countrymen, Lamarck, for example, or August Comte. France, however, took its revenge, three months ago, by revealing to the English the genius of an English writer, Mr. Oscar Wilde. Before the month of December, 1891, at which time Mr. Wilde came to Paris, his fellow-citizens, the English, did not know how to appreciate him. Not that they were ignorant of his name or of his works. It is a surprising peculiarity of the English that they are never ignorant of the name or the works of any of their writers. Take the most insignificant article in the most insignificant of their periodicals, and they can tell you all about the author of the article, and what estimate ought to be placed on him. In that way the English were acquainted with Mr. Wilde, but they considered him a commonplace romance-writer, a commonplace poet, a commonplace critic, in no way superior to the two hundred other "polygraphs" of their country, with only a more strongly marked pretension to paradox in the choice of his cravats and his ideas.

Thereupon Mr. Wilde came to Paris; and when he set out, after a month's stay, to return to London, an altogether new glory had preceded him. This glory is on the road to expand itself in the United States, in India, throughout the world.

The reason of this is that immediately upon his arrival at Paris, Mr. Wilde appeared to us French to be an extraordinary personage.

We knew nothing of his works, I believe, with the exception of a little moral tale not of much importance. We were told, however, that our guest was an asthete, the prince of the mysterious tribe of English asthetes. We asked nothing more to be at his service thenceforward. In truth, we were awaiting him; it was time that he came. We were ripe for receiving him, as in old times was Israel for receiving the prophets.

It will soon be twenty years since we began to be accustomed to consider England as the last refuge of the elegancies of life, of intellectual refinement, and of that melancholy sensuality which we know is never lacking in superior natures. We had heard murmured and sighed in our ears, the names of Shelley, of Keats, and of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, while we were given to understand that these were not poets like others, but a sort of esoteric magi. They could be approached by none save the delicate and subtle spirits of the few who have been initiated. And the initiated were pointed at as embellishing their souls, far from the noise of the world, in the cloisters of Oxford, where they found, with the supplementary advantages of tubbing, of boxing, and of yachting, the harmonious tranquility of the mystics of the Middle Ages. The result has been that the noblest among us have ended by feeling some shame that we are not English. We perceived that Shelley, Keats, Rossetti, were too pure, too aërial for our hard French skulls, though, all the same, we set to work to venerate them. When Mr. Wilde arrived at Paris we learned that he was one of the "mahatmas," an asthete, a pre-Raphaelite, a laureate of Oxford. He was not only all these, but what was still more, he was alive. So he was received at Paris, as David Hume and the sage Franklin were received in the last century. Our reporters wrote him up. Our young poets solicited his sympathy. Our famous writers organized banquets in his honor. The most of our collegians sent him sonnets. Mr. de Goncourt took pains to prove that he was the first to become acquainted with the merits of Mr. Wilde. The mass of the public, it is true, did not see him, but they heard his name and with their accustomed good will made haste to keep the name in mind as that of the young national English poet.

When Mr. Wilde got home to England, people were for eight

days' astonished at the reputation he brought back. Then the English reflected that if Mr. Wilde had become famous, there must be a good reason for his being so. There could be but one reason, in their opinion, and this was that their fellowcountrymen has a talent eminently Parisian. And so, Mr. Wilde became famous in Paris by virtue of his quality of English asthete, and thereupon became famous in England by virtue of his quality of Parisian "fantaisiste."

Then Mr. Wilde wrote a drama, "Lady Windermere's Fan," produced at the St. James Theatre, which was a success, because the English found it so Parisian!

Without speaking of his moral tales-productions of a homeopathic kind-of his poor romance, "The Portrait of Dorian Gray," I will say a word in regard to his "Intentions," in which he undertakes to teach that lying, so far from being a vice, is one of the most estimable traits of human character; that nature, under all its forms, is ugly, and deserves the contempt of the artist; that murder is an art, and requires perfect artists to practice it; that criticism is one of the fine arts, upon the condition that you pay no attention to the work criticised; that costume in theatrical productions is a matter of considerable æsthetical importance.

