and the disparity of conditions is so marked, that the task of judging is difficult. As regards individuality Irving is easily foremost. No one that ever came under the spell of his manner sought to resist it. He was not specially brilliant in conversation, and when he did speak, which was not very often, was more of a narrator than a discourser. He never bid for conversation, tho all were glad to hear him and loved to listen, and to some extent to learn. There was nothing that was acid, if a great deal that was machiavellian and perhaps a little blandly mischievous, in his nature."

NEW GLIMPSES OF WALT WHITMAN.

DURING a portion of Walt Whitman's later years Mr. Horace

Traubel, one of his literary executors, kept a daily record

of the poet's conversation. Passages from Mr. Traubel's manuscript are now for the first time made public in the pages of The Century Magazine (November). The most surprising passage in these records is that in which Whitman declares himself indebted, as a writer, to Sir Walter Scott, even going so far as to say: "If you could reduce the Leaves' to their elements you would see Scott unmistakably active at the roots." And it is an unexpected Whitman whom we hear praising the knack and finesse of French literature, and asserting that Arnold was wrong if he thought that the easy touch of French writers came from frivolity and insincerity. Yet so Mr. Traubel records.

The poet's words sound more familiar when he states that liter

ature is only valuable in the measure of the passion, the blood and muscle, with which it is invested. He is interesting again when he assures Mr. Traubel that he felt about literature as Grant did about war. Grant hated war, I hate literature, asserts Whitman on April 22, 1888; and he goes on to aver that he regards it as a means to an end, never attributing any other significance to it. Of his indebtedness to Scott and his admiration for Cooper, we read:

"How much I am indebted to Scott no one can tell-I couldn't tell it myself-but it has permeated me through and through. If you could reduce the' Leaves' to their elements, you would see Scott unmistakably active at the roots. I remember the' Tales of My Landlord,' 'Ivanhoe,' 'The Fortunes of Nigel'-yes, and Kenilworth its great pageantry; then there's 'The Heart of Midlothian,' which I have read a dozen times and more. I might say just about the same thing about Cooper, too. He has written books which will survive into the farthest future. Try to think of literature, of the world, of boys, to-day, without' Natty Bumppo,' The Spy,'' The Red Rover '-O'The Red Rover!' it used to stir me up clarion-like. I read it many times. Is all this old-fashioned? I am not sworn to the old things-not at all-that is, not to old things at the expense of new; but some of the oldest things are the newest. I should not refuse to see and welcome any one who came to violate the precedents-on the contrary, I am looking about for just such men; but a lot of the fresh things are not new -they are only repetitions, after all: they do not seem to take life forward, but to take it back. I look for the things that take life

forward-the new things, the old things, that take life forward. -Scott, Cooper, such men, always, perpetually, as a matter of course, always take life forward-take each new generation forward."

WHI

PHILOSOPHY OF COMIC OPERA.

HILE Italy and France perceived the light-hearted joy of combining wit and music in the comic opera before America, the boundless enthusiasm of its welcome here gives interest to a discussion of its "philosophy" that has just appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes (Paris). Throughout Germany every town rich enough to afford an opera-house spends its money for a regu

ter be named as it will—Agatha or Eliza, Dernance or Valcour— the music is not there concerned. Melody takes possession of feeling it isolates it whether it concentrates it or pours it out copiously, it wrings from it the final cry. Now lending it a truth more striking than speech, now surrounding it with a light as clear as thought, it plunges it headlong or lifts it up; sometimes even it turns it aside; then leads it back to the favored theme, as if to compel the soul to remember, until the Muse takes wing and gives back to the fleeting action the place that she has strewn with flowers."-Translation made for THE LITERARY Digest.

A NATIONAL THEATER IN NEW YORK.

"Magic Flute" as its lightest sauce piquante. In England the same money would go for choral or oratorio societies, while France would be trying new composers with her musical pin-money. But in New York (for New York is the dramatic nursery of the United States) there are a dozen presentations of comic opera to one production of grand opera, or one oratorio.

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Turning now to the article by Mr. Camille Bellaigue, we read: Somebody has said that a comic opera is a piece made up of words and music, ending well. That is the truth, but it is not the whole truth; for, at that rate, works such as Fidelis' and 'Freischütz' in Germany or 'Joseph' in France would be comic operas. Now they are all three, even the last, more than a thousand miles away from it.' And the reason for this is precisely the lack of a third characteristic, which, after the two first, will be investigated and defined.

