A CRITICAL ESTIMATE OF MENDELSSOHN.

S the reputation of Mendelssohn paying penalty now, through depreciation, for exaggerated enthusiasm in the past? Mr. H. Heathcote Statham, writing for The Nineteenth Century (December), asserts that such is the case. He says that while Mendelssohn is still popular with the masses, the essentially musical population, having become conscious that their fathers had placed him on too lofty a pedestal, are now nervously anxious to evince their own critical orthodoxy and insight by going far to deny him any pedestal at all; that the weaknesses of Mendelssohn's style are being dwelt upon, to the forgetfulness of his unquestionable beauties. We quote, as follows:

"If we take for a moment a comprehensive mental survey of the whole mass of Mendelssohn's contributions to the art of music, how can we summarize the characteristics of this Mendelssohnian style, thus early matured? We shall recognize, I think, in his instrumental music, a pervading element of poetic fancy and feeling, always suggestive, nearly always beautiful-seldom indeed is Mendelssohn dry, crabbed, or merely scholastic-but with the drawback that the range of feeling and expression seems limited; we feel as if listening to a poet who is frequently recurring to the same idea expressed in slightly different language. And this mannerism of the imagination, as one may call it, is accompanied (not unnaturally) by a mannerism in details of musical form and treatment, some of which we may ncte more particularly just now. Such mannerisms impress us more, perhaps, partly on account of what is in one sense, a merit of Mendelssohnian style, viz., a general breadth and massiveness of treatment, in which, however, there is rather a deficiency of characteristic detail. It was urged by one of Mendelssohn's warmest allies among musical critics, that Mozart had his favorite turns of modulation and his favorite forms of close and cadence, as strongly marked and as peculiarly his own as any of Mendelssohn's mannerisms. This is perhaps true in a sense, but the fact is masked, in the case of Mozart, by the clear and strongly defined outline of his music, and its far greater variety of design in detail. We can discern in all Mendelssohn's compositions, of whatever class, a most conscientious attention to completeness and symmetry of form as regards the whole design of the piece, whether long or short. No Greek artist could have shown more refinement of perception in this respect than Mendelssohn. His smallest 'Song Without Words' is a completely modeled composition in which the balance and proportion of parts is studiously observed. On the other hand, in construction-the power, that is, of building up separate melodies or parts into a connected whole -Mendelssohn was exceedingly deficient, as is very evident in his choral compositions and his not very numerous fugues, vocal and instrumental."

Mr. Statham observes that a good deal of the special individuality of Mendelssohn's instrumental music consists in a peculiar power of conveying through music the sentiment of scenes in nature but in a manner totally distinct from "program music." On this point he says:

"This use of instrumental music for painting the moods and aspects of nature is not the most intellectual use of the art; it is apt to degenerate into a kind of sentimentalism, in which the outer or superficial expression of the music is more thought of than its constructive framework; and in many of Mendelssohn's smaller compositions, such as the 'Gondola Songs' which occur in the 'Lieder ohne Worte,' it does thus degenerate, and compositions are produced which have no doubt, a vivid suggestiveness of broken lights and rocking boats and voluptuous serenading music, but which soon tire us from their lack of innate musical interest. More or less this sentimental taint is over a great proportion of Mendelssohn's instrumental music; the habit of attempting to translate into music the sentiment of scenes led to a predominance of sentiment over construction, even when there was no ostensible scene-painting proposed.

Mr. Statham thinks that while Mendelssohn had all the breadth of interest and sympathy of a great composer, he fell short in technical power; that in his composition he fails just where the stress of construction comes in. But in questioning Mendels

sohn's right to a place among the great masters Mr. Statham,

leaving out of question living composers, confines that list to Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. In closing he says:

"If the standard of definition of a 'great master' is to be at all extended or lowered, to include others than those five peers of the art, I believe Mendelssohn, among deceased composers, has the next right of entrée, and that he has prior claims over either Schubert or Schumann as a more robust genius and possessed of more varied powers than the former, and a far more consummate artist than the latter."

by the Government in 1862. In 1865 he became instructor in ancient history in the University of Kieff, and in 1870 he became a professor, but was removed from his chair by the Government three years later. His criticisms on the system pursued by Count Tolstoi, one of the Ministers of Justice, led to his exile in 1876. He went to Geneva then and settled there, producing popular writings in the Little Russian dialect. In 1877 he began a series of reviews in the Ukraine dialect, called 'Hromada,' which means 'common things. At the same time he worked hard for the establishment of equal political rights for all people in Russia, and declared against Socialism as well as Absolutism. Some of the principal works which Stepniak produced are 'The. Turks, Within and Without,' 'Tyrannicide in Russia,' and 'Little Russian Internationalism.' He also contributed to the magazines some papers on 'East European Peoples and the Propaganda of Socialism,' and 'Historical Poland and the Muscovite Democracy.' He is also known for his works on the ethnography, history, and literature of Little Russia, and, with M. Antonowitch, edited a collection of Little Russian folk-songs."