The misfortune of the book is that Mr. Wilde has left most of his "Intentions" in a state of simple intention. He has confined himself to affirming them, to repeating them, without taking the trouble to develop and justify them.

It is from Theophile Gautier that Mr. Wilde has derived his 'Intentions." There is not one of them which cannot be found, in germ, in the preface of Gautier to his "Fleurs de Mal." Mr. Wilde and his young fellow-countrymen have learned the details of the paradoxes of Baudelaire; these they have translated into English or rather adapted to the temperament of their nation; and now they repeat them with a cigarette between their lips and a green pink in their hand, convinced that these paradoxes and this style of repeating them are the latest expression of the French dilettanteism of the day.

I

DEFECTIVE VISION IN SCHOOL CHILDREN.
SAMUEL D. RISLEY.

Educational Review, New York, April.

AM sure that every teacher must have been hampered again and again in the daily routine of professional cares. because the progress of one or more pupils in every class has been retarded by insufficient vision or weak eyes. Many a boy who gets on indifferently at school, gaining a reputation for dullness or indolence, is prevented from going forward by his imperfect vision-a condition of which he may himself be ignorant. How is the child to know but that the blurring page, the watery eyes, and aching head, which follow the protracted use of the eyes are not the common lot? This has always been his experience; why should it not be that of his fellows also? So, without complaint, he struggles on, asking no relief from troubles which to him are only a part of the disagreeable duties of school life.

I recall in this connection the case of a clergyman's young daughter, who was sent home with a note from her teacher in one of our public schools. An hour later the distressed father brought his child to me, and placed the note in my hand. The extraordinary advice was given to place the child under special training, since she had not the mental capacity to get on at school. It is but fair to add that this occurred seventeen years ago. I found the child with only 1/20 of normal acuity of vision, because of a very high grade of astigmatism. This was corrected by a pair of cylindrical glasses, and the poor child at once proved her capacity to learn and keep up with her

class.

Extensive statistics show that the percentage of myopia, near-sightedness, steadily increases in schools. Beginning

with a low percentage in the primary departments, it grew greater as the higher classes were reached; e. g., in the schools of Breslau beginning with 13 per cent. it advanced to 62 per cent. in the university classes. In the Philadelphia schools there was but 5 per cent. at 8%1⁄2 years of age, but 20 per cent. at an average of 171⁄2 years.

The full significance of this statement is grasped only when we remember that the myopic eye is a diseased eye. In my own statistics, collated in the public schools of Philadelphia, it was shown that in 2,422 children examined, 1,084 were found to have less than the normal acuity of vision, and 1,099 had more or less trouble arising from the use of their eyes at books. These figures show that we have ample cause to consider seriously our duty to these children with defective vision. Under the necessary strain involved in the school course, these defective eyes become also the subject of certain pathological conditions, which lead to further impairment of sight through the disturbed nutrition of the eyeball. Myopia is only one of the modes of expression of the resulting harm. Headache, nervous symptoms, red eyes, indifferent progress in the proper work of the schools are incidents, and should place both parents and teachers on their guard. The defects, per se, are congenital. The school course simply aggravates them by the severe strain it imposes on them. Children with myopia are handicapped in the struggle to secure a modern education. There

is but one remedy: the correcting glasses are the only means by which such pupils can safely proceed with their work. If this is neglected the child cannot advance except at the expense of his eyes.

In the presence of this prevalence of defective eyes, it is desirable that a more elastic curriculum be introduced into our public schools, one which would allow the attendance of partially disabled children without exacting the same urgent pursuit of their studies.

Closely allied to this subject is the amount of work required to be done at home. Children with weak eyes might often get through their school life well enough, if its requirements were confined to the exercises of the schoolroom. The congestion of the eyes would subside in the intervening hours which should be, as much as possible, passed out of doors or in sleep. There should, in my estimation, be no such encroachment upon the time which should be devoted to recreation and repose. The five or six hours daily devoted to school life should be sufficient.