"The first, the mixture of music and speech, has made from the very first the popularity of this genre. According to acute, perhaps too severe, judges it equally makes for ambiguity or weakness or nothingness.

"M. Romain Rolland, in his book on The Opera in Europe,' has called comic opera 'a pretty monstrosity.' M. René Doumic styled it for us, in this very review, with vaudeville, ' a pretty good type of the false genre' that has always remained' outside truth.' Hegel had already affirmed that the operetta' or 'little opera,' as he calls comic opera, is a mixed or inferior genre, in which the words and the music mingle without intimately combining.'

The prose words of the dialogue alternating with artistically treated pieces of music always has something that shocks the taste. It is that the natural effect of art, that of freeing the soul from the real, is not then complete.

We know however that the ancients did not forbid this mutation. On the contrary, they vigorously tried its charm and (in the pathetic genre, at least) the power which it has of moving. Aristotle understood very well, M. Gevaert (in his The Musical Problems of Aristotle') tells us, 'that the periodical transition from singing to speaking and from speaking to singing has the property of working upon the tragic fiber, by reason of the inequality of the sensory perceptions.' We may ask ourselves why the same inequality should not touch, in the medium genre, fibers less deep but equally sensitive.

It does touch them, affirms a great modern musician (Saint Saëns), at the cost of sometimes wounding them. But the slight disagreeable shock that we feel at the moment when the music stops to make way for the dialogue' is a small matter beside the opposite sensation' and 'the delightful effect that is often produced in case of the singing following the speaking.'

'It is not a musician, it is a poet, who perhaps has best distinguished the two elements. . . . Alfred de Musset . . . analyzes keenly . . the relations which the speaking and the music should bear to each other. It is necessary, he says, to seize the precise moment when the action may be stopped and the passion, the pure feeling, be shown and developed. These sorts of scenes where the thought of the author leaves, so to speak, his subject (sure of presently finding it again) and throws itself outside of the plot and of the piece even, into the purely human element . . are extremely difficult. That is poetry's part. Comic opera is precisely the one of all genres in which this time of arrest most distinctly shows itself, this point of demarcation between action and poetry. Indeed, so long as the actor speaks, the action advances -or, at all events, may advance. But, as soon as he sings, it is clear that action is stopped. What becomes then of the character? It is wrath, it is prayer, it is jealousy, it is love. Let the charac

quel to the establishment of the promised National Theater in New York, concerning which details have now been made public. The new building, for which $3,000,000 was raised by subscription from thirty wealthy New Yorkers, is to face Central Park West. Mr. Heinrich Conried, of the Metropolitan Opera House, will be at the head of the new theater, but will continue also his management of grand opera. New York's National Theater will differ from the national theaters of Europe in not being subsidized by the Government. Among the subscribers are Clarence Mackay, Henry Morgenthau, James Speyer, Daniel Guggenheim, and Mr. Stillman. Mr. C. H. Meltzer, speaking for Mr. Conried, made the following statements to a representative of The Evening Post: This new theater will be universal, rather than national, for it will produce the works of all times and of the whole world, with the purpose of fostering the taste of the American people in all that is best in the drama. It will differ from the national theaters of Europe, such as the Théâtre Français in Paris or the Hofburg Theater in Berlin, in receiving no subsidy from the Government for its support. A subsidy would be out of the question for this theater, both because there is a large puritanical element in the American people which objects to theaters, and principally because it is against the theory of the Government to tax everybody for the benefit of the few. Aside from this, however, the new National Theater would resemble the national theaters of Europe in aiming to have an educational effect on the public, the actors, and the playwrights. It would have a good effect on the diction of our spoken speech; and it might lead to a school of American acting and of American drama.

"It will be Mr. Conried who will have the choice of the plays to be presented, and in this respect the management will differ from that of the Théâtre Français, where the actors of the company have the choice. The company of the National Theater will be a stock company composed of the best English-speaking actors that can be procured. It will not matter if they come from America or England. It is planned to have opera comique two nights a week, and no plays will have long runs. The first season will last thirty weeks, but afterward the length of the season will be greater. .

As to long runs, Mr. Conried believes that no theater that is not constantly changing its repertory can be educational. Here, where the question of expense will be eliminated, the best plays will be given, independent of long runs and large profits. The first idea even of a man like Henry Irving, in staging Shakespeare, was to make it fine enough to make it pay. The large capital at the command of this theater will render it independent of such considerations.

