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The
"V
THE
NEW SCIENCE
REVIEW.
A Miscellany of Modern Thought and Discovery.
Conducted by J. M. STODDART.
VOLUME I.
Covering the Year from July, 1894, to April, 1895.
The Transatlantic Publishing Company,

NEW YORK:
LONDON:
63 Fifth Avenue.
26 Henrietta St., Covent Garden.
COPYRIGHT. 1894 AND 1895,

THE TRANSATLANTIC PUBLISHING COMPANY.
INDEX.
SUBJECTS.
PAGE.
Africa, A Modernized Conception of (Science Notes) . Hcilprin ........

African Gold Fields, the Richness of, (Science T3o\). Heilprin ........
Anglo-Saxon Supremacy in South Africa, (Diamonds
and Gold) ................ Ricarde-Seaver . .
Arctic Exploration, The Prospects of, (Sc. Discussion), Heilprin ........
Arctic Exploration, The Failure of, in 1894, (Science
Notes) ................ Heilprin ........
Astronomy and Geology, The Union of.............. Cowell ..........
Atmosphere, The New Element of the, (Considered
by) ................ Dewar ..........
Atmosphere, The New Element of the, (Considered
by) ................ ...... Lord Rayleigh. . .
Atmospheric Navigation, High, (Science Notes) ...... Heilprin .......
British Association Echoes................
Cables, The World's ................ Handy ..........
Camel, Is There a Wild, (Scientific Discussion) ...... Heilprin ........
Canals of Commerce, The ........................... Haupt ..........
Chinaman, The Brain of the, (Sc. Discussion) ........ Heilprin ........
372
508
11
253
375
257
244
262
508
232
347
121
76
127
Diamonds and Gold, ( Anglo-Saxon Supremacy in

South Africa) ................ Ricarde-Seaver. .
Earth, Age of, (Science Notes) ...................... Heilpriu ........
Earth, Internal Heat of, (Sc. Discussion) ............ Heilprin ........
Educational Methods, Genius, the Model for........ .Jordan ..........
Electricity, What Electricity is..................... Anon ...........
Electricity, What Electricity is. (Compiled by) ---- Moore...........
n
505
252
397
134
309
Electricity,What Electricity is .................... Reed ........... 326

Electricity, What Electricity is .................... Clay ............
Electricity, Pre-Scientific ........................... Hayden .........
Electric Power Transmission ........................ Patten ..........
Elements, The ................ Crookes .........
Elseviers, The ................ Baroness Salvador
Ether and its Functions, The ........................ Fitzgerald ......
Evolution, Lord Salisbury on, (Sc. Discussion)....... Heilprin ........
Examinations, The Dangers of...................... Drayson ........
Fluorescence or Phosphorescence.................... Dewar ..........
v
1S9875
39
358
435
385
333
414
248
267
129
vi
Index.
PAGE.
Food-Nerves
Nunn
French Association Meeting
Genius : The Model for Educational Methods
.Jordan
Geology and Astronomy, The Union of
Cowell
Hands, as Indicative of Character
Cheiro
Holy Coat, The Blood Stains on the
Gautier
Hydrogen, The Liquefaction of
Ice Age, its Mystery and its Solution
Drayson
Ice Crystals, Hollow, (Science Notes)
Heilprin
Iron Stone of Northern Greenland, The Great, (Science
Notes)
Heilprin
KeelyA Newton of the Mind ; Propeller of Keely's
Air-ship Described
Moore
KeelyHawthorne's Scientific Creation
Keely and His Discoveries. A Remarkable Book and
its Teachings
Lascelles-Scott. . .
KeelyThe Operation of the Vibratory Circuit
Keely
KeelyThe Veil Withdrawn
Moore
Lake Basins, The Origin of, (Sc. Discussion)
Heilprin
Life, The Continuity of
" Ormond"
Lightning Discharges, The Intensity of, as Influenced
by Man's Operations, (Science Notes)
Heilprin
Literature, Queries inWhy do Certain Works of Fic
tion Succeed?
Wilcox
Marlborough, The Great Duke of
Low
Mars, Recent Studies of, (Science Notes)
Heilprin
Mathematics by Sound, Sight and Smell, (Science
Notes)
Heilprin
Matter, The Unity of
Mental TrainingA Remedy for " Education "
Jordan
Microbes, The Influence of Heat and Cold upon
Irwell
Missing Link, (Science Notes)
Heilprin
Nerves, Food
Nunn
Newton of the Mind, AThe Propeller of Keely's Air
ship Described
Moore
Niagara Falls, The Age of, (Sc. Discussion)
Heilprin
North American Continent, The Culminating Point of
the, (Sc. Discussion)
Heilprin
Notes on the Progress of Science
Heilprin
370,
Oceanic Charting, (Sc. Discussion)
Heilprin
Oceanic Currents, The Origin of, (Sc. Discussion)
Heilprin
277
237
397
257
442
157
240
1
377
125
505
128
250
Open Court, The
511
Paine, Thomas, and the Republic of the World

Conway
Pendulograph, The
Andrew
Photographic Action at Low Temperatures, (Fluores
cence or Phosphorescence)
Dewar
Physical and Spiritual Energy, Are they Identical ? . . . Parmele
24
166
510
33
50
200
457
465
119
487
378
112
96
374
370
502
140
193
506
277
33
255
129
478
Index.
vir
PAGE.
Pigmies of Equatorial Africa, The, (Science Notes) . .Heilprin

Pole, The Problem of the
Morris
Proctor, Notes from His Autobiography
Proctor.
Progress of Science, Notes on the
Heilprin
370,
Railroad Facts and Figures
... Philips
Railroad in Asia, The
Morris
Reviews
379,
Romanes. The Late Prof. George J. Romanes, (Sc.
Discussion)
Heilprin
Salisbury, Lord, on Evolution , (Sc. Discussion)
Heilprin
Sanitary Delusions
Oswald
Schnebelite, The Newest Explosive
Science, What is
Ward
Science, The Battles of
Barnard
Science, The Amateur in
Grant Allen
Scientific Creation
Hawthorne
Scientific Discussion, Current
Heilprin .... 119,
Scientific Irritability
Hardy
Seal, Extinction of the Southern, (Sc. Discussion). . .Heilprin
Spoken English, Changes in
Kingsbury
Steamboat, Where the, was Born
Symington
Temperature, Experiments made to Approach the Zero
of, (Science Notes)
Heilprin
Tesla, Nikola, and His Works
Patten
Toad-stools, The Rights and Wrongs of
Mcllvaine
Tolstoi's " What to do "
Wood
Veil Withdrawn, The
Moore
Vibratory Circuit, Operation of the
Keely
Violins, New for Old
Heron-Allen
Visibility, The Minimum Temperature of, (Sc. Dis
cussion)
Heilprin
376
59
393
505
448
284
515
123
248
160
243
173
216
301
50
248
493
127
428
409
371
8r
106
184
465
457.
87
256
CONTRIBUTORS.
PAGE.
ANDREW, REV. JOHN

ALLEN, EDWARD HERON, F. L. S., F. R. M. S
ALLEN, GRANT
BARNARD, CHARLES
CHEIRO
CLAY. HENRY
CONWAY, MONCURE D., A. M
COWBLL, MAJOR-GENERAL, SIR JOHN
CROOKES, WILLIAM, F. R. S
DEWAR, PROF. JAMES, F. R. S
DRAYSON, MAJOR-GENERAL A. W., F. R. A. S
FITZGERALD, GEORGB FRASER, F. R. S., ETC
GAUTIER, EMILE
HANDY, MAJOR MOSES P
HARDY, EVELYN J
HAUPT, PROF. LEWIS M
HAWTHORNE, JULIAN
HAYDEN, HORACE, JR
HEILPRIN, PROF. ANGELO
IRWELL, LAWRENCE
JORDAN, WILLIAM GEORGE
KEELY, JOHN W
KINGSBURY, A, B
LASCELLES-SCOTT, PROF. WENTWORTH
Low, SIDNEY JAMES
MCILVAINE, CHARLES
MOORE, MRS. BLOOMFIELD
MORRIS, CHARLES
NUNN, T. W., F. R. C. S
OSWALD, F. L., M. D
"ORMOND"
129,
1,
119, 248, 370,

140,
33, 309,
59,
166
81
301
216
442
329
24
257
385
244
267
414
157
347
493
76
50
358
505
193
397
457
428
aoo
96
106
465
284
277
160
487
PARMELE, MRS. MARY

PATTEN, LIEUT. F. JARVIS
PHILIPS, MELVILLE
PROCTOR, PROF. RICHARD A
RAYLEIGH, LORD
REED, C. J
RICARDE-SEAVER, MAJOR F. I., F. R. S., EDINBURGH
SALVADOR, BARONESS ALTHEA
SYMINGTON, MAGGIE
WARD, MRS. H 0
WILCOX, MARRION
WOOD, HENRY
VIII
478
8r, 435
448
393
262
326
n
333
409
173
112
184
THE
NEW SCIENCE REVIEW

Copyri'i/W, 1*94, by The Transatlantic Publithing Company.
VOL. I.
JULY, 1894.
No. 1.
THE MYSTERY OF THE ICE AGE AND ITS

SOLUTION.
BY MAJOR-GENERAL A. W. DRAYSON, F.R.A.S.
From the earliest date, when geologists discovered, from
an investigation of the earth's surface, that some very dif
ferent conditions had prevailed just previous to those which
now prevail, the so-called Ice Age has served as an excellent
battle-field for rival theorists.
In former times this period in the earth's history was
generally spoken of as the " Boulder Period," because there
was positive evidence that portions of rocks weighing several
tons had been transported many miles from their sources and
deposited on the surface of the earth where no rocks of a
similar formation existed. During many years the cause
which had produced these effects was a mystery. Specula
tion after speculation was put forward in the vain endeavor
to explain the facts, but each of these failed to solve the
mystery.
A few able reasoners, among whom were Agassiz and
Robert Chambers, having carefully examined the facts, stated
that the only solution of these was that ice was the principal
agent in transporting these boulders. For at least twenty
years theorists fought against this explanation; but these
opponents either died out, still unconvinced, or, finding the
facts too strong for them, maintained a masterly silence, and
VOL.I.1 "
'
(1)
The Mystery of the Ice Age and Its Solution.
that which had been termed the " Boulder Period " became
usually spoken of as the "Glacial Epoch."
As investigations advanced, it was found that the effects
of this Glacial Epoch were universal over the Northern
Hemisphere, and down to about 54 of latitude. Although
there is very little land in the Southern Hemisphere south of
54 latitude, yet in the southern parts of South America,
and even in portions of New Zealand, there was direct evi
dence to prove that those regions had also been subjected to
a Glacial Epoch.
Further investigations revealed the fact that this Glacial
Epoch, or change of climate, came on gradually, reached a
maximum, and then gradually retreated. In fact, it appeared
as though the cold of the Arctic circles, which circles now
extend about 23 27' from the Poles, had gradually extended
till they reached as far as 54 latitude, and had then gradu
ally retreated.
Geologists, finding that the change of climate necessary to
produce the effects of the Ice Age would be produced by this
extension of the cold of the Arctic circles, appealed to astrono
mers, in the hope of obtaining help from astronomy. These
at once stated that no such help could be given ; that as the
Arctic circles were at present, so had they remained, with
very slight variation, from the creation. They said that
the Pole of the Heavens traced a circle around the Pole of
the Ecliptic as a centre, keeping constantly 23 28' from
this centre, and although there was a slight decrease at
present in the obliquity, yet this decrease was kept Avithin
very narrow limits. M. Laplace, the French mathematician,
was appealed to, and, after an elaborate application of theo
ries, pronounced it impossible that the plane of the Ecliptic
could vary more than 1 21' from a mean position.
Geologists, however, were unfortunately not possessed of
the slightest knowledge of geometrical astronomy. They
seemed to imagine that the " plane of the ecliptic " was the
same thing as the obliquity of the ecliptic, and because it
was stated that " the plane of the ecliptic " could not vary
more than 1 21', it followed as a matter of course that the
obliquity, or extent of the Arctic circles, could not vary

more than 1 21'.
Since geometrical astronomy has been a science, no more
erroneous statement than the above has ever been promul
gated and accepted. Strange to say, it still continues to be
repeated by men claiming to be acquainted with science,
though the error was exposed twenty-two years ago. A
variation in the obliquity depends mainly on the course
which the earth's axis traces, relative to the Pole of the
Ecliptic, and, strange to say, neither M. Laplace, nor any
other geometrical astronomer, ever thought it worth tvhile
to investigate this course as a purely geometrical problem,
independent of theories.
It was more than thirty years ago that I commenced to
investigate by geometry, based on recorded observations,
what was the curve that the Pole of the Heavens actually
traced. The labor of this investigation was great, and the
greatest accuracy was required when making the requisite
calculations. As I proceeded, I found how actual facts con
tradicted several of the accepted theories of the day, and
after several years I found what the true curve actually was.
Having discovered this curve, I knew that by its aid I
should be able to arrive by calculation at results which
could not be made by those who were unacquainted with
what I had discovered. To give an idea of what these cal
culations are, I copy below a portion of a letter from Admi
ral de Horsey, which he permitted me to publish a short
time ago. These calculations refer to the astronomical por
tion of my problem, but in this article I purpose dealing
almost entirely with that portion of it which explains the
cause of the Boulder Period or Glacial Epoch, or, as it is
now usually termed, " The Ice Age : "
"MELCOMBE HOUSE, COWES, 23d April, 1894.
" DEAR GENERAL DRAYSON : As you are aware, I have, dur
ing several months,'been engaged testing by numerous calcu
lations the accuracy, or otherwise, of your discovery of the
second rotation of the earth. This pursuit has been of
enthralling interest to me, and you may now like to know

the result. Among these calculations (in all of which I
have made no use of Solar tables, or rate per year), were the
following : Starting from the date A. D. 2295-2, 1 calcu
lated by your system what the obliquity of the ecliptic
would be for the year 1885, working the problem by spheri
cal geometry. On comparing my calculated obliquity with
that recorded in the Nautical Almanac I found a difference
of only 0.07 seconds. I then took the recorded R. A. and
declination of the stars eta Urste Majoris and alpha Draconis
from Bradley's Catalogue of 1st January, 1755, and (as I
have said, for all cases, without making any use of the rate
of change, now found only by perpetual observation), I
calculated the R. A. and Decn. of these stars for the 1st
January, 1895. On comparing my results with those given
in the Nautical Almanac, I found a difference in 140 years,
for eta Ursae Majoris of only 0.063" in R. A., and 1.66" in
Decn. ; and for alpha Draconis 0.156" in R. A., and 1.45" in
Decu. Again, working alpha Draconis from 1755 to 1875
(120 years), I calculated its R. A. for 1875 to be 14
hours 1 minute 0.121 seconds, and Declination plus 64 58'
25.2". These results I could not compare with observation,
as, the star being omitted from the 1875 Nautical Almanac,
its position apparently was not known at Greenwich. Deter
mined to apply a crucial test, I selected the stars lambda
Ursje Minoris, close to the North Pole, and sigma Octantis,
close to the South Pole, stars having an annual variation in
R. A. respectively twentyfold and thirty-sixfold as great as
the average. Calculating lambda Ursae Minoris from 1850,
I found its R. A. and Decn. in 1895 to be within 0.249" and
0.065" respectively, of the results by observation (and by
rule of thumb for four years in advance) recorded in the
Nautical Almanac. Then, calculating sigma Octantis from
1875 I found its R. A. and Decn. for 1895 to be within 4.251"
and 0.28" respectively, of the Nautical Almanac record.
Astronomers will think little of a difference of R. A. of 4J"
in the case of a star which, in the twenty years, changed
2,141", and which, being within 44' of the Pole, must hang
on the wires of the transit instrument for a considerable

time.
"I am fully aware that the above calculations are unknown
to all astronomers to whom you have not explained your
system. They are problems which any one with ordinary
mathematical ability can work, if he knows your system.
Without this knowledge, and without accepting your dis
covery to be true, I believe no living man can work them.
To the Astronomer Royal, to the Royal Astronomical
Society, and to all the learned professors in the four quarters
of the globe who adhere to their text-book knowledge, I
believe these problems to be as insoluble as they would have
been to Lobengula's medicine man."
********
On tracing out the curve, I found it distinctly marked
that the Pole of the Heavens had, during the past 1,800
years, moved round the arc of a circle, the radius of which
was 29 25' 47". No other curve or radius would explain
the facts. The centre of this circle was 6 from the Pole of
the Ecliptic. Consequently, instead (as had hitherto been
asserted) of the Pole of the Heavens tracing a circle round
the Pole of the Ecliptic as a centre, and keeping constantly
23 28' from this centre, I found that the Pole was tracing
a circle round a centre 6 from the Pole of the Ecliptic.
As the circle thus traced was much longer than the circle
hitherto supposed to be traced, the completion of this circle
would necessarily occupy a longer time, viz., about 31,600
years, instead of about 25,000 years, as had hitherto been
asserted.
In consequence of the centre of the circle traced by the
Pole being 6 from the Pole of the Ecliptic, it followed that
during the tracing of this circle, the two Poles must vary
their distance 12, and hence, during this period, there must
have been a variation of 12 in the extent of the Arctic circles
and tropics. The dates at which the various changes occurred
were easily ascertained. About 3,000 years ago, the Arctic
circles extended about 2 more than at present. About 7,000
years ago they extended about 6 more than at present. At
about 13,500 B. C. the Arctic circles extended 12 more than

at present, which was the maximum extension. At about
21,000 B. C. they extended only about 6 more than at present,
and at about 24,000 B. C. they extended only about 2 more
than at present. Hence a geometrical'analysis of the course
traced by the earth's axis not only enabled me to make accu
rate calculations in astronomy hitherto unknown, but revealed
the fact that the Arctic circles had gradually extended, reach
ing a maximum at 13,500 B. C., and had then gradually
contracted.
At the date to which I refer, I had a very superficial
knowledge of geology. I had heard of the Boulder Period,
but knew nothing of its details. From geometry alone, how
ever, I could state that at 13,500 B. C. the Arctic circles ex
tended to about 54 latitude; that there was a period of about
18,000 years during which extreme cold prevailed in winter
down to much lower latitudes than it does at present; and
that this extreme climate terminated between 6,000 and 7,000
years ago. This was what geometrical astronomy taught,
whilst astronomical theories denied that any such changes
had ever occurred.
Being desirous of ascertaining whether geologists were ac
quainted with any such changes at these dates, I applied to one
or two of the then geological authorities, and was informed
that during half a million years at least, no such change of
climate had occurred. Undeterred by these positive opinions,
I published my facts, proofs, and calculationsa piece of
daring which caused considerable irritation to the authorities.
I stated that geometrical astronomy proved that the Boulder
Period lasted only about 18,000 years, and terminated about
7,000 years ago, and that the solution of the cause and the
date need no longer be a mystery. Fifteen years after I had
given my proofs, during the whole of which time geologists
clung to their belief as to 160,000 years or more having
elapsed since the Ice Age, a revolution occurred in geological
theories. It was discovered that geological facts proved that
the Ice Age had lasted not longer than from 15,000 to 25,000
years, and terminated not longer than 7,000 years ago.
Then came one of the most remarkable expressions of