HEPHAISTOS AND THE SMITH OF JÜTERBOGK.

A

ADOLF VOIGT.

Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte, Berlin, March.

II.

GAINST the view that the Odysseus myths are primitive religious conceptions, and the poet of the Odyssey the interpreter of the popular mind, in which capacity he recast and remodeled the popular inheritance by his art, the following two objections appear to deserve consideration.

First: The fact that Homer's characters lived in the consciousness of their countrymen, was due to a poetic belief in the creations of the poetic fantasy, which rests for support on religious belief, although fundamentally distinct from it. This poetic belief is, however, grounded on the view that the characters are no other than they profess to be, but that they profess to be simply types. It may, consequently, be asked, to what extent a mythical person might be identical with the poetic creation of a type; whether the immortality of an Odysseus was engendered by the same process as operated in the case of Don Quixote or Uncle Bräsig? If it went fundamentally different with Achilles because he especially, according to H. E. Meyer, was a “lightning demon," it is to the credit of Homer's

art that he made the Greeks so thoroughly forget it; for the charm of the poem rests in the fact that it presents us with a thorough man, whom not even the influence of his divine mother could save from the common human lot of death.

Secondly: This genial interest, this human sympathy with man and his lot, is older than the localization of nature-myths in the realm of human experience. If we examine the current religio-mythical traditions without any mythological hypothesis of a Procrustean bed as a measure to guide in pruning away superfluities and filling in deficiencies, two classes of mythical pictures present themselves-ghost-legends and fairystories. The ghost-legend is simply an expression of the belief in spirits, in the form of a story. What relation pixies, dwarfs, elves, or other demons stand in to man, what good or evil they can do him, is described in the legends, as interpreted by human experience. Such a meeting between a man and a demon, a conflict between man and the spirit world, in which the latter exerted superhuman and supernatural powers for the weal or woe of man-this is the fundamental basis of all ghost-legends, the greater portion of the legendary lore that the brothers Grimm, for example, found current among the people and collected. To eliminate the antagonism of man and demon,, would be as absurd as to ignore the relation of the sexes in a love-story.

As regards the fairy-story it is evident that its contents are eked out with those of the ghost-legend. Both tell of wonderful help or injury to humanity through ghosts, of transformation into beasts, of witches, and magic arts. But while the legend deals in wonderful occurrences which have befallen its believers, and which may be repeated unless the belief in ghosts dies out, the fairy-stories are received by a younger generation or the new nation into which they are transplanted, as mere poetic fancies. This is rendered evident by the characteristic opening and closing of the story: "Once upon a time when hens had teeth" is the mode of opening the fairy-story in Brittany. In the poem nothing accidental is admissible, its current must flow unimpeded by external hindrances. The fairy-tale depicts the final triumph of the unjustly exiled or oppressed, the punishment of the evil-doer. The ground plan of the fairy-story is to awaken sympathy with the triumph and punishment. That this human ethical interest is associated with stories, founded on daily or annual natural occurrences, told in langnage which no longer affords a clue to them, seems hardly probable. The fairy-story is the poetry of childish faith that all will turn out right at last, it is optimism, or, in the language of the fairy-story, wishes. The wishes, the desire for happiness, rises unconquerable in the human breast; and all the mythologists could not make us believe that it originated in study of the heavens, and the habit of the primitive Indo-Germanic people of teaching meteorology in metaphor. The wish is a primary element in the fable, its presence needs no explanation, it is self-explanatory.

concession of

The numerous fables which turn on the wishes, may be regarded as wish-fables in a narrower sense. These have often offered material for poetical composition, as for example, Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp, and Fortunatus's Bag. To this class belong also the invisible Hephaistos chains. They are explained as due to the utterance of a spell whose magic paralyzes the offender's powers, and deprives him of the power of motion until he who casts the spell speaks the words which break it.