“The plan is not, however, to build a theater especially for the sake of American plays. In presenting plays from all countries, it will aim to do for the drama in America what has been done here for the other arts. The best works, both contemporary and ancient, will be produced, and neither the plays of Shakespeare nor of Ibsen, the Greek tragedies, or such modern dramatists as Hauptmann or Suderman, Pinero, or Augustus Thomas, would be excluded.

"The theater will be an authority in its acting. It will aim at purity in English pronunciation, passed upon, where there is difference of opinion, by a committee from Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton. A committee of artists will be consulted as to scenery and costumes. Another committee will pass upon points of etiquette to root out bad manners frequently seen on the stage. These are details, but they show we have thought it all out carefully."

SCIENCE AND INVENTION.

HOW DISCOVERIES ARE NAMED.

I

T may be true, as the poet tells us, that the odor of a rose would be quite as agreeable if the flower were called something else -cabbage, for instance-but there are other considerations that make the naming of things a matter of considerable importance. The scientist finds himself in the position of an intellectual Adam, bestowing upon a procession of newly-discovered entities-objects, facts, and so on-as they pass before him, the designations by which they are henceforward to be known to the world. That he has been altogether successful can not be maintained. The matter is discussed in the Revue Scientifique (Paris, October 14) by Prof. F. Mentre of the Ecole des Roches, Verneuil, France. The various forms of scientific discovery, Mr. Mentré informs us, may be reduced to three-the discovery of objects, of laws, and of theories. The astronomer who finds a new star, the physicist who formulates a new law, and the biologist who frames a new hypothesis on the origin of life-all are discoverers. The task attempted by the writer is to discuss the naming and attribution of all discoveries to whichever of these classes they may belong. In the first place, considering discoveries of objects, he notes that contested priority is very rare, whereas in the case of inventions it is common. He says:

"It may happen that several seekers are looking in the same direction, but all do not succeed. And it is not enough to discover; it is necessary to be able to announce the discovery to the world, so the first discoverer' is never certainly known. Navigators have left for distant regions whence they have never returned, and certain alchemists or thinkers have kept their dreams entirely to themselves. Rediscoveries are more frequent than simultaneous discoveries, for the first discoveries are not always made known and have to be made a second or a third time, often at very long intervals, before falling into the public domain.'

Geographical discoveries, the writer notes, fall into a group by themselves; the greatest, that of America, was named not from the real discoverer but from another man. This was formerly very apt to take place, and may still occur. Says Mr. Mentré:

"The bestowal of a name . . . depends not on justice and truth but on success and noise. Discoverers who keep their secrets or who do not know how to make them public are inevitably sacrificed. It was the exploiter, the vulgarizer, the skilful writer, who generally (before the extension of the press) profited by the glory belonging to the discoverer. The latter has been rehabilitated in time by the learned; but popular tradition takes no heed."

After discussing the long series of geographical" finds" that took place after that of the New World, the writer goes on:

· Geographical discoveries are normally accompanied by discoveries in botany and zoology. . . . In naming plants and animals

...

only the binary nomenclature in Latin (genus+species) established by Linnæus, counts with the scientist. Often the same plant 'bears as many as eight or ten of these names, for botanists do not always know the work of their predecessors. So we are confronted, from time to time, with varieties of nomenclature, and obliged to make choice. In such cases we add to the name of the plant the initial of its sponsor.

In astronomy, for lack of fixed rules, we fall back on a tradition that dates from the remotest antiquity. Herschel and Leverrier conformed to it in giving to the planets that they discovered the names of major deities (Uranus and Neptune). Even the constellations have kept their old names, modernized, and their stars are still designated by the letters of the Greek alphabet. The only innovation consists in giving to the geographic features of the nearest planets and satellites the names of famous astronomers. "The nomenclature of chemical compounds is even more mechanical than that of animals and plants. Only the names of simple bodies. . . present some interest. From this standpoint the elements may be arranged in several groups. First the long known metals have kept the popular names (gold, silver, copper, lead, etc.). Elements discovered since the eighteenth century have

usually names with a Latin termination. The root is derived from various sources, which may be reduced to three or four types. Some, conformably to alchemical tradition, bear the names of stars [cerium, palladium, uranium, selenium, etc.]. Others are named for the color of their spectral lines [indium, from its indigo lines; rubidium, from its red lines; thallium, from its green ones (Greek, thallos, green leaf), etc.]. A group of three bodies, predicted in 1869 by Mendeleeff, with the aid of his periodic law. are named from the nationality of their discovers [gallium, from Gallia or France; scandium from Scandinavia; and germanium from Germany]. The other elements owe their names either to their colors (iodine, rhodium), their luminosity (phosphorus), their odor (bromine, osmium), or other physical properties; or to mythological allusions [thorium, from the god Thor, etc.]; or finally to their place of origin [strontium from Strontian, Scotland; ytterbium from Ytterbe, Sweden].

