What is called the present "vogue" of the novel coincides with the triumph and colossal extension of journalism.

When reporters are spoken of, the contempt of literary men is without bounds. The style of reporters is certainly sometimes of a very pitiable quality; but when style is not original or quite beyond fault-finding, more or less mediocrity is not of much consequence. What is the difference between writing like a reporter or like a bad psychologist?

By dint of doing the various tasks to which he is assigned -traveling, speaking, "interviewing," being present every day at shows, constantly changing, and being obliged to write about them, there is no reporter of average ability who does not finally acquire an experience and idea of life which are still wanting to the average novelist. For it is wonderful that the men and women of letters in our day have, for the most part, but a small quantity of intelligence, and that a certain force in literature is entirely compatible with perfect imbecility.

SHAKESPEARE'S FIRST PRINTER.
Shakespeariana, New York, October-December.

N view of the certainty that Shakespeare was sought for by

I publishers only winty, byt was sought for by

cessful, it might have been expected that some exceptional appeal may have been made to secure the reading of his first manuscript. And such, indeed, appears to have been the fact. In the year 1579 a young townsman of Shakespeare, one Richard Field, went to London in search of employment, and entered the service of a Frenchman, Thomas Vantroillier, a member of the exclusive and aristocratic Stationers' Company, and on the death of his employer succeeded to his business and married his daughter. This was in 1588.

It seems to me that the above, being matters easy of verification, we may conclude almost with certainty that young Shakespeare, after an unsuccessful attempt to get his manuscripts accepted by the greater London publishers, finally turned to his fellow-townsman, and persuaded him to put the verses into print. This view, too, is confirmed by facts.

By consulting the Quartos, and Stationers' Records, we find that whereas no other printer ever touched a Shakespearian manuscript until 1597, Richard Field did, in 1593, print a first edition of the Venus and Adonis, and again, only a year after, a second edition thereof, and a new poem, the Lucrece. The standard theory as to how Shakespeare first got into print” is that he won the innermost friendship of Lord Southampton who made him a gift of a thousand pounds. The story is highly improbable and has no better foundation than the evidence of two dedications, which really prove nothing more than that Southampton was willing to pose as a patron of the fine arts. If Southampton, and not Shakespeare, had procured the printing of these two earliest poems of Shakespeare, it is a little queer that they should have been published by Shakespeare's fellow-townsman, while any of the scores of publishers in London, would have been eager to have published the poems for Lord Southampton. It is queer, again, that if Southampton had selected Field, he should not have allowed him to publish Shakespeare's works when they became lucrative. By consulting the list, we find that the Venus and Adonis had reached a thirteenth edition, printed by Francis Coules in 1636. Of course, Field may have sold the poem at a profit, or he may have died meanwhile (we know nothing of Field's career beyond the facts above stated). At any rate, to an age which cares nothing about Southampton, and a great deal about Shakespeare, it ought to be, it seems to me, a pleasant reflection that William Shakespeare owed his first appearance in the custody of the "art preservative," not to the nods of a gilded youth, but to a fellow-townsman, perhaps a playmate; and that the tranquil little town on the silvery Avon may claim to be the birthplace, not only of the poet, but of the man who launched him on his high road to immortality.

A

FIGURES OF SPEECH.
JESPER.

Tidens Stróm, No. 5, Copenhagen.

ND this virtue, my Christian friends, was a peculiarity which God had given the dear deceased, and ran like a red line through his life." Thus spoke a minister lately, in a funeral oration. I always get in bad humor when I hear such oft-repeated figures of speech, which mean nothing. This "red line" has suffered much ever since Goethe used it in his "Elective Affinities." A red line is spun into every rope used in the British navy. Goethe used that fact as an illustration of the passions, which permeate every fibre of the human body and every thought of the soul.

Originally, it was a good figure and explained the poet's idea admirably, but now the people do not know its meaning; hence it does not convey any definite thought. Our literature is full of figures of speech and expressions, which have been used so often that they have lost all point and significance. Figurative speech originated with the poets. The great originals created them from their intimate relations with Nature, but their followers merely imitate them. An illustration of this may be found in Danish literature. In the beginning of the century Oehlenschlæger and Grundtoig transformed our native tongue by incorporations of ideas, figures, and forms from the Norse. The regeneration was complete; the new forms of speech were understood by the people. But the present generation has inherited those ideas, figures, and forms as only so many expressions. The magic of the language is gone. The nut has been eaten, the husk remains. That language, which was so expressive to the fathers, is virtually dead, because the new generation no longer communes with the old Norse genius.