This fast binding of the intruding thief finds common expression in modern fable. It is a smith sent by Christ or one of the saints who holds the orchard thief fast in the appletree; and in later extensions, Death and the Devil himself, and indeed three devils, one after the other, have been bound in the smith's chains. At the basis of all these legends we find, not observations of events that have occurred, but wishes for power to bring about occurrences-that under my spell you must stand stiff and helpless until I release you !

A

THE TYRANNY OF THE NOVEL.

EDMUND Gosse.

The National Review, London, April. PARISIAN Hebraist has been attracting a moment's attention to his paradoxical and learned self, by announcing that strong-hearted and strong-brained nations do not produce novels. The amusing absurdity of this whim of a pedant may serve to remind us how universal is now the reign of prose fiction. Probably Montenegro is the one European State which this criterion would leave strong in heart and brain. In Scandinavia, the drama may claim an equal place with the novel, but no more. In all other countries, the novel takes the largest place, claims and obtains the widest popular attention, is the admitted tyrant of the whole family of literature.

It was not always so. As a matter of fact the predominance of the novel is of very recent date. Most other classes of literature, lyrical and narrative poetry, drama, history, philosophy, have flourished since the sunrise of the world's intelligence. The novel in the true sense began in France with La Princesse de Cléves, and in England with Pamela--that is to say, in 1677 and in 1740 respectively. It would be interesting to trace its career, but it must suffice here to say that the novel acquired complete sway in England in the memorable year 1837. Its tyranny was never more irresistible than to-day. The Victorian has been peculiarly the age of the triumph of fiction.

In France, as Mr. Saintsbury has pointed out, "It is particularly noteworthy that everyone of the eight names which have been set at the head of the nineteenth century literature of France" is the name of a novelist. Since the days of Flaubert -for the last thirty years, that is to say-the novel has assumed a still higher literary function than it held even in the hands of Georges Sand and Balzac. It has cast aside the pretense of merely amusing, and has affected the airs of guide, philosopher, and friend.

If, however, I venture to emphasize the fact of the tyranny of the novel in our current literature, it is without a murmur that I do so. It appears to me natural and rational that this particular form of writing should attract more readers than any other. It is so broad and flexible, includes so vast a variety of appeals to the emotions, makes so few painful demands upon an overstrained attention that it obviously is designed to please the greatest number. For the appreciation of a fine poem, of a learned critical treatise, of a contribution to exact knowledge, peculiar aptitudes are required. The novel appeals to all. Experience, moreover, proves that the gentle stimulus of reading about the cares, passions, and adventures of imaginary persons, and their relations to one another-a mild and irresponsible mirroring of real life on a surface undisturbed by responsibility, or memory, or personal feeling of any kind, is the most restful, the most refreshing of all excitements which literature produces.

Women are generally supposed to be the principal novel readers, but the view is hardly sustainable. Young wives, before the cares of maternity come on them, and elderly ladies who like to resume the illusions of youth are certainly assiduous novel readers, but men read novels a great deal more than is supposed, and it is probably from men that the first-class novel receives its imprimatur.

As I say, I do not revolt against the supremacy of the novel. I should be bankrupt instantly if I sought to repay to Mr. Meredith or Mr. Besant or Mr. Hardy or Mr. Norris or Mr. Stevenson or Mr. Kipling one-tenth part of the pleasure which, in varied quantity and quality, the stories of each have given me; but still the question constantly recurs to my mind: Having secured the practical monopoly of literature, what are the novelists going to do next? How are they going to freshen up their oft-repeated course for the jaded appetites of those who long since graduated in the school of hearts and darts?