The author next takes up the naming of laws, which are still generally called after their formulators, chiefly for brevity's sake, it being more convenient to speak of “the principle of Archimedes than of " the law in virtue of which every body immersed in a liquid," etc. Some scientists have additional shorthand" methods of this kind. Ampère used to speak of the "theory of Avignon " the 'demonstration of Grenoble," and so on, referring to the places connected with these discoveries. Others use dates in a similar way. Usually the name of the discoverer is applied to a law not by himself, but by the public; and the public often makes mistakes; so we have the "problem of Pappus," which is really due to Euclid, the "theorem of Tinseau," which was discovered by Descartes, etc. Often laws bear several names, sometimes owing to a conflict of evidence about priority, like the famous “ Boyle's law," defining the relation between pressure and volume in a gas, which is called in France "Marriott's law" and by many impartial physicists that of " Marriott-Boyle " or " Boyle-Marriott."

Passing next to the nomenclature of great scientific theories or systems, the writer notes that they generally belong not to individuals but to schools of thought; nevertheless, it is simpler to give them some one person's name, and this is generally done, witness the "Darwinian" theory, the 'Cartesian" geometry [Descartes], etc. Sometimes a locality gives the name, as in the case of the "School of Nancy," in hypnotism. In reviewing the whole subject, the writer notes that the giving of proper names to discoveries, whether of material things or abstractions, is objectionable in the present day of multiplied search and experiment. It leads to confusion and is being avoided wherever possible. Be this as it may, it is certain that the coining of an appropriate designation in each case presents a problem that is difficult and sometimes impossible of solution.-Translation made for THE LITErary Digest.

Identification by Finger-Prints.-That this mode of identification, of which much has been said of late, should be used with care and relied upon only after expert examination, is asserted by Dr. J. G. Garson, in a lecture before the Medico-Legal Society, reported in The British Medical Journal (London, October 21). Altho it may be true that no two prints are alike, it often requires close study to detect the existing differences. In his lecture Dr. Garson dealt with finger-prints both from the medical and from the legal point of view, explaining the nature of the creases and ridges of the palms and fingers, and demonstrating the precise method of taking finger-prints. To quote from the report noted above:

"By means of admirable lantern-slides, he showed clearly the varied kinds of prints obtained, which are classified as the arch, the loop, the whorl, and the composite; the latter is usually a

combination of the loop and the whorl. The relative frequency of occurrence of the different patterns is, in round numbers, arches, 5 per cent., loops, 60 per cent., whorls, 35 per cent. It is comparatively uncommon to find the same pattern on the ten digits of one individual, but between the two hands of the same person there is a certain amount of corelation which is most marked on the middle fingers. On the question of the value of finger-print evidence, Dr. Garson insisted on the need for examination with great exactitude and with a knowledge of anatomy and physiology. He also maintained that the evidence of discrepancies in prints under examination is of the utmost importance. To be led away by resemblances, without weighing the evidence of differences, is only too likely to result in erroneous conclusions. This is especially the case in comparing casual and unintentional finger-prints with those carefully taken. The staff of the prison service receive special training in the taking, reading, and classification of prints. From evidence obtained up to the present time by means of the examination of thousands of prints, it was shown that no two sets of prints of even a single digit have been found identical unless they belonged to one and the same person, and comparisons of prints of the same digits after a series of years show that there has been no material change."

THE

DUSTLESS HighwaYS.