An endeavor is apparent, which hunts for new forms. At present there is danger of running into absurdity and mannerism. This applies not only to the Danish but to all literatures. The latest extravagant use I have seen is this of Léon Cadet: "The moon gradually passed into one of those bloodred streaks, which the setting sun had left behind, and swam at last in that purple sea-deadly pale and bewildered, like a head cut off by the executioner."

Parables, proverbs, figures,and poetical expressions are meant to make our dry language more luminous. Figurative language is as Goldsmith said, the language of the gods; therefore, if it cannot be used correctly, it ought not to be used at all.

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE "URANIA" IN BERLIN.

GE

WILLIAM FROMONT.

Stein der Weisen, Vienna, January.

ERMANY is not generally regarded as the home of novelties, but Berlin certainly possesses one of sufficient interest to merit notice and description. At every advertising pillar, almost at every street corner, one may read among other announcements, This evening at 8 o clock, in the scientific theatre, Urania,' The Primeval World; " or on another evening "The Journey from the Earth to the Moon," and whoever accepts the invitation will find something interesting to see and listen to. If he selects "The Journey to the Moon for example, he will hear a popular lecture on astronomy which is at the same time illustrated on the stage by a succession of scenes.

In one of these scences, for example, we find ourselves at a point in space from which we see the Earth and the Moon in their relative sizes, the moon passing by in the great shadow of the earth. In this manner the moon gradually approaches nearer until it presents the same appearance as when viewed through

a powerful telescope. With all its mountains exposed to view one can recognize the surface clearly enough to be able to decide upon its quality. Without going into all the details of the lecture, it should be remarked that the audience arrive at last upon the surface of the moon, and find themselves in the midst of a dead world whose awful sublimity cannot but impress the beholder. Then comes a scene in which the earth rises behind the moon, illuminating it as on our moonlight nights, and gliding across the sky until it is dimmed in splendor as the glorious orb of day rises and quenches it. Eclipses of the sun and moon are illustrated in the same lecture, the enjoyment of which is further heightened by a glorious sunset on the volcanic island of St. Paul in the Indian Ocean.

In another representation, "The Primeval World," the scenery is, if possible, still more effective. The twelve scenes present the world in its successive stages of development from chaos to modern times, together with the mighty revolutions which it passed through at successive stages.

The history of the origin of the Urania Institute, of which the theatre is merely a branch, is as follows: Some years ago Prof. Förster, the director of the Berlin Astronomical Observatory, and at the same time Professor at the University, was besieged by a great number of non-university men for permission to look through the telescope of the Observatory. The Professor sympathized with the interest displayed; the genial directors were willing to meet the wishes of the people, but erelong the available space for guests was allotted six months ahead. Prof. Förster then applied to the government to appropriate a room in which he might set up telescopes for the use of the public, but without result.

The professor, in concert with several of his colleagues, next took up the idea of founding an institution for popular instruction, which should be equipped, not only with telescopes, but with numerous other physical appliances also. In the discussion, the idea of the theatre was evoked, and this promised to be a valuable support to the institution. And so, out of the original idea of establishing a public benevolent institute for the gratification of the popular wish to survey the heavens through large telescopes, the refusal of the government to furnish the necessary means resulted in the organization of a corporation for the building and operation of the Urania, which has now been running several years with very satisfactory results both to the shareholders and the public.

In

The Institute is open from midday to eleven at night. the evening, before the beginning of the theatrical presentations, the visitor can find enough to interest him, in the microscopes, spectroscopes, phonographs, electric railways; in short in every new electric and magnetic apparatus of interest. Every article is furnished with a code of instructions for its proper use, and specialists are always ready to afford instruction.

Occasionally the theatrical representations give place to regular lectures, practically illustrated by a complete set of apparatus, and experiments on the stage.

The characteristic feature and attractiveness consists in the novelty of the Uranian theatre. The lectures which precede the representation are by Dr. M. Wilhelm Meyer, and wondrously charming in description, although, perhaps, not better than Professor Young could have written them. But in the Urania, they appeal not only to the ear but to the eye also. The scene-painter and the lecturer are no less important personages than the writer of the lectures. The only person actually present and engaged in the representation is the actor or lecturer, Mr. C. Bergmann, an actor by profession, who is quite content to strut upon the Urania stage. He reads with a wonderfully clear and flexible voice, and as if the matter were entirely his own, and, if his rôle is not very distinguished, it is nevertheless practically an important one. Many a good lecture is lost in delivery: the Urania avoids this difficulty by selecting a man who is a master of elocution.