Three hundred novels a year is I believe the average product

of the English press. In each of these there has been at least one pair of lovers. The unanimity is wonderful! Thousands and thousands of books, all turning upon the attraction of Edwin for Angelina. The varieties of amatory intrigue form a fascinating subject which is not yet exhausted. But surely all life is not love-making. The kitchen garden of Love may have peculiar attractions and be easily cultivated, but life covers a broader field, and if the novelists go on neglecting it, they will surely meet the same fate as befell their ancestors just before the death of Scott. There are instances in which occasionally, or fantastically, or imperfectly, the real facts of life have been dwelt upon in recent fiction, but when we have mentioned or thought of a few exceptions, to what inaninities do we not usually descend!

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.

RETURN OF MARS.

JOSEF R. EHRLICH.

Westermann's Monats-Hefte, Braunschweig, April. UR neighbor planet, Mars, is once more visible in space. From June to September, 1891, his course lay beyond the Sun, and he was invisible, but owing to the fact that the Earth travels faster than he, he is again within our range of vision, gleaming in his ruddy glow from 3 A.M., as morning star, in the eastern heavens. Every day he approaches 1,300,000 kilometres nearer the Earth, every day his apparent magnitude increases, so that on the 4th of August, 1892, the two worlds will be divided by a space of only 65,000,000 kilometres.

The approach of the planet to the earth occurs at intervals of 2 years, 48 days, and 23 hours, but these periodical approaches are not to a uniform distance. The points of nearest approach (opposition) range between 57,000,000 and 98,000,000 kilometres, and the facilities for precise observation vary correspondingly. The last closest approach of Mars was in 1879. Schiaparelli's famous observations of the peculiarities of his surface, which created so much sensation at the time, and won for Mars the title of the "neighbor world," were made as early as 1877. The observations then made were verified in the opposition of 1880-81, partly by himself, partly by other astronomers, and afforded data for the study of the geography, or, more properly, the areography of Mars, which is much more interesting than that of the moon. There has been no opportunity for further observations since then, the oppositions throughout the decade having been extremely unfavorable. The next opposition will be the first of a more favorable series which extends to 1896, reaching the most favorable point in 1894.

The first sight of Mars through an observatory telescope is almost terrifying, even for a person of good nerves. It is as if one saw the whole earth, with its icy poles, as a solid globe, floating overhead. One distinguishes clearly the dark blue seas, and the brilliant beaming, many-hued, dry land-and on this, the dry beds of a multitude of lakes, bays, gulfs, streams, and canals, these latter either parallel to each other or crossing one another at right angles. As you continue to look, you note the variations of color and of light and shade; and further that the outlines on one edge of the disk pass out of sight, while on the other the landscape expands; you see that Mars revolves on his axis, and that the ends of the axis are the frozen poles as with us. There is a further resemblance in the inclination in the axis which provides that on this planet also the seasons follow each other in regular succession. The ice crust at the poles diminishes in summer, affording demonstration, not only that Mars is influenced by the sun's rays precisely as we are, but also that the air and water are identical with ours. In fact, the meteorology of Mars is now being

reduced to a science.

Judging the two planets by superficial characteristics, how

ever, one must admit a distinction, implying a higher degree of development in Mars. The continents of the Earth seen from a distance, present a very torn appearance, and occupy scarcely a third of its surface, while Mars is girdled on both sides of the equator by one continuous mainland, intersected by a network of canais and rivers, the land occupying approximately three-fourths of the whole area of the planet, and the water only one-fourth, as a consequence of which, it ར་ may be that its atmosphere is less clouded and vapor-laden than ours. Peculiarly characteristic is the arrangement in which the geological nature of Mars has laid out the streams (canals?). All our streams, without exception, are tortuous, and all increase in width as they near the ocean. On Mars, on the contrary, the streams flow in straight lines, and are of uniform width from source to mouth. These streams, from 70 to 100 kilometers apart, have their banks so well defined as to suggest the idea that they are subject to intelligent regulation. It is hardly possible to conceive that two parallel canals, intersected at right angles by a third as in Opher land, can be the work of the elementary forces of nature. The question suggests itself again by the two canals which flow from ocean to ocean through the island Hellas, crossing each other at right = angles in the centre. Not less questionable is the origin of the great blue Lake of the Sun in the centre of Kepler land, with its three rectilinear canals connecting it with the ocean.