opinion. It having been denied that my calculations could
be accurate, because I gave the above dates, it has been lately
stated that the recency of these dates renders it impossible
that the Ice Age can be accounted for by astronomy. The
actual facts are that geometrical astronomy proved these
dates twenty-two years before geologists imagined it possible
that these dates were even approximate.
When first I gave the results of my investigations, I con
fined myself almost entirely, so far as geology is concerned,
to showing the cause and giving the dates of the last Ice
Age. Numerous other investigations have since taken place,
many of which are of importance.
The movement of the earth hitherto vaguely and incor
rectly described as " a conical movement of the axis around
the Pole of the Ecliptic as a centre," proves to be a second
rotation of the earth, which causes the two half-axes of the
earth to describe cones during about 31,600 years. The
Poles of this second rotation are now 29 25' 47" from
the Poles of daily rotation, and hence, under present con
ditions, there would be a variation of 12 in the extent of
the Arctic circles during each second rotation.
The position now occupied by the Pole of second rotation is
undoubtedly due to the position which the centre of gravity
of the earth occupies relative to the earth's centre. The
enormous preponderance of land above the sea in the North
ern Hemisphere indicates that the centre of gravity of the
earth is north of the equator, and probably is not equidis
tant from the surface of the earth near the equator. Under
these conditions we find the second rotation occurring with
a radius of 29 25' 47".
Geologists show that this relative distribution of land and
water was not always the same. Continents have risen, others
have been submerged, the waters of the ocean have neces
sarily been transferred on the earth's surface, and the centre
of gravity of the earth has consequently been slightly altered
in position.
Those persons who have studied the movements of a rap

idly rotating gyroscope must know that even the smallest
weight, such as a pin, placed on the gyroscope, will cause the
rotating axis of the gyroscope to change its direction very
considerably. So also the slightest alteration in the position
of the centre of gravity of the earth would alter the posi
tion of the Pole of second rotation, and hence would alter
considerably the radius of the circle traced by the Pole of
daily rotation.
In chapter 17 of my book, "Untrodden Ground in Astron
omy," this question is more fully dealt with, and need not,
therefore, be explained here.
It is probable (and geology seems to indicate) that the
present radius of second rotation was reached slowly, and not
by a sudden movement. There probably were one or two
previous second rotations, with a less radius than that which
is now occurring. Consequently there would be temperate
intervals between two glacial intervals. It is also probable
that, previous to the Ice Age, the radius of the second rotation
had never been as great as it is now, and there had been no
conditions suitable for the accumulation of vast masses of ice
in Polar regions. We owe much of our cold now to this
accumulation of ice.
If the heat of the summer's sun was sufficient to melt all
the ice formed in the Polar regions during one winter, there
would be no accumulation of ice annually. If, however, the
summer sun failed to melt all the ice formed in winter, and
left only one inch of ice over the earth's surface, then after a
period of 18,000 years there would be 1,500 feet of ice covering
the land. A most important question therefore is, whether at
present the ice in Arctic regions is increasing or decreasing.
Is all the ice formed in winter melted in summer, or is more
formed in winter than is melted in summer?
Ever since the earth has rotated on its axis, it must, as a
mechanical law, have had a second rotation. During the for
mation of the coal beds the radius of this second rotation
must have been very small ; the Pole of the Heavens during
one part of its course might be very close to the Pole of the
Ecliptic (see chap. 17, "Untrodden Ground"), and an uniform

temperate climate would prevail. Then, as the Pole was
carried round by the second rotation aud became separated
from the Pole of the Ecliptic, summer and winter would be
distinctly marked, each seam of coal, with its intermediate
deposit of sandstone and shale, indicating one complete second
rotation.
To jump at the conclusion that because the radius of second
rotation is now 29 25' 47" it must always have been so,
indicates a singular absence of knowledge, even of dynamics.
In the Solar system we find the Arctic circles on Jupiter ex
tending only about 2 from his Poles, while on Uranus these
Arctic circles extend about 75. It seems, therefore, that
there is nothing against the laws of the universe in the fact
that the axis of a rotating planet is inclined at any angle to
the plane of its orbit.
The mystery of the Ice Age has been kept a mystery, in
consequence of the positive but incorrect assertions of theo
rists. A geometrical investigation of the movement of the
arth proves that an Ice Age must have occurred, that it
commenced about 24,000 B. C., reached a maximum at about
13,500 B. C., and terminated about 7,000 years ago. If the
science of geology had not yet been known, it could b stated
that an examination of the earth's surface would reveal the
'evidence of an Ice Age at the dates given above.
The science of geology has hitherto not only received no
support from astronomy, but the facts of geology have
practically been contradicted by the theories of astronomy.
The result has been that men with vivid imaginations have
set to work to invent numerous speculations, in the vain hope
'of guessing the solution of the riddle of the Ice Age. All
the time, however, the solution was before them, but was
overlooked or ignored, because accepted theories asserted that
it could not occur.
To analyze a curve by geometry is not a theory, it is an
accurate proof. If I state that the altitude of the Pole is
always equal to the latitude of the place of observation, I
state a fact. When a person terms this fact " a theory " it
10
at once indicates that this person is unacquainted with even

the elementary laws of geometrical astronomy, and does not
know the difference between facts and theories.
When theorists who deny the correctness of those proofs
which I have given are able to accomplish any one of those
calculations referred to in Admiral de Horsey's letter, their
opinions may be worthy of consideration ; but as such cal
culations are quite unknown to them, and they at the same
time state that astronomy can give no explanation of the
facts of geology, I fear I cannot accept their theories as in
fallible, or even true.
The reader who comprehends the movement of the earth
herein described, and perceives how it proves the conditions,
and gave, twenty-two years ago, the date of the Ice Age, may
note with interest, and perhaps amusement, the fantastic theo
ries put forward in books, and before scientific societies, as
assumed causes of the Ice Age. If he be a practical man he
may be puzzled to assign a reason for the extraordinary cure
taken to avoid any reference to that movement of the earth
hitherto but vaguely denned, which, when accurately known,
explains the true cause of the Ice Age.
Diamonds and Gold.
11
DIAMONDS AND GOLD.

ANGLO-SAXON SUPREMACY IN SOUTH AFRICA.
1814-1894.
BY MAJOR F. I. RICARDE-SEAVER, F.R.S., EDIN.
The great Napoleon was wont to exclaim that British gold
was often a more potent factor in deciding the destinies of
European nations than the largest armies led by his ablest
generals.
Whether the covert charge of bribery contained in these
lines be true or not as against British policy and the power
of gold in the past, is not our purpose to discuss ; nor is the
further doubtful compliment by the same great military ge
nius that England was a nation of shopkeepers deserving of
more attention. The difference, however, between the im
perial author of those scathing sarcasms and their recipients
amounts simply to thisthe mission of the one, however
unintentional, seems to have been to sterilize and destroy;
whilst that of the others, though reprehensible sometimes in
the means employed, was to procreate and build up.
I take the foregoing simply as texts in my endeavor to
illustrate the far-searching influence of the great elements,
Gold and Commerce, as all important factors in the coloniz
ing attributes of that heterogeneous compound ycleped the
Anglo-Saxon race. The truth of this is nowhere more fully
exemplified than in the " scramble for Africa," which has be
come, during the past two decades, the great bone of conten
tion amongst European powers.
This is doubtless mainly due to the fact that the " Dark
Continent " is the last on the face of the globe which offers
a free field to the ever restless and seething populations of
the Old World to build up new empires, and satisfy that in
satiable desire for adventure and discovery which to-day pre
vails amongst Englishmen with perhaps deeper intensity than
12
Diamonds and Gold.
even reigned amongst the Spaniards and Portuguese in the

sixteenth century.
The " unknown " is ever to human nature at large far more
attractive than even the positive knowledge of untold treas
ure obtainable on fixed conditions, however reasonable ; and
in the opening up of new countries, nothing offers greater
incentives than the supposed existence of gold and precious
stones. No reasonable amount of capital supplied by private
enterprise would or could suffice to bring about the conquest
and settlement of a country, such as Africa, without the aid
of that universal spirit of adventure, indomitable courage
and perseverance, which characterize our race throughout
the world.
Thus it was that nearly a century ago, and long before the
discovery of the vast mineral treasures which to-day make
South Africa the centre of attraction, our ships in legitimate
warfare descended upon the Dutch settlements at the Cape,
and planted that grain of British millet seed which took root
in the extreme south, and subsequently spread and multiplied,
until to-day the once mystic and dreaded Zambesi and Tan
ganyika form a mere geographical expression in defining its
limits nearly two thousand miles to the north. What was
then a mere speck on the map of Africa, occupied and held
by our naval forces in constant expectation of attack from
the warlike Kaffir tribes and discontented Dutch settlers, can
boast to-day a flourishing city, the seat of a powerful gov
ernment, a constitutional Parliament, possessing the fullest
"Home Rule" attributes from the people, a fount of educa
tion and refinement making its influence felt over millions
of freemen. These, having rescued from barbarism innu
merable hordes of savages, have forged for them the valuable
and useful implements of labor to spread our civilization
from the Cape to the Equator.
As these latter developments have come about within Ihe
last ten years, it may be fairly asked to what influence
and to whom is this era of rapid progress due ? To those
-who have followed the course of recent events in South
Africa the answer is simple and not far to seek. The "in
Diamonds and Gold.
15-
fluence" is gold and diamonds; the "whom" is Cecil John

Rhodes. Here we have Napoleon's axiom verified in prin
ciple, as applied to Gold vs. Armies, but differing totally in
its application and results. For, although in the present
case British gold was the keystone in building up and start
ing the vast machine constituting that power-generator
essential to extract the hidden treasures of the earth, it not
only has been repaid, but goes on producing, from apparently
inexhaustible sources, that wealth and civilization which
insure the stability of nations.
The first great impetus given to South African develop
ment was in 1871, when the now celebrated Kimberley Dia
mond Mines were discovered. As is usual in such events, all
classes and conditions of people rushed to the fields. Sepa
rated as Kimberley is by a distance of over six hundred
miles from Cape Town, with, at that period, no railway or
more rapid conveyance than the Dutch ox-wagon, with its
team of eighteen often attenuated bovines, it required thirty
days to reach it ; now the journey takes thirty hours. Popu
lation or town there was none, and that desolate plain on the
northern fringe of the great karoo desert, with no fuel, no
water, and little grass for the oxen, did not at first sight
either invite or realize the dream of an El Dorado.
The spot where the first diamonds were found is about
fifteen miles from the Vaal river, the only permanent sourceof water supply in the district. The diamondiferous forma
tion is unique in the annals of geology, and presents one of"
the most interesting problems to the scientific mind. Indeed,
whether its origin, or that of the auriferous conglomerates
forming the great gold belt of the adjoining Transvaal,,
whence the precious metal is being now extracted at the rate
of about $34,000,000 a year, is the most difficult problem to
solve, is a question too intricate to discuss here. But, as the
miners say, " We care nothing for the origin, so long as we
get the diamonds and the gold, and can win them at a
profit ;" and they are right, from their standpoint.
At Kimberley, and indeed in the adjoining Orange Free
State, wherever the formation exists, the diamonds occur in-.
14
Diamonds and Gold.
what is termed " blue ground," which on the surface has been
oxidized and decomposed, forming what the diggers term
"yellow ground." This latter often extends to a depth of
seventy feet; but the source or origin is similar to the blue,
and, a priori, would seem to be a mud geyser or volcano, or
a series of them scattered over the plains. They are numer
ous, and vary in diameter from a few feet to several hundred.
They go down between surrounding masses of basalt, melaphyse, quartzite and karoo shales, widening out as they
descend. The surface yellow stuff is soft and friable, and
easily decomposed and washed, whereas the "blue" proper
is, on extraction from the mine, a hard, compact rock of
semi-crystalline appearance ; grayish-blue in color, and hold
ing the diamonds firmly imbedded. It is in reality a fine
conglomerate, the cementing matter being what may be
called, for brevity, volcanic mud, which binds the pebbles of
heavy gravel, really larger than beans. This compact blue
is blasted from the mine, and spread out on "floors" for a
period of four to six months, exposed to the oxidizing influ
ences of the weather, and aided in ripening by occasional
watering and " harrowing," so as to expose fresh surfaces.
This is called the " weathering process," and seems to answer
well, but necessitates the " lock up " of a large amount of
capital, and permits of thefts of the larger stones by the
Kaffirs, to the extent of over $1,000,000 a year.
The weathered blue is next taken to the rotating washing
machines and reduced to pulp ; then, by careful pulsating,
sizing and concentration, the resulting gravel is obtained
clean and spread out on tables, where the diamonds are picked
out by hand.
Here again is theft, and although the work is done mostly
by convicts lent by government, and kept under strict prison
surveillance by white overseers, it is found that many of the
best stones are swallowed by the Kaffirs, to be subsequently
sold through accomplices to contraband dealers. Many are
detected in the act of swallowing the stones, and are at once
relegated to a "special" department of the works under the
direction of an experienced doctor well versed in the science
Diamonds and Gold.
15
of cathartics. Here they are dosed and placed on an ele

vated "chaise percee," with the result that in a few hours
the stones are digested, and find their way into the general
stock in the strong room, while the thief is punished by
bread and water diet and deprived of certain luxuries.
In the first years of diamond digging the system of work
ing the deposits was naturally primitive and costly. Open
cuttings from the surface yielded for the time being all the
ore required, and the mines were divided up into many thou
sands of claims, each of nine hundred and sixty-one square
feet, worked by numerous companies and individuals.
This went on until a depth of five hundred feet was reached,
when heavy rock slips or fallen reef matter practically stopped
all profitable extraction of diamonds. Then it was that some
enterprising capitalists, advised by daring engineers, started
to sink commodious vertical shafts in the barren rock adjoin
ing the "pay shoots." When these reached a certain depth,
cross-cuts or tunnels were driven horizontally into the blue,
far below the bottom of the open cutting on the surface, and
the ore was thence hauled out by powerful engines, as in coal
mines. This system, of course, required large capital, and
became prohibitory to the ordinary digger. And here for
the first time came into prominence the administrative and
other abilities of Cecil John Rhodes, as organizer and chair
man of the De Beers Consolidated Mine.
The younger son of a country parson in England, he was
born forty years ago, and sent at an early age to Oxford,
where, his health failing, he was ordered to try South
Africa to save his lungs and life. Arriving in Natal, he
learned that an elder brother was engaged in diamond dig
ging at Kimberley, and the dry climate of that place being
admirably suited to him, he at once "trecked" there.
Thus began his connection with South Africa and the
great diamond industry, which by his energy and skill he
has converted into one of the most profitable in the world.
In this he was ably seconded by his associate and colleague,
Mr. Alfred Beit, who is to-day one of the leading merchant
millionaires of London.
16
Diamonds and Gold.
The whole of the mines, large and small, of the Kimberley

district which showed payable blue, were taken over by
him and his group and converted into the great De Beers
Consolidated Mine, having a capital of 3,950,000 in shares,
and 4,000,000 in debs., the present market value of which
in Europe is nearly 18,000,000. They employ eight thou
sand people, and pay away in salaries and wages over 1,000,000 annually. They win diamonds to the gross annual
value of nearly 4,000,000, and pay dividends of 25 per cent.
This great enterprise is managed by an eminent American
engineer, Mr. Gardner Williams, who is ably seconded by
his countryman Mr. Louis I. Seymour, besides various chiefs
of departments, nearly all hailing from Columbia. It is no
mean tribute to the capacity of Americans when we see
them thus called upon to govern a vast corporation of
purely European interests. These gentlemen were chosen
by Mr. Rhodes to execute his plans, and no better choice
could have been made.
Here it was, at Kimberley, that he also conceived his great
schemes of British supremacy in Africa, and matured his
plans so successfully that to-day he is not only Prime Minister
of the Cape Colony, but the real arbiter of the destinies of
South Africa from that capital to the Zambesi.
A man of strong will, knowing what he wantsthe great
secret of success in statesmanshipwith a powerful mind,
broad and far-seeing, gifted with a species of magnetism
having the force of individual attraction, he draws round him
the men of talent and influence of the country, utilizing their
political, social and commercial status to further his aims in
bringing about the great ambition of his lifea united AngloSaxon South Africa.
This, needless to say, is no light task ; for, notwithstand
ing his great power of wealtha millionaire at leastand the
vast ramifications of his influence, he has to deal with a mass
of such heterogeneous elements, from the rampant imperial
Britisher to the Colonial-born Independent on the one hand,
and the Boer or old Dutch element, forming the governing
classes of two neighboring independent republics,the Trans
Diamonds and Gold.
17
vaal and Orange Free State,together with the native black

races, on the other hand, that the problem is not one that
any ordinary mortal would care to solve.
But to such a mind as his, the greater the obstacle the
more zest it possesses, and when we briefly review what he
has done since 1888 towards the attainment of supremacy for
the Anglo-Saxon race in South Africa, it may be reasonably
predicted that he will eventually attain his ends.
A glance at the map will show, better than any descrip
tion I could offer, the enormous strides made by us in the
acquisition of territory within the past five years.
When, in March, 1889, 1 published in the Fortnightly Re
view the first article which had till then appeared in the
English press, advocating the granting of a royal charter in
the "Sphere of British influence in South Africa," our dom
ination north of British Bechuanaland amounted practically
to a simple geographical expression. In the autumn of that
year, Lord Salisbury granted to Mr. Rhodes and his col
leagues, the Dukes of Fife and Abercorn, Lord Gifford, V. C.,
and Mr. Albert Grey, a " royal charter " empowering them
effectually to occupy, administer, and govern the whole of
the territory including Mashonaland and Matabeleland, and
comprised between the Limpopo River on the south and the
Znmbesi on the north.
In the month of June, 1890, a pioneer expedition number
ing barely one thousand men, composed entirely of volun
teers from the Cape Colony and the Transvaal, started from
Kimberley, and after a weary " treck " of three months, the
greater part through hostile country teeming with armed
Zulu tribes of the best fighting stuff in Africa, arrived at the
spot marked on the map to-day by the flourishing town of
" Fort Salisbury," and this without firing a shot or the loss
of a single man.
Nearly three years' peaceful occupation, prospecting, min
ing, and opening up valuable auriferous reefs, erecting stamp
mills and founding three important townships, marked an
era of progress rarely equaled even by the great American
pioneers of the West.
VOL. I.2
18
Diamonds and Gold.
Then, in July, 1893, came the rupture of friendly relations