FOSSIL MEN.

PROFESSOR L. A.. Fox, D.D.

Lutheran Quarterly, Gettysburg, January. (EOLOGICAL Anthropology is one of the most recent of the new sciences. It did not commence really before 1850, although many uncollated facts had appeared.

[Professor Fox recounts briefly the different discoveries of fossil remains and other evidences of primitive man.]

The facts collected from these different fields are the materials of the new science. The fossils have been classified, and the specimens arrranged in extensive museums, one of the most important being that of Mortilet at St. Germain, in France. From these we may learn the geological period at which man appeared, the climatic and geographical conditions, his contemporaries among animals, mode of life, degree of civilization, intellectual status, and something even of his religious ideas.

The Drift period followed the Glacial age. Before the Glacial age the temperature, of Northern Europe was much higher than now. The great forests locked in ice in Greenland and the fossil vegetation in Iceland and Spitzbergen bear witness to a warmer climate than has been known there within historic times. From unknown causes the Glacial period set in. The Glaciers ran down into central and Southern Europe and over a part of North America. At the end of the Glacial age a rainy period followed. The rivers worked out the valleys. There were great floods, and in Belgium the waters rose four hundred feet above the present level. The débris was carried down into the valleys and deposited in what is known as the river gravel. It is in this gravel-bed that we have the first positive evidence of the presence of man.

The climate, though moderated, was still cold. The glaciers were only retiring. The extremes of heat and cold were great. Only a hardy race was able to endure the strain. This rainy period was followed by a slight return of the glacial, and this by another flood, which deposited the strata known as the Loess over both Europe and Asia.

There were also great geographical changes in the way of submergencies and elevations. Men came from Asia, and at first were confined to the southern part of Europe, advancing northward after the retiring glaciers. The territory was broadened until the primitive men spread over the greater part of Europe.

The animals of that age have left their bones in the gravel beds and in the caves. Among others, the mammoth, woolly rhinocerous, great cave bear, cave lion, cave hyena, reindeer, horse, Irish elk, and auroch were found from Lebanon to England. About twenty-three species of animals have been recognized as having contributed food to those early men. The first to become extinguished was the cave bear. The number of mammoths greatly diminished during the Cro Magnon period, and before its close this animal probably became extinct. The reindeer became so abundant in the latter part of that age that some have divided the period of paleolithic men into the mammoth and the reindeer ages. In many sections the horse furnished most of the food. It was a large headed and short limbed variety. The disappearance of these animals was due in some measure to the change of climate, but in larger degree perhaps, as Professor Wilson thinks, to the agency of man.

The palæocosmic men have been divided into different races. The grounds of the division are the skeletons, the character of the implements, the different strata in which the humam remains sometimes appear and the predominance of different species of animals. The division cannot claim to be anything more than probable. Less than fifty skulls and considerable parts of skulls and less than a dozen complete skeletons have been found. The races in their leading types appear successively in Europe, but were for a considerable portion of the time contemporaneous.

The earliest race was the Canstadt. The celebrated Nean

derthal skull belonged to this race. Two skeletons found in the grotto of Spy in Belgium are the last known specimens. Their appearance is thus described by Dawson:

The head long but low, with projecting eyebrows and receding forehead, a somewhat large brain case, high and wide cheekbones, massive jaws, and receding chin.

It was a savage face. They were about five feet, seven inches in height. Their bones were thick, with marked protuberances for strong muscular attachment, and they were, therefore, very robust and athletic. They were hunters, and left few traces of settled dwelling places. At one time they probably occupied nearly the whole of Europe.

The second race in Europe was the Cro Magnon. Dawson pronounces them contemporaries of the Canstadts, but their local successors. They may have absorbed the Canstadts; at least they survived that race many years. At Grenelle the Cro Magnons are found in a stratum above the Canstadts. They fed upon the bear, the mammoth, and, to some extent, the hyena and lion, but their chief food was the horse and auroch. Only the feebler, such as old men, women, and children, when left alone, stooped to take birds and small animals.

