ing wealth of types, some of them just ready for immediate use as ornaments, either for designs or plastic forms. We have reproduced a few of these wonderful art forms in nature in a former number

of The Open Court, and we refer the reader to Vol. XVI, p. 47. But not only the selection of these art forms in nature proves the artistic spirit of Haeckel, but also another publication which is a portfolio of sketches made by our famous friend on a journey to eastern lands.

When I saw Professor Haeckel at his home some years ago, he showed me some colored sketches which he had made on his trip to the East Indies. Though the pictures were perhaps not perfect in technique they exhibited a real artistic talent, especially a remarkably well developed sense for color effects, and at the time

I expressed the opinion that the pictures would be interesting to the public. Professor Haeckel seemed reluctant to publish them and deemed it advisable to wait. We are glad to note that he has finally brought out these pictures in an attractive portfolio form, and very beautiful they are indeed. We can only recommend them, and wish to call attention to this new phase of the famous naturalist's lifework.* Though Professor Haeckel has not passed through a regular course of artistic education, and though his technique may show some shortcomings, we make bold to say that these sketches prove him to be a genuine divinely inspired artist. The way in which he sees nature and especially the rich tints of the southern landscape will be interesting to both psychologists and art critics.

Bearing in mind the original sketches, so far as I still remember them, I have the impression that the color prints are excellent reproductions, and I only wish that we could offer to our readers

one sample of them in colors. I select for reproduction two crayon sketches which will be helpful in giving an impression of the general character of the work, and I can assure my readers that they show all of Professor Haeckel's deficiencies without showing at the same time his remarkable talent in color drawing. One of the pictures represents the Cocoa Island and the rest house for pilgrims near Belligemma, Ceylon; another will be interesting for historical reasons because it pictures the famous Bodhi tree which was planted in Ceylon more than a millennium ago by Buddhist missionaries,

* Wanderbilder. Von Prof. Ernst Haeckel. Sec. I and II, Die Naturwunder der Tropenwelt (Insulinde und Ceylon) nach eigenen Aquarellen und Oelgemälden. Gera-Untermhaus: Koehler, 1906.

perhaps by Mahinda himself, from a sprout of the Bodhi tree at Buddhagaya, which at the time was still in full bloom.

The work contains also some art forms of nature and photographs. Of the former we reproduce an interesting rhizostome of Ceylon (Toreuma belligemma) bearing the sign of an equilateral cross in the center and bedecked with a net work not unlike a doily or pin cushion surrounded by frills. Another aquatic being of peculiar shape is the chandelier medusa (Rhopilema Frida) a species which was observed and photographed by Professor Haeckel during his stay at Insulinde, Japan. A photograph of peculiar beauty is the one of an approaching thunderstorm at the Rambodde Pass in Ceylon.

Professor Haeckel has again and again concluded that he would retire to privacy and discontinue the publication of new books. He has surprised us several times by his new labors, and we can not but congratulate him on this new phase of his literary activity which shows the renowned author in a new, and at the same time a brilliant light.

THE ZOROASTRIAN RELIGION AND THE

BIBLE.

E

BY THE EDITOR.

VERY pastor in the land should know the authoritative points as regards the great North-Medic religion which was spread at least from Ragha, Rai, near modern Teheran, about fifty miles from the southern point of the Caspian Sea, and probably from much further east, westward. It possessed such political importance that it gave its name to Adharbhagan, a province almost as large as England, on the southwest of the same sea, the mountain range Elburz having also a prominent place in Avesta under an older name. The word Adhar means "Fire" and refers to that element which was sacramental with the Persian Zoroastrians; from this came the exaggerated term "Fire-worshipers." In its sister-form this faith was the established religion of the Persian empire under Darius and his successors, and in all human probability under his predecessors as well. The North-Median form of it, Zoroastrianism, was "high church," so to express oneself for convenience; it was substantially the Exilic Pharisaism of the Jews. The SouthPersian form was more "broad Church." Each was equally fervent, surpassing all other contemporaneous documents of their kind in this respect. It is impossible that any civilized people who had anything to do with the vast empire could have been ignorant of its main points; so the Greeks knew much about it, as we see.

The Jews were Persian subjects from Cyrus to Alexander; and the Exilic Bible, as many hold, is a half-North-Persian book;-see the dates from the reigns of the Persian kings, Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes.

The Bible is fulsome in its allusions to them; see 2 Chronicles; see Ezra, Nehemiah; Isaiah xliv, xlv, etc., etc.

The Bible does not so much mention the North-Persian religion as it adopts it. This view is held by most scholars who can speak