with the great Matabele chief, Lobengula, who sent in power
ful and numerous " Impi " of his dreaded Zulu warriors,
ostensibly to punish some inoffensive Mashona tribes whom
he claimed as his " slaves and dogs," but really to try con
clusions with the white invader. I shall not enter into details
of the origin of this, or of the events that led up to it, as
doubtless the facts are familiar to most readers in America
as well as in Europe.
I may simply say, that, within the space of two months
from assembling his force of barely a thousand volunteers,
Dr. Jameson, the able Administrator of the chartered terri
tory, not only broke up the dreaded military power of the
Matabele, but practically annihilated their armies of over
20,000 warriors, occupied their great kraals, and drove
their king from his capital to die two months later in the
desert.
Thus the beginning of 1894 witnessed the absolute annex
ation to Great Britain of a territory in Africa as large as
France and Germany, fertile and healthy to a degree, on the
high plateaux of four thousand to five thousand feet eleva
tion, while the discoveries of gold and other metals daily
announced tend to confirm the belief that this is at least
one of the sources whence the Queen of Sheba drew her
offering to King Solomon.
To Mr. Rhodes is due the initial conception, the planning
and the execution of this vast scheme of annexation, and the
final subjugation of the native tribes.
Turning from the sphere of British influence in the North,
let us glance for a moment at that wonderful little Dutch
Republic of the Transvaal, whence the world is now deriving
its principal supply of the precious metal. Ten years ago
this territory was still practically regarded by Great Britain
as the " howling wilderness " it had been described by a
former Governor and High Commissioner of the Cape Colony,
when ordered to report to the home authorities on its value
and prospects. True, some isolated and intermittent quartz
reefs had been found, holding gold in fair quantities, but
Diamonds and Gold.
19
regarded as hardly workable under the conditions of trans

port and labor which then prevailed.
The vast auriferous beds of conglomerate of the Witwatersrand had not yet been discovered, or, more properly,
had not been recognized by experts as worthy the attention
of capitalists or diggers.
The great London house of Rothschild, having heard of
their existence, appealed to their United States correspondent
to send them the best mining engineer in the country. The
same Mr. Gardner Williams who to-day so successfully
directs the great De Beers Diamond Mines at Kimberley was
chosen for the post. Few men of his age had had more
experience of auriferous formations in the Western States of
America. Coming with the highest credentials and recom
mendations, he was dispatched to Africa. He visited the
Transvaal, and traversed from east to west some of the finest
grazing and agricultural lands in the world. He descended
the few shafts then sunk on the quartz reef of Barberton and
De Kaap, away on the eastern border, and adjoining the
Portuguese territory of Delagoa Bay. He examined the
patches of alluvial found here and there in the valleys con
tiguous to these, but, accustomed as he had been to the rich
and extensive gold placers of California, he came away dis
gusted, marveling at the credulity of the Old World bankers,
and finally condemned the district. Then he wended his
weary way across the veldt toward the west en route to
Kimberley, taking the then recently discovered " banket "
formation at the Witwatersrand on his way. Here he saw
those marvelously regular beds of conglomerate, often erro
neously designated as "reefs," lying in bounteous profusion
over an area of seventy by forty miles. Their thickness
ranged from two to twenty feet, and presented all the char
acteristics of having once formed the beds of inland seas.
Never in the experience of man had such formations been
known to contain gold, and hence it was quite pardonable
on the part of Mr. Williams to pooh-pooh them as auriferous.
True, he saw some pannings of the ore made by what he con
ceived to be poor deluded ignoramuses, and when infinitesimal
20
Diamonds and Gold.
particles of "color" (?'. e., gold), showed themselves on the

bottom of the pan, he philosophically shrugged his shoul
ders and rode away, exclaiming, " It was not worth while
dismounting to look at them." Alas for human fallacies!
These once despised beds are to-day the source of untold
wealth, and producing gold at the rate of $40,000,000 a
year.
The bleak and uninviting veldt of that year is to-day the
site of the populous and thriving city of Johannesburg,
numbering over forty thousand souls.
Over two thousand heads of stamps are thudding away
day and night along the line of outcrop for a distance of forty
miles. Millions of tons of the despised "banket" are being
crushed, and the precious metal extracted by amalgamation,
chlorination and cyanide of potassium, to the tune of over
two million ounces a year, worth $34,000,000.
This vast industryforty mines alone of which are
capitalized at 95,000,000has in ten years transformed
the whole country, politically, socially, and commercially,
from a bleak, impoverished cattle-range into a veritable El
Dorado.
The technical direction and organization of this vast human
bee-hive is under the control to a great extent of four of the
most distinguished American engineers I know, Messrs. Jen
nings, Butters, Perkins and Hammond, while Messrs. Fraser
and Chalmers, of Chicago and London, have supplied a large
proportion of the machinery at work.
The Boers who, in 1847, dissatisfied with British rule in
the Cape Colony, " trecked " across the Vaal River (hence
the name Transvaal), conquering inch by inch from the war
like natives this then purely pastoral territory, never dreamed
of the mineral wealth it contained. And indeed when gold
was first discovered in 1873 they did their utmost to prevent
its development by the "outsider," in the dread of being
"crowded out" again and having to "treck" still further
north. At that period the country was an independent Boer
Republic, but in 1877 it was annexed under the British flag.
But the sturdy Dutch burgher " loveth not the red coat," and
Diamonds and Gold.
21
hates the Imperial Britisher with all the energy and intensity
engendered by radical enmity during generations of conquest.
They rose up sturdily in rebellion, and in 1880 drove out
their hereditary foes, inflicting upon the British arms one of
the most ignoble and disastrous defeats recorded in the annals
of our time. Of course, had the Imperial government decided
to reconquer the country and put forth its irresistible might
against a handful of burghers, it could have done so; but
Mr. Gladstone, in the magnanimity of his heart, and with
that admiration he professed for the principles of Home
Rule, decided to let the Boers keep their country, and so it has
become the flourishing "South African Republic" of to-day.
For some years after its independence was secured, the
struggle for existence was acute. Resources were few, exports
less, and the result an empty exchequer. Isolated from the
coast by the Portuguese on the east, the Cape Colony and
Natal on the south, and German Damaraland on the west, its
means of communication with the outer world were reduced
to almost nil. Railways were a dream of the very dim and
distant future, and the dreary ox-wagon, with its forty days'
pilgrimage to Cape Town, was a nightmare too terrible to
endure.
What then does not the Dutch Boer owe to the discovery
of gold in his country? Wealth, prosperity, and power as
a political factor in the South African family of states. Rail
ways, telegraphs, electric lighting, fine cities, cheap articles
of every-day consumption, an enlightened and free press,
schools, churches and lawyers galore, and above all a large
surplus revenue.
Governed by a remarkable man in the person of President
Paul Kruger, an astute statesman, endowed by nature with a
will of iron, a shrewd politician and a keen penetrating
judge of character, the country has been raised from the
insignificant status of a petty, impoverished province to that
of a powerful and respected nation. Uneducated in book
lore, to a degree inconceivable in the chief of a state, Kruger
has had the good sense to associate with him in the govern
ment as his Secretary of State a refined and educated Dutch
22
Diamonds and Gold.
gentleman. In Dr. Leyds, as a young law-student in Hol

land, the President saw, during one of his visits to Europe,
the making of the future man he wanted at his elbow ; and
on terminating his studies, Dr. Leyds was engaged to pro
ceed to the Transvaal as Attorney-General. So young was
he that he had to wait a certain time at the capital, Pretoria,
before, according to the Constitution, he became eligible for
the post. To-day he is one of the ablest and shrewdest
statesmen in South Africa, and he and Paul Kruger, his
chief, combined, are a close match for the astute and brilliant
premier of the Cape Colony.
Numerically the Dutch Boer element in the Transvaal is
far inferior to the Anglo-Saxon, the Teuton and others, but
politically they govern and administer the country with a
firm and authoritative hand. It is a curious anomaly to see
at the end of the nineteenth century a minority of fifteen
thousand burghers, all told, ruling a majority of sixty thou
sand enlightened, wealthy and prosperous aliens, who, al
though they possess the richest and most valuable portion of
the country, have no voice in its government. Not only is
this so as regards legislative function, but, incredible as it
may appear, these aliens are still deprived of even the ordi
nary municipal functions which obtain in the most insignifi
cant tgwn of the United States. Over and over again have
the forty thousand white inhabitants of the golden city of
Johannesburg clamored in vain for a municipal charter to
enable them to improve and beautify their own creation.
But President Kruger and his government wrap them
selves in their Constitutional toga of centralization, and
hurl forth from the Capitol the monotonous cry of " Non
Possumus! " From their point of view they seem justified,
however unreasonable, in this refusal, because they know full
well that a municipality, such as would be established in
Johannesburg, might soon become a formidable and danger
ous Imperium in Imperio, eventually assuming the higher
functions of the State.
But this puerile policy of the few cannot long prevail
against the overwhelming will of the many, and the day is
Diamonds and Gold.
23
not far distant when the power of wealth, prosperity, and

numbers must, in the logical and natural course of events,
assume its proper place in the legislative and administrative
affairs of the country. The franchise must be extended to
all those duly qualifying for citizenship ; and, when this is
done, the " Uitlander " as a class, now dreaded by the Boers,
will cease to exist. They will become citizens on an equality
with the burgher of to-day; and a peaceful and bloodless
revolution will come about, placing the control of the State
in the hands of the majority ; or, in other words, the AngloSaxon race.
Thus the gold which came as a boon and a blessing to
raise the patriotic Boer from poverty and misery and save his
nation from bankruptcy, may soon be regarded by the
" Dopper," or old Covenanter class, as a curse, since its influ
ence and its consequence may once more relegate them to the
hated domination of their hereditary enemies.
24
Thomas Paine, and the Republic of the World.
THOMAS PAINE, AND THE REPUBLIC OF THE

WORLD.
By MOXCURE D. CONWAY.
" This day was published, and is now selling by Robert
Bell, in Third Street, price two shillings, ' Common Sense,'
addressed to the inhabitants of North America." So ran an
advertisement in the Pennsylvania Journal, January 10, 1776.
The pamphlet reached Washington at Cambridge shortly
after the British outrages in Maine and Virginia, and from
the leader of a Rebellion he rose the defender of a Revolu
tion. On January 31, just three weeks after the pamphlet
was published, Washington wrote to Joseph Reed, "A few
more of such flaming arguments as were exhibited at Falmouth and Norfolk, added to the sound doctrine and unan
swerable reasoning contained in the pamphlet 'Common
Sense,' will not leave numbers at a loss to decide upon the
propriety of separation." To convert Washington was to
found a nation.
Yet the argument for Independence was only a subordinate
part of the service rendered by this wonderful pamphlet. It
carefully demonstrated the necessity of a union of the colonies
under a purely Republican Constitution ; and so vividly, with
such ample knowledge of the resources of the country, was
this Republic described and adorned, that it held all eyes, as
if some jasper-walled city, with gates of pearl, were descend
ing on the New World. Paine's subtle imagination built up
a navy out of the continental tar, timber, hemp ; picturing
argosies of commerce transformable in a moment to fleets of
defence, bristling with arms manufactured from American
iron, which is "superior to that of other countries." In his
vision grew a national union out of the " intimacy which is
contracted in infancy, and the friendship which is formed in
misfortune," not only sectional but sectarian jealousies van
Thomas Pame, and the Republic of the World.
25
ishing before the liberal principle which regards all denomi

nations as "children of the same family, differing only in
what are called their Christian names." Our first AttorneyGeneral, Edmund Randolph, the most scholary and literary
statesman of the time, described Paine as "possessing an
imagination which happily combined political topics, poured
forth in a style hitherto unknown on this side of the At
lantic, from the ease with which it insinuated itself into the
hearts of the people who were unlearned, or of the learned."
Although the pamphlet was first issued at two shillings, Paine
speedily gave up all copyright advantages by putting it on
the market at the exact cost of manufacture, so that it was
read by every person able to read. The Republic was thus
built up in every individual mind, and when the Revolution
was over it was found that monarchy had been relegated to
antiquity.
Paine was now the lion. Amid the first festivities of
peace Washington invited him to his camp at Rocky Hill,
and insisted that Congress should make provision for the
heroic author, declaring that otherwise he would do so out
of his own pocket. Congress presented to him a fine estate
near New York, and Pennsylvania gave him five hundred
pounds. Paine had settled himself at Bordentown, New
Jersey, where he perfected his invention of an iron bridge,
but he occasionally visited Philadelphia and New York, and
in each place was the centre of the finest social circle. He
received the homage of Washington, Franklin, Jefferson,
Madison, Adams, Randolph, Burr, Clinton, Dickinson, Reed,
Ritlenhouse, Rush, Clymerin fact, of all public men. In
1787 he sailed for France, and submitted to the Academy of
Sciences his iron bridge, which received the applause of that
body. In Paris he was welcomed by Jefferson and Lafayette,
by all of Franklin's friends, and enjoyed the friendship of
Condorcet, Brissot, Danton, Duchatelet, De Brienne, Neckar,
De Corney, and others. Passing over to London, he was
even more lionized. Edmond Burke entertained him at his
country seat, Beaconsfield, and drove him about many pleasant
by-ways. Lord Lansdowne, the Duke of Portland, Fox,
26
Lord Fitz -William, the Marquis of Rockingham, Sir Joseph

Banks, Sir George Stauuton, and the American artists, Ben
jamin West and Trumbull, were among those who gathered
around him.
To such position, in 1787, his fiftieth year, had climbed,
by sheer intellectual power, the man who began as the son
of an humble Quaker and staymaker, of Thetford, England.
Up to the year 1792 no man in the world bore a higher
character or enjoyed such wide literary fame. At the close
of 1792 he was outlawed in England ; at the close of 1793 he
was imprisoned in France; and in 1794 America joined in
the hue-and-cry which hounded Paine to his grave, and made
him the third person of a diabolical trinity, "The world, the
devil, and Tom Paine," as the hymn ran. It was suddenly
discovered that the man who had received the gratitude of
Congress, enjoyed the friendship of every statesman in Amer
ica and France, and of the greatest in England, had all
along been a black-hearted villain, a drunkard, a blasphe
mous wretch. This discovery was made in England immedi
ately on the publication of Paine's " Rights of Man," and
in America on the publication of the "Age of Reason."
Paine's diabolism was an evolution out of the necessities of
Church and State. It was politically inadmissible that a
man who ridiculed Royalism could be other than a demon,
however disguised in benevolence; it was theologically inad
missible that a deist could be other than an immoral man.
If the facts did not confirm these reasons of state and of sect,
so much the worse for the facts ; such perverse facts were
promptly corrected and .adapted to pulpit and parliamentary
utility. A vast Paine mythology was thus accumulated.
But the mental and religious conditions out of which that
mythology was developed have disappeared from educated
Christian society. Only a vulgar and illiterate sectarian
could now suggest that an Emerson or a Darwin must be a
bad man because not orthodox, or believe any story of death
bed agonies of remorse suffered by freethinkers. In recently
writing the life of Paine, I received furtherance from eminent
clergymen, and the evidence given in that work, overthrowing
27
the Paine mythology, and proving the author to have been

worthy of the friendship he received from the best men of
his time in America and Europe, has been fairly accepted.
Paine being now released from his pillory, the tar removed,
we can see the man as he really was, and consider the prin
ciples he announced. It is necessary, however, to limit the
scope of this paper. For the personal character of Paine,
and his strange career in America, England, and France, the
reader must be referred to his biography just published.
Concerning his religious work, I will here only say that he
was the first to use the phrase "Religion of Humanity," and
that he founded (in Paris) the first church based on love of
God and Man (Theophilanthropy). What I now propose to
dwell on is his ideal political order, the peculiarities of which,
little known or appreciated, are of present philosophical
interest.
Samuel Rogers, the poet, relates that at the age of twentynine he dined at the table of an eminent radical in London,
then much agitated by the dawning French Revolution,
one of the humorous toasts given being to "The memory of
Joshua," for having executed the kings of Canaan. Paine
observed that he would not treat kings like Joshua. " I'm
of the Scotch parson's opinion," he said, "when he prayed
against Louis XIV., ' Lord shake him over hell, but don't
let him drop.' " Paine then gave as his toast, " The Republic
of the World." Young Samuel Rogers was impressed by
the " sublimity of the idea," but probably few present at the
table comprehended the full significance of those words in
the mind of Paine. His Republic is one which has never
existed even unto this day.
The foundation of Paine's Republic had been laid in his
Quaker principlethe immediateness of the relation of the
individual soul to the divine Spirit. The sweeping away
of all sacerdotal and sacramental mediators by George Fox
found its political corollary in the clearing away of all royal
or other prerogative rank and privilege by Thomas Paine.
The doctrine of the divine light in every human being in
volved equality, and it also carried a subtle revolution in
28
the ideas of man's nature. Instead of human depravity,

human divinity was affirmed. The fatherhood of Satan fell
before the fatherhood of God, 'whose light enlightened every
man. In the presence of this essential and awful dignity of
man as man, the artificial distinctions of courts shrivelled
away. Such were the seeds that Penn and others had scat
tered abroad in the New World, and the reaper of that harvest
came from a tiny Quaker meeting-house in Thetford, where
he listened reverently to the utterance of the humblest work
man as to the voice of God.
This politico-religious republicanism is not merely fatal to
hereditary and ecclesiastical privilege, but equally to demo
cratic privilegethat of majorities. It rests upon the equal
rights of every individual child of the Father of All, and
the majority has no more right to oppress a minority than a
strong man has to oppress a weaker one. The limited rule
of the majority is not only inevitable, but has a rational
basis in the presumption that it represents the larger quan
tity of benefit. But in forming a community, or organizing
a nation, each individual is concerned to limit the power of
the majority, since he himself may at some time be of the
minority. In order, therefore, to secure individual liberty
people meet together, apart from official interests and parti
sanship, in a convention, comprising the representatives of
all, chosen for the sole purpose of framing a compact of the
people with each other, defining the natural rights of man,
and limiting the functions of their common government, so
that it should never, by whatever majority, encroach within
the sacred circle of individual rights. " By this mutual com
pact," to quote Paine's words, " the citizens of a Republic
put it out of their power, that is, they renounce as detesta
ble the power of exercising, at any future time, any species
of despotism over each other, or doing a thing not right in
itself, because a majority of them may have strength of num
bers sufficient to accomplish it. In this pledge and compact
lies the foundation of the Republic ; and the security of the
rich and the consolation of the poor is, that what each man
has is his own, that no despotic sovereign can take it from
29
him, and that the common cementing principle which holds