MISS ALICE FRENCH, widely known in the literary world as Octave Thanet, gives the account of her adoption of a nom de plume. "It was really an accident. I was a little weary of having my identity known in the first place, and made up my mind to write under a fictitious name. Octava was the name of a school friend of mine. It is both French and Scotch. I thought if I could find another name to go with it that was both French and Scotch I would adopt that. I was riding on a train one time when we stopped at a way-station, and on the siding near where I sat was a freight car painted red. On the side was chalked the word 'Thanet.' What it meant or how it got there I have not the slightest idea, but I decided then and there to adopt it."

The Athenæum says: "The popularity of the first editions of Stevenson's works is on the increase. The other day a copy of 'An Island Voyage,' brought 10 15s. at Sotheby's, and 'New Arabian Nights 8 at the same place. These prices are four or five times the amounts hitherto paid. To be sure, they were in each case presentation copies from the author to the late P. G. Hamerton, and the Island Voyage' contained an autograph letter of the author. Still, the high amounts are noteworthy. At the same sale an ordinary copy of Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes," first edition, realized as much as £3 10s."

Vol. XII., No. 10]

THE LITERARY DIGEST.

THE HISTORY OF EGYPT TRACED FROM ITS
PLANTS.

AL

LL our civilization is at bottom based on the cultivation of the soil, so it is not remarkable to find degrees of civilization varying with the perfection of that cultivation and the number of useful plants. Such an historical parallel between agriculture and general progress has been drawn for ancient and modern Egypt by Dr. Schweinfurth, the eminent German explorer and savant, an abstract of whose paper on the subject we translate from Gaea (Leipsic, December), as follows:

"Dr. Schweinfurth made recently before the Egyptian Geographical Society of Cairo an address on the origin, or, more exactly, on the history, of cultivated plants in Egypt. He spoke in the first place on the route of the Hamitic race to the Nile valley, and concluded that they first lived in northern Abyssinia and southern Nubia as cattle-breeders. From this point a nation of herdsmen could easily spread, and they certainly brought the ass with them from Somaliland and Nubia-an animal that had been used by man in Africa from prehistoric ages. The agriculture, literature, and religion of the ancient Egyptians were connected in the widest sense with the cultivation of plants. If all means of historical research are directed toward this subject, we find that of the 1,320 existing plant-species of Egypt, of which 150 are useful plants, cultivated in great quantity, only 50 species of the latter were known before the Christian era, of which 40 are pictured on the monuments and the remaining 10 are mentioned in the inscriptions. If we would have a conception of the agriculture of the ancient Egyptians, we must exclude fully two thirds of the plants cultivated in Egypt to-day. Dr. Schweinfurth distinguishes six epochs, according to the kinds of plants that were introduced into the country, as follows:

"Epoch I. Egypt is covered with grassy plains and forests, inhabited by the primitive African race, now extinct. Part of the cultivated plants belonged to the primitive flora of the Nile valley, whose representatives yet flourish over about 15 degrees of latitude.

"Epoch II. Colonization of Egypt by the Hamitic race. Disappearance of the forests, spread of the pastures, beginning of agriculture.

"Epoch III. Beginning of civilization; development of religion and art. Introduction of frankincense; acclimatization of the sacred trees of Arabia. . . . Toward the end of this epoch the cereals were brought in from the Euphrates valley. Beginning of the cultivation of corn, barley, flax, and the vine.

"Epoch IV. Epoch par excellence of Egyptian agriculture. The three kingdoms and the Lybian-Ethiopian domination. "Epoch V. Egyptian agriculture spreads to foreign lands and the land receives in return many useful plants from abroad. This epoch includes the Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Arabian periods.

"Epoch VI. Decay of Egyptian agriculture, about A.D. 1517. In the latter half of this epoch a regeneration followed and a return to civilization. By means of the Venetians the land received useful plants from America, such as maize, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, pimento, and tobacco. Tropical Africa gave it sesame rice, sugar-cane, and sorghum; Arabia, the sycamore, the fig, the pomegranate: Babylonia, cereals, speltz, corn, barley, etc. and America again the most valuable of all her plants, namely, cotton."-Translated for THE LIterary Digest.

AN

THE STOMACH AS A SCAPEGOAT.

N editorial writer in The Medical News, Philadelphia, December 21, objects to the old-fashioned custom of blaming the stomach for any obscure malady that can not be accounted for otherwise, and says that the present advances of medical science will probably banish it. Says The News:

"The habit of locating the source of mysterious evils in the stomach is an old one, as may be proved by consulting the history of medicine, where may be found naive examples. For example, in Lanfrank's Science of Cirurgie, the old English translation of about 1400, in treating of cataract, we read: 'Signes of the bigynnynge ben these. It semeth to the patient that he seeth

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bright thingis tofore him & him thinkith that oon thing is ii
thingis or thre, & sumtyme it semeth to him that thing that he
seeth to be ful of holis, & sumtyme these thingis may come of
evil disposition of the stomac, & than it is not so greet drede
therof; for whanne the stomac is curid, these signes wolen go
awei. In this maner thou shalt wite wher it come of the stomac
or of the eyes,' etc.

"When one considers the varying atrocities and outrageous
abuses heaped upon the digestive tract by all nations, and espe-
cially by the lower classes of civilization, one is inclined to grow
cynical when to the splendid stomach is ascribed a thousand mul-
tiform ills originating elsewhere. The conviction grows that
much of all this is again a placing upon this maltreated organ the
sins of discord belonging throughout the whole keyboard, and in
reality modern medicine is so finding the matter out. Notwith-
standing the awful dietetic and other abuses it endures, we are
learning that, far from being a self-complaining organ, the
stomach is wonderfully meek and long-suffering, and that, more-
over, instead of only having its own evils to bear, it is made the
scapegoat of the sins of many other organs."

Besides performing its own proper function-the important one of making human flesh and blood out of the materials put into itthe stomach is often called upon, we are reminded, to dispose of all sorts of drugs and nostrums that are poured into it under the delusion that it is responsible for some trouble that really arises elsewhere. Says the writer in The News:

"It is no exaggeration to say that tons of drugs and seas of 'mineral waters' have been thrust into stomachs for headaches due solely to eye-strain. One would find it a humorously impossible task to estimate the amount of nux and cod-liver oil taken for anorexia and anemia really due again to ocular or other distant malfunction. In the minds of many physicians there will probably still long remain the habit of pushing the devil into the stomach, but the new application of the scientific spirit to diseases of the digestive tract is surely to result in finally driving him from that stronghold. In all such instances of lazy diagnosis it will more and more prove impossible to rest satisfied with this convenient bit of slipshodism. If due to the stomach, we are now coming to ask details: How? In what way? Why? How to be treated? The day has about passed when we can rest satisfied that all scientific and therapeutic duty has been done by giving a thing a name, and an inapproachable abiding-place. Test-meals, analysis of stomachal contents, estimates of secretions, measurements, and all the rest are at last making it uncomfortable for the stomachal Mephisto. It is plain he will have to migrate to some more inapproachable abode—say the liver, or the spleen, or the medulla."

THE

PETRIFIED TREES OF ARIZONA.

HESE remarkable remains, which may well claim a place among the geological wonders of the world-the ancient as well as the modern, for they are older than the pyramids and saw the hanging gardens of Babylon rise and fall-form the chief subject of a paper on "Some Features of the Arizona Plateau," read by L. S. Griswold before the New York Academy of Sciences. We quote the following abstract from The Scientific American (December 7) :

"The trees now petrified originally grew to large size, eight or nine feet in diameter for the largest, probably conifers, and perhaps not very different from the forest growth of part of the present plateau. This ancient forest was apparently thrown down by the wind, for tree butts are common in horizontal position while only one was found erect. The gravel and sand covering would seem to have come soon, for only a few have fillings of sediment in hollows or give other indications of decay; the logs were buried at least fifty or sixty feet deep. The weight of the overlying sediments crushed the trees so that the horizontal diameters are commonly greater than the vertical as they are seen in place. Silicification was probably accomplished by percolating surface waters, as the logs are distant from volcanic vents, as far as known to the writer; then no hot-water deposits were seen accompanying the logs, and the distribution as seen over many miles and reported much more widely would also militate against the theory of change by hot waters.

"

Feeding the Public with Disease-Germs.—In an editorial note The Sanitarian (New York, December), speaking of the sanitary condition of the city of Brooklyn, condemns what it characterizes as "the abominable practise of feeding the dust of disease germs of every kind to the people, which obtains throughout the city in default of well-appointed markets. The sidewalks of the streets are the places of display for marketable food of all kinds. Meats, vegetables, and fruits of all kinds are a part of the stock in trade by almost every grocer in the city and many other storekeepers. From the time of the opening of their stores to the time of closing them, their food supplies are displayed on the sidewalks, and dusted throughout the day with horse-manure and every other kind of disease-dust afloat in the air, from scabies to tubercle bacillus. At closing time these supplies are piled into the stores without regard to cleanliness or order, as they are to be tumbled out again the first thing in the morning; and, needless to add, the stir within the stores is quite sufficient for the like dusting of everything served over the counters. The dark recesses, closets, stow-holes, and cellars of such stores are thus loaded with disease-bearing dust, more or less putrescible, according to the conditions of darkness, moisture, and temperature, tainting everything that is served therefrom.’

eat

T

es

A

WHAT "CHANCE” MEANS.

COMMON and historically proper use of the word "chance" is to denote the occurrence of some event haphazard or without cause. That events may occur in this way is an old, belief. Modern science, however, tells us that in this sense there is no such thing as chance." Every event, no matter how trivial, is determined by causes, and if we could understand these we could foresee the result. Science, however, tho it repudiates the old idea, has retained the word, and uses it, too, for characterizing much the same class of events. What scientific men mean when they talk of "chance," and "the chances" is explained by Prof. T. C. Mendenhall (Science, December 20). We quote a few paragraphs, as follows:

"Popularly the word 'chance' is often used as if to imply the absence of any cause, but this is an unreasonable, if not an unthinkable, condition. Really such words as 'chance,' 'accident,' and the like, imply only the absence of any assigned or recognized cause, and the doctrine of chances is a study and development of the laws relating to a series or aggregation of events, concerning the individual components of which we are absolutely ignorant. Thus, if one tosses a coin, it is, in general, impossible to know in advance on which face it will rest. That its behavior in this respect will be governed by the operation of forces and conditions just as certain and just as definitely compelling a given result as is the behavior of the sun and moon in the matter of an eclipse, will not be denied. If in any particular trial we knew all of the forces and conditions which influence the result we should find that they were never equally balanced between the two possible events, but always predominated in favor of that which actually happened. A complete knowledge of antecedent causes would reveal the fact that each of these (to us at present unknown) forces and conditions is subject to other secondary influences which continually change its resultant effect from one side to the other, and so on, in lower degree, to the end that in a very large number of trials the ratio of the number of times the two possible events have occurred becomes very nearly one, to which, indeed, it approximates continuously as the number of trials in

creases.

I

"There is one point to which it seems worth while to invite especial attention, namely, the confusion which often exists as to the inherent improbability of certain events. Such events are those which, for reasons entirely independent of the probability of their occurrence, have a particular interest. As an illustration, may refer to the chance of the appearance of a particular hand at whist. Two or three years ago those interested in games with cards were greatly excited by the alleged occurrence of an event in the Boston & Albany railroad station in Boston. It was nothing less than that during the progress of a game of whist played by three railroad conductors and a mail agent, while waiting for the hour of departure of their trains, on taking up the cards after a deal each man found himself in possession of the whole thirteen cards of one suit. The a priori probability of such an event is all but infinitely small, and it was thought to be necessary to fortify the account published with affidavits of all the players and also of one or two gentlemen who happened to be watching the game. It probably occurred to few who read this account that the chances against any other particular distribution of the cards were just as great as against this, and that the result of every deal of the cards is just as remarkable as this and as little likely ever to occur again in the lifetime of the players. Indeed, any event of life, when considered in connection with contemporaneous and related events, in all their ramifications, will be found to have a priori chances so overwhelmingly against it that it seems impossible that it ever should happen.”

What Astronomers Learn from Lunar Eclipses. The following paragraphs are from an article in The Scientific American, December 21, on the practical value of observations taken during eclipses of the moon: "The most important observation is that of the occultation of the stars, or their passage behind the moon. At ordinary times the brilliancy of the moon is such that only the brightest stars can be seen as they approach it. During eclipse, and owing to the fact that the moon has no atmosphere, stars of very faint power can be observed up to the moment at which they pass behind the planet. In determining

the place of the moon by this method the occultation of certain
stars is observed simultaneously at different observatories, widely
separated. This sidereal occultation, which, for the reasons.
above given, is very exact, is used for calculations of longitude,
and to establish the diameter of the moon, its distance from the
earth, and its right ascension and declination. A total eclipse
affords a special opportunity of making a spectroscopic examina-
tion of the earth's atmosphere. The sun's rays, during eclipse,
pass through the atmospheric envelope obliquely on their way to
the moon. Their course at this time through the atmosphere is
much longer than when they fall normally to the earth, as they
do during the daytime. After being reflected from the moon they
again pass through the earth's atmosphere before they strike the
spectroscope. In this way the earth's spectroscopic lines are ob-
tained of greater distinctness than is possible in ordinary obser-
vations. The total eclipse has been used to determine the amount
of heat thrown out by the moon. During eclipse, for obvious
reasons, the moon can not give off reflected heat. Any heat that
we then receive must be heat that has been absorbed from the
sun, and is now being radiated. The observations show that as
the light fails so does the heat; which proves that lunar heat is
reflected, not radiated. Many historical dates have been accu-
rately fixed by means of calculations based upon the lunar eclipse.
'The first olympiad, the beginning of the Christian era, and the
death of Augustus are some of the events whose dates have been
settled by the occurrence of lunar eclipses.

An Electric Incubator.-A recently invented incubator is heated and regulated by electricity. "It is said," says The Scientific American, in describing the device, "that the temperature can be adjusted to be held for weeks within a fraction of a degree of the desired point. The incubator casing has the usual double walls enclosing a filling of mineral wool, and the heat is supplied from the water-tank at the top, the heating and setting up of a circulation in the water being effected through a small connected reservoir at one side. In the old-style incubators the heating of the water was effected by a lamp, there being a lamp regulator controlling the flaine, and a valve regulator acted upon by the heat of the water before entering the tank, while both regulators were actuated by an improved thermostat. In the electric incubator, or 'Electric Hen,' as it is called, the water is heated by a resistance-box, the current through which can be regulated with extreme nicety."

SCIENCE BREVITIES.

THE satisfactory employment of kerosene as a local application to wounds and ulcers is reported by the New York Medical Journal. "Ulcers, especially indolent and atonic ulcers, were smeared with commercial kerosene, either pure or diluted (from 35 to 50 per cent.) with alcohol, by means of a small camel's-hair brush or with a piece of gauze soaked in the solution. The appearance and character of the ulcers soon changed for the better, the discharge gradually diminished, and in from two to four weeks the rapidly granulating surface formed a scar without any contraction in the surrounding parts." The advantages claimed for kerosene are rapidity of action, economy, and freedom from poisonous effects.

GILDED silk, it is said, may possibly come into use as a surgical dressing or in medical applications of electricity. It may be prepared in several ways. That of Gonin consists in impregnating the silk fiber with chlorid of gold, and reducing the metal by hydrogen, finally polishing by means of a smooth surface. This method is too expensive for ordinary use, but silk may also be gilt by electroplating it, after it has been made to conduct electricity by soaking it in some metallic salt, such as nitrate of silver, acetate of lead or copper, etc. The gilt silk thus prepared retains its flexibility and softness. The method is applicable to laces, muslins, tulles, etc.

"FOR many years," says The Magazine of Pharmacy, "pure lemon-juice has been recommended as the best tonic for diphtheria and sore throat in general, and we have known a case in which the son of a medical man in one of the Paris hospitals cured himself of diphtheria by constantly sucking oranges or lemons, a small basketful of which were placed for this purpose at his bedside. We see that a Danish physician, Dr. Bock, of Copenhagen, recommends, in the treatment of diphtheria, a ten-per-cent. solution of citric acid, to be given in spoonful doses every two hours."

IN a recent experiment on testing milk by passing through it an electric current between platinum electrodes, the positive pole became coated with a white, spongy-looking material which increased until so thick upon the plate that it ultimately became disengaged and floated to the surface of the milk. The white deposit consisted principally of a mixture of casein and fat. The milk gave off a characteristic odor during the process, and was found to be slightly alkaline after the operation.

IT is proposed by the Administrative Council of the Pasteur Institute of Paris to make an international appeal for subscriptions toward the erection of a monument to Pasteur.