ships would not sail, his houses would not keep the rain out. So every time he failed in his work he had to go to poor Analysis in his dun

ey would do just as well as natural ones. If his dolls would not work, he put strings and wires behind them to make them nod their heads and open their eyes, and then persuaded other people, and perhaps half-persuaded himself, that they were alive. I

way. Great was the hue and cry after him; and terribly would he have been punished had he been caught. But, lo and behold, folks had grown so disgusted with Synthesis that they began to take the part of Analysis. Poor men hid him in their cottages, and scholars in their studies. And when war arose about him,-and terrible wars did arise,-good kings, wise statesmen, gallant soldiers, spent their treasure and their lives in fighting for him. All honest fol

tongue and mind his own business, and the next that he has no business at all to mind, till he has got into such a poor way that some folks fancy he will die, and are actually digging his grave already, and composing his epitaph. But they are trying to wear the

o much prosperity, as his brother was before him; in which case he too will have his fall; an

to be conceited, and to fancy that he knows everything, when really he knows nothing, and can never know anything, but only knows about things, which is a very different matter. Indeed, nowadays he pretends that he can teach his old grandmother, Madam How,

ch all other things are made; and some Way of all ways (which he calls force), by which all things are made: but when he boasts in that way, old Madam How smiles, and says, "My child, before you can say that, you must remember a hundred things which you are forgetting, and learn a hundred thousand things which you do not know;" and then she just puts her hand over his eyes, and Master Analysis begins groping in the dark, and ta

d

e cannot explain to you at all. When he meddles with them, he always ends like the man who killed his goose to get the golden eggs. He has to kill his goose, or hi

ever, and very patient too, the more honour to him) take every atom of sugar out of the flour with which it had got mixed, and every atom of brown colour which had got out of the plums and currants into the body of the pudding, and then, for aught I know, put the colouring matter back again into the plums and currants;

is apt to forget the cloth, and indeed the cook likewise. No doubt he can analyse

an thei

h folks have lost sight of nowadays, and do not seem likely to get sight of again for a few hundred years. So

tell us a great deal. And we may trust what he s

h

t together again. You would have analysed the watch wrongly. But if a watchmaker took it to pieces then any other watchmaker could put it together again to go as well as ever, because they bot

ieces so that his brother Synthesis can put it together

And then his brother Synthesis can put them together again, so that they shall become chalk, as they were before. He can do that very ne

ful tale hangs thereby. But first we will let Analys

halk is carbo

carbonate of

d carbo

hat i

certain metal,

do yo

mixed with oxygen gas; and slacked

al. What is a me

oxygen gas?

very soon. He does not seem

s the matter itself. He will tell you wonderful things about oxygen gas-how the air is full of it, the water full of it, every living thing full of

e ever

Meanwhile he has a right to find out if he

cid is. He can tell you t

at is

dy k

s stupid Analysi

what comes out of your mouth is carbonic acid; and that, if your breath comes on a bit of slacked lime, it will begin to turn it back into the chalk from which it was made; and that, if your breath comes on

t is very

ny things are carbon. A diamond is carbon; and so is blacklead;

that a diamond and cha

e

t be a very clumsy one, if he can find out

remember, too, that he is not like you, who have some one else to teach you. He has had to teach himself, and find out for himself, and make his own tools, and work in the dark besi

how did

ond when burnt turned almost entirely into carbonic acid and water, as blacklead and charcoal do; and more, that each of them turned into the same quantity of carbonic a

them look and f

th him: remember that though he cannot see through a milestone yet, he can see farther into one than his neighbours. Indeed his neighbours cannot see into

hree things, calcium, oxygen, and carbon; and that therefore its mark is CaC

thesis cannot take all this chalk t

hat is that

h as we often find in the g

en told you:-a live sea-egg, covered with pri

t spend ages in taking it to pieces, before he found out how it was made. And-we are lucky to-day, for this lower c

something like a

in the old seas, even as far back as the time when the rocks of the Welsh mountains were soft mud; as you will know when you read that great book of Sir Roderick Murchison's, Siluria. But as the ages rolled on, they got fewer and fewer, these Terebratul?; and now there are hardly any of them left; o

, Master Synthesis would not be likely to put it together again; much

at was

and making, as it grew, its shell to live in. Synthesis has not found ou

ld be no harm

hing they fancy. Even if they fail, they will

ther Analysis can perfectly take to pieces, nor Synthesis put together again. It is made of dead organisms, that is, things which have been made by living creatures. If you washed and b

e, it is said, forty thousand of them in a bit of chalk an inch every way. In numbers past counting, some whole, some broken, some ground to the finest powder, they make up vast masses of Eng

they get int

because there are sea-shells in it. Besides, we find little atomies exactly like these

ittle delicate creatures would have been ground into powder-or rather into paste. Therefore learned men soon made up their minds that th

he works in these days, now that he has got free and well fed;-worth thinking over, I s

old Dr. Turton was writing his book on British shells at Bideford, to call them Nautili, because their shells were like Nauti

m How's works. They have neither mouth nor stomach, eyes nor limbs. They are mere live bags full of jelly, which can take almost any shape they like, and thrust out arms-or what serve for arms-through the holes in their shells, and then contract them into themselves again, as this Globigerina does. What they feed on, how they grow, how they make their exquisitely-formed shells, w

man, called D'Orbigny, just thirty years ago, told the world how he had found many beautiful fresh kinds; and, more strange

o all who love science, and honour genius and virtue,-found in the ?gean Sea "a bed of chalk,

t are P

ht-whales suck them in tens of thousands into the great whalebone net which fringes their jaws. Here are drawings of them. 1.

ficers who surveyed the bottom of the great Atlantic Ocean before laying down

c floor was made up almost entirely of just the same atomies as make up our chalk, especially globigerinas; that, in fact, a vast bed of chalk was now forming at the bottom of the Atlantic, with living shells and sea-animals of t

since the Winchester Downs were at the bottom of the sea: and that "the Globigerina-mud is not merely a chalk formation, but a continuation of the chalk formation, so that we may

he lime in the sea-water, layer over layer, the young over the old,

inch thick, probably not a tenth of an inch. And if it grew a tenth of an inch a year, or even a whole inch, how many years must it have taken to

arm-blooded creatures, who suckle their young like cows, instead of laying eggs, like birds and fish. For there were no whales in the old chalk ocean; but our modern oceans are full of cachalots, porpoises, dolphins, swimmi

hors, heap

eas. And sadder fossils yet, my child,

ove of woman h

waves o'er manho

t locks, and beaut

ear a voice, 'Re

aim her precious

the dead,