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has had already the most of his education along these lines. It is the method which the child unwittingly pursues before the school ostentatiously takes him in hand. It is the method, or some part of it, which the infant in the cradle follows who "spreads out his arms to the light." At first he only observes and experiments, but by and by he grows wiser and draws conclusions. If he still gains wisdom he learns-but how few ever reach this stage-to verify his conclusions. More often, Nature, his patient teacher to the end, completes the cycle, proving or disproving for him, happily or unhappily.

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But the methods of physical science are not merely the methods of nature. It does not stop with observation and experiment. As Dr. Whewell wrote long ago: To the formation of Science two things are requisite: fact and ideas; observations of things without and an inward effort of thought.

The impressions of sense, unconnected by some rational and speculative principle, can only end in a practical acquaintance with objects; the operation of the rational faculties, on the other hand, if allowed to go on without a constant reference to external things, can only lead to empty abstraction and barren ingenuity."

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Wordsworth, however, may fairly claim to be par excellence the Poet of Nature: because all that is best in his work is more vitally dependent on his love of Nature than is that of any other poet of the first rank. His mind is at the farthest remove from that of the dramatist, to whom the central interest must always be human passion, human loves and hates; to whom the beauty of the world is mainly a setting for the men that live and move in it. The dramatist dwells among the haunts of men; he derives his inspiration from the rough-and-tumble of every-day life, however he may glorify it. Wordsworth, however, is at his happiest when the clamour of men's tongues is hushed; when the voices of the mountains are in his ears, and overhead the

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Who, if not I, for questing here hath power?

I know the wood which hides the daffodil,

I know the Fyfield tree,

I know what white, what purple fritillaries

The grassy harvest of the river-fields

Above by Ensham, down by Sandford, yields,
And what sedged brooks are Thames's tributaries.

Yet, though Arnold has the feeling of the country, it is a secondary thing with him; an accompaniment; the result less of instinct than of cultivated taste. So his similes or illustrations derived from rural life appear, with an air less of being the thing that was suggested to him by the circumstances than of being the sort of thing which he thought would probably have been suggested by similar circumstances to Homer or

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Virgil. I am not sure that this manner has not a charm of its own to the literary mind, but it is not the living charm of green turf and blue sky. Still less is it the 'Presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts," as Wordsworth says. One has a suspicion that when Wordsworth went out on the hillside, Arnold may have done so, too; but he went with Marcus Aurelius in his pocket. Now and then we have a delicately touched picture, as of

The mowers, who, as the tiny swell
Of our boat passing heaved the river-grass,
Stood with suspended scythe to see us pass,

but the literary flavor has a habit of predominating.

Robert Browning is a poet to whom nothing is of the same account as the individual man, the development of this or that particular soul. This so outweighs all else in his work, that we are apt to overlook the fact that he was a keen and delighted observer and recorder of the sights and sounds of Nature of the world in which men live, the concomitants of human life. Certainly he never wrote an ode to a skylark or a daisy, but he was very much, and joyously, aware of them, as witness, let us say, "Home thoughts from abroad." His description of the thrush is almost the only really hackneyed thing he wrote-it does duty annually in the newspaper articles. His May morning when—

Though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower,

is instinct with the very spirit of spring. Even in the "Parleyings" there is a sunrise, characteristically different from Wordsworth's, but throbbing with the life of the new day's dawn.

There is a rather curious difference between Wordsworth and Browning which is worth noting the former has a vivid sense of what Mr. Morley calls an animated Presence in the mountains and woods; but Browning has a way of speaking of them as individually alive.

As might be expected, Tennyson stands somewhat as a link between Wordsworth and Browning in his way of looking at Nature. She is more intimately bound up with his thoughts than with Browning's, but is less exclusively responsible for the best of them than with Wordsworth. He presents her with an accuracy and an unfailing felicity of phrase unrivalled, except by the universal rival, Shakespeare, and by Keats. He can be lavish with gorgeous detail, as in "Enoch Arden "; but he can call up a complete picture in a couple of lines

What sound was dearest in his native dells?
The mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells,
Far-far-away.

There is a whole landscape in that, or in such a phrase as "the long gray fields at night" (in the "May Queen "), just as clear as Wordsworth gives us in "Tintern Abbey." He has above all the art of putting before you clearly the salient features which of themselves suggest the background; the art of not saying the superfluous thing; so that in a few lines you have a picture of infinite suggestiveness.