We have several skeletons, besides a number of skulls and isolated bones, from this race. The bones of three men, a woman, and a child were found near Les Eyzies in the valley of Vizere. The famous Engis skull is Cro Magnon. The race was tall and robust. The men were from five feet ten to six feet in height, and their bones were thick and strong. They had large foreheads and aquiline noses. The brain cavity was larger than the average European of to-day.

At Solutre they had a considerable village, the oldest known in Europe. The centre of the race seems to have been in Southern France, from which they went into Northern France, Belgium, and Italy. The race passed through different stages. It is believed that their progress from the rudest implements up to a much more refined life and their decline have been traced. There are proofs that they carried on wars. The head of the Cro Magnon woman, bearing the mark of a hatchet, may have been wounded by accident, but the many crushed skulls, both male and female, show that there were scenes of fierce and brutal strife among these early people.

The Canstadt race are the oldest men known to geology. They were savages, but they were men. They have been called simian and brutal, yet they are very far above the highest known ape. In Haeckel's human tree the two parts next to man are unknown. Huxley has said that "to deny the gap would be as reprehensible as absurd." The Neanderthal skull is cailed by Huxley the most brutal known, but it is a human skull, with a brain capacity equal to that of the Malays. The Canstadt type of skull reappears not unfrequently in our own race. Quatrafages says Robert Bruce's belonged to it.

The geologic period of palæolythic men has been determined, but the chronological age remains unsettled. It is certain that the river gravel man in Europe was not the first man. There are scientific as well as historic reasons for believing that man originated in Asia. When he came to Europe is unknown. Quatrafages avows his belief in pliocene man. But Dawson examined on the ground the facts upon which the opinion as to pliocene and miocene men is based, and says positively that the human implements and bones in the pliocene and miocene strata are due to landslides. According to the belief of a large majority of scientific men, man does not appear in geology earlier than the latest tertiary.

The probable age of the gravel beds had been estimated from 9,000,000 years down as low as 20,000. Tylor says of these estimates, "They were guesses made when there was no scale to reckon time by." Dawson does not hesitate to express belief in a period that will harmonize with the Biblical history. Scientific men of established character have recently said that

the close of the glacial period may not have been more than six or seven thousand years ago. There is evidence that the peat beds formed much more rapidly than has been usually estimated (three feet, instead of one inch, per century), and Tylor assures us that the two gravel beds were formed at the same time.

So far as has yet been established in regard to fossil men we have no reason for giving up our Biblical history.

ELECTRICAL TRANSMISSION OF POWER.*
THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE.
Nineteenth Century, London, January.

HE transmission of electrical power depends upon a prop

Terty which has been experimentally discovered to exist

in an ordinary dynamo; namely, its reversibility.

The great electrician, Clerk Maxwell, was asked shortly before his death, what, in his opinion, was the greatest discovery of the age. His answer was, the reversibility of the Gramme machine. That machine is, in effect, the prototype of the modern dynamo.

The meaning of the term "reversibility," as it presented itself to Clerk Maxwell's mind, was this: "If from a dynamo, caused to rotate by mechanical power, currents can be generated and dispatched through an external circuit for useful work; and if (as experience has now established) the converse is also true, that a current sent through a dynamo will cause that dynamo to revolve, then it would follow that the length of the conductor conveying the current from one dynamo to the other, would be a matter of comparatively small importance, and the conveyance of electrical energy to a distance would no longer be an insoluble problem.

The dynamo is a contrivance for rapidly rotating coils of wire in a magnetic field. The magnets are so arranged with reference to each other, that the field magnets shall give out the greatest possible number of lines of force, and that these lines shall travel in such a direction that all, or the greatest possible number of them, shall be cut by the revolving coils of the armature.

The output of a dynamo is proportionate to the weight of metal contained in the magnets, the number and length of the wire coils that surround them, and the rapidity with which the armature is made to revolve. As these factors can practically be increased to any required extent, with a powerful steamengine, and a heavy weight of metal in the dynamo, a force equal to many hundreds of horse-power can be generated and utilized as required.

Misapprehension sometimes arises as to the amount of force necessary to be exercised in order to obtain the current. Why is an engine of many horse-power required to drive a machine which, to all appearance, could be turned by a man's hand? While no current is passing the beautiful fitting of a first-class dynamo, the perfect adjustment by which all unnecessary friction is avoided, and the truth of the journals on which the shaft of the armature travels, render it quite possible to turn the machine by hand. But when the current is passing, all this is changed, and forces are developed which can be overcome only by a large expenditure of energy.