'HE increasing size, speed, and frequency of motor-cars, together with their ability to raise a cloud of dust on a macadam road whose surface would be left quite undisturbed by an ordinary carriage, make it evident that some means must be found to make either motor or road dustless. Methods by which the former may be accomplished in large part have already been discussed in these columns. The latter problem, which, tho by no means new, has acquired new importance from the facts noted above, is treated by The Engineering Magazine (New York, November) in a recent review. It says:

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'The question of the treatment of the roads has been under practical consideration for a long time, and the ordinary watering cart is doubtless the earliest example of this department of the work. The effect of the water is but temporary, however, and when the water is used in excess, as is usually the case, the result is injurious to the road. Other materials than water have been tried, deliquescent salts being suggested, while a certain measure of success has been attained by treating the surface of the road with oil. Mixtures of petroleum and ammonia have been used with some success, while in California the treatment of the roads. with crude petroleum has been very effective in preventing the formation of dust. The nature of the oil employed seems to have a material influence upon the success of the operation, and it is necessary that the petroleum and the road material should bind together to form a tough and strong surfacing. This probably explains the non-success, or only partial success, which has attended attempts at oiling roads in Great Britain. A similar experience is had with the use of tar. A permanent result can only be obtained by the formation of a waterproof crust to a fair depth, so that the dust-forming materials can not work up, and this can be obtained only by combining the tar with the materials used in the construction of the road.

"Such a material as granite or syenite can be improved only temporarily by the application of tar, the coating rapidly wearing off. A surfacing of porous furnace-slag and tar is found to give a good dustless road, the broken slag being thrown into the tar while hot, and the pores becoming so thoroughly impregnated as to render the material a dustless surfacing.

All methods of treating the surfaces of the road are necessarily limited in scope, owing to considerations of cost and time, and while the roads within and adjacent to towns and villages may be thus improved it is impracticable to give the same attention to the extended country routes so extensively used in touring.”

These considerations lead the writer to the belief that, except for towns and cities and for outside roads of limited length, the solution of the problem lies in modifying the shape and construction of the car itself; in other words, that we must seek our remedy in the dustless motor rather than in the dustless highway.

TH

ers.

RECENT STUDY OF RADIUM.

HE mystery of radium seems in a fair way of solution, if we are to credit the results of investigations recently published in The Philosophical Magazine by Professor Rutherford and othThese studies, in the opinion of Engineering (London, October 20), which summarizes them for its readers, are of great interest, not only to men of science, but to laymen in general, for they 'carry us forward to such a point that we may be said to have obtained a first glimpse into the very mechanism of creation." In the first place, it has been almost conclusively proved that radium originates from the metal uranium, which seems to be in a very unstable state, perhaps on account of its high atomic weight. It has been known for some time that this element alters successively into other forms, and what we call radium now appears to be one of these, tho what the writer calls "the details of the genealogy' are somewhat obscure. Having reached this state, however, the substance continues to break up and alter, at first with great rapidity. Says the writer:

་་

"

'The radium atom, and, indeed, every other atom, probably consists of a whirling mass of particles, some of which are comparatively large, and are charged with positive electricity (a particles), while others are smaller, and carry a negative charge (3 particles); and, owing to some cause with which we are not acquainted, but which may be surmised to be centrifugal force, one or more of these particles sometimes escapes from the central mass, and is projected into space with prodigious velocity. It is an astonishing fact that the loss of a single a particle, tho its mass is but a small fraction of the total mass of the atom, produces a radical alteration in the properties of the aggregate, changing it from a divalent element, probably solid at the temperature of the atmosphere, into an inert gas, . . . known as the radium emanation. But the new form of matter is still more unstable than that from which it was derived; and, after a brief struggle against the forces of disintegration, another a particle contrives to escape, and the residue takes the form which is known as radium A. This, in its turn, almost instantly expels a third particle, and assumes the conformation known as radium B.

'This completes what is called the period of rapid transformation, and the next three changes are more deliberate. By a second 'rayless' change, which proceeds so slowly that one-half the molecules of radium D are affected in a period of 40 years, it passes into a new form-radium E-which, again, by the loss of a ẞ particle, finally becomes radium F. Beyond this point no further action has yet been traced; but in his most recent paper, Professor Rutherford suggests that the ultimate product of these successive changes may be identical with the element lead, which is usually found in uranium ores in conjunction with radium, and in quantities such as might be expected on this hypothesis."

Thus, if these ideas are correct, we have the transmutation of one recognized element, uranium, into another, lead; tho it should be noted that two steps in this transformation still await denfiite proof. Almost as remarkable as this are the further researches on the variation of velocity in the expelled particles, due to Professor : Bragg of Adelaide University, Australia, and Mr. R. Kleeman. They show that ordinary radium contains also the various products of its disintegration, defined above as the "emanation," and radium A, B, and C. Each of these is continually discharging projectiles, and each set has a different velocity. Those from radium itself are slowest, and the velocity increases as disintegration proceeds, till, in radium C, it exceeds the original by as much as 18 per cent. To quote further: