1789, thought of overthrowing the monarchy. It was possible for Camille Desmoulins to say after it had been some time in progress, 'Not a dozen of us were Republicans then.' Nobody, at the beginning of our struggle with Great Britain, dreamed of throwing off the sovereignty of the crown; or, perhaps, nobody but Sam Adams. So, when Luther started on the campaign which was to revolutionize half Christendom his aim was reform, the Had abolition of indulgences, the redress of a few other abuses. Leo X. granted that, the Reformation as we know it would never have been accomplished, or would never have had Luther for its author and chief agent. He never meant to split the Catholic world in two. Step by step, from his attack on Tetzel and the indulgences, the great German went on. The ninety-five theses of Luther were nailed on the door of the little church at Wittenberg in October, 1517. Four years after that came the Diet of Worms, with Luther for the central figure of a drama than which, says Froude, there is no grander in history or fiction. When the Council of Trent met, twenty-four years later, the supremacy of Rome and of the Catholic faith over Germany, England, and other parts of Northern Europe had passed irrecoverably away."

Mr. Smalley cites a passage of Froude's which, he says, is so illuminative and so good an example of his method that it deserves prominence. It is this:

"In days like ours, when religion has become opinion, it is easy to tolerate varieties of ritual and belief. At a time when religion was a rule of life it seemed as difficult to allow two or more religions in the same country as to permit two or more systems of law.

...

"What we mean by law, however, covers but a small part of human conduct, and, beyond the sphere of definite wrongs forbidden by the civil magistrate, there lies the broad region of moral duties which law can not reach. There grows up, therefore, everywhere parallel to the laws and by the same methods, what are called national religions, which insist on purity, truth, honesty, piety, and sense of responsibility to God.

"As a general explanation of a man's position and duty in this world, the creed which he finds established in his own country is infinitely nearer the truth than any theory which he could reason out for himself. A religion which has established itself in usage and conscience is so infinitely precious as a restraint on evil passions and a stimulus to wise judgment that no sensible person, save at desperate extremity, will question the truth of it." And upon this he says:

"That may seem, and is, so far as it goes, an argument for But conformity and against reformations and other novelties. it explains why religion was then a part of the problem of civil government, and why, in the opinion of civil as well as ecclesiastical rules, to allow the practise of more religions than one was as impossible as to allow the practise of two laws."

The Poet According to Zangwill.-"It is one of the pleasures of my life that I never saw Tennyson. Hence I am still able to think of him as a poet, for even his photograph is not disillusionizing, and he dressed for the part almost as well as Beerbohm Tree would have done. Why one's idea of a poet is a fine frenzied being, I do not quite know. One seems to pick it up in the very nursery, and even the London gamin knows a poet when he doesn't see one. Probably it rests upon the ancient tradition of oracles and sibyls, foaming at the mouth like champagne bottles. Inspiration meant originally demoniac possession, and to 'modern thought' prophecy and poetry are both epileptic. 'Genius is a degenerative psychosis of the epileptoid order.' A large experience of poets has convinced me as little of this as of Poets seem the old view summed up in genus irritabile vatum.' to me the homeliest and most hard-working of mankind—'tis a Of course they man in possession, not a daimon nor a disease. have their mad moods, but they don't write in them. Writing demands serenity, steadiness, patience; and of all kinds of writing, poetry demands the steadiest pen. Complex meters and curious rime-schemes are not to be achieved without pain and patience. Prose is a path, but poetry is a tight-rope, and to walk on it demands the nicest dexterity. You may scribble off prose in the fieriest frenzy-who so fiery and frenzied as your journalist with the printer's devil at his elbow?-but if you would aspire to Parnassus, you must go slow and steady."-1. Zangwill on "The Limitations of Inspiration," in The Critic.

A NEW opera by a new composer has created a veritable sensation in Vienna. The opera is "Evangelimann," and the composer's name is Kienzl. There has been some discussion in regard to Kienzl's originalitysome critics call the opera a frank imitation of Wagner, while others, altho confessing the strong Wagner influence, insist that Kienzl has ideas entirely his own. All agree, however, in considering the opera a veritable addition to the operatic stage.-The Lotus.

He was born in

THOMAS HUGHES, AUTHOR OF "TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS."

most popular work being "Tom Brown's SchoolDays, by an Old Boy" (1857), followed by "Tom Brown at Oxford" (1861). Both books have become classics in the department of boys' literature. Altho both are believed to be autobiographic, Mr. Hughes

is said to have declared that Tom Brown was intended as a portrait of Dean Stanley. The Tribune says:

"To the men who were boys twenty-five or thirty years ago no name has a pleasanter sound than that of 'Tom' Hughes, as they all called him when they did not identify him with his most famous character and call him 'Tom Brown.' The adventures of an ingenuous English boy at Rugby, under the care of that beloved master, Dr. Arnold, and afterward at the university in the days when rowing was at its zenith, were read with unmixed delight. They were even more attractive to American boys than to English lads. There was the romantic atmosphere of distance and the glamour of a school and university system such as was unknown in this country. The stories of the fights in the ring for principle, of the struggles on the football field, of the tasks set as a punishment-all had the charm of novelty. The manner of life at Oxford, with its look of homelikeness, the rash Radicalism of youth in contact with the Toryism of the old-fashioned country squire who comes up to see his boy and to revive the memories of his own university career, the minor lapses from rectitude of the hero, come up to mind with the freshness of a first reading."

From the same paper we take the following biographical facts: "Before his graduation he had taken an interest in political problems, and when he left Oxford he was an advanced Liberal. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1848. In 1865 he was elected to Parliament for Lambeth, retaining his seat for three years, when he was returned for Frome; this constituency Mr. he represented till 1874. In the general election of that year. Hughes was nominated as a candidate for Marylebone, but he retired the day before the poll was taken. He received the ap pointment of Queen's Counsel in 1869. In 1882 he was appointed judge of the County Court, Circuit No. 9. Of late years he had made occasional appearances as a lecturer, being a well-known authority on cooperation; he had also been known as an active opponent of gambling."

Mr. Hughes's interest in the United States was well known and frequently manifested. He warmly espoused the cause of the

Union during our Civil War. Twice he visited us, first in 1870 and again in 1880, when he was the chief agency in the founding of a community in Tennessee called "Rugby Colony," the suc cess of which did not fulfil his expectations. Besides the books already named, and one entitled "The Cause of Freedom: Which is its Champion in America, the North or the South?" which

appeared in 1863, the New York Times gives the following bibliography:

"The Scouring of the White Horse" (1859), which was illustrated by Richard Doyle; “Tracts for Priests and People” (1861); "Alfred the Great" (1861); “Memoir of a Brother" (1873), the same being an account of George C. Hughes, whom he describes as "only a good specimen of thousands of Englishmen of high culture, high courage, high principle, who are living their own quiet lives in every corner of the kingdom;" "The Old Church; What Shall We Do with It;" (1878); “The Condition and Prospects of the Church of England" (1878); "The Manliness of Christ" (1879); "Rugby, Tennessee; Being Some Account of the Settlement" (1881); “Memoir of Daniel Macmillan" (1882); "Gone to Texas; Letters from Our Boys" (1884), these boys being four nephews of Mr. Hughes; "James Fraser, Bishop of Manchester, (1887), and “Livingstone" (1889). In 1859 he introduced in England Lowell's "Biglow Papers," and in 1891 Lowell's "Poetical Works."

IN

'A LADY OF QUALITY."

N this, her latest novel, Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett has given us the story of an eighteenth-century woman placed under strange conditions-one who learns what love and unselfishness mean only after a bitter experience of sin and its punishment. Clorinda is the motherless daughter of a drinking, hunting English father of the Squire Western type, a brutal, foul-mouthed fellow who hates his daughters because he has no son, refuses even to see them, and allows Clorinda to be brought up by grooms and servants until she becomes as passionate, wilful, and foul-mouthed as himself. Discovering this by chance, the father takes a fancy to his daughter, makes her a kind of boon companion, dresses her in boy's clothes, takes her to the huntingfield, and, in short, does all he can to ruin her character. At the age of fifteen she abandons boy's attire and becomes a superb beauty and coquette. Proud of her power over men, she yet falls a victim to a villain, conceals her sin, marries a noble elderly man, to whom she is faithful, and after his death meets an ideal man of her age and learns what true love is. Meanwhile the villain of her early life (who then refused to marry her) pursues her with threats of exposure. In a moment of rage she strikes him with a heavy whip and kills him. She conceals his body in the cellar of her house, marries the man of her choice, and lives a life of repentance, charity, and humility. Having so summarized the points of the story, The Outlook, whose expression in this case may be taken as a fair composite of critical opinion, says:

"The story in itself has strong dramatic possibilities. In its treatment we do not think that Mrs. Burnett is at her best. In reproducing the eighteenth-century atmosphere she is not at home. The unqualified somberness of the story is not in keeping with the bent of her genius. The characters have not an air of naturalness. The whole tone of the story is too intense not to become strained. The diction is often stilted, and one feels that there is too much repetition of the superlative in describing the wondrous beauty and power of Clorinda. No one can deny the originality of the plot and the strength of the situations; but from the literary point of view there is exaggeration."

A Literary Castastrophe.-"I know nothing of the novel by Stevenson, which The Pall Mall Magazine is understood to have bought or even whether it was ever finished or not. The other novel, 'St. Ives,' which is to appear in McClure's Magazine, and which was not quite completed, is 'purely a romance of adventure.' The forecasts given of it tell of duels, escapes from dungeons, thrilling episodes among highwaymen, and the like. Clearly it is to be in what may be called Stevenson's 'kidnaped' manner, and if he had shown us nothing better we should have prized it reverently. But Weir of Hermiston' reveals a Stevenson we had hardly known before. There may have been some hairbreadth and blood-curdling business in the author's projects for the tale. But these opening six chapters spread out a broad and rich field of serious work, with a dozen noteworthy personages, great and little, painted with extraordinary mastery of character and

the promise of a real story among them which should be worth a hundred 'romances of adventure.' The figures of the Lord Justice Clerk and his son Archie are as fine as anything in Stevenson's whole gallery of men folk, but much more striking still is the young girl, Christiana Elliot, whom the sixth chapter brings in the foreground. For the first time there is a Stevenson heroine who interests and wholly pleases her creator. The Catriona who preceded her was an empty shadow, but this Christina is glowing with life. In fact, Stevenson at forty-four had just attained the point where he could paint a woman as well as menand then at a stroke the hand stiffens and the brush falls. Oh, the irreparable pity of it!"-Harold Frederick, in the New York Times.

As a conWagner's Power as a Musical Director. ductor, technically and intellectually, Wagner can surely be given the highest place. He ruled the musicians completely with his gestures—yes, even sometimes with his eyes alone. He lifted them up into the fairy realms of his imagination, and confided tasks to them which they had never before thought of. He inflamed them with his fiery eyes; an energetic sweep of his baton would bring out a heavy chord from his orchestra such as had never before been heard from it; the oboe player suddenly found himself able to play the so-called cadence in the first movement of the Cminor Symphony with a seemingly infinite breath and a sobbing tenderness which made one think he was listening to an entirely new phrase. Wagner in the conductor's stand, was an enemy of many words; deeds were his demonstrations. His attitude before an orchestra was like that of a general, firm, sure, energetic; he did not shrink up to dwarf's size at a piano, nor jump up like a bird of prey at a fort, but seemed always a piece of majesty conducting, or rather composing, the music. Only the muscles of the face, the expression of the eyes, the angles of the mouth played the orchestral piece along with the musicians, and reflected the entire contents of the composition, and it was for this reason that the musicians learned his wishes so quickly. They were always in a state of enthusiasm, and his witticisms thrown out in the pauses kept them continually in a state of good-humor throughout the longest and most wearying rehearsals.”—Anton Seidl, in The American Art Journal.

"News, News!"-Our always interesting contemporary and neighbor, The Outlook, has the following sensible remarks to make on the subject of "News":"A good many editors seem to interpret the word 'news' as meaning only the abnormal, the immoral, and the sensational. Information about the normal, healthy life of the world is reduced to the smallest possible compass; its crimes, diseases, insanities, lust, and perversities are magnified out of all proportion to their real importance. Not many weeks ago the first, and therefore the most important, page of one of the leading journals in the country was filled, on Sunday morning, with monotonous reports of local crimes and scandals. There was not a word about what was going on in the great world; no recognition of national, governmental, religious, educational, or philanthropic movements; no comment on the industrial life of men; but an entire page surrendered to local thefts, arsons, and crimes! The absence of the sense of the relative value of news is strikingly shown in the way in which most newspapers treat the colleges. There are a few journals of high standing which regularly report college news, but the vast majority of the newspapers, except at Commencement season, surrender space to the colleges only when there is some disturbance to report and every college officer knows from sad experience that the slightest infraction of the law, the least outbreak of youthful exuberance, is elaborated and padded until it fills a column or columns, and is treated as if it were a matter of international importance."

LADY ISABEL BURTON, widow of Sir Richard Burton, died in London on March 23, in which place she was born March 20, 1831. Her life was full of adventure. For many years she traveled with her husband, often being forced to adopt male attire when among the savage tribes of the East. Her name became well known after his death through her action in burning the manuscript of his translation of "The Scented Garden," from the Persian of Saadi, which she considered unfit for publication. Since Sir Richard's death Lady Burton had lived in retirement.

ALL the money for the beacon in memory of Tennyson has been subscribed, the monolith for the shaft has been successfully quarried in Cornwall, and the monument will be set up in the fall. Of the $4,750 subscribed, $1,250 came from the United States.

THE

SCIENCE.

WHAT IS A NEBULA?

HE curious hazy, cloud-like objects known as nebulæ have long been objects of great interest to astronomers, who have felt that a full explanation of them would go a good way toward solving the problem of world-formation. Before the days of powerful telescopes it was very generally supposed that the nebulæ were all masses of chaotic matter-the material of universes yet uncreated; but when it was found that with higher magnifying power many of them proved to be distant starclusters, like our Milky Way, it began to be thought that all might thus be accounted for. The invention of the spectroscope, however, showed that many of them consisted, at least, in part of glowing gases. Some have thought that these, which are the true nebulæ, are masses of hot gas, which will upon cooling condense into worlds; others, like Lockyer, the English astronomer, regard them as swarms of meteorites whose frequent collisions have knocked off and turned to vapor some of their substance. In an article in Knowledge, February, Mr. E. Walter Maunder, Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, adduces many facts in support of the view that they are clusters of suns-but suns in which the envelope known as the corona is enormously more prominent than in our own luminary. We quote below portions of his article. Our illustration is from Gaa (Leipsic, December) : "It is hard enough to understand how we can have gaseous masses of such enormous extent [as the nebulæ]. The difficulty is increased when we bear in mind how extreme must be their

SPIRAL NEBULE IN THE CONSTELLATION PISCES.
(From a photograph by Dr. Isaac Roberts.)

average tenuity. It will be remembered that Mr. Ranyard showed that in the case of the Orion nebula, evidently one of the densest, there was good cause to think that its mean density could not exceed one ten-thousand-millionth of that of our atmosphere at sea-level. To this we have to add the yet further difficulty that the nebula has no slight luminosity, and the extension of its spectrum far into the ultra-violet points to a considerable elevation of temperature. Yet, on the other hand, the presence

of the yellow line of helium would indicate that, in those regions which give this line, the gas is at a far higher pressure than that just indicated. Lastly (and perhaps the most difficult feature of all), while we should expect a freely expanding gas to diffuse itself equally and indefinitely in all directions; we find nebulæ taking strange and complicated shapes, and showing here and there strongly marked outlines.

"If we think of nebulæ as merely vast extensions of rarefied gas, it is exceedingly difficult to understand this last-named peculiarity. But if we follow out the idea already suggested,

that there are in sidereal space systems wherein the arrangement of matter differs from that in the solar system in two directionsfirst, instead of being concentrated into one sun it is distributed among many; and, next, instead of the chief bulk of each of these suns lying below the photosphere, a disproportionate amount exists in the form of chromosphere and corona-j -it is easy to see that an appearance might be created not different from that which we recognize in many nebulæ.

"The aspect of such a system, as viewed from our standpoint, would vary according to the arrangement of the stars, and the relative importance of the actual stars themselves and of their appendages.

"If we imagined such a transformation to take place in our own system, the sun being degraded to the rank of a self-luminous Jupiter and the various planets raised to the rank of miniature suns, all with extended chromospheres and coronæ, and we were to view the whole from a great distance, it would appear to us as a spiral nebula; irregular and broken, it may be, but still approximating to the spiral form. [Compare illustration.]

"The example of Saturn's rings, where we have a vast number of small bodies so evenly distributed as to appear like a series of solid concentric rings, and the usual diagrams of the solar system, may suggest that a similar target-like appearance would result. But this would not be the case unless the subdivision were carried to the same extreme extent as in the Saturnian annuli. However complicated the orbits of the various little suns might be, each body would only occupy one part of its orbit at any given time, and there would be no other bodies, except by accident, to mark out the rest of its course. At any given time the distribution of these sunlets would be unsymmetrical; but the general tendency, however irregular and broken their arrangement, would usually be toward the spiral form.

Such an object as the great spiral nebula in Canes Venatici need not, therefore, be looked upon as rotating gases, subject to no control but that of the general mass. It is difficult, indeed,

to see how it could be conceived as such. But the gases which make their presence evident in it are probably under the control of a great number of somewhat small suns, which form the bright knots that trace out its remarkable spirals. They form, in effect, the chromospheres of these little orbs.

"To sum up, I would wish to urge that our best and safest way to understand the nature of the sidereal structures is to argue from the one system which is sufficiently near us to reveal something of its character-that is to say, our own. But that, while we may reasonably take its constitution as a type, just as the structure of one vertebrate may be taken as typical of all, we must be prepared to find the largest differences in the scale upon which other systems are built, and in the proportions which their several parts bear to each other. And a system in which the total mass was distributed among very many small members, and in which the chromospheric and coronal element was in large excess of the truly stellar, would undoubtedly appear to us as a nebula. Whether there are nebula of an altogether different type is a question beyond my present purpose."

RÔLE OF FATS IN THE ANIMAL BODY.

THE

HE teachings of the most recent researches on this disputed question are summarized in a brief notice in Der Stein der Weisen (Vienna, February 15), which we translate below:

"In the processes that go on in the body three groups of carbon compounds undergo a combustion in the true sense of the wordalbumins, carbohydrates, and fats. Regarding the different functions of these materials only this much is certain: that albumin is indispensable to the building-up of new cells and the repair of waste material, and that carbon compounds, free from nitrogen, serve as fuel for the production of heat and mechanical

work. These compounds consist of carbohydrates and fats and very probably of albumins also. It can also scarcely be doubted that the animal body can avail itself not only of fat but also of carbohydrates as fuel; but it is also to be assumed that in the normal physiological conditions fat and the carbohydrates play different rôles. It should be noted that Nature herself has given to the infant in milk-without doubt an absolutely appropriate means of nourishment-not only albumin but fat and carbohy drates. In most kinds of animals, especially in men, the proportion of sugar in milk is greater than that of fat, while on the other hand Dr. Gurdy of St. Andrews has found in whale's milk the enormous amount of forty per cent. of fat.

The general opinion is this, that the strength-producing fuel in muscle is one of the compounds belonging to the carbohydrate group, glycogen or some similar compound, by whose combustion, together with the production of work, some heat is also inevitably produced. In ordinary circumstances this suffices to raise the bodily temperature to its normal height. But if this can not be reached thus, other substances must be used as fuel. Heat produced by muscular work in the animal body is best obtained from the carbohydrates of the food, but besides this the indispensable production of heat is best attained through fats. This corresponds with the instinctive choice of foods made by men, who in the tropics eat little fat, while the dweller in polar regions devours large quantities of it to feed his bodily combustion.

44

'Moderate use of alcohol causes a deposit of fat, because, while alcohol is not turned into a fuel in the muscle and nerve cells, it serves as a pure fuel in the organism and replaces the combustion of fat. The reason that the use of alcohol is so dangerous in the polar regions is that alcohol favors the throwing-off of heat in great degree, so that the effect is as if the stove in a room should be heated red-hot and then all the doors and windows should be thrown open."— Translated for THE LITERary Digest.

INFLUENCE OF THE MIND OVER DISEASE.

THE

'HE lengths to which mind-curists and faith-curists have gone in advocacy of their special methods, to the exclusion of all other modes of treatment, have caused many persons to look askance at all assertions regarding the influence of the mind over bodily functions and processes, yet no physiological fact is better established than the existence of such an influence. Regarding some phases of it Modern Medicine (February) has the following to say editorially, its remarks being suggested by an address made recently by Dr. T. S. Clouston before the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh, Scotland. We quote a few paragraphs

below:

"Every bodily organ and function is represented in the cortex of the brain, by means of which all are harmonized and unified. Each neuron, with its hundreds of fibers and its thousands of dendrites, has relation to some particular part and function, and is connected not only with all other neurons but, directly or indirectly, with multitudes of other similar structures which help to form the brain. Every function of the body-laughing, talking, weeping, digestion, sweating, etc.—is affected through the influence of the brain cortex.

"The evidence that the brain cortex regulates absorption, secretion, vascular tone, as well as the various tissue changes and other activities of the body, is complete. Sores, in melancholic persons will not heal. In cases of lung disease in idiots and imbeciles, there is so little resisting power against the tubercular bacillus that two thirds of them die of consumption. Sir Samuel Baker noted that grief or hunger is nearly always followed by fever in certain parts of Africa. When in Mexico two years ago, we found that quite a proportion of chronic invalids attributed their illness to getting angry, a fit of anger in that country being usually followed by a severe illness. Death occurs in many

cases, not so much because of disease as because of the dimin

ished resisting mental and nervous force which opposes it. A bad memory and an attack of eczema in a man of seventy-five may be due to the same cause. A cheerful and buoyant mind as well as a sound brain are all-important in both the prevention and the healing of disease.

"Blisters have been caused by suggestions during hypnotic conditions. .. Warts have been charmed away, gout swellings

These are

have disappeared at the cry of 'Mad dog' or 'Fire.' extraordinary examples of an action just as real, tho less patent, of the influence which the brain is continually exercising upon other portions of the body.

Most diseases are aggravated at night when the brain is least active. Most convulsive attacks occur at that time. 'What 'man's courage is as great at three in the morning as at midday? What man's judgment is as clear then?' 'Hallucinations, as well as fears, are most apt to appear at night.' 'To check many diseases we can not employ better therapeutics than to strengthen the cortex, and thus strengthen the mental energy.' 'To this end the first thing the good doctor does is to inspire confidence in his patient.' Dr. Clouston thus presents a good foundation for a scientific mind-cure which some ingenious therapeutist will doubtless some day work out in detail."

WHY SAND FLOATS ON WATER.

IT is well known that small dry particles of substances heavier

than water will float upon that liquid by means of capillary action, the surface tension of the water, forming a depression much larger than the particle, produces the same effect as if the specific gravity of the particle had been lessened. In an article in The American Geologist (January) Frederic W. Simonds says that he has observed this phenomenon on a large scale on the Llano River, a tributary of the Colorado. The particles seen floating in this case are of so-called “granite sand," much larger than the fine dust with which the phenomenon is usually observed, making it unusual and even a little mysterious. We quote Mr. Simonds's description:

"The morning after my arrival, the river was found to be rising, and, as I stood on the bank, at the point where we secured our water-supply, I noticed a considerable froth and what appeared to me at the time scum passing down the stream. I spoke of the condition of the river to my companion, Mr. Laurence D. Brooks, of Austin, who remarked that what seemed to be scum was really sand. I thereupon went down to the water's edge, and, dipping up some of the floating material, was astonished to find that the patches were composed of sand, mainly of quartz. At this time-half-past nine or ten-the water supported a large number of patches, which varied in area from less than a square inch up to several square inches, all swept along by the current...

"A week later, when the river was well down and the sandy stretches of its bed had become quite dry on their surface, I gathered sand by handfuls, and sent it floating down the stream in such quantities that the sand-rafts actually cast shadows on the bottom as they passed."

From experiments made by the author of the article it appears that ability to float is not confined to any one kind of sand. Out of fourteen specimens, only one failed to show some signs of floating. Mr. Simonds believes that the surface tension of the liquid, as suggested above, is the cause of the phenomenon. His explanation in full is in the following words:

"When shaded, it will be seen that the floating sand-grains cause a depression of the water's surface, which indeed is quite as apparent in the case of isolated grains as in that of patches. I recall one instance where the depression, of very short duration, possibly but a few seconds, was so great as to be positively startling. As I was sprinkling some sand upon the river, for experimental purposes, a pebble almost as large as the end of my little finger fell into the center of a floating patch, which, to my great astonishment and delight, was depressed like a funnel for, say, half an inch, before the cause of this unexpected phenomenon broke through the surface and sank to the bottom.

"It appears from these and other observations that the weight of the sand-grains actually depresses the surface of the water; yet the elastic reaction of that surface is sufficiently great to prevent them from sinking, especially when the resistance offered by their angularity is taken into consideration. In the launching of grains the more rounded would tend to roll over in the water and thus become wet, in consequence of which they would sink, while those of an irregular shape would overcome the tendency to roll