Ever and ever the question recurs: Is it possible that the crust of a planet, whose density is only seven tenths less (sic) than that of the earth, can be so yielding that the streams at their origin encountered no impediment to their direct course? Or have they really been regulated by the inhabitants of Mars -an engineering feat, presenting, perhaps, few serious difficulties?

But what most excites our astonishment in connection with these canals is that almost every one of them is double, i. e., it has its parallel canal alongside of it, but visible at intervals only. This has thoroughly perplexed all investigators. The Earth has nothing analogous to aid us to a solution. On this account the return of Mars is looked forward to with considerable interest. The improvement in optical instruments within the past decade may probably help to solve the riddle, or what is perhaps still more probable, may present more riddles for our solution. The occasion of Mars's next return will be the first time for fifteen years that we shall have an opportunity of examining his South polar region. Apart from the scientific interest which attaches to these observations, it is an immense gain to our intellectual culture, to overthrow the pride, born of ignorance, which in earlier centuries prompted man to regard this Earth as the one inhabited sphere in the universe. Equal rights for all planets appears to be the law of Nature, which certainly has not expended all her forces on this dark clod of

ours.

IN

ALUMINIUM.

ALFRED E. HUNT, C.E.

Journal of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, April. 'N my judgment, the aluminium problems of by far the greatest moment yet remaining to be solved, are in connection with developments of the uses of aluminium in the arts. Much has already been done in this matter. The demand for the metal increased tenfold in 1891 over any previous year, yet very much remains to be done.

Within the past ten years, there have been two popular widely spread ways of solving these problems, which are superficial, erroneous, and a hindrance to their true solution: the first, assuming properties for the metal that it does not possess, proclaimed that aluminium would, as soon as it could be produced in sufficient quantities, replace all the other metals in the arts, not only for the special purposes where the higher grade metals are now used, but also for structural and building pur

poses to replace iron and steel; the second, a natural reaction from the error just described, that the metal has little or no use in the arts.

The properties of aluminium which will probably give it the greatest availability in the arts, are:

1. Its relative lightness.

2. Its non-tarnishing quality as compared with many other metals; aluminium not being acted on by sulphur fumes at all, and being very much more slowly oxidized by moist atmospheres than most of the metals.

3. Its extreme malleability.

4. Its easy casting qualities.

5. The influence of the metal in various alloys.

6. Its high tensile strength and elasticity when weight for weight of the metal is compared with other metals, especially when alloyed with a small percentage of titanium, silver, or copper, and properly worked by being rolled or hammered or otherwise drawn down.

7. Its high specific heat and electrical and heat conductivity.

Two things, however, should always be borne in mind in considering the applicability of aluminium for given purposes in the arts: The first is that the properties of the metal are very considerably changed as regards strength, tenacity, hardness, rigidity, and color, by alloying it with small percentages of other metals, conditions that do not materially change the specific gravity of the metal. The second is the relative weight of aluminium. Taking the tensile strength of aluminium in relation to its weight, it is in plates as strong as steel at 80,000 per square inch ultimate strength, and in cold-drawn wire as strong as steel at 180,000 pounds ultimate.

The specific gravity of aluminium is, of course, one of its most striking properties. It varies from 2.56 to 2.70. The weight of a given bulk of aluminium being taken as one, wrought iron is 2.90 times as heavy; structural steel is 2.95 times: copper, 3.60 times; ordinary high brass, 3.45 times; nickel. 3.50 times; silver, 4 times; lead, 4.80 times; gold, 7.70 times; and platinum, 8.60 times as heavy. Most woods that would be used for structural purposes are about one-third as heavy as aluminium.