all the parts of a Republic together secures him likewise from
the despotism of numbers, for despotism may be more effect
ually acted by many over a few, than by one over all."
Republican government is thus rigidly restricted to the
functions which have been assigned it in later years by Her
bert Spencer, Wilhelm von Huraboldt, and John Stuart Mill,
who have largely repeated Paine's arguments. The func
tions of government are simply to secure Jhe whole nation
from foreign invasion, and to secure every citizen from in
vasion of his rights by another citizen, or by any combina
tion of citizensa town, a county, a State, a majority. A
government really republican could have nothing whatever to
do with a man's opinions, religions, beliefs, unbeliefs, habits,
nor even with his morals, his vice, or his immorality. It
can take notice only of the individual conduct which demonstrably and calculably injures another, or others ; that is,
only of crime. In forming civil and political society by con
stitutional compact, the individual does not part from any
of his natural rights, but he concedes his own separate con
trol over the exercise of some of them in order to obtain from
the community protection of those rights. The rights re
served entirely to the individual are such as he has full
power to execute alone ; the rights confided to the community
are those in which his power of execution is defective. "A
man, by natural right, has a right to judge in his own case,
and so far as the right of the mind is concerned he never sur
renders it; but what availeth him to judge if he has not
power to redress ? He therefore deposits this right in the
common stock of society, and takes the arm of society, of
which he is a part, in preference and in addition to his own.
Society grants him nothing. Every man is a proprietor in
society, and draws on the capital as a matter of right."
These securities depend on equal representation. If a man's
will is liable to be overruled it must be by a power to which
he has consented. Every man must have a vote. Paine describes representation as the " delegated monarchy of a
nation ;" from which we may infer that he did not consider
30
the representative a mere delegate of the instructions or " pro

gramme " of his party among the electors, or even of his
entire constituency. The representative is supreme in the
republic; he represents the whole nation; he has to form
wise and just opinions in consultation with the various and
collective wisdom of the nation. The representative body
of a republic is purely elective, and one only ; but Paine
would divide it by lot into two parts, sitting in different
rooms, and alternately introducing bills. While Division A
discussed the proposed measure, Division B would listen,
learning the facts and arguments without being committed
to either side. Should A pass the measure, B would bring to
it full knowledge and uncommitted judgment. The votes of
the two divisions, added together,would determine the matter.
It should be said, however, that although Paine argued
that there could not be in a true republic two co-equal legis
lative chambers with different representative bases, he, by no
means, regarded his own scheme just stated as more than a
suggestion. He maintained that the science of government
was just beginning to be studied and understood.
The republic comprises two departments onlythe making
of laws and their execution. The law enacted by the legis
lature passes at once to the courts of law, which direct their
execution. All officials are agents of the courts, whether
sheriff, policeman, president, or king. By whatsoever name
called, the Executive is the Hand, and cannot be raised above
the Head the Legislature, which creates the laws.
In the republic the only sovereign is the Law. In his
" Common Sense," when he was more orthodox, Paine pro
posed that the United Colonies should formally declare their
independence, frame a charter of union (a Constitution), and
place a crown upon the Bible, " by which the world may
know that so far we approve of monarchy, that in America
THE LAW is KING." To the last he was opposed to all su
premacy of an individual which would admit of his vetoing
a legislative act, or of his originating, with or without the
advice of a cabinet, any policy or action not definitely com
manded by legislative enactment. He admits that a people
31
have the right to establish any form of government, provided

they include in it provisions for amendment, and do not make
any office hereditary ; it would be republican in basis even
though some monarchical formulas survived in it.
It will be seen, therefore, that although Paine is tradition
ally supposed to be a revolutionist, he was really the earliest
political evolutionist. At his trial in London, December
18, 1792, for his reply to Burke, Erskine pointed out that
while Burke's pamphlet left the nation no means of alter
ing their government except violence, Paine's " Rights of
Man " provided the means of peaceful reform. Burke was
really the revolutionist, though he instigated the prosecution
of Paine. In truth, Paine's Quaker principle of peace was
as deep in him as his faith in the " inner light," which equal
ized man with man as to natural rights. Stern as he was in
theoretical repudiation of monarchical forms, he foresaw the
perils of war in an immediate overthrow of the throne in
France, and promptly aided Lafayette in his plan of trans
ferring the throne to a popular basis. Had it not been for
the king's fatal flight, the world would have witnessed the
picturesque sight of Thomas Paine bearing the Star-spangled
Banner in a procession to inaugurate Louis XVI. as a repub
lican king. And even as it unhappily turned out, when the
king was on trial for his life, Paine, unmaker of kings, was
seen pleading for that life, with such efiect that Marat
launched himself into the middle of the Convention and
cried, " Thomas Paine votes against the death penalty be
cause he is a Quaker ! " For once, at least, Marat spoke
truly. In England, too, Paine's " testimony " was inflexibly
against violent revolution ; many facts indicate that it was
mainly he who restrained the ardor of his adherents, who
wished to deal with kings after Joshua's method. England
outlawed as a revolutionist the man who probably saved her
from revolution.
Paine's Republic of the World exists only as does the
Republic of Letters. Our so-called republics are compro
mises with survivals of feudalism, and with the love of
pageantry, the personal ambitions, inbred by monarchical
32
ages. Nevertheless, the universal Republic has its citizens,

its international aims, interests, occasional assemblies. One
sometimes sees the medals struck oft" in England a hundred
years ago, bearing effigies of Paine on the gibbet. They
are much valued by collectors; but meanwhile the currency
coined by Paine's brain is still in circulation, so familiar
indeed that we little remember the furnaces in which they
were minted, or recognize the head engraved on them. It
was from Paine that we have such phrases as "Rights of
Man," "Despotism of Numbers," "Age of Reason," "Reli
gion of Humanity," "The Law is King;" and from him
many felicitous generalizations, such as these: "A Declara
tion of Rights is, by reciprocity, a Declaration of Duties
also;" "The splendor of a throne is no other than the cor
ruption of the State ; " " Public credit is suspicion asleep ; "
"A despotic form of government knows no principle but
will ; " " The despotic form of government knows no inter
mediate space between being slaves and being rebels;"
"Time makes more converts than reason ;" "Constitutions
are to liberty what grammar is to language; " "To be nobly
wrong is more manly than to be meanly right ; " " The
wrong which began a thousand years ago is as much a wrong
as if it began to-day ; and the right which originates to-day
is as much a right as if it had the sanction of a thousand
years;" "Religion is man bringing to his Maker the fruits
of his heart." In 1826 a dictionary of Paine's aphorisms
was published in London (12 mo., pp. 177), which thousands
carried in their pockets, and from which were sown far and
wide the seeds which have reached their golden harvest in
the liberty and civilization of the Victorian reign.
A Newton of the Mind.
33
A NEWTON OF THE MIND.

THE PROPELLER OF KEELY's AIR-SHIP DESCRIBED.
COMPILED BY MRS. BLOOMFIELD MOORE.
Error ia not forever; hope for right.
Darkness is not the opposite of light.
But only absenceday will follow night.
LOWELL.
God sends His teachers unto every age,
To every clime and every race of men,
With revelations fitted to their growth.
LOWELL.
In the progress of the race, man may be likened to a little child that is nonbeginning to totter alone, just escaped from his leading-strings, but with a
future of power and intelligence in his coming manhood past all present com
putation.
JOHN SARTAIN.
Nous marchons tous au milieu de secrets, entoures de mysterea. Nous ne
savons pas ce qui se passe dans 1'atmosphere qui nous entoure; nous ne savons
1'ns qnelle relations elle a avec notre esprit.
VITOUX.
"All the work of the world," says Drummond, " is merely

taking advantage of energies already there." In, order to
take advantage of these energies, we must not only know of
their existence, but know the laws which govern their ope
ration in nature ; for so only can we conquer them and make
them our slaves instead of our masters.
More than twenty years ago, Keely, by seeming chance,
discovered the unknown polar flow, and without giving any
attention to research, on the line of its origin or of its opera
tion, began to construct engines to apply the energy to me
chanics. It was not until he had invented his marvelous
researching instruments that his true work of evolution
began in 1888, which, completed in 1893, has now borne the
test of demonstration and given him command of a vibra
tory circuit for running machinery, both for terrestrial use
and for aerial navigation.
VOL. I.3
84
Before this could be brought about it was necessary to

effect a sympathetic affinity between his machinery and
the polar flow, minus magnetism. The colossal nature of
the difficulties that he has surmounted can never be real
ized as by those who have followed him during the last five
years, and seen them spring up one after another, at every
advance, to bar his way.
Through this system the dynamo will eventually become a
thing of the past, and electric lighting will be conducted by
a polar negative disc run by a vibratory circuit of sympa
thetic polar attraction, "drawn direct from space," which
Keely has 'harnessed for commercial use after more than
twenty years of maligned and persistent effort such as the
world has never known.
Before attempting to set down any of the great truths of
sympathetic physics, it will be necessary for the scientific
reader to have some idea of Keely's views of "Nature's
sympathetic flows." Although he has substantiated his
theories by demonstration to his own satisfaction and to
the conviction of distinguished men of science, electricians
and engineers, he will welcome any refutation of them which
shows that he is in error, for Keely does not claim to be in
fallible, as do those who sit in judgment upon him. To
quote from his writings:
"Physicists have been working in the wrong direction
to lead them to associate themselves with Nature's sympa
thetic evolutions. It is not necessary to advance farther
into the unexplored region of these sympathetic flows than
the ninths, to become convinced that the one I denominate
the dominant is the leader toward which the remaining
thiids of the triune combination (of triple sympathetic
streams) co-ordinate, whether it be the cerebellic, gravital,
or magnetic. When we reach the luminiferous track on
the ninths, in the triple subdivision, we have proof that
the infinite stream, from that unexplored region where all
sympathetic streams emanate, is triune in its character,
having the dominant as the sympathetic leader, to which
the remainder of the celestial thirds are subservient; the
35
cerebellic being the dominant, and the triplets (gravital,

electric, and magnetic) following in its train.
"The magnetic cannot lead the electric, nor the electric
the gravital, nor the gravital the magnetic. All are sub
servient to the dominant,1 as a train of cars is subservient
to the locomotive which pulls it along; the only difl'erence
between the two is that one is sympathetic, the other me
chanical. Though this is a crude illustration, it conveys a
great truth in sympathetic philosophy. All sympathetic
flows have this triune condition associated with them, the
same as the molecular, atomic and etheric aggregations of
all forms of visible matter; the compound etheric, or domi
nant, being the leader and yet one of the constituents of the
molecule itself. The dominant we may call the etheric por
tion of the molecule; the harmonic, the atomic; and the en
harmonic, the molecule itself. The dominant parts of the
triune combination of the sympathetic streams are the lead
ers, toward which all co-ordinate to make up the sympa
thetic terrestrial envelope of the earth; the cerebral being
the high dominant, or compound etheric, the luminiferous
proper.
"All diversions from the polar terrestrial envelope are but
nodal outreaches, induced by the proper order of sympathetic
' vibration ; not dissociations and associations of sympathy ;
but operating on the same principle as the outflow, or nodal
outreach of the mental organism toward the physical, in its
control over it. The latent conditions are in a state of neu
trality, as regards action, until the excitermental outreach
is brought into sympathetic play. If we dissociate the
sympathetic mental from the latent physical, it would be
equivalent to beheading it ; consequently, the physical would
1 The mental flow a dominant over all the sympathetic conditions associated
with the physical organism. The nervous flow comes under the order of the
sub-dominant ; consequently there is no sympathetic correlation between the two.
Example: The body of a violin represents the mental, or resonator, whil
the strings by which it is attuned represent the nervous, or nerves. The
strings or nerves, can be brought to a tension whereby they are broken apart,
but the violin, or resonator, remains intact and dominantly independent under
all these conditions.
36
cease to exist as a thing of life; but the dominantthe cere

bralwould remain in its unchanged form, viz., the high
etheric.
"The system of inducing differential harmonies by com
pound chords is one that the world of science has never rec
ognized; simply because the struggles of physicists, com
bating with the solution of the conditions governing the
fourth order of matter, have been in a direction antagonistic
to the right one. By this I mean that physicists reject the
true conditions of the dissociation of matter ; recognizing and
holding fast to an adverse law ; debarring the subdivision of
the atom, and ridiculing the existence of latent force in intermolecular space. I have substantiated the triple forma
tion of the molecule by the differential triple reply that it
gives when excited by compound concordant impulses, and
by the accelerated range of motion which it assumes under
intensified vibration, even to dissociation from its fellows;
proving this dissociation by the increased amounts of latent
energy evolved, progressively."
At an early period of Keely's researches, on the lines sug
gested by the distinguished professor of the Bonn University,
Dr. Hertz, viz., of the conditions governing the operation in
nature of the unknown energy he was dealing with, Keely
wrote to a friend :
"It appears, in my researching experiments, quite evident
to me, that under different orders of progressive vibration,
when the sixth order is reached on the positive, a condition
presents itself in an accompanying agent that adds to the
etheric flow a very peculiar action. I call this third agent
its sympathetic attendant.
"In the physical organism, the circulatory forces have
their attendants in the form of nerves, which are the sensatory telegraphs to all parts of the human system. I have
reason to believe that under the seventh subdivision of matter
a condition is reached where perfect assimilation takes place
between these two sympathetics, thus showing the luminiferous track. It is this assimilation or association that in
duces the luminosity, I am quite certain ; but in this uuition
37
there is nothing approaching corpuscular friction, which in

itself is antagonistic to luminosity.
" Consequently the unition of these sympathetic thirds must
take place by gravital assimilation, which is the highest or
der of sympathetic union. This is the compound ethericflow,
or soul of matter. The sympathetic attendant must be the odylic ;
or, comparatively speaking, its nerve force. Reichenbach exer
cises a wonderfully far-seeing judgment in his argument on
this, the highest preponderate.
" If I am able, with the instrument I am now constructing,
to demonstrate these assertions as truths, it will amply repay
the researches of a lifetime. The conditions governing the
nerve-force of the planetary system may then be unraveled
by future research. This seems to be too immense an aim to
be associated with human thought.
"I hope I am the 'compound lunatic' that the scientific
world calls me, to whom it is given to work out the demon
stration of these ' hidden things of God ' which hitherto have
seemed to be past finding out. They may call me ' Cagliostro,' ' Impostor,' ' Charlatan,' or anything that pleases them ;
I shall glory in these names, if I can reach the solution of
this vast problem that I am now at work upon. I thank God
the time is near at hand when I will be able to prove how
faithfully accurate is the new philosophy in showing up the
conditions governing the sympathetic field."
By progressive research Keely has, since that time, at
tained such perfection in his method of work that the vital
izing of instruments, which formerly took him three days,
is now accomplished in fifteen minutes, using hydrogen in
increasing molecular oscillation to the point where the power
can be registered. Up to a certain stage he was able to em
ploy the ether; but in this process it would be as impossible,
as it is to take the flow of thought in one's hands and by
physical effort tie it in a knot. Having, in these researches,
succeeded in wresting from Nature the conditions of planetary
suspension, he is now well on his way toward gaining the
closely guarded secret of the firefly. All that Nature does
with Nature's forces man will be able to do when he has
38
wrung from her grasp, one by one, the keys that she still
clenches in her hands ; for it is Nature herself, not Science,
which has given to the world, in this system of aerial navi
gation, " the crowning achievement of a century of progress."
Keely has never made but one experiment in dissociating
the hydrogen of the chemist. After a persistent effort of
over seven weeks' duration, in his attempt to confine it and
hold it under assimilation with one-third its volume of dis
integrated air, he succeeded in obtaining a rather indefinite
result, lasting only about ninety seconds. The luminosity
shown was the only evidence he had of its dissociation ;
but, in his process of disintegration of water, he never fails
to obtain proof of the triple subdivision of hydrogenmole
cular, atomic and inter-atomic.
Each disc of the polar and depolar groupings in the pro
peller of the air-ship contains seven pints of hydrogen. In
preparing these discs, the hydrogen is submitted to a triple
order of vibration. The corpuscular envelopes of the mole
cules are not enlarged in volume, under their receptive con
dition, but their velocity of rotation is increased. While
under the operation of this transmittive vibration their vor
tex action is made visible.
Under date of November 2, 1891, Keely wrote of one of
his researching instruments which he was then inventing,
to overcome nodal interference in sympathetic negative out
reach: "This instrument combines the disintegrator and
the positive-negative-indicator in one. It will be but an in
termediate, as between the sympathetic negative transmitter
and the depolarizer. At present, I am working like a man
suspended between heaven and earth, trying to reach one
without leaving the other."
This is one of Keely's many apt figures of speech, which
convey, as no other words could, what his position has been
in the past. The wonderful instrument (the sympathetic
harness) which he has now completed to connect the polar
flow with the propeller of the air-ship, substantiates what
only two years ago was purely theoretical in Keely's system
of sympathetic-vibratory physics ; and, figuratively speaking,
39
proves that without leaving earth he has laid hold of the

very battlements of celestial regions, thus opening a path
way for men of science to reach the solution of their most
intricate problems. Often has Keely expressed his regret
that mechanical physicists have not had suitable instruments
for their researches, saying that they would long since
have discovered their errors had they been in possession of
proper instruments for acoustic research. It was some pho
tographs of his instruments which led the late Henri Hertz,
after examining them, to say in 1889 :
" No man who is working on these lines, with such in
struments, is a fraud. I cannot help him ; no one can help
him ; he must work out his system alone, and when it is
completed, we can pursue our researches on the same line.
I thought Keely was working, as I am, with an electrical
machine and wires. I had no idea of these wonderful in
struments."
The machine used by Keely, from 1872 to 1882, for disin
tegrating water, -weighed several tons. Since that time, in
his work of evolution, he has made such advances that the
one he now uses is no larger than the wheel of a perambu
lator.
In Keely's process of disintegrating water, the proportion
of oxygen to hydrogen is such as to favor the bringing about,
under a certain order of triple vibration, the antagonistic dif
ferentiation necessary to produce molecular and atomic cor
puscular dissociation. When this dissociation takes place,
the hydrogen becomes highly rotating, acting like a mole
cular capsule with the oxygen enclosed. While under this
condition, when confined in a tube, they remain dissociated
until the peripheral rotation of the hydrogen is interfered
with.
One of the foundation stones of vibratory physics is that
" no differentiation can exist in the workings of the pure
law of harmony." If this be correct, then all so-called ele
ments have a triple basis, as vibratory physics teaches, for
the system that represents harmony in one sense must repre
sent it in all, or everything would be brought into "chaotic
40
confusion." Therefore, as Keely surmised, long before he