WHAT OUR BOYS SHOULD LEARN.
V. HENRY.

Translated and Condensed for THE Literary DigeST from a Paper in

Revue des Etudes Grecques, Paris, January to April. UR boys have long been taught of the misdeeds of certain

upon them. There, for instance, are the Danaids, who killed their husbands on their wedding night, and were sentenced to pour water for ever through tubs with bottoms like sieves. There, also, are Ixion, on his wheel, Sisyphus, rolling perpetually his rock up hill, only to have it roll back again, and Tan

talus, with the stone always suspended above his head, likely to fall at any moment.

Whence came these stories? Some say that they are Aryan myths, but there is not a trace in the Rig-Veda of such horrible punishments inflicted on criminals. The Rig-Veda speaks often of monstrous, demoniac, and cruel beings, who oppose the Divine work, and whom the Gods never cease to resist; yet these monsters are crushed by the thunder of Indra, broiled by the flames of Aguî, engulfed in abysses, but they are not tortured for ever.

Others say these stories were invented and are pure creations. That is the worst of all answers. Man invents nothing, creates nothing, he only transforms and varies data previously acquired, and all folk-lore is but a mixture of like variations. There are others, still, who declare that these tales are nonAryan, and that the Greeks borrowed them from populations which preceded them on Hellenic ground. This hypothesis cannot be accepted.

Nearly all the myths of Nature, in my opinion, originate in one of those enigmas which circulate by the thousand among barbarous tribes and unlettered populations, childish amusements in which an every-day and commonplace fact is disguised under vague expressions or metaphorical circumlocutions. À propos of this M. S. Reinach said to me one day, that the first men must have had a singularly subtle and metaphorical turn of mind, to have an atmospheric phenomenon so simple as the daybreak or the storm appear to their imagination under the form of so many marriages, adulteries, incests, and murders! It is a sufficient answer to this objection that these subtle metaphors were in great part intentional and meant to veil the thought contained in the enigma. Even nowadays in the mountains of Herzegovina, and among the Redskins of North America, the same formulas of puerile ingenuity are in use, which appear to be the primitive sport of the human mind.

It is not difficult under this theory, as M. Breal has shown in such an attractive manner, to make clear that the Greek stories of these terrible punishments are but veiled descriptions of natural events. In the story of the Danaids, they are fifty females-their husbands are killed on their wedding night-they pour water through a sieve. These three statements mean only the clouds-the lightning-the rain. So the stories of Ixion, Sisyphus, and Tantalus are but solar myths, and so they ought to be explained to our boys, when they are learning the old Greek tales.

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Condensed for THE LITErary Digest from a Paper in

Library Journal, London, March.

ITTLE is known of the old Russian libraries beyond the fact that they contained a rare collection of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin books, all of which are supposed to have been destroyed by fire in 1611. Of modern libraries that of the Trinity Monastery near Moscow, is specially rich. It possesses 823 manuscript books, of which 400 belong to the Sixteenth Century. But the most notable libraries are those founded by the Government. Of these, two deserve special mention: The Library of the Academy of Sciences, and the Imperial Public Library in St. Petersburg. Books taken by the Russian army from the Baltic provinces at the beginning of the Eighteenth Century formed the foundation of the first. The Imperial Library was the result of the Russian capture of Warsaw. Count Joseph Zalueski, Bishop of Kiev, spent fortythree years collecting a rich library of 300,000 volumes and 10,000 manuscripts. His brother Andrew enriched the library with volumes taken from the Museum of the Polish king. Many volumes were lost in the transfer to St. Petersburg, but in 1805 Alexander I. added to it the magnificent Dubrovsky

collection, gathered during a twenty-five years' residence in Paris, Rome, Madrid, and other large cities of Europe. This library is constantly growing, about 25,000 volumes being added annually.