Aluminium does not oxidize sufficiently to interfere at all with the strength of thin sections of the metal, as does iron or steel; the thin film of oxide which covers the surfaces of the metal which have been long exposed to moist atmosphere seems to prevent its being further acted on. It does, however, give to the metal a surface tarnish which cannot be rubbed off with the usual polishing compounds, without interfering materially with the surface of the soft metal. The fact that pure aluminium is not severely acted on by boiling water or by steam, has led to its successful use as a packing agent or gasket in steam connections, where lead and similar materials have been rapidly cut out, as in parts of steam and waterpumps and difficult steam joints.

Aluminium is found to withstand the action of organic secretions better even than silver, and for many forms of surgical instruments and apparatus, such as suture wires and tracheotomy tubes, the metal is already receiving very wide use. Many surgeons are having their instrument-cases made of aluminium, it having the advantage of being safely washed clean with antiseptic solutions. It may be well to say here, however, that in handling polished aluminium perspiration does tarnish the metal, which, like other metals, cannot retain a high polish under frequent handling. The natural solvent for aluminium is hydrochloric acid. Solutions of the strong caustic alkalies, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and fluorine rapidly corrode aluminium.

For the inventors who shall produce good methods of plating aluminium with nickel, silver and gold, so that it can take. the place of german-silver, and nickel-silver, a rich reward is waiting.

R

THE SUN-SPOTS.

PROF. DR. A. VON BRAUNMÜHL.

Gartenlaube, Leipzig, April.

ECENT observations have afforded evidence of a greatly enhanced activity in the sun, and simultaneously, the Northern Lights have exhibited unusual brilliancy. The sunspots, those problematic phenomena on the prime source of our light and heat, were unusually prominent, and occupied, more than ever before, the thought of astronomers and the attention of the laity. The moment would, therefore, seem opportune for a review of the development of our knowledge of these peculiar phenomena, and for a glance at the prevailing views of the scientific world concerning them.

As far as our knowledge extends, the Chinese were the first to observe spots in the sun. In an encyclopedia by Ma Twan Lin, forty-five observations are recorded for the period A. D. 301 to A. D. 1205, in which the spots, with respect to their size, are compared to eggs, plums, etc. But the Spaniard, J. de Acosta, narrates of Huyana Capac, the Inca of Peru, who died A. D. 1525, that he had observed spots on the sun with his naked eye, and was consequently skeptical as to its divine

nature.

In the biography of Charles the Great there is a record under date April 16, 807, of a black spot on the sun, observable for eight days. This phenomena excited no particular attention until Kepler endeavored to explain it by the theory that it was the shadow of Mercury passing between the earth and the sun. But some years later, when the existence of sun-spots was, beyond question, Galileo showed the incorrectness of Kepler's theory, and the latter admitted his error; but Kepler's theory that the spots were caused by intervening stars, was generally accepted, and the phenomena aroused no especial interest.

But a turning point, in the history of sun-spots was inaugurated in 1769 by the observation of the English astronomer, Wilson, that when the spots appear on the middle of the sun they sometimes cast a half shadow, which surrounds the dark spot like an aureole. On November 22d of that year, Wilson observed a large spot, and following it in its motion round the sun, remarked that the further it went from the center of the sun's disk towards its right edge, the more the half shadow on the left side of the spot vanished, and the black core became prominent. He at once sprang to the conclusion that the spots were due to crater-like hollows in the glowing, gaseous envelope of the sun. Unknown to him the same conclusion had already been reached by Schenier and Leonhard Rost.

Starting from this point, Herschel investigated the spots with his own telescope, and came to the conclusion that the sun was a dark object, surrounded by a luminous atmosphere, and with a photosphere floating on its surface. In the luminous atmosphere crater-shaped hollows were caused by currents flowing from the centre outwards, and these hollows laid bare the dark core of the earth, forming the sun-spots.