The silence with which the dynamo revolves and the apparent ease with which the whole thing acts, are very deceptive to the eye. No current at all could be obtained unless by using a very strong force to break down the magnetic attraction exerted inside the dynamo. You can never get out of any machine more work than you put into it; and though the character of the energy you put in may be transmuted by means of proper appliances, at will, its total amount, when finally applied to work, will be in exact proportion to the power expended. A strong motive power is necessary to make the

* See also LITERARY DIGEST, Vol. 3, No. 9, p. 237 (June, 27, 1891), and Vol. 4, No. 8, p. 208 (Dec. 26. 1891), for articles on the same subject.

dynamo armature revolve, because the dynamo is expressly built for the purpose of opposing magnetic resistance to that rotation. The field magnets and the armature are opposing magnets; they are so arranged that the north pole of the one perpetually attracts the south pole of the other, and the whole machine would be held rigid by the force of their mutual attraction if that attraction were not forcibly overcome by mechanical energy. It must be understood that, in order to obtain work from an electric motor, several transmutations of power are necessary. There must be a prime motor, such, for instance, as a turbine or a steam-engine. This engine must exert its force on a dynamo, which will transmute the power expended on it into electric energy. Conductors-usually copper wires—must be employed to convey the energy to a second dynamo, specially adapted to act as motor, the force expended by the steam-engine is here finally reconverted into mechanical power and utilized as required.

It was at first held, that the best dynamo must necessarily be the best motor. This is shown by experience to be wrong. The dynamo, in ideal, has an enormously powerful field and a very weak armature, but the motor should have an armature and field with relatively equal magnetic movements: that is to say, that in a motor, armature and field should do equal work.

The motor, then, differing from the dynamo only so far as is necessary for the proper performance of its special work, is placed upon the spot where the energy evolved by the generator is to be reconverted into mechanical work. In outward form it differs but little from the generator, except that it has a squarer appearance, owing to the larger size of its armature. On the armature shaft are placed a commutator, and collecting brushes, which convey to it the dynamo current. The sole duty of the motor is to receive (not to generate) this current, which is employed only in making the motor armature rotate. Here commences the reversal of the dynamo action. In the dynamo, the belt from the steam-engine forces the armature round. In the motor, the armature is free to revolve, and the passage of electricity through the coils prompts them to place themselves in such a position as to inclose the greatest possible number of lines of force, and so increase the rotation. Commutators and brushes make this impulse continuous. The lines of force in the field magnet increase in intensity as the rotation of the armature becomes more rapid, and finally a torque or twisting movement is imparted to the armature, equal, allowing for a small percentage of loss in transmission, to the power exerted by the distant prime motor.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN INDUSTRIE SINCE COLUMBUS.

TH

XI. RECENT ADVANCES IN THE POTTERY INDUSTRY.
EDWIN ATLEE BARBER.

Popular Science Monthly, New York, January. HE revelations of the Centennial Exhibition greatly stimulated our potters. Never before was such an impetus given to any industry. The existence of true ceremic art in this country may be said to date from the Fair of 1876.

The Borroughs and Mountford Company commenced business in Trenton in 1879, in what was formerly the Eagle Pottery. Their specialties are vitrified, thin, and hotel china, and underglaze printing on pottery and porcelain. The mechanical application of decorations is the distinguishing characteristic of one line of their art potteries, which, while closely imitating the more expensive hand-painting, enables them to produce highly artistic effects at a greatly reduced

cost.

The Knowles, Taylor and Knowles Company, East Liver pool, Ohio, have the largest works in America, their plant covering ten acres and including thirty-five ware and decorating kilns. Their business has had a phenomenal growth, and they now employ about seven hundred hands in the production of extensive lines of white granite and vitreous hotel china.

To Mr. Thomas C. Smith, of Greenpoint, L. I., belongs the honor of being the first American manufacturer who has successfully placed upon the market a true hard porcelain as a commercial article. The Union Porcelain Works, in which C. H. L. Smith is also interested, have produced many decorative pieces in addition to their staples of porcelain

ware.

This porcelain is composed in body of clay, quartz, and fel

spar. It is fired in biscuit at a low temperature. At this

burning the ware receives only sufficient fire to make it cohesive in form. It is quite fragile, easily broken with the fingers, and porous, not having had sufficient heat to commence vitrification, and as “ porcelain biscuit is ready for the glazetub. The glaze is composed of the same material as the body, so compounded that those ingredients which are soonest fixed by the influence of heat, are in greater proportion than in the body. Upon being withdrawn from the tub, the porocity of the biscuit quickly absorbs the excess of water, leaving upon its surface a dry coating of the glass compound which was held by the water in suspension. In this condition the pieces are placed in the “ sagger" or firing case, and the heat is carried to such a degree that the ware touches the point of pliability, almost the melting point. Thus the body becomes vitrified, and at the same time the glaze, from its slightly softer composition; is melted into the body of the ware, producing a hard, vitreous, and homogeneous material, known as true, hard porcelain. This is the process at Sèvres, Meissen, Berlin, and elsewhere. The earthenware method is just the reverse of this; the first firing being the hottest to which it is subjected, so that when the glaze is put on it flows over the surface of the ware in a lead-glass film, but is not fused into the body as in porcelain. This results in what is technically termed crazing," or cracking of the enamel.

The exquisite fabrications of the Greenpoint works have done much to dispel that unreasonable prejudice which, until recently, condemned all American productions, of whatsoever merit.

One of the most extensive establishments in the Eastern States is that of the Willets Manufacturing Company of Trenton, N. J. Among the products are sanitary earthenware, plumbers' specialties, white and decorated pottery, opaque china, white granite, and art porcelain. They also manufacture the celebrated Belleek ware, and the white egg-shell ware, to which they are constantly adding new designs, is another specialty. This company is now successfully competing with the Dresden and other foreign factories in supplying white art porcelain to decorators.

At the Centennial, Miss M. Louise McLoughlin, of Cincinnati, was impressed with the beauty of the then novel faience of Limoges and in a series of experiments to discover the processes of decoration, gathered around her twelve ladies interested in decorative art, and the Pottery Club, which has since exercised such an important influence on the ceramic industry of Cincinnati, was organized in 1879. Experiments were continued in some of the city potteries, where red, yellow and white wares were made. On the unburned ware colored clays were applied in the manner of oil paints, and some satisfactory results were obtained,

The ceramic display of Japan at the Exhibition was perhaps more than any other the impulse that inspired the venture which resulted in the establishment of the Rookwood Pottery in 1880 by Mrs. Maria Longworth Nicholls. Her experiments were continued at this factory, which was sustained by her father until its productions had found a market and it could stand financially alone.

The ware produced here is a true faience, and while the shapes produced are mainly reproductions or variations of classic Greek forms, they possess a marked originality of treatment. The Rookwood Pottery was the first in this country to demonstrate that a purely American art-production, in

which original and conscientious work is made paramount to commercial considerations, can be appreciated by the American public; for financially the enterpise has proved a success.

The Chesapeake Pottery, Baltimore, Md., was started about ten years ago by Messrs. D. F. Haynes & Co. Mr. Haynes, a practical potter of wide experience and an artist and designer of the highest rank, has invented a number of new bodies and produced a wealth of beautiful designs, which, by aid of the printing process in decoration, are to-day beautifying the homes of thousands who could not otherwise enjoy possession of works of artistic merit.

The European exhibits of fancy wall and floor tiles at Philadelphia awakened the American ceramists to a full realization of their insignificance in this broad field.

Scarcely two years after the Centennial, Mr. John G. Low, of Chelsea, Mass., who had finished a course in the art schools of Paris, began, in partnership with his father, the erection of a tile-factory in Chelsea. Less than a year and a half after the completion of the works, we find the firm competing with the English tile-makers at Crewe, under the auspices of one of the oldest societies in England; where they won the gold medal, over all the manufacturers of the United Kingdom, for the best collection of art-tiles exhibited.

It only requires the proper appreciation and encouragement of the public to furnish the incentive to a broader application of the principles which have been mastered by American artists, in order to produce in pottery the best that has been attempted by the older French, Italian, and German schools.

L

THE SPIDER AS A WEATHER-PROPHET.
MATKUSTAJA.

Af Dagens Krónike, Copenhagen, Sjette Hefte ONNROT, the Finnish scientist, tells us of an old soldier who could always forecast the weather with exactness. I have," said the soldier, "a sure weather-prophet in a little spider. Let us visit him and I will tell you what the weather will be for a few days. See him now sitting at the entrance of his house; we shall have rain to-morrow, for he sits near the door. If he had been sitting further away the rain would not come till the day after to-morrow. If he were still further away but turned towards the door, the rain would not come till the third day. Watch the spider to-morrow and you will see him run into his house just before the rain comes. If he does not go in entirely, but leaves a part of his body outside, the rain will not last more than two to three days, but if he becomes entirely invisible, the rain will last longer. If he closes the entrance, it will be stormy weather, cold, with heavy frost, or snow. If you will watch the spider, while it rains, you will see how he once in awhile comes to the door and sticks out his front legs to try the weather. As the weather improves he comes out further and further, and when the weather is good again, he puts half his body out. If he is out entirely and repairs his web or spins a new one, you may be sure the weather will be fine for many days"

Quatremére Disjouval, a French officer, who was, in 1787, taken as prisoner of war to Holland, and held captive for seven years in Utrecht, spent his enforced idleness in observing spiders. His knowledge of the weather enabled him, in 1795, to say, several weeks in advance, that the water of the Rhine would decrease in an unusual degree. On the 4th of February, 1793, all Holland thought that the winter was over, but Disjouval, on the strength of his observation of three spiders, prophesied a violent change in the weather; five days after the frost began, andon the thirteenth day, all canals and lakes were frozen, and a severe winter ruled supreme. But it is still more remarkable that Disjouval could predict the proper time for campaign in 1794-5, thus enabling the French to conquer all Holland and free himself from prison. Early in the fall, he prophesied that the winter would be so severe that the ice on all rivers and canals would be strong enough to carry horses—something which is

rare in Holland. In the beginning of December it did not look as if his prophesy would be verified, and the French began to cantemplate a truce with Holland. Before it was conclnded, Disjouval managed ta get a message sent secretly to his countrymen to wait two weeks, as at that time a severe frost would set in. They believed him, and put an end to the armistice; before the 29th of December the French passed over the rivers with horses. Disjouval sent word again that the cold would be still severer in three days. It so happened, and the French crossed over the Rhine, on the ice, to Utrecht, and liberated Disjouval. Five days later the weather grew so mild that the French generals became very uneasy about the 100,000 troops in Holland, because they had not yet received sufficient war material from France. But Disjouval came to their help again. He prophesied a new frost. The armies remained, and conquered all Holland.

In the interest of science it is desirable that others should observe the spiders. Let them supply them with food, and observe their mode of living, conscientiously noting down all changes of weather, time, and season. They will thus soon gather sufficient data wherewith to be enabled to foretell the weather, and establish the truth or fslsehood of this story.

tried to envelop Christ's cradle and childhood in a mystic mythical halo; apocryphal Apostolic Acts sought to supplement the meagre records we have of the first sacred college of Christendom. These are the products of the early centuries of our era; while the Middle Ages left us the legendary legacy of the "Acta Sanctorum." But even in modern times, when we would fain get along with as few miracles as are absolutely necessary for a supernatural religion, we are still inclined to look upon the first preachers of the Gospel as prodigies. On the one hand, we like to talk of a band of illiterate fishermen revolutionizing the world; on the other, we extol Saul of Tarsus as the most learned and eloquent man of his times. Historical criticism has, indeed, done much to curb our claims to classic erudition for the Gentile Apostle. We are beginning to be satisfied with Pauline doctrine, notwithstanding that his references to Greek poets are few, and probably picked up in the streets rather than in the schools of cultured Tarsus. But it is yet generally maintained that he had a thorough Jewish education; that, although a Hellenist by birth, he was a Talmudist by training, and at least an accomplished Rabbinist.

The principal texts upon which this claim rests are, in the first place, in two passages in Acts xxii.:3; xxvi.:5, in both of which the author represents Paul as referring to his early life spent at Jerusalem, and asserting to have been brought up in the strictest form of Pharisaism. In the first of these passages there is the additional statement that he received this fanatical instruction "at the feet of Gamaliel." It is worthy of note that the explicit name of Paul's teacher occurs only here; whereas we might expect it in his defense before Agrippa (Act xxvi. : 5) and also in Acts xxiii. : 6, where he tries to win over the Pharisees by exclaiming, "I am a Pharisee, son of a Pharisee," etc. Surely no recommendation could be stronger to such men than the claim to be a disciple of the illustrious and honored Gamaliel. It might equally be expected that Paul would mention it in Phillipians iii. 5, where he enumerates all his early Jewish advantages.

Paul certainly boasted that as touching the law he was a Pharisee, and that after the strictest sect of our religion he lived a Pharisee, but to understand these claims it is necessary to bear in mind that the Pharisees were a party, not a sect or