was able to prove it to his own satisfaction, hydrogen must,
under the conditions of this law, be composed of three ele
ments ; and these three elements in turn must each have a
triple formation, and so on indefinitely, until verged into
the infinite inter-luminous.
The correctness of these hypotheses has been proved by
the varying degrees of energy evolved in progressive disin
tegration from the molecular to the introductory etheric.
Kcely writes :
" The nearer the approach to the neutral centres, when
the dissociation takes place, the greater is the latent force
evolved. In molecular dissociation the instrument is set on
the thirds, meeting with a rotating resistance of five thou
sand pounds per square inch, without any interference with
the inter-molecular position. The instrument is set on the
sixths, to liberate inter-molecular latent force, which, when
liberated, is equal to a resistance of ten thousand pounds.
To reach the atomic centres, the instrument is set on the
ninths dominant, the sixths harmonic, and the thirds en
harmonic, having the transmittive chord B associated with
each. At this setting the corpuscular percussion exceeds
twenty-five thousand pounds per square inch. The subser
vience to the co-ordinate sympathy is shown in the result by
a pressure exceeding fifteen thousand pounds, reaching, in
this subdivision, almost as near the neutrals as instruments
can carry us. The atomic and inter-atomic settings consti
tute the introductory conditions governing the nodal out
reach as toward the etheric. Under this condition of sym
pathetic vibration an evolution of energy is registered far
exceeding any heretofore liberated. The region of the inau
dible is reachedthe introductory etheric and the first feat
ures of the invisible latent force existing in corpuscular em
brace have been handled.
" We must put our shoes from off our feeti. e., lay aside
our earthly bodiesbefore we can go farther. But this is
far enough to prove that nothing is lost, and that, when this
repellent order of things is brought about, and so-called
41
elements are separated, these elements yield up, in their

molecular separation, what may be called their souls, or more
progressive elements.
" We have gone far enough to find that there is no such
thing as death ; that matter cannot die, any more than the
substance or spiritual essence which controls it can die. The
word death is a misnomer, for there is only a change of base
in the molecular visible, and it is the same with the sympa
thetic invisible, for celestial radiation claims her own back
again to its realm of spiritual existence.
" ' My own dim life should teach me this,
That life shall live for evermore ;
Else eartli is darkness at the core,
And dust and ashes all that is.'
" It is through the action of nature's sympathetic forces

that planets arc born and their volume of matter augmented.
If the sympathetic, negative polar stream were cut off from
the earth, its molecular mass would become independent, and
would float away into space as would a soap-bubble filled
with warm air. The same conditions of governing rule exist
in the planetary masses as between the mental and physical
forces in our organisms ; the organism representing the earth,
and its link with the cerebral centres the connection with
the infinite mind. In other words, the latent energy exist
ing in the neutral depths of matter, visible or invisible, re
mains eternally subservient and unchangeably linked to the
eternal mind. True science is bastardized by intimating
that the life in matter can be destroyed by any intensity of
thermal negation (frigidity). Can finite man make use of an
infinite element to neutralize infinity ? Thermal negation
causes molecular oscillation to diminish, or even seem to
cease, but the results brought about from this superficial ap
pearance of matter coming to rest are that the latent energy
existing in the molecular zone is transferred to the intermolecular, increasing the oscillations of the inter-molecular
in the same ratio that the molecular is diminished. All the
art that man can employ to induce the same effect on the
42
inter-molecular zone ends here. Granting, however, that it

were possible, what would ensue ?
"A disintegration, of the most intense explosive character,
of the volume experimented upon, destroying the apparatus
and its surroundings. But no artifice of the physicist could
ever produce such conditions. In the disintegration of water
by vibratory changes of atmospheric base (a triple order of
sympathetic vibration, molecular, inter-molecular, and atomic
simultaneously projected) the inter-molecular depths only
are interfered with, the result being that latent energy is
liberated, showing a pressure of 2,000 atmospheres, when
barometric conditions are favorable.
" The physical organism (through the medium of celestial
radiation) is a trinity, both in regard to its visible form and
the invisible sympathetic streams which govern it, in its in
dividual and combined movements. The visible includes
the molecular, the atomic and inter-atomic in combination ;
while the invisible, or spiritual, includes the etheric, interetheric and luminous in combination, each of which is essen
tial to the proper completion of the combined action, com
prising as it does every minute law governing the celestial
and terrestrial universe.
" Life begets life ; the celestial life begets the terrestrial
life; the God-life begets the man-life. Celestial radiation is
the pure soul of all matter, both earthy and gaseous. Thus
we are linked in all our environments to the divine, our cer
ebral aggregations being the highest medium whereby celes
tial sympathetic reflection associates with our organisms,
and is our only source of knowledge of ourselves. We have,
with our mental and physical forces, a duality of action
which, when combined with the celestial, makes up the trip
let or trinity. With the mental, the superficial visible, or
outward sight; with the inward, or spiritual invisible, we
have the spiritual link connecting mind and matter, the order
of transfer being :
"First.Celestial radiation, or etheric.
"Second.Mental impregnation, or inter-atomic.
" Third.Physical movements, or inter-molecular.
43
" Or again :
"Ninths.Sympathetic transfer from the celestial lumin
ous.
"Sixths. Sympathetic impregnation of matter.
" Thirds.Physical movements."
Thus the following question is answered, asked by Oliver
Lodge (even though, with the professor's knowledge, the
answer seems to be but " arrant gibberish " to him) :
" By what means is force exerted, and what definitely is
force ? Here is something not provided for in the orthodox
scheme of physics. Modern physics is not complete, and a
line of possible advance lies in this direction."
Vibratory physics has here reached the boundary line
dividing the infinite from the finite, the link between mind
and matter. Here we must pause; but it has taught us that
it is only in the supreme conditions of celestial reflection or
sympathetic transfer that we live, move, and have our being ;
through which every thought, or flow of the mental, actu
ates the physical organism, on the same order that an illu
minated centre radiates and lights up its surroundings.
Mr. J. Townshend, in his paper "The Planet Venus," read
at Leeds, in April, asks :
"Are hydrogen, nitrogen, hellium, etc., really elemental
substances, or are they evolved from ether ? If so, what is
ether? Whence the impulse which operates upon it, and
what is its nature? Thus we turn from effect to cause in
search of some first principle upon which the mind can rest.
But ere this the light of science has failed us, for who by
(scientific) searching can find out God ?"
Sympathetic vibratory or spiritual physics answers these
questions, and, as has been said, promises to burst upon the
searchers after truth as the one mighty and complete revela
tion of some of the mysteries of creation.
" Science was faith once ; faith were science now
Would she but lay her bow and arrow by
And arm her with the weapons of her time."
" And God breathed into man the breath of life," celestial
radiation, "and man became a living soul."
44
The cause of the effect, the source or fountain-head of all

matter, is the celestial MindDeity, from whom all power
emanates, and whose laws of sympathetic association reign
over and control all matter and all substance. Spirit is sub
stance, as Spinoza taught : "The universe is one. There is
no supernatural; all is related, cause and sequence."
" Like fire, which is a spiritual order of vibration, spirit
is latent in all matter. One might as well try to operate a
steam-engine without its boiler as to give motion to matter
against the conditions imposed by nature, or to propose a new
method of controlling the action of our physical organisms
(other than through the sympathetic transfer of our mental
forces) as an improvement on the one instituted by the
Almighty.
"Although there is as much difference in the molecular
construction of spirit and matter as there is between hydrogen
and forged steel, yet the flow of spiritual radiation, from the
fountain-head of force, operates under the one unvarying law
with both; for "nature never changes her processes," and she
cannot be forced into any position which is antagonistic to
her sympathetic law of action ; such, for instance, as it would
be were a gas to be solidified. The disintegration of water
by heat is only a low order of crude molecular dissociation,
visible in its production of steam; but the dissociation of
hydrogen and oxygen cannot be made visible. Physicists
are misled by visible effects. Nature, by her process of
sympathetic vibration (an order approaching the luminiferous) could take up the atmosphere that encircles our globe,
and yet solid matter would not even then be produced. By
another order of progressive sympathetic vibration, associ
ated with the high luminous, the molecular condition of the
atmosphere so taken up would not represent a cherry-stone
in volume."
Nothing exists but substance and its modes of motion,
says Spinoza; thus teaching that spirit is substance. "Soul
is the body or organ of the mind, and as such they are insepa
rable forever. Mind and soul are one, soul and body are
two. Soul can never be without mind, body can. As in the
A Newton of the Hind.
45
mortal life, so in the immortal life, mind cannot be or act

without a body." Sympathetic physics teaches that the
luminiferous ether, a compound inter-etheric element, celestial
mind force, is the substance of which everything visible is
composed, and that this great sympathetic protoplastic ele
ment is life itself.
"Consequently, our physical organisms are composed of
this element; the focalizing or controlling media to the
physical having its seat in the cerebral convolutions from
which sympathetic radiation emanates. This sympathetic
outreach is mind-flow proper, or will-force ; sympathetic
polarization to produce action, sympathetic depolarization to
neutralize it. Polar and depolar differentiation resulting in
motion. This element sympathetically permeates all forms
and conditions of matter, having for its attendants gravity,
electricity, and magnetism, the triple conditions borne in
itself. From this ''soul of matter' all forms of motion receive
their introductory impulses. The physicists of the present
age ignore the sympathetic conditions that are associated
with the governing force of the cerebral and the muscular
organism. The evolution of a volition, the infinite exciter,
arouses the latent energy of the physical organism to do its
work ; differential orders of brain-force acting against each
other under dual conditions. If there were no latent energy,
to arouse sympathetically, there would be no action in the
physical frame, as all force is will-force.
"Enough alternate active energy could be evolved, in a
cubic inch of steel, by the proper sympathetic exciter, to do
the work of a horse, by its sympathetic association with the
polar force in alternate polarization and depolarization. This
is the power that I am now getting under control to do com
mercial work. In other words, I am making a sympathetic
harness for the polar terrestrial force."
KEBLY, 1892.
In 1893, Keely, in reply to the question, " What do you
include in the polar forces ?" answered, " Magnetism, elec
tricity, and gravital sympathy ; each stream of force com
posed of three currents which make up the governing con
ditions of the controlling medium of the universe. The
46
ninths which I am now endeavoring to graduate to a sympa

thetic mechanical combination will, if I succeed, close my
researches in sympathetic physics, and complete my system."
Within the year the announcement was made that Keely had
completed this graduation, with entire mechanical success,
"hooking his machinery on to the machinery of nature." In
thus having realized the ambition of his life, he takes no
credit to himself, saying that physicists would long since
have discovered all that he has discovered if they had been
in possession of the proper researching instruments, and that
the theories they have advanced show that they are misled
by the imperfections of their instruments. He has always
maintained that "it is only when science holds the reins of
the polar negative harness that commercial success will
follow, and not one hour before." But science, to whom the
reins were offered in 1884, refused to take them, fortunately,
for mechanical physics could have rendered Keely no assist
ance in unraveling the mysteries of sympathetic physics.
Buckle, in his address, "The Influence of Women on the
Progress of Knowledge," discloses the foundation stone of
sympathetic physics in these words : " The laws of nature
have their sole seat, origin, and function, in the human mind.
Not one single discovery has ever been made which has been
connected with the laws of the mind that made it. Until this
connection is ascertained, our knowledge has no sure basis."
As Dr. Gerard surmises, in his book on " Nervous Force,"
Keely is " a plagiarist in cerebral dynamics." The instru
ment that he calls the sympathetic transmitter is the brain
of the propeller, and at last we have a discovery which gives
a sure basis for knowledge; a discovery made by one who
lays no claims to learning, for nature has taught him, in
her works, all that he knows.
THE PROPELLER DESCRIBED.
The space which the propeller of the air-ship occupies in

Keely's laboratory comes within a radius of six feet square.
A small space for so powerful a mediumdistributing
over one thousand horse-power, as tested by experiment.
47
It consists of more than two thousand pieces, the principal

parts of which are:
1. Positive graduating Chladna ; guiding by polar action
toward the north and reversing by depolar action.
2. Sympathetic polar negative transmitter; for operating
and controlling the action of the machinery in producing
polar and depolar power: liberating the latent sympathetic
power in twenty-seven sensitized discs.
3. Polar and depolar intermittent accumulator, carrying
eight focalizing discs for receiving and distributing the sym
pathetic polar negative flow. This device takes the energy
sympathetically from the polar negative stream on the same
order that a dynamo registers electricity from the earth to
be distributed and redistributed : running the machine sym
pathetically.
4. Positive ring suspended on a small shaft with three
points, the object of which is to preserve the integrity of
the neutral (see Appendix) centre of the machine.
5. Two resonating drums : one positive, one negative,
which multiply the intensity of the sympathetic flow.
6. Twenty-seven depolar triple groupings, nine in each
grouping, consisting of three vitalized discs with resonators.
These reply sympathetically to polar and depolar action.
7. Large polar ring. This ring is associated with the cen
tral resonators by nine resonating polar discs placed at equal
distances. This is the medium for distributing the polar
flow.
8. Small negative ring, which is the governor of the pro
peller, associated with a polar bar that oscillates from the
polar field to the depolar field, somewhat on the order of a
magnetic needle, governing the action of the machine to any
given number of revolutions. The sympathetic rotation that
exists in the resonating centre of this ring holds the neutral
centre in subservience to celestial radiation, whereby a cer
tain order of sympathetic disturbances gives the sympathetic
radiation the requisite power to draw it to itself, accomplish
ing what is called atmospheric suspension on the same prin
ciple as that of sympathetic suspension.
48
The condition of the mechanical requirements necessary

to conduct successfully the line of research which Keely has
been pursuing 'will be properly appreciated, now that he is
able to demonstrate the simplicity and beauty of his system,
under perfect control for commercial use.
Modern materialistic science is altogether unprepared for
the revelation given in sympathetic vibratory physics; a
revelation foreshadowed in this passage from the writings of
de Maistre.
" Religion and science, in virtue of their natural affinity,
will meet in the brain of some one man of genius, and the
world will get what it needs and cries fornot a new re
ligion, but the fuller revelation of revelation."
In the same prophetic spirit Oliver Lodge, in his paper on
"The Interstellar Ether," writes:
" I feel as if it would be no merely material prospect that
will be opening on our view, but some glimpse into a region
of the universe which science has never yet entered, which
has been sought from afar, and perhaps blindly apprehended
by painter or poet, by philosopher or saint."
"The ghost in man, the ghost that once was man,
But cannot wholly free itself from man,
Are calling to each other through a dawn
Stranger than earth has ever seen : the veil
Is rending, and the voices of the day
Are heard across the voices of the dark."
APPENDIX.
Mr. Keely illustrates his idea of " a neutral centre " in this
way : " We will imagine that, after an accumulation of a
planet of any diametersay, twenty thousand miles, more
or less, for the size has nothing to do with the problem
there should be a displacement of all the material, with the
exception of a crust five thousand miles thick, leaving an in
tervening void between this crust and a centre of the size of
an ordinary billiard ball, it would then require a force as
great to move this small central mass as it would to move
49
the shell of five thousand miles thickness. Moreover, this

small central mass would carry the load of this crust forever,
keeping it equidistant ; and there could be no opposing power,
however great, that could bring them together. The imagina
tion staggers in contemplating the immense load which bears
upon this point of centre where weight ceases. This is what
we understand by a neutral centre."
In theorizing on the philosophy of planetary suspension,
Mr. Keely says : "As regards planetary volume, we would
ask in a scientific point of view, how can the immense differ
ence of volume in the planets exist without disorganizing
the harmonious action that has always characterized them ?
I can only answer this question properly by entering into a
progressive synthesis, starting on the rotating etheric centres
that were fixed by the Creator with their attractive or accu
mulative power. If you ask what power it is that gives to
each etheric atom its inconceivable velocity of rotation, or
introductory impulse, I must answer that no finite mind will
ever be able to conceive what it is. The accumulation is the
only proof that such a power has been given. The area, if
we can so speak of such an atom, presents to the attractive
or magnetic, the elective or propulsive, all the receptive force
and all the antagonistic force that characterizes a planet of
the largest magnitude ; consequently, as the accumulation
goes on, the perfect equation remains the same. When this
minute centre has once been fixed, the power to rend it from
its position would necessarily have to be as great as to dis
place the most immense planet that exists. When this atomic
neutral centre is displaced, the planet must go with it The
neutral centre carries the full load of any accumulation from
the start, and remains the same, balanced in the eternal space."
Again, Mr. Keely, in explanation of the working of his
engine, says : u In the conception of any machine heretofore
constructed, the medium for inducing a neutral centre has
never been found. If it had, the difficulties of perpetual
motion seekers would have ended, and this problem would
have become an established and operating fact. It would
only require an introductory impulse of a few pound?, on
VOL.1.-4
50
Scientific Creation.
such a device, to cause it to run for centuries. In the con

ception of my vibratory machine, I did not seek to attain
perpetual motion ; but a circuit is formed that actually has a
neutral centre, which is in a condition to be vivified by the
ether, and while under operation by said substance is really
a machine that is virtually independent of the mass (or globe),
and it is the wonderful velocity of the vibratory circuit which
makes it so. Still, with all its perfection, it requires to be
fed with the ether to make it an iudependent motor. . . ."
SCIENTIFIC CREATION.
BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
Between human science and Divine revelation there has
always existed hostility, more or less veiled. Science has
been unwilling to admit the dogma of the miraculous in
creation, and has striven to show that what purports to be
miraculous is either lying tradition, or else is no miracle at
all, but a strictly natural transaction, such as may be repro
duced by science itself.
The inductive method of investigation has carried science
so far that we may now, for the first time, forecast how far
she may yet go. She has penetrated to the threshold of life
itself, and would fain cross it. But the profoundest minds
among her disciples begin to admit that they can go no fur
ther. The material world is theirs, or may conceivably
become so; but the secret energy that maintains and shapes
the visible appearance, the intelligent power that bridges
gaps and supplies missing linksthe God in the machine,
in shortthey have not reached or solved, and are no nearer
doing so than at the outset ; nor, indeed, in hope and expect
ation, so near.
The plane of matter, in other words, is the plane of effects,
and that of mind or spirit is the plane of causes; and
between them the difference is discrete in degree. Instead
51
of being continuous, as in a spiral, they are in a series, as

thought and speech, will and act, love and heat. Hence,
though spirit continually informs and moulds matter, matter
can never generate from itself the birth of spirit. Matter is
deadphilosophically it is not ; it only appears to bethat
is, it exists, goes forth from Being, in answer to the spirit's
impulse to expound itself in the arena of mortal sense.
It is only after man recognizes his limitations that we
attain the sphere of our greatest usefulness. Having ac
knowledged the existence and supremacy of spirit, we are
now in a position to produce effects on the material plane
hitherto unattempted and even unimagined ; for now we put
ourselves under the guidance of spirit ; as Emerson phrased
it, we hitch our wagon to a star. By tuning ourselves to
harmony with the simple but profound methods of what is
termed " Nature," we avail ourselves of the true creative force.
The past age has seen the glorification of machinery. The
extension of man's muscular power through engines has been
carried to its extreme. Structures in which is embodied the
maximum of energy with the maximum of economy whirl
us about the globe, or heap up for us the product of agricul
ture and manufacture. The wheel, the lever, the wedge,
steam and electricity, have done mighty things for man ;
and it seems strange, in contemplating his wealth and lux
ury, that poverty, misery, crime, and disease are, if any
thing, more burdensome and minatory than they were before
all this increase of opulence and mastery began.
But, in truth, the bulk and brute force of our machinery
form the barrier between us and true efficiency. A higher me
chanical intelligence will perceive that the existing resources
of nature are our real machinery, which have been all this
while awaiting our discovery of the right means of using
them. The slighter the medium between us and them, the
greater will be the success of the application. And the law
which leads us to this application has the name of the Law
of Vibration.
It may now be affirmed that vibration lies at the base
of all material phenomena. The: universal ether is the real
52
protoplasm ; from its vibrations result the various substances

which constitute the realm of physical nature. An impulse
of the spirit, communicated to the cells of the brain, pro
duces the vibration known as thought. By the atmospheric
vibrations of speech, thought is conveyed from one mind to
others. The different gases are special forms of etheric
vibration ; the frozen gases we know as solids are character
istic modifications of the same vibrations. Atoms might be
described as the nuclei or meeting-points of concurrent
vibrations. Thus, in the last analysis, " matter " disappears
in a mode of motion, the cause of which is spirit.
Broadly speaking, then, the man who can control at will
the diverse orders of vibration can mould the universe at his
pleasure. Out of the apparent void of the invisible and im
palpable ether, he can call forth palpable substance. On the
other hand, he can restore substances to their primitive
etheric condition. And the sole magician's wand needed to
perform these vital feats is the mastery of the law of vibration.
All this is easily said ; but who shall fashion for us this
wand of physical omnipotence?
Among the many warring voices of contemporary life,
there is one, speaking in a deep undertone, which utters a
conviction interior to all doubts and denunciations. It ex
presses the faith that the world is upon the verge of a new
departure in the modes and conditions of life. A higher
state of existence, both on the material and the spiritual
plane, is promised us ; in this expectation the man of science
and the man of religion are agreed ; and the impartial on
looker, could such be found, might reasonably surmise that
Providence designs the union of the two orders of develop
ment in an indissoluble marriage. The power which the
control of matter would bestow upon man is greater than he
could eafely have been entrusted with at any period of his
past career. It is a power which could be used by the evil
as by the good ; therefore, if the world be indeed governed
by divine wisdom and goodness, we may expect it to be
placed in our hands only after the accomplishment of a re
generative work wrought in our spiritual nature. The word
53
of Scripture must be vindicated, "The seed of the righteous

shall inherit the earth." Not until man has ascended to the
throne of his own soul, abdicating his personal life that he
may enjoy the boundless freedom of life for others, can he
be held worthy of holding the sceptre of the material world.
Only when he stands ready to administer the earth in the
interests of his fellow, will he find the key of its infinite
treasure-house.
To a superficial view, the moral and religious horizon has
seldom appeared darker than at present. Church and State
both seem impending to their fall. But even greater was
the cloud of spiritual darkness upon the earth at the moment
preceding the birth of Christ ; and throughout human history,
the powers of Hell have always seemed most energetic and
successful just previous to their overthrow before the rising
of some new star of hope. In truth, the tumultuous activity
of evil influences is caused by the inner stirrings of the
Divine Spirit, advancing to a fresh incarnation. When
Satan's empire is assured, it rests in comparative tranquillity ;
only when its overthrow is at hand does it manifest the
agitation and uproar which are misinterpreted as evidence
of augmenting authority. It is because the seeds of spiritual
revolution and regeneration are even now sown, that anarchy
and infidelity appear to threaten the annihilation of human
society.
"With this premise as to the spiritual outlook, let us now
turn to the field of science.
Here the signs of advance are far more unequivocal. In
all departments there is a similar stirring toward the light.
Physicists are solving secrets hitherto deemed impenetrable,
and mechanism is steadily tending toward an unexampled
simplicity and efficiency of means and processes. The epoch
seems at hand when no man shall want for abundant means
of subsistence, and when, therefore, we shall be free to turn
our activities to the cultivation of goodness and beauty.
The world is to be transformed into a paradise of loveliness
and peace, in which men and women of angelic stature shall
live lives of harmony and holiness.
54
- Already such names as those of Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin,

Oliver Lodge, Edison, Tesla, and many another, are quoted
as heralds of the new scientific dispensation. And the more
closely we study the work of these men, the more clearly does
it appear that all alike are verging toward a single conclusion
or achievementthe analysis and mastery of that philosoph
ical abstraction that has so long defied all attacks to compre
hend and harness it. Approaching the problem from many
different directions, their eyes are all fixed upon the same
goal, and the energies of each are strained to be the first to
attain it. Possibly each, upon his own chosen course, may
be victorious, and the revelations of one shall supplement
and fortify those of another.
Among these leaders of thought and investigation there is
one whose name is heard less often than the others, and sel
dom with reverence or faith ; yet there are those who believe
that John Ernst Worrell Keely, the Philadelphia experi
mentalist, is conducting his researche8 upon a higher and
more advanced plane, and with promise of larger success,
than any of the others. In common report, he is held to be
little better than a charlatan and a humbug; and his " motor"
is uniformly referred to with a smile of skepticism. This
incredulity regarding Keely must have a cause, and it is not
far to seek. For twenty years or more he has been before
the public ; from time to time, during that period, he has
allowed rumors to transpire of great things which he was on
the point of accomplishing, and, upon the strength of these
rumors or assurances, money has been subscribed and a com
pany organized. And yet, from first to last, Keely has
always disappointed popular expectation ; no practical ma
chine, no generally comprehensible result, has ever come out
of his workshop. At this day, so far as the world knows,
he is as far from the solution of his enigmas as at the first
moment that he turned his attention upon them.
Nor is this all. In response to more or less pressure from
without, Keely has occasionally endeavored to give an ac
count of himself, with the result of darkening counsel to such
a degree that even his nearest allies are powerless to enlighten
55
it. The terms of the language in which he purports to ex

plain himself are unintelligible ; his utterances read like
gibberish, and it is not surprising that most people reach the
conclusion that the man is only seeking to disguise, beneath
an inky discharge of incomprehensibilities, the dismal fact
of his own ignorance and emptiness. Finally, it is not denied
that his early education was not what it might have been,
and such scientific training as he has received has been ad
ministered by himself in the course of his experiments.
Here are reasons enough, in all conscience, for maintaining
a skeptical or agnostic attitude toward Mr. Keely, and he
has not improved matters by the fact that he has deliberately
antagonized some persons who might have been of service
to him.
So much in opposition to Keely may be conceded. But
this does not exhaust the subject. There are considerations
to be urged on the other side, and it is but fair to give them
audience.
To begin with, no one who has investigated him will deny
that he is a man of genius, and that his foibles are such as
geniuses are wont to manifest. Secondly, it is indubitable
that he believes in himself; whether the belief be insane or
otherwise, he possesses it. The work which he took up
nearly a generation ago he is still pursuing with undiminished zeal and confidence, and the indiscretions of which he
has been guilty are not such as would be committed by a
sharper or a fraud.
Again, the failure of his attempts to explain himself may
be regarded as his misfortune, quite as reasonably as his fault.
It is not easy for a man untrained in scientific phraseology to
state scientific facts lucidly and logically ; and in Keely's case
there is the obvious additional difficulty that, by the prem
ises of the case, he is dealing with unprecedented matters,
which, to some extent, demand the invention of a language
for their conveyance. It may or may not be possible here
after to translate Keelyese into every-day scientific phrase
ology ; but meanwhile we are scarcely justified in condemn
56
ing what the man has done on the evidence merely of what
he has been able, or has chosen, to say.
The insinuation that Keely is keeping up an imposture,
with the object merely of supporting himself on the elee
mosynary donations of his dupes, is hardly a plausible one.
A man of his ability could support himself much better by
turning to other occupations. A man does not shut himself
up in a dingy office week in and week out, from dawn till
dusk and after, during upward of twenty years, for the
sake of avoiding working for a living. He is doing some
thing that interests him and absorbs all his energies, and in
the final accomplishment of which he has never lost faith.
In the pursuit of this object he has made many mistakes,
and has lost a great deal of time in following out cul-de-sacs
or impassable paths. He began with a very partial and in
adequate idea of what was before himof what the phe
nomena which he thought he perceived meant and led up
to. His work has grown with him, and he has grown with
his work. His supporters have been deceived ; but it has
been with a deception that misled himself no less than them.
When he saw his errors, he declared them frankly ; they lost
patience with him, but he never lost patience with himself
with the idea which he was on the trail of. He was like
Thor, the Thunder-god, who, thinking to drain the cup of
the giants of Jotunheim, found out ere long that its bottom
was filled from the ocean. Once he thought he would be
satisfied with a terrestrial motor ; now he sees himself at
grips with the vitals of the universe.
The above suggestions aim to show that Keely has claims
to be regarded as at least an honest man, whether or not a
self-deceived one, and his own worst enemy. But, after all,
the point that we are chiefly interested in is whether he has
actually done anything that is new and likely to prove valu
able to the world ; because, if he has not, we may be content
to leave him to his own devices, which can have no further
practical concern for us.
At this point, I am tempted to introduce my own experience
of Mr. Keely ; but I am restrained by the reflection that I
57
can lay no claim to exact scientific knowledge; and in a

matter of this kind, where the thing examined pretends to
be wholly novel and unprecedented, it is plain that exact
knowledge is precisely what is indispensable. At the time
of my visit to the scene of the much-debated phenomena,
however, I found myself in company with two or three men
of acknowledged scientific attainments, who candidly con
fessed themselves as little competent as I was to devise an
explanation of what Mr. Keely showed us. Movements took
place which there were no visible or hitherto recognized means
of accounting for. A heavy metallic sphere revolved at great
speed ; an isolated compass-needle did the same ; weights im
mersed in a tall glass jar filled with water rose upward and
sank again, or rested midway. And all that Mr. Keely did
was to tinker with a stringed musical machine, fitted with
singular appliances, and to blow upon a small mouth-organ
at intervals. The assumption appeared to be that musical
notes produced vibrations which affected the " chords of mass "
of the things operated on, and the " polar currents " were in
some manner induced to participate in the strange results. I
know nothing about that ; what I know is, that the things
which took place were not caused, so far as I or the scientific
gentlemen present could detect, by either steam, electricity,
or compressed air. Meanwhile, Mr. Keely asserted that the
efficient cause was a discovery of his own ; and so far as I
was concerned, he might as well have stopped there, inasmuch
as I was able neither to contradict him, nor to comprehend a
word of the alleged explanations wherewith he favored the
company.
On the other hand, the man himself was open to my in
spection, and I am bound to admit that he impressed me as
being a personage of secretive and eccentric character, but
withal honest in his professions, and an uncompromising
fanatic in his pursuits. There was an expression of gloomy
triumph and challenge in his swarthy and rugged countenance,
as he wheeled round in his chair and faced us, when he had
accomplished the achievement promised us ; and I fancied
he was not insensible to an emotion of enjoyment of our
58
undisguised perplexity over what was happeniug. " Which

of you convinceth me of humbug? " he seemed to ask. Keely
is not a man to be easily fathomed or read ; he is involved
and dark in speech ; but there was nothing in his dingy and
shabby little room which was not freely open to our examina
tion and question, and he had the air of one who had steeled
himself against incredulity in his examiners, but who felt
nevertheless the deepest inward conviction that he was right,
and that it was a question of time only when this should be
triumphantly vindicated before all the world. But I think
he rather likes to mystify people, and is by no means averse
from snubbing those who come to him with intent to " expose "'
him. If I am right, he certainly cannot be accused of observ
ing the conciliating policy which would be the only sensible
one for him under his present circumstances.
But when I picture to myself a man in the tremendous
situation which Keely professes to occupythat of holding
in his hands, and being on the brink of reducing to practical
conditions, a power that can be measured only by the energy
of the planet itself, illimitable and inexhaustible ; when I
see him toiling for half a lifetime at his gigantic theme, facing
all manner of disbelief and scoffing, unable to reply ad
equately or to express himself in available language, I am
free to admit that I cannot ask such a man to conform to
ordinary conditions of conduct or manner, or to appear in any
respect orthodox, commonplace, and ingratiating. His atti
tude and office are unique, and it is not for us to set down
the pegs that make his music. And such a man as this, so
nearly as I could judge, Keely did seem to me to be.
It is some years since I saw him, but he has been recalled
to my special thought by the appearance of a book called
" Keely and His Discoveries," written by the brave woman
who has stood by him and believed in him when he would
otherwise have been left nearly or quite without a friend.
She has helped him morally and substantially, and her book
is, among other things, an assurance that she sees more cause
to have faith in him now than ever before. She writes with
the generous enthusiasm of her sex ; but she knows more
The Problem of the Pole.
59
about the subject than any one else, except Keely himself, and
her statements, illustrations, and arguments are worthy of
serious consideration. The matter is second in importance
to no other ; and if, as seems to me more than probable, Mrs.
Bloomfield Moore is justified in her belief, then it shall fare
well with those who are not afraid, at this stage of the game,
to investigate dispassionately and diligently the grounds upon
which her faith is based.
THE PROBLEM OF THE POLE.

BY CHARLES MORRIS,
Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
Sir John Barrow said, half a century ago: "The North

Pole is the only thing in the world about which we know
nothing; and that want of knowledge ought to operate as a
spur to adopt the means of wiping away that stain of igno
rance from this enlightened age."
This remark needs to be read with some mental reserva
tion. We know nothing of the South Pole either. And at
that time we knew next to nothing about the interior of
Africa, and very little about the central regions of_Âsia.
The stain of ignorance in regard to these two continents has
been wiped away. Asia has not only been explored, but
taken possession of. The Dark Continent has lost most of
its darkness, and just now the nations of Europe are disput
ing, not as to who shall explore it, but as to who shall own
it. The African apple has been cut up into large slices and
divided among those hungry nationswho possess it largely
on the map, and to some small extent in fact.
To-day the polar regions of the earth form the great re
maining geographical problems. That of the South Pole
may be an unsolvable one. It lies locked in such mighty
fetters of ice that we can scarcely hope to break them. The
North Pole, on the contrary, holds out a faint promise of
60
attainment which has kept men knocking at its portals for

centuries, and step by step forcing their way inward. Yet
the effort has been a long and baffling one. Discovery in
America began in this region, when, shortly before 1000
A. D., the bold Norseman, Eric the Red, sailed to Greenland
and colonized its western coast. Columbus had not long made
his discovery in the south before new voyages began to the
northern seas. Cabot reached Labrador in 1497, and three
years afterward Cortereal attained the latitude of 60. In
1553 Sir Hugh Willoughby made the first effort to find a
northeast passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and came
within sight of Nova Zembla, but perished with his men on
the coast of Lapland. Other Englishmen made efforts to
explore this northeast passage, among them Henry Hudson,
the discoverer of Manhattan Island, but none of them got
much beyond the point reached by Willoughby. It was
reserved for Nordenskiold, a voyager of our own day, to com
plete this difficult journey, and to sail into the Pacific after
traversing the seas north of Europe and Asia. This was in
1879, three and a quarter centuries after Willoughby's dis
astrous effort. In 1889 Captain Wiggins succeeded in utiliz
ing the knowledge gained by Nordenskiold, and made a
trading voyage to the Yenissei River of Siberia, opening a
new track to commerce which bears promise of future im
portance.
The northwest passage proved as attractive to navigators
as the northeast. The early English voyagers were filled
with the idea that a short and easy way might be found
through the American Continent from ocean to ocean. The
first voyagers up James River had this hope in mind. Henry
Hudson was moved with the same fancy in his exploration
of the Hudson River. Finding that the continent could not
be tapped in its centre, voyagers began to seek for a north
west passage around America, Sir Martin Frobisher being
the first, in 1576. In 1585-88 Davis sailed north, up the
strait bearing his name, to 72 41', along the west coast of
Greenland. Others followed, among them Henry Hudson,
who had made former efforts to reach the Pacific, and who
61
now discovered the great strait and bay which bear his name,
and perished, through the treachery of his sailors, in what
he supposed was part of the great ocean he sought. Various
later voyages were made with the same end in view, the best
known among them being that of Sir John Franklin, which
left England in 1845, with the hope of tracing a passage from
Lancaster Sound to Bering Strait. Its fatal ending, and the
many expeditions of search to which it gave rise, have made
this voyage famous in the annals of Arctic research. One
of these accomplished the long-sought-for discovery of the
northwest passage. Captain McClure entered the Arctic
Ocean from Bering Sea in 1850. His ship was frozen in the
ice, but he and his crew were rescued the next spring by Sir
Edward Belcher, who had sailed in from the Atlantic. He
returned to the Atlantic with the rescued men, so that Mc
Clure and his sailors actually traversed that long-sought
northwest route between the Atlantic and the Pacific, though
under difficulties which do not invite a repetition of the
voyage. He was knighted for his exploit, and Parliament
voted to him and his crew the sum of 10,000.
While this search for passages east and west went on,
many bold voyagers were seeking the Pole, and encountering
a vast amount of hardship and meeting with repeated fail
ures in their effort. It is not proposed here to name these
various expeditions. It will suffice to say that through them
much has been done in mapping out the polar seas between the
Arctic circle and the eightieth degree of north latitude, and
to some extent beyond that parallel. As regards approach
to the Pole, however, the progress has been slow and baf
fling. In 1827 Captain Parry reached the high latitude of
82 40' north. This was not surpassed until 1876, when
Captain Markham reached, by means of sledges, the latitude
of 83 20', and 1882, when Lieutenant Lockwood, by the
same means, reached 88 24', the most northerly point yet
attained, yet not more than about fifty miles north of that
gained by Parry more than half a century before.
During recent years the expeditions have been numerous,
and to some extent disastrous. The majority of them pur
62
sued the West Greenland route, including those of Kane, in

1853-55; Hayes, in 1860-61; Hall, in 1871; Nares, in 1876
in which Markham reached the high latitude named ; and
Greeley, in 1881-84in which Lockwood sledged to the
highest point north so far reached. In 1869-70 Captain
Koldewey sailed up the east coast of Greenland to Cape Bis
marck, 77 1', the highest point reached on that coast. Tn the
seas of the Eastern continent Parryin 1827was followed
hy Nordenskiold, who continued to explore the seas about
Spitzbergen from 1858 to 1872, and in 1878 traversed the
whole extent of ocean between Norway and Bering Strait.
Somewhat earlier an Austrian expedition, under Lieutenants
Payer and Weyprechfc, had penetrated far to the north, dis
covering a new island about two hundred miles north of
Nova Zembla, as large, to all appearance, as Spitzbergen,
and extending from 80 to or beyond 83. In 1880 and later
this land was still further explored by Mr. Leigh Smith. Of
other explorations of this region we shall here speak only of
the unfortunate Jeannette expedition of 1879-82, in which
the vessel was crushed by the ice, and its gallant commander
and many of his men lost on the inhospitable Siberian coast.
As regards the results of the expeditions so far named,
they have been small if compared with the great suffering
and considerable loss of life attending them. They include
the important discovery of the location of the magnetic
pole, the considerable advantage to the whale fishery from
the exploration of the Arctic seas, and a large and import
ant addition to geographical science in the tracing of the
boundaries of Greenland and the discovery of numerous
smaller islands in the ocean of the north. To these matters
of interest and importance must be added valuable observa
tions in the sciences of meteorology, biology, geology, etc.,
the study of ocean currents, of the movements and condi
tions of the ice pack, the formation and progress of glaciers
and icebergs, with various other results of more or less im
portance.
Certainly there has been little of worth, if measured by
the ordinary standard of value, its price in cold cash. But
63
there are other standards of value. There are men who

value knowledge above money, and there are those of such
ambition for distinction, of such thirst for discovery, and of
such energy and enterprise, that the search process is sure to
go on while there remains any large area of the earth's sur
face unexplored, however much the seemingly misdirected
efforts of the explorers may be deprecated, or by whatever
hard names the stay-at-homes may designate these daring
pioneers. This much may justly be said; the voyagers of
the northern seas are on the high road to fame, and among
those who most deprecate their efforts are many who await
with the deepest interest their results.
What has been so far said is preliminary. Exploration in
recent years has taken new methods and is pursuing new
paths, and it is of these we wish particularly to speak. For
centuries the explorers of the northern seas have kept to a
fixed plan, that of trying to force their way in ships mile by
mile through the vast fields of ice, enduring the severest
hardships and perils in their vigorous struggle to add a few
miles more to the record of progress north. This method
has probably done all that it is capable of doing. It has
been supplemented by sledging over the ice, by which, in
the cases of Parry, Markham, and Lockwood, the greatest
northing was attained. Much of the value of the work
done consists in its suggestion of new and better methods,
which seem far more promising of ultimate success. During
the present year four expeditions are out, pursuing new lines
of exploration, with at least the hopeful promise that they
will add something of value to our knowledge of the polar
region, if, indeed, some one of them does not solve the mys
tery of the Pole itself. These are the expeditions of Peary,
Xansen, Jackson, and Wellman, which we propose more
fully to describe. Before proceeding, however, it is of inter
est to say at this point, that the Davis Strait and Baffin's
Bay route has become so well known, and its dangers and
difficulties so thoroughly understood, that it is proposed to
convert it into a summer tourist route. Dr. Frederick A.
Cook, who has in view an expedition to the Antarctic seas,
64
with the design of learning what can be accomplished by

sledging in that little-explored region, has undertaken, with
the purpose of raising funds for his proposed expedition, to
conduct a tourist voyage to the north as far as Smith Sound.
It is by no means improbable that, before the opening of the
twentieth century, a run to and beyond Baffin's Bay may be
a favorite summer excursion, as an easy means of escaping
the mid-summer heats.
As regards the Peary expedition, it was suggested by cer
tain facts of interest discovered in the exploration of the
interior of Greenland by Nordenskibld in 1883, by Peary him
self in 1886, and by Nansen in 1888. The first two entered
at points well up the west coast, and journeyed nearly a
hundred miles inland. The last landed at a poiut on the
west coast, and crossed the island to the east, reaching an
interior altitude of eight thousand nine hundred and twentytwo feet. Those three adventures all yielded similar results.
After a steep climb from the coast region an ice-bound alti
tude was reached, beyond which a largely level surface ex
tended, the great interior of the island proving to be a broad
plain of ice and snow, which offered a comparatively easy
passage-way for dog-drawn sledges.
Lieutenant Robert E. Peary is a civil engineer in the
United States Navy, a man of powerfuljt>uild, vigorous con
stitution, and with a native love of adventure and explora
tion, in which he had more than once indulged. Arguing
from the experience of Nansen in Southern Greenland, and
of himself and Nordenskiold at two points near the centre
of the island, he concluded that similar conditions very
probably existed in the north, and that it might prove a
comparatively easy feat to reach the northern extremity of
Greenland by means of a sledge journey over the interior
snow plain, and perhaps attain with comparative ease as
high a degree of latitude as others had reached in ships
with unmeasured toil and trouble.
It need scarcely be said here that Peary was correct in his
deductions. The details of his expedition are somewhat
generally known, with the interesting result that in a single
65
year's excursion, and one much more pleasurable than pain

ful, he gained a higher point north, and made more interest
ing discoveries, than many of his predecessors had done in
years of hardship and disaster. Setting out in the summer
of 1801, accompanied hy his intrepid wife, Josephine Diebitsch Peary, he reached his selected winter-quarters on McCormick Bay, in Inglefield Gulf, where a comfortable dwell
ing was erected, with a sufficiency of fuel and provisions,
and the Arctic winter was passed with little weariness and
no serious trouble. Lieutenant Peary indeed had met with
one mishap, the breaking of his leg ; but this, through his
wife's devoted nursing and his healthy constitution, healed
before the winter had far advanced, and was as strong as
ever again months before the season for the excursion uorth
came round.
Lieut. Peary's journey began near the end of May, 1892.
The first portion of it was up the steep ice-covered incline
that bordered the interior, and which rose to a height of
three thousand three hundred feet at a few miles inland,
and to four thousand feet at about twelve miles from the
coast. From this point the journey lay over a gradually
rising plain of ice, covered deep with snow, over which the
adventurers glided on long Norwegian snow shoes, or "ski,"
while dogs dragged their sledges of provisions and utensils.
With a single companion the intrepid explorer traversed
for many days this elevated plain of dry snow, rising until
it reached a level of eight thousand to nine thousand feet at
a distance of eighty to one hundred miles inland, the interior
features of the country being quite obliterated by its uni
form covering of ice and snow. Whether the mountains,
which surround the coast, extend inland, or the interior
is a great basin filled to the summit level of the moun
tains with ice, could not be determined. All that was visi
ble was that great white plain, its surface snow, its lower
substance ice, over which day after day the adventurers
pushed steadily northward, now through sunshine, now
through clouds and fogtheir journey over this monotonous
expanse continuing for fifty-seven days. They unluckily
VOL. I.5
66
approached too close to the coast, lost ten or twelve days

through entanglement in the rough ice and crevasses of a
glacial region, and were forced to turn more and more to
the eastward as they advanced, to avoid the heads of fiords
that cut inward from the coast. Finally they were obliged
to turn to the southeast, the coast evidently trending in that
direction. At length, on the first of July, they found them
selves unexpectedly at the termination of the ice cap of
Greenland, while before them lay an expanse of red-brown
rocks, with streams pouring over and through them from
the melting snow, and cataracts plunging downward from
the ice cap, while snow buntings flew about in numbers,
making the air musical with their songs.
The easy gliding over the snow plain was at an end.
Leaving their sledge at the edge of the rocks, and carrying
a few days' provisions on their backs, the explorers set out
with their dogs over the boulders of this new land. For
four days they toiled onwardy the ground being covered
with sharp stones of all sizes, while occasional drifts of snow
and rushing torrents impeded their progress. At length
they emerged on the summit of a towering cliff, some three
thousand five hundred feet high, and beheld before them a
grcnt bay, which, as it was now the Fourth of July, they
named Independence Bay, while the point on which they
stood was called Navy Cliff. The latitude was about 81
37'. Looking north from their elevated position they saw
beyond the fiord, which had stopped their journey north,
another expanse of land, perhaps another island lying north
of Greenland. To this they gave the name of Heilprin Land,
in honor of Professor Angelo Heilprin, who had accompanied
them in their journey north, as leader of the scientific expe
dition sent out by the Philadelphia Academy of Natural
Sciences. Beyond a second fiord appeared another expanse
of land, which was called Melville Land, in honor of a wellknown Arctic hero.
Life was abundant in the land they had reached. Flowers
were visible in the crevices of the rocksyellow poppies and
dandelionsbirds and bees flitted or buzzed about, and in
67
the valley below them was a herd of musk-oxen, two of which

they killed for food. After seven days spent in this northern
land they started on their return journey, which they accom
plished with ease and dispatch, pursuing a more southerly
course, and reaching McCormick Bay on August 6.
Peary and his companion, Astrup, had traveled a distance
of one thousand three hundred miles in ninety-six days, at
an average speed of thirteen and one-half miles a day. In
their return trip they made from twenty to twenty-five miles
daily, and thirty miles on some days. Their dogs had been
reduced in numbers during the journey, but five still drew
their lightened sledge on their return. They found a relief
expedition under Professor Heilprin awaiting them at head
quarters, and returned in September to their starting point
in Philadelphia, after an exceptionally fortunate experience.
Lieutenant Peary's expedition was doubly notable : First, in
showing that Arctic exploration might be pursued^with little
hardship and as little danger ; and second, in demonstrating
the utility of his method of advance toward the Pole. The
idea is a vital one, and promises to be fertile in future con
sequences. The first to pursue it has been Lieutenant Peary
himself. Feeling that the excursion of 1892, though rich in
results, was but preliminary and experimental, and eager to
take advantage of the lessons then learned, he set out again
in 1893, landing on August 3 at Bowdoin Bay, on Inglefield
Gulf, which he proposed to make his point of departure on
this occasion. Here a comfortable house was erected, and
preparations made to pass the winter. Two women accom
panied this expedition, Mrs. Peary and an attendant.
What the bold explorer proposes to do during the present
summer is this : Starting about the middle of March of this
year, he hopes to reach Independence Bay'about^May 1, and
to make this the starting point for excursions in two differ
ent directions. As to hardship from cold during this journey
he is not particularly concerned. His previous trip showed
him the utility of reindeer and dog-skin clothing and furlined sleeping bags as a protection against the Arctic temper
ature, and also that in a short time a sleeping shelter^could be
68
excavated in the compact snow, with walls of snow blocks as

wind breaks. He has with him a number of Mexican don
keys, animals accustomed to carrying heavy loads in the low
temperature and over the deep snows of the high Cordilleras,
which he hopes to make very efficient aids to his dog-teams
in the carriage of supplies. As an additional precaution he
intended to establish, in the autumn of 1893, depots of pro
visions at several points on the route to Independence Bay,
to be used on his return if necessary.
On reaching Independence Bay the explorer proposes to
divide his party into two sections. One, composed of three
men, is to journey southward, tracing the line of the east
coast of Greenland, with the hope of reaching Cape Bismarck,
four and a half degrees to the south, and thus completing the
mapping of the east coast of the island. From Cape Bis
marck they will travel directly westward to Bowdoin Bay,
or to a more southerly point if necessary. Lieutenant Peary,
with the other section of the party, proposes to journey north
ward along the strip of coast ice (since the absence of snow
from the lands renders travel there too difficult), crossing the
fiords observed in 1892, and exploring the land seen beyond,
while sledging as far north as time and circumstances will
permit. A journey of one hundred and twenty-five miles
north will take him to the latitude reached by Lockwood,
and he has strong hopes of at least passing this latitude, if
not of reaching a considerably higher northern point. It is
his purpose, however, unless hindered by unforeseen difficul
ties, or induced to delay from other considerations, to return
in time to reach Bowdoin Bay in late August. During the
four months between May 1 and the end of August, much
of interest and importance may be accomplished.
A relief expedition under the command of Henry G. Bry
ant, known for his recent exploration of the Great Falls of
Labrador, is already on its way north for the purpose of
bringing back the exploring party. It is even proposed to
bring back intact the house in which they have passed the
winter. A secondary purpose of the party on the relief ship
Falcon is a visit to Ellesmere Land, with the hope of rescuing
69
or discovering traces of the young Swedish naturalists, Bjorling and Kallstenius, who were wrecked there in 1892.
The hoped-for return of the Peary expedition in the autumn
of 1894 will probably be paralleled by that of an expedition
of quite another kind, whose " dash for the Pole " it is hoped
to accomplish in a single summer. This expedition next calls
for description. It seeks to repeat, with improved resources
and greater knowledge of the conditions, the exploit of Cap
tain Parry, who, as early as 1827, reached by sledging across
the ice-field nearly the highest latitude yet attained.
Walter Wellman, a young, energetic, and enthusiastic
journalist of "Washington, D. C., is the leader of this expedi
tion, which set out on May 1, 1894, from Tromsoe, Norway,
for Spitzbergen, which is to form its true point of departure.
Oil Dane's Island, off the northwest coast of Spitzbergen,
stands an old house built by seal hunters. In this it is pro
posed to leave a year's supply of provisions, with two men to
guard them, as a precaution in case it should become necessary
to winter on that island. Mr. Wellman's hope for success
lies largely in the character of his boats, which are made of
the light metal aluminium, each being only four hundred
pounds in weight, while they are so constructed that they
can readily be lifted from the water to the ice, placed upon
runners of the same metal, and converted from boats to
sledges. For the drawing of the latter he depends on Bel
gian draught dogs, a number of which hardy animals he has
taken with him. The boats are provided with water-tight
lockers for the storage of provisions.
There are two difficulties to be overcome, as indicated by
Parry's experience. One of these is the wide expanse of
broken and hummocky ice, caused by the impingement of the
drift ice upon the land, which must be crossed before the
smooth field beyond can be reached. The second is the
southerly drift of the ice pack, which baffled Parry by carry
ing his sledges to the south almost as fast as they could be
drawn to the north. Mr. Wellman hopes to avoid this trouble
by an early start, trusting to get far north before the drift
begins. His chances of surpassing Parry seem excellent.
70
Possibly he may gain a much higher latitude. He proposes

to be home again in November, and will do so unless the
Arctic sea gods dispose differently.
To these two expeditions, markedly different in character,
must be added a third, equally distinct and still more novel.
This is that undertaken by Fridtjof Nansen, already named
as having crossed Greenland, and who now proposes to drift
through the polar seas, and return with the story of their
mysteries. His enterprise is based on certain interesting
evidences that a current sets across the polar area from North
Siberia to West Greenland, by whose aid he hopes to be
drifted through these unknown seas, and possibly over the
locality of the Pole itself. These evidences are the following :
On June 18, 1884, three years after the crushing of the illfated Jeannette in the ice near the New Siberian Islands,
there were found on the ice at Julianehaab, in Southwest
Greenland, relics from that vessel, consisting of the trousers
of one of the sailors and parts of the ship's papers. Drift
wood is also annually thrown on the coast of Greenland,
which can come only from Alaska or Siberia. Admiral
Inglefield states that he has himself seen a large log on the
West Greenland coast, which he thinks could have come
from nowhere but Siberia, and must have taken the route
which Nansen proposes to traverse. As for the time required,
the relics from the Jeannette fix it as not more than three
years.
These circumstances have proved sufficient to induce the
daring Norwegian to undertake an enterprise of extraordi
nary risk and doubt. He has had constructed a vessel specially
adapted to resist the crushing effect of the ice, and with such
slope to the lines of its hull that it will probably be lifted by
two meeting ice-fields and carried safely on their surface.
This vessel, the Fram (or Forward), has been provisioned for
five years, provided with boats in case the vessel should be
crushed, and with a crew of thirteen men set sail from Christiania, Norway, at midnight of June 24, 1898, on what many
deem the most foolhardy adventure ever undertaken by man.
It was proposed to pass through the Kara Sea, and take
71
advantage of the current of relatively warm water pouring

northward from the mouth of the Lena River, with the hope
of being frozen in the ice after attaining a certain distance
north, and floating with the moving ice-field over the polar
area and southward to Greenland.
The last news of the Fram was of the date of August 6,
1893, when some Samoyeds saw her passing, between ice and
land, along the Yarmal coast. Nansen intended to call, in
September, at the mouth of the Olensk River, but failed to
do so, and nothing more is known of him. He may have
found it desirable to turn north off Cape Chelyuskin, and
now either is far on his way north, or has met the fate of
those who dare too boldly the Arctic ice ; in which case the
current to which he trusted may only bring us relics to tell
the story of his fate.
There is still another expedition afloat and needing men
tionthat known as the Jackson-Harnesworth ; the latter
gentleman supplying the funds, Jackson taking the risk.
This starts from England, and has a purpose in view resem
bling, and doubtless suggested by, that of Lieutenant Peary.
Frederick G. Jackson, the leader of this expedition, proposes
to sail, early in July, on the steam whaler Windward for
Franz Joseph Land, and to explore this island, which extends
from about latitude 80 to an unknown distance north, mak
ing his way by land or ice as far as chance and fortune will
permit. For draught purposes, he has provided himself with
a number of Russian ponies, and spent last winter in North
ern Russia, experimenting with these hardy animals.
His general plans are the following : After spending the
winter of 1894-5 at his selected headquarters on the island,
he will, in the spring of 1895, move slowly northward, estab
lishing a depot of supplies every thirty or forty miles, pro
ceeding by way of Austria Sound and Petermann Land, the
latter of which lies 83 north. Then, returning to his base,
he will pass a second winter, and start north again in the
spring of 1896, now taking advantage of the depots formed
the year before, and traveling as rapidly as possible. He
does not expect to return till 1897, and is likely to bring
72
back with him some highly interesting geographical knowl

edge.
There is one further project entertained, in a measure the
outcome of those named, with a brief account of which this
record of north polar exploration may close. This is that
of Dr. Robert Stein, of the United States Geological Survey,
who intended to set out the present year, but has been de
layed. He proposes to establish a permanent station on Cape
Tennyson, at the southeast point of Ellesmere Land, and to
garrison it with fifteen men, always kept provisioned for two
years. This point is frequently reached by whaling vessels,
and can be easily kept supplied. Here Arctic recruits are to
be trained, and from this point a fan of secondary stations is
to be pushed out, with intervals between them of not over
one hundred miles, which, as experience grows, will be in
creased to two hundred miles. Each of these stations will
be garrisoned by five men, and will have a large area in
which to obtain good supplies of Arctic game. Dr. Stein
hopes thus, by an exploration possibly continuing for twenty
years, to gain a wide knowledge of the polar seas and islands.
A second base might hereafter be formed on Franz Joseph
Land, and a third, perhaps, on Point Barrow.
Such is, briefly given, the present status of Arctic explora
tion. It will be perceived that the older methods have been
widely departed from within the present decade, and new
plans of operation adopted, which, in one instance at least,
have met with notable success. Possibly the present year
may yield us the story of still greater success, and it may
prove that the true method of solving the riddle of the Polar
Sphinx has been learned.
It does not seem proper to conclude this paper without
some reference to another polar problem, that of the South
Pole, long given up as insoluble, but which a daring explorer
proposes again to undertake. Allusion has been made above
to what maybe denominated a " personally conducted Cook's
tourist trip " to the neighborhood of the North Pole. The
leader of this expedition, Dr. Frederick A. Cook, was a com
panion of Lieutenant Peary in his 1892 exploration, and the
73
success of that, with his experience gained in it, have inspired

him with the idea that a near approach to the South Pole
may, perhaps, be made in the same mannerby sledging
over the inland ice. This idea he proposes to put to the test
in 1895.
For half a century past, next to nothing has been done in
the work of exploring the south polar area. The first voyage
in this direction was that of the celebrated Captain Cook, in
1774, in which a latitude of 71 15' south was reached, and
the Great Southern Continent of old maps disproved. In
1823 Captain Weddell pushed through the dense pack ice
of that region to 74 15'. But the period of most active
south polar exploration was about 1840, at which time nearly
all that is known of this region was learned. Of the several
voyages made, the most valuable in results was that of Sir
James Ross (1839-1843), who followed what appeared an ice
bound coast for a distance of five hundred miles. The land
seemed high, and a lofty range of mountains was seen, con
taining the volcanic peaks Erebus and Terror, the former
twelve thousand four hundred feet high. After strong efforts
to make his way through the ice, he reached, on February
4, 1841, the high southern latitude of 78 15', the nearest
approach to the South Pole that has yet been made.
The Wilkes exploring expedition of 1838-1842 sailed for
a considerable length along the coast of what seemed to be
an ice-bound continent, to which the name of Antarctic Con
tinent has since been applied, though its actual existence is
in doubt. After this period, exploration in that direction
ceased, the more recent voyage of the Challenger only reach
ing the latitude of about 66 30' south. In truth, the seas
in that direction, with their mountains of floating ice, were
so forbidding, the land was buried under such vast masses
of ice and snow, and the polar region was seemingly so
surrounded and closed in with frozen lands and icy preci
pices, that the most daring adventurers gave up the idea of
further exploration as impracticable, and men settled down
to the belief that the region of the South Pole must remain
forever shrouded in mystery.
74
Dr. Cooka worthy namesake of the first voyager of these

seasis of a different opinion. In his belief there is much
still to learn, and he does not despair of even reaching the
Pole. What else there may be to discover in that continent
of ice only the effort can tell. He deems it not impossible
that men may dwell there, improbable as it may seem. Valu
able minerals and precious stones may, possibly, be discovered.
Whatever there may be, there is certainly the unknown, and
this has always a strong attraction for the human mind. Dr.
Cook then, in short, proposes to winter on the Antarctic
Continentif continent it beand to try what can be learned
in a sledging journey to the south, after the pattern of Peary's
journey to the north.
His plan of action is the following : He will take a steam
whaler of about three hundred tons, the vessel to be provi
sioned for three years, and to leave New York about October
1, 1895. A supply of pemmican will be made from beef
and tallow procured in South America, and the vessel will
then steam southward to Graham's Land, reaching the point
known as Louis Phillippe, where an ice-boat will be left, as
a means of retreat should disaster be met further south.
From that locality the steamer will advance south, pushing
its way through the ice as far as possible. This may be much
farther than has yet been attained. Steam-power has never
been tried in these seas, except iu the case of the Challenger,
in 1874. Sir James Ross might have gained a higher lati
tude had he possessed steam-power. He saw many times an
open sea ahead, which could not be entered for want of wind
to fill his sails. As great a distance may be traversed by
steam in a day as by sail-power in a week, and it is quite
possible that a high southerly point may be attained by this
new method of propulsion.
If,at the highest latitude reached, there exist land and safe
anchorage, winter-quarters will be established there, a struct
ure being built proof against the winds and so constructed as
to form an adequate protection against the cold. In this the
adventurers propose to spend the winter. Smaller buildings
for scientific purposes will be erected, and observations in
75
meteorology, etc., will be steadily continued, while exploring

parties will be sent out for preliminary work.
When the long polar night has passed, and a new day
dawns on the far south, the most important work of the ex
pedition will he adventured, a party of three or four selected
men being sent on an overland journey to the south, with
the aid of snow shoes, sledges, and Eskimo dogs. If possible,
they will be preceded by a party which will establish an ad
vance station several hundred miles to the south.
The sledging party is to proceed with all possible diligence,
continuing until a certain time has elapsed, or two-thirds of
its provisions are gone. A full set of scientific instruments
is to be taken, and accurate observations made. Dr. Cook
thinks it not at all improbable that a well equipped sledging
party, starting from about 80 south, may reach the Pole,
provided, of course, a smooth expanse of snow, such as Peary
found in Greenland, exist. During the absence of this party,
those left at headquarters will continue to explore and ob
serve. The sledging party is expected to return about April
1, 1896, when the retreat to the north will begin.
As regards this projected expedition, all that can now be
said is, that it is full of possibilities. Chance may favor it,
or may be against it, and circumstances may render necessary
a complete change of programme. However adverse chance
may prove to be, something of interest is very likely to be
learned. Dr. Cook is not at all troubled about the cold of
the southern ice cap. He believes fully in the resisting effects
of fur clothing, as tested by him in the north. He is having
clothing made which will be a modification of the Eskimo
dress, and will provide for himself an under-garment of bird
skin, whose value he has learned. With such clothing he is
confident that extreme cold can be endured. The winterquarters will, of course, be heated with coal fires, as were
those of Peary in the north.
All that can be said further concerning this proposed ex
ploration is, that it is by no means lacking in promise, and
if the conditions surrounding the South Pole should prove to
be-such as Dr. Cook hopes to find them, it is not impossible
76
The Canals of Commerce.
that a higher latitude may be reached in the south than

will up to that time have been attained in the north, even if
his hope of reaching the Pole itself prove a fallacy.
THE CANALS OP COMMERCE.

Br PROF. LEWIS M. HAUPT,
Consulting Engineer, the Trades League of Philadelphia.
The life of trade is limited by the facilities which exist

for the interchange of commodities, while these facilities are
in turn restricted by the physical obstructions to transit.
It is readily understood that transportation upon water is
much cheaper than that over land, and hence it is possible to
ship goods to much more distant points over the former than
over the latter medium, at the same cost.
Although the continents are intersected by and enclosed
within water-ways, yet their configuration is such that long
detours are often required between the commercial termini,
which frequently doubles the time in transit and reduces cor
respondingly the prospective revenue of the carrier, consignor,
and consignee. As a stimulus to commerce, manufactures,
agriculture, and allied industries, it is of great economic value
to determine how to reduce the time required for a vessel to
make her trip without too large an outlay of capital. The
problem is most readily solved by reducing distances, where
possible, by means of canals through the isthmuses connecting
the countries to be circumnavigated.
The carrying trade of the world has grown so rapidly, and
has attained such magnificent dimensions, as to have justified
the outlay of hundreds of millions of dollars for the construe-
tion of existing ship canals like those of Suez, Corinth, Man
chester, Sault Ste Marie, and others.
That canal best fulfills the requirements of commerce which
saves the greatest percentage of distance in proportion to its
length, and is at the same time so constructed as to permit
vessels to navigate it in the least time. In this respect the
77
Nicaraguan route is pre-eminent, as, with but 26.8 miles of

canal proper and 142.6 of river and lake navigation (total,
169.4), a distance of 10,000 miles around Cape Horn may be
saved to the commerce of the world on each interoceanic trip.
The traffic through this canal should far exceed that through
the Suez Canal, which is now over eight million tons; yet
at the low estimate of only five million tons, at $2 per ton
for freights and tolls, the revenue would be $10,000,000, or
10 per cent. on the estimated cost of $100,000,000. The
engineer's estimate was, however, less than 70,000,000,
which should be sufficient to cover all construction expenses.
The experience of Suez would fully justify this undertaking,
as being one of the best financial projects in the engineering
world. The Suez Canal is one hundred miles long, cost about
$1,000,000 per mile, and was built under great physical and
financial difficulties, yet it is carrying a large traffic ; its
shares are held at over $500, par being $100, and they have
paid 23 per cent. dividends.
Another canal, which may not have attracted much atten
tion in the foreign market, but which is carrying the largest
tonnage of any artificial channel in the world, is the link con
necting the waters of Lake Superior with those of the Saint
Mary's River. There is but one lift-lock built to overcome
the twenty-two feet fall of the rapids of the " Sault," yet this
lock has been enlarged several times, and a third and still
larger lock is now under contract, while the depths of the
water-way is being increased from sixteen to twenty feet. The
tonnage last year approximated eleven million, while that
passing through the Detroit River, which included the traffic
of Lakes Michigan and Huron, was estimated to be nearly
forty million tons. Most of this is transhipped at the lower
lake terminals to the railroads, although a large portion of
the grain passes to the Atlantic sea-board via the Erie Canal,
which is but a shallow seven-feet water-way, carrying in some
seasons as much as four million tons.
On the other side of the border, the Dominion Government
is just about completing another large lock on its own terri
tory, to surmount the "Soo " rapids into Lake Superior, and
78
it has expended over $54,000,000 in the enlargement of its

canals connecting Lake Erie with the ocean, so as to secure
a fourteen-feet channel through the picturesque valley of the
St. Lawrence River. As this is double the draught now
available via the Erie Canal, the commercial value of the
Canadian water-way should be eight times that of its Ameri
can competitor.
THE INTRA-COASTAL SYSTEM.
Probably nowhere in the world do there exist so great

physical possibilities or so imperative commercial necessities
for a deep-water canal as along the Atlantic sea-board of the
United States. This coast-line, from Cape Cod to Florida
Reefs, is a succession of sand-bars, dunes, and islands, inclos
ing large bays, sounds, and navigable streams, and having
comparatively few inlets where deep-draught vessels may
safely penetrate this enciente of sand, and find a safe refuge
from storms. The great risks to maritime property are
shown by the reports of the Life-Saving Service, which state
that for the year ending June 30, 1893, the value of the ves
sels risked between Capes Cod and Hatteras was $2,825,765,
while their cargoes aggregated $962,375, making a total of
$3,788,140. The number of disasters during the year was
two hundred and fourteen, and the value of the property de
stroyed was $1,146,395, while that saved was valued at
$2,641,745so that 29 per cent. of the property risked was
lost. The greatest number of disasters (sixty-six) occurred
that year in the Second District, which embraces the coast
of Massachusetts, and the next largest number was on the
coast of New Jersey, where there were forty-seven wrecks.
From New York Bay to the Delaware Capes, one hundred
and seventy miles, there are no harbors of refuge, and even
the Delaware Breakwater is no longer available for deepdraught vessels, while to the coasters it has proven very dis
astrous, for within a period of eighteen months no less than
fifty vessels have been wrecked within its shelter.
This is but one of many good reasons for the immediate
opening of a capacious interior water-way along this coast.
79
A more convincing and practical one, however, is the econ

omy which would be effected by the great reduction in dis
tance between our populous centres of industry. Thus the
Cape Cod Canal, which is projected to connect the waters of
Buzzard's Bay with Cape Cod Bay, at Sandwich, and is about
nine miles long, will reduce the distance between Boston and
New York from three hundred and ninety-eight to two hun
dred and fifty miles, a saving of one hundred and forty miles,
or 35 per cent. The canal across New Jersey, from the
Raritan Bay to the Delaware River, thirty-four miles long,
would reduce the distance from two hundred and seventythree to about ninety miles, effecting an economy of one
hundred and eighty-three miles, or over 67 per cent. ; while
the enlargement of the present Chesapeake and Delaware
Canal, with a ten-feet draught and a length of fourteen miles,
would reduce the distance by water between Philadelphia
and Baltimore from four hundred and thirty to one hundred
and twelve miles, a saving of three hundred and eighteen
miles, or 74 per cent.
Thus it will appear that by the reconstruction or enlarge
ment of fifty-seven miles of canals, the present outside dis
tances between these populous centres could be reduced from
one thousand one hundred and one to four hundred and
fifty-two miles, a saving of 60 per cent. This in itself would
be an ample justification for the expenditure of a very large
amount of capital to secure the result, but the physical con
ditions of the country which would be traversed by these
canals is such that the actual cost of construction would be
comparatively small. The estimated cost of the New Jersey
link is $12,500,000, while the Delaware enlargement could
be completed to tide level for $5,000,000, with the improved
machinery now available.
As the tonnage now afloat on the waters from Long Island
Sound to Chesapeake Bay amounts to over 70,000,000, of
which a large percentage would be greatly benefited by the
creation of these connecting links, there would seem to be no
question as to their financial success ; and the dense popula
tion, tributary to this highway of commerce, is a sufficient
80
guarantee to the statistician of an ample revenue from the

existing and rapidly-increasing traffic of this canal.
Another great caual which is now under construction is
the one connecting Lake Michigan with the Illinois River at
La Salle, for the double purpose of providing an outlet
through Chicago to the commerce of the Mississippi Valley,
and for purifying the water supply. This water-way is to be
one hundred and sixty feet wide at bottom and twenty-two
feet deep, and is estimated to cost over $25,000,000.
Surveys have been completed also for a ship canal from the
Ohio River near Beaver to Lake Erie, to provide a cheaper
line of transportation for the ores and coal of western Penn
sylvania, Ohio and vicinity, to the territory of the upper lake
region.
Among tne later canals of Europe, mention should be
made of the North Sea and Baltic, sixty-one miles long,
eighty-five feet wide at bottom, one hundred and ninety-six
at top, twenty-eight feet deep, and estimated to cost $40,000000. Of this sum Russia is to pay one-third and Germany
the balance, and the economy to be effected is the saving of
about two hundred and seventy miles and the losses inci
dental to a dangerous coast. Although the deepest cutting
was ninety-eight and one-half feet, the average cost per mile
was estimated at only 660,000.
The Amsterdam, built to replace the North Holland
Canal, is but fifteen and one-half miles long, eighty-eight
and one-half feet wide at bottom, and twenty-three feet deep.
The total cost was $15,000,000, and its effect in stimulating
the commerce of the city was pronounced.
It has been proposed to make Berlin a seaport by the con
struction of a ship canal, and a similar suggestion is under
consideration with reference to Paris, while numerous canals
of lesser proportions are projected to complete the internal
water-ways of the "old country."
The attention being given to these cheaper lines of traffic,
and their beneficent effects upon humanity, certainly augurs
well for the future as a stimulus to increased industrial ac
tivities.
Nikola Tesla and His Works.
81
NIKOLA TESLA AND HIS WORKS.

By LIEUT. F. JARVIS PATTEN.
In this age of practical endeavor, when everything is
turned to its immediate use with the least delay possible, a
life like that of Tesla, devoted to scientific research for the
love of it, stands out in peculiar and interesting prominence.
Such a character, however, is the natural outcome of the
rapid advance in all material investigation, which has be
come so broad, and goes into so many different fields of re
search, that few workers attain to general prominence.
The last decade pays tribute to two names that have
added something to our knowledge and better comprehen
sion of nature's methods. These names are Hertz and Tesla.
Hertz gave promise of showing the ultimate law that con
nects matter separated by space. The work so well begun
was ended by his untimely death. Maxwell had shown that
all of nature's reacting forces can be expressed by methods
of mathematical analysis, and clearly formulated by the
terms of an equation. By purely empirical methods Hertz
gave physical proof of the truth of Maxwell's theoretical
deductions, and so connected pure theory to practical fact.
Out of both pure theory and physical research came the
general conclusion, that all manifestations of energy are but
the different tangible or apparent evidences of one and the
same force ; that all energy, whatever its form of manifesta
tion, is simply molecular agitation of greater or less degree.
If that be true, then heat and light are merely the results of
molecular agitation, and could this agitation be set up by
purely mechanical means, heat or light would result.
Tesla conceived the bold idea that, by causing matter to
pass to the stage of luminous vibration, without remaining
for any appreciable time in the stage of heat vibration, it
would produce light without heat; and so near has he come
to the practical accomplishment of this conception that he
VOL. I.6
82
has set the scientific minds of all Europe thinking, and

placed his name beside that of Hertz.
Tesla comes from Herzegovina, near the Western border
land of Turkey, and in early youth was a pupil of the gov
ernment schools where he lived. Later, he held government
office as a collector of statistics. His twenty-third year
found him in Paris, whither he had come to study engineer
ing at the Ecole Polytechnique. From this school he went
to the Edison Station in Paris as an engineer, where his ability
was quickly recognized, and he was soon persuaded to come
to this country. Here a place was found for him in the cele
brated Edison laboratory. He remained in this position a
few years, but, having many ideas that he wished to develop
independently, he left that employ, and has since conducted
a laboratory of his own in New York City, which has been
devoted purely to physical research and scientific investiga
tion.
Thirteen years' residence in this country has not deprived
Tesla of his cosmopolitan character and disposition. Master
of five or six languages and a devotee to broad science, he is
truly a citizen of the world, a genial host and charming com
panion. What first brought him into prominence and gave
him the means to go further, was his discovery of the
" Rotary Field Motor," an invention of marked originality
and beauty, but not appreciated at its full value at the time
of its discovery. Announced by him and commercially dis
posed of in 1888, it is now just coming into general use.
Simple and beautiful as it seemed