This view was generally accepted until it was observed that the increase and decrease of the sun-spots occurred at regular intervals. Schwabe in Dessau began his observations in 1826, and persisted down to recent times. By December 31, 1843, he was able to report that the number and uniformity of the sunspots for the period of his observation were subject to uniform variation, passing in five years from a period of minimum sunspots to a maximum period, and again in five years to another minimum period.

These time-periods were more precisely determined through one of the most remarkable discoveries of the century, which established a connection between changes in the condition of the sun's body, and physical occurrences on our earth. The English General Sabine, R. Wolf, in Zurich, and Gautier, in Geneva, discovered almost simultaneously, in the year 1852, that Schwabe's periods of increase and decrease in sun-spots corresponded in a remarkable degree to the fluctuations of

the magnetic needle. Precise observation showed that a magnetic needle with a known declination was subject to daily fluctuations, reaching its most easterly point between 8 and 9 A.M., thence passing westward until 2 P.M., returning to its original place by the next morning. The difference in daily position of the needle is called its "variation," and it has long been known that this is greater in summer than in winter. By collecting a large mass of observations the Munich astronomer, Lamont, compiled the variations over a period of ten years, and the three astronomers aforenamed showed that the correspondence between the variation in the sun-spots and the magnetic needle were so close, that their relation to each other was beyond doubt. But Wolf's exceptional labors advanced the subject yet another step, By the collec tion of data extending over three hundred years, he fixed the periods of alteration more precisely at 11'/, years. Indeed he was able to construct a mathematical formula by means of which he could accurately calculate the order of magnetic variation in advance, thus affording conclusive evidence of its dependence on the periodicity of sun-spots.

A

(To be continued.)

ON CRIMINAL SUGGESTION.

PROF. J. DEBŒUF.

Monist, Chicago, April,

WIDELY known criminal trial has brought before thoughtful minds on both sides of the water this question, viz.: Whether a subject in a hypnotic condition possesses any free will, and whether, in such a state, it is possible to transform him into a criminal, or at least, for the time being into becoming an accomplice in crime. It is not the first time this question has been brought forward; indeed it was agitated at the very beginning of Mesmerism.

Dr. Liebault writing on this subject in 1866, said:

"It has been known for a fact that a man who, up to that moment was of sound mind, hearing a voice continually repeating "Kill your wife-Kill your children,"-has obeyed the command, incited thereto by an irresistible impulse; and shall the hypnotic subject already predisposed to hallucination, escape this same involuntary impulse? I am firmly convinced, after having made numerous experiments, that a subject to whom is suggested the commission of any bad action, will carry out the crime after his awakening, by reason of what has now become in him a fixed idea. The most, moral will become vitiated, the highest minded perverted."

The problem was clearly formulated by Dr. Charpignon, but his opinion is that it is "much easier to restore moral rectitude to a somnambulist who had fallen therefrom, than to pervert the integrity of character of a woman of high moral standing."

At that time the world did not believe in Hypnotism. MM. Richot and Charcot restored it to a place of honor. The school of the Salpêtrière made its advent, and saw in Hypnotism a pathological condition. The rival school of Nancy, following its leader, Dr. Liebault, saw in Hypnotism only a psychologi cal phenomenon.

I may be permitted to say here that my own study of the subject has caused me to pass, so to speak, from one rival camp to the other. The thesis upheld by the school at Nancy, while it found in me, at first, an adherent, finds me to-day an adversary. In "A Visit to the Salpêtrière" in 1886 I wrote:

The somnambulist in the hands of the hypnotiser is less than the corpse which the perfect disciple of Loyola should resemble. He is a slave, with no will other than that of his ruler; and in order to fulfill the commands laid upon him, he will push precaution, prudence, cunning, dissimulation, and falsehood to their extreme limits. He will open and shut doors noiselessly, walk in his stockings; will listen and watch, with what keen sight, with what acute hearing! He will remember anything and everything you want him to, will forget all you desire him to forget. He will in good faith accuse a perfectly innocent man before a Court of Justice. He will have seen every