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"It is almost impossible to convey in words an idea of the quickness and graceful address of her movements: they may indeed be termed aerial, as she seems merely to touch in her progress the branches among which she exhibits her evolutions. In these feats her hands and arms are the sole organs of locomotion, her body, hanging as if suspended by a rope, sustained by one hand (the right, for example), she launches herself, by an energetic movement, to a distant branch, which she catches with the left hand; but her hold is less than momentary; the impulse for the next launch is acquired; the branch then aimed at is attained by the right hand again, and quitted instantaneously, and so on, in alternate succession. In this manner spaces of twelve and eighteen feet are cleared, with the greatest ease and uninterruptedly, for hours together, without the slightest appearance of fatigue being manifested; and it is evident that, if more space could be allowed, distances very greatly exceeding eighteen feet would be as easily cleared; so that Duvaucel's assertion that he has seen these animals launch themselves from one branch to another, forty feet asunder, startling as it is, may be well credited. Sometimes, on seizing a branch in her progress, she will throw herself, by the power of one arm only, completely round it, making a revolution with such rapidity as almost to deceive the eye, and continue her progress with undiminished velocity. It is singular to observe how suddenly this Gibbon can stop, when the impetus giving by the rapidity and distance of her swinging leaps would seem to require a gradual abatement of her movements. In the very midst of her flight a branch is seized, the body raised, and she is seen, as if by magic, quietly seated on it, grasping it with her feet. As suddenly she again throws herself into action.

The question of progress is confused and put on a wrong footing when the consciousness of happiness or unhappiness, is made the primary test. The happiness of the child is quite apart from that of the adult. Regardless of distressing circumstances, the child is able to laugh and play, and this because he is a child; a child in his ignorance of actual life, and in his inability to perceive the true conditions in which he lives. Not otherwise, I take it, was the happiness of the vast majority in Old Japan. Theirs was the happiness of ignorance and simple, undeveloped lives. Accustomed to tyranny, they did not think of rebellion against it. Familiar with brutality and suffering, they felt nothing of its shame and inhumanity. The sight of decapitated bodies, the torture of criminals, the despotism of husbands, the cringing obedience of the ruled, the haughtiness of the rulers, the life of hard toil and narrow outlook, were all so usual that no thought of escape from such an order of society ever suggested itself to those who endured it.

~Graduated flasks~ must be used when anything has to be made up to a definite bulk, or when a fixed volume has to be collected. If, for example, a certain weight of substance has to be dissolved and diluted to a litre, or if the first 50 c.c. of a distillate has to be collected, a flask should be used. Each flask is graduated for one particular quantity; the most useful sizes are 1000 c.c., 500 c.c., 200 c.c., 100 c.c., and 50 c.c. The mark should be in the narrowest part of the neck, and should be tangential to the curved surface of the liquid when the flask _contains_ the exact volume specified. The level of a curved surface of liquid is at first somewhat difficult to read: the beginner is in doubt whether the surface should be taken at A, B, or C (fig. 27). It is best to take the lowest reading C. In some lights it is difficult to find this; in such cases a piece of white paper or card held behind and a little below, so as to throw light up and against the curved surface, will render it clear. In reading, one should look neither up at nor down upon the surface, but the eye should be on the same level with it. It must be kept in mind that flasks _contain_ the quantity specified, but deliver less than this by the amount remaining in them and damping the sides. If it is desired to transfer the contents say of a 100 c.c. flask to a beaker, it will be necessary to complete the transfer by rinsing out the flask and adding the washings; otherwise there will be a sensible loss. Graduated cylinders (fig. 28) are convenient for preparing standard solutions.

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