In later years small libraries were successfully maintained in cities, and the demand for good reading steadily increased among the people. To Russian peasants the library is as yet a novelty. It is not very long since they were admitted to the elementary training of the village school. Few can read, and fewer have leisure for reading. The literary and scientific books which are supplied to all Russia, almost exclusively by St. Petersburg and Moscow, are inaccessible to the peasantry on account of price and style. The desire for religious books among the older peasants, and for narratives and stories among the younger, created what is called the "bark-box" literature, so called from the bark packing-cases in which retailers and dealers take the books to market. Lives of saints, folk-tales, trashy novels, accounts of the exploits of Russian heroes in wars against the Turks, are sold at from two to fifteen cents apiece. This delectable literature is embellished with coarse woodcuts, smeared with spots of paint, fantastically distributed, colouring horses green, and mice violet and yellow. These are the productions of literature and art offered to about 97 per cent. of the Russian people. Of late, village teachers have tried to introduce the peasants to Russian classics, and have discovered to their surprise that they appreciated the masterpieces of national literature, and criticised productions untrue: to nature. Men of letters, teachers, professors, began to write books for the people, and the people's reading-matter is steadily improving in quality.

Cheap editions of Pushkin and Sermontor's prose works meet with favour from the people, who cannot yet appreciate their verse. With the increase of schools the demand for books grows yearly, and the steps which the educated classes: have lately taken towards supplying the people with literature: should do much to hasten the day when the Russian peasantry will have acquired a taste for literature and have recovered from its long intellectual famine.

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THE OLD AGE OF VERDI.
ENRICO PANZACCHI.

Translated and Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper in Nuova Antologia, Rome, March. ONGEVITY is not, fortunately for mankind, infrequent with men of genius. What delights us most, however, is when a glorious old age is accompanied by vigor of body and mental activity. Titian painted admirable pictures at ninety, and Michael Angelo, when but a few years younger, cut noble statues from the marble.

The triumph of Verdi in his latest opera has some elements which raise it far above the triumphs of some other famous men in their old age. When Sawario Mercadante, old and blind, represented at Naples his opera "Virginia," I remember the shouts which rose to the skies when Luigi Settembrini said to the venerable master: "Your glory will be eternal like that of Rome!" Yet every one, in his heart, felt that the mingled old age and blindness of the composer played a great part in this species of apotheosis. In the year in which he died, at the age of eighty-four, Voltaire went to Paris to taste a last triumph at the representation of his last tragedy. Yet who, amid the delirious applause which greeted him, thought for a moment that "Irene" added anything to the legitimate glory of the great Frenchman?

Very different is the case with Verdi. Italy and the world of music, while heaping applause on the Italian composer for the latest successes of his artistic career, do not recall, either alone or even principally, the author of "Rigoletto" and "Il Trovatore," but find in his latest works still stronger arguments for his renown. Giuseppe Verdi has marched with firm step towards lofty heights and not wandered on the way. In

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his youth and early manhood he became the very popular composer; in his old age he rose to be master in the most serious and glorious sense of that word.

From the end of the last century there was evidently a certain declension in the glorious and severe traditions of the musical schools of Italy. This was partly due to political disturbances, the French invasion, and the Napoleonic wars. To lighten the gloom of those sad years, Rossini appeared like a meteor. All our musical composers for the stage, however, resembled too much fresco and decorative painters. Frescoes were produced rich in genius; decorations full of irresistible fascination dazzled the eyes. What was lacking was robustness, something which not merely tickled the ear, but touched the feelings and nourished religious and patriotic sentiments. This lacking quality Verdi imparted to our music. He would have done enough for his art and his fame if he had stopped after producing "Aida."

Since he arrived at the age of sixty he has created three works. The "Requiem Mass." in 1876, in honor of Alessandro Manzoni, "Othello," and "Falstaff"; not a great amount in quantity, truly, but a marvelous proof of the progress of the old master towards the purest and most resplendent regions of Art. With the twenty and more works produced before the three just named he had written a very beautiful page in the history of melodrama; with the three alluded to he has secured a high position in the sacred hierarchy of musical composers of all times and all countries.

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When the journals announced that Verdi had a mass ready, there were but few among us who had preserved the great traditions of church music, and a failure was expected. Gaspari, the greatest contrapuntist then alive, was urged to go to Bologna where the Mass was produced, and hear it. The old man refused. 'Why do you want me," he said, "to say evil things of Verdi, whom I wish well, and esteem in his own field." Gaspari went, however, and was charmed beyond measure. The tears fell from his eyes when he heard the Kyrie, and at the Offertory he could hardly restrain himself from applauding.

The master was drawn back to his first love, the theatre, and wrote " Othello." Here, again, it was thought he would fail. Rossini had treated the theme and written a masterpiece which charmed all ears. Again those who expected failure were disappointed, and his "Othello" was one of the great triumphs of his life.

Surely he will stop there, thought the world. "The Moor of Venice" will be Verdi's last opera. Not at all. He tried once more and chose for a subject a musical comedy. An opera bouffe from a man of eighty! That can never succeed. Despite the croakers, on the night of February 9th, was produced Falstaff," overflowing with graceful music, of a kind which exhilarated, fascinated, and conquered the audience. delighted hearers felt almost impelled to say: "The best wine ihas been kept until the end."

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Who were his co-workers on Falstaff"? Doubtless Shakespeare and Arrigo Boito. If, however, you want to find the true musical co-workers with Verdi in creating "Falstaff," you must search for them farther back than is commonly believed. Leaving behind him the period of Rossini and Donizetti, Verdi has gone back to the great Italian traditions, which at the end of the last century bore the most glorious testimony to their worth in comic operas.

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GALILEO GALILEI AND ARISTOTLE.
TH. HOMÉN.

Translated and Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper in
Finsk Tidskrift, Helsingfors, February,

ALILEO'S life and work represent the most remarkable period in the history of physics and human civilization. When he appeared, the people studied Aristotle's ready-made philosophy of nature, but not Nature herself. At the oldest universities, those of Bologna, Salverno, Padua, Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, the examination for admission to the classes in natural history required only a satisfactory knowledge of Aristotle. It was the Church which stood back of this Aristotle worship. At first she had opposed the pagan philosopher, but soon found it to her interest to support him. The Church and the learned of those days, the scholastics, watched and punished all heresy against Church doctrine and Aristotle with equal care and severity. We need recall only the cases of Roge. Bacon and Ramus.

Galileo opposed Aristotle. The latter would explain the cause of everything by metaphysical speculation. The former limited himself to the boundaries set by natural science itself. He went direct to Nature with his questions. He thus introduced experimentation into science. The new method belongs to him. By logic, mathematical calculations, and experimental research modern science has attained its great end and

success.

There is a tradition that Galileo, when he had been compelled to sign the retractions demanded of him by the Inquisition, said "E pur si muove!" ("Still she moves!"). Whether he said these words or not, the Church did not and could not stop the science he launched: E pur si muove!"

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.

RECENT SCIENCE.

ARCHEOLOGY.

Hebrew MSS. from Egypt.-A large collection of fragments of Hebrew MSS. discovered in Egypt was presented some months ago by the Rev. Greville J. Chester to the Cambridge University Library, and Mr. Schechter is engaged in the task of examining and classifying them.-Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, London, January.

Records of the Hebrew Conquest of Canaan.-The January issue of the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund contains an account of the work carried on at Lachish by Mr. Bliss. So far altogether the most valuable find at Lachish is the tablet which closely resembles those found at Tel Amarna and contains similar statements. Major Conder has just issued a volume dealing with all these tablets, one hundred and seventy-six in number, and written about 1480 B.C. by Amorites, Phoenicians, Philistines, and others, including the Kings of Hazor, Jerusalem, and Gezer, contemporaries of Joshua. Their statements refer to the Hebrew conquest, and name about' one hundred and thirty towns and countries, most of which are already identified.-Theodore F. Wright, in American Antiquarian.

Greek Archæology.-The United States, advancing in everything, is rendering valuable services to Greek archæology, and the archæologists of the Old World must work hard if they wish to keep their laurels. The American School of Greek Studies at Athens is doing capital work, as appears from a report of its Director, Mr. Waldstein, The school, of which he is the head, has quite recently made extensive excavations among the ruins of the Temple of Juno (the Heraion), which stood between Argos and Mycenæ. We know from Pausanias that there were two temples on the site, one burned 423 B. C., the other constructed by Eupolemos about 420. In this second

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temple stood the famous chryselephantine statue of Juno by Polycletus of Argos, which was thought to be equal to the Jupiter and Minerva of Phidias. As Polycletus was acknowledged to be the greatest architect of his time, there is strong probability-though no positive proof-that all the sculptural decoration of the temple was the work of the Argive master. Of this decoration, the American School has discovered a very beautiful head of a woman (incontestably of the Fifth Century B. C., and very like the Farnese (Juno). This head was very probably on one of the pediments of the edifice. Besides, there have been found various fragments of the metopes, nota.bly a virile torso, and two heads of an excellent style, one of which is that of a Phrygian, or an Amazon. These discoveries are very important; and, thanks to them, it will be possible to study the genius of Polycletus from a new point of view, from documents very much more reliable than replicas of the Alexandrine or Roman periods, which are all we have hitherto had.Salomon Reinach, in Revue Critique d' Histoire et de Litterature, Paris.

ASTRONOMY.

Ellipsoidal Form of Jupiter's First Satellite.-Upon October 8th of the past year, I began a series of measurements with the thirteen-inch telescope, of the diameters of Jupiter's satellites. Upon the next evening, I undertook to measure the first, when at the first glance I noticed to my surprise that / its disk was not circular, but very elliptical. A brief computation the next morning showed that if my measurements were correct, the polar flattening would correspond to a rotation period of about forty minutes, assuming a uniform density. Observations upon the next evening confirmed my first measurements. Some of the other satellites were also measured and I then returned to the first one, when to my astonishment, instead of showing an elliptical disk, it showed one that was perfectly circular, precisely like the other satellites. I could scarcely believe my eyes, but as I continued to watch and measure, I saw the disk gradually lengthen again and assume the elliptical form, and I then understood what had really been found. The first satellite has the form of a prolate spheroid or ellipsoid, or in popular parlance is “eggshaped." The two minor axes are approximately equal, and the satellite revolves about one of them, or as we may say, it revolves "end over end."-William H. Pickering in Astronomy and Astro-Physics, Northfield, Minn., March.

How the World Will Come to an End.-According to all probability, notwithstanding all the circumstances which threaten it, our planet will die, not of an accident, but a natural death. That death will be the consequence of the extinction of the Sun, in twenty million years or more, perhaps thirty-since its condensation at a relatively moderate rate will give it, on one hand, seventeen million years of existence, while, on the other hand, the inevitable fall of meteors into the Sun may double this number. Even if you suppose the duration of the Sun to be prolonged to forty million years, it is still incontestable that the radiation from the Sun cools it, and that the temperature of all bodies tends to an equilibrium. The day will come when the Sun will be extinct. Then the Earth and all the other planets of our system will cease to be the abode of life. They will be erased from the Great Book and will revolve, black cemeteries, around an extinguished Sun. Will these planets continue to exist even then? Yes, probably, in the case of Jupiter, and perhaps Saturn. No, beyond a doubt, for the small bodies, such as the Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury, and the Moon. Already the Moon appears to have preceded us towards the final desert. Mars is much farther advanced than the Earth towards the same destiny. Venus, younger than us, will doubtless survive us. These little worlds lose their elements of vitality much faster than the Sun loses its heat. From century to century, from year to year, from day to day, from hour to hour, the surface of the Earth is

transformed. On the one hand, the continents are crumbling away and becoming covered by the sea which insensibly and by very slow degrees tends to invade and submerge the entire Globe; on the other hand, the amount of water on the surface of the Globe is diminishing. A careful and reasonable calculation shows that by the action of erasure alone all the land or our planet will be covered by water in ten millions of years.-Camille Flammarion, in L'Astronomie, Paris, March.

BIOLOGY.

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Computation of the Comparative Strength of Insects and the Higher Animals.-Prof. C. T. Hagerty read a paper on this subject before the New Mexico Society for the Advancement of Science, in which he proved conclusively that the higher animals are much stronger than insects in proportion to their size, and readily accounted for the apparent superior strength of the latter. In the course of his remarks he referred to a computation on the comparative strength of the honey-bee and horse, made by Niall and Denny in a work entitled The Cockroach" (page 82, edition of 1886), and pointed out an error in their computation. They state that the relative muscular force of the horse is more than fourteen times as great, in comparison with that of the bee, as it would be if the muscles of both animals were similar in kind, and the proportions of the two similar in all respects, and he showed that, according to their own method of solution, it would be 3.08 instead of 14. -American Naturalist, Philadelphia, March.

CHEMISTRY.

Method of Liquefying Gases.-The method of producing cold by evaporation, which was practically applied by the ancient Egyptians, has acquired a wider significance through the investigations of Raoul Piclet, who applied it to the liquefaction of gases. A relatively easily-condensable gas or mixture of gases is rendered fluid in a metal vessel by means of a pressure-pump. The vessel is now connected with a second vessel exhausted by means of an air-pump, and the fluid, in consequence of the difference of pressure, evaporates violently into the second vessel. The cold thus induced by evaporation, is utilized for lowering the temperature of a second gas B, while this is being subjected to strong compression. Bis thereby rendered liquid. The evaporation of Binto an exhausted vessel results in a still further reduction of temperature, which is utilized for the reduction, under pressure, of a still more obstinate gas, C. The same process is continued with the liquefied C; and so on by alternate compression and evaporation, the cold growing more intense at every stage. Three stages are recognized by Piclet. The first, obtained by treatment of a mixture of carbonic acid and a sulphurous acid, ranges down to -80° C. In the second he employs nitrous oxid (laughing-gas), which reduces the temperature to -130° C. At this temperature atmospheric air is liquefied under a pressure of 200 atmospheres, and the third stage is reached with a temperature from - 200° C to -210° C. For this third stage, oxygen alone may be employed in lieu of atmospheric air.-Hugo Michaelis, in Die Nation, Berlin, March 18.

ELECTRICITY.

Universal Telegraphic Time.-A plea for a universal telegraphic hour is made by the Journal Télégraphique, the proposition being to count the hours one to twenty-four for telegraphic purposes from a fixed meridian. We in America read of events that have happened in Australia a day after the date the news is received here, because the telegraph can beat the Sun by almost a whole day. A universal telegraphic time would obviate this anomaly.-Electrical Review, New York, April 8.

Maxwell's Theory.-Mr. Cohn has found that the speed of electric propagation in water is 81⁄2 times slower than in air; 81⁄2 is precisely the value of the index of refraction of water

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as found by Mr. Ellinger. This is another verification of Maxwell's theory.—Electrical Engineer, London.

Action of Current on Fishes.—In testing an alternator by connecting it to two metal plates immersed in a canal, it was noticed that when fishes came within the influence of the current, they stiffened out and floated as if dead; from their length it was calculated they received from five to ten volts; after floating down stream they were found to recover completely after about half an hour.-Electrical World, New York, April 8.

GEOLOGY.

Genesis of Lake Leman.-There have been several theories as to the genesis of Lake Leman, or the Lake of Geneva, as the English are fond of calling it, from a geological point of view, but all of these theories seem to me insufficient to account wholly for its formation. There can be distinguished, I think, three phases in the formation of this sheet of water. The first phase is the elevation of the Alps from 500 to 1,000 metres above the present actual level and the consequent hollowing out of the valley of the lake. The marks of this elevation appear to me easily distinguishable. Then came the second phase, the depression of the Alps to their present height, forming a descent for the waters along the course of the valley and creating the lake itself. To these two phases succeeded a third phase, which is still continuing in our day, the filling up of the lake by alluvial deposits. It was the elevation first alluded to which gave rise to the development of immense diluvial glaciers. This last hypothesis can be applied to every region where there are traces of immense glaciers in remote times, and in this way the glacial period can be explained without having recourse to the theory of climatological changes.-Professor F. A. Forel, in the Revue Géologique Suisse, Geneva.

HYGIENE.

Sea Air Beneficial to Scrofulous Children.-Benevolent persons who are inclined to provide hospitals or sanitariums for scrofulous or rickety children should by all means place them near the sea. At the formal opening of a sanitarium at Giens, in the Lyonnaise district of France, in November last, M. Henri Monod, of the Academy of Medicine, representing the Minister of the Interior on that occasion, summed up admirably, out of his abundant experience, the effect of the sea air on children of the kind alluded to. The sanitarium of Giens is on the border of the sea, in the midst of pine woods, and sheltered from winds. After describing in a touching manner some wonderful cases of cure, M. Monod went on to say: "An unfortunate child is born marked in a horrible way; the rickets deform its body; scrofula hollows in it filthy holes; in its first innocence, it is condemned to tortures which Dante reserved for his damned; the cry with which it hails the light of the Sun will be the cry of pain for its whole existence. For those about it, and who refuse to call it their like, it is a repulsive object; for the society on which it is to live it will be a charge, and, consequently, a scourge; it would appear a thousand times better that the wretched creature had never been born. You take this miserable being, so frail that you hardly dare transport it from one place to another, and give it to the sea. If you have not waited too long to carry it there, if you are patient, if you allow time enough to accomplish the miracle, the sea, the good and powerful sea, mare et mater, will, in due time give itself to the little child. By contact with its waters, or perhaps only by the tonic caresses of its breath, the sea will penetrate this poor, debilitated body, will purify its vitiated blood, will straighten its twisted limbs, will eliminate the bad elements it had at birth; will almost literally regenerate it; will, little by little, by very small and imperceptible degrees, gently, tenderly, impart to the young creature stature, weight. strength, and

finally return it to the world and those who brought it there, a blessing instead of a curse."-Revue des Etablissements de Bienfaisance, Paris, January.

METALLURGY.

An Early Copper. Age.—As regards the bronzes, it was important to know when these were first used. Had there been a Copper Age? Copper took its name from Cyprus and was dedicated to Venus, though at first it had probably been dedicated to Mars. Berthelot had analyzed a Chaldean god, attributed to 4000 B.C., and found it to consist of metallic copper. The sceptre of King Pepi, of the sixth Egyptian dynasty, which was a rod 12 centimetres long, had also been analyzed by him, and found also to be pure copper. The date of this sceptre was 3500 B.C. The copper was probably obtained from the mines of Mount Sinai, which were known to have been worked in the third dynasty. The first appearance of bronze could not be ascertained, but it now appeared that there was a Copper Age in Europe before the Bronze Age, and contemporaneous with the later Stone Age.

The name bronze first appeared in its English form in the Sixteenth Century, being imported from Italy, and appeared to be derived from an Italian word "bronzo," meaning live coal." Many of the objects obtained by Dr. Schliemann in the first and second of his buried cities were of practically pure copper. On analyzing two of them for Dr. Schliemann, the lecturer had found the copper to be 98 to 97 per cent., with a little iron, nickel, and one-tenth per cent. of tin, the latter probably being an accidental impurity. These articles showed the cities in question to belong to a pre-Bronze Age, and their date was fixed at about 2000 B.C. At a little later period battleaxes of bronze began to appear. These contained from 3 to 4 per cent. and up to 8 per cent. of tin. A rod found by Mr. Flinders Petrie in Egypt, attributed to the fourth dynasty, or 3700 B.C., was found on analysis to be a bronze containing 89.8 per cent. of copper and 9 per cent. of tin, the proportions. being practically the same as now used. At the instance of Prof. V. Ball, of Dublin, General Donelley had a number of the articles in the South Kensington and British Museums analyzed under the lecturer's direction. These analyses were very carefully made by Mr. A. Wingham, a very able analyst. Perhaps the oldest object examined was from the British Museum; it contained 84 per cent. of copper and 9 per cent. of tin. Some Etruscan work of the Fifth Century B.C. proved to be a bronze containing from 9 per cent. to 12 per cent. of tin, with some lead and zinc. According to Pliny, the lead was added to give greater fusibility, but at the same time its addition to a bronze led to the formation of a beautiful and velvety black patina, and the lecturer therefore thought it was purposely added for this reason to the Greek and Etruscan bronzes.-Prof. W. Chandler Roberts Austen, C. B., Engineering, London, March 24.

METEOROLOGY.

Origin of Atmospheric Electricity.-One of the oldest and still unsolved problems of meteorology relates to the origin of atmospheric electricity. Many possible sources have been suggested, among them being the evaporation of water and the friction of dust-laden air against the earth's surface. It is not difficult to account for the ordinary phenomena of thunderstorms. Photography has shown that the lightning-flash of the artists, formed of a number of perfectly straight lines arranged in a zigzag, has no resemblance in nature. The normal or typical flash is like the ordinary spark-discharge of an electrical machine; it follows a sinuous course, strikingly similar to that of a river as shown upon a map. The several variations from the normal type all have their counterparts in the forms taken by the machine spark under different conditions, and the known properties of these artificial discharges may be assumed to afford some indication as to the nature of the corresponding natural flashes. Thus, for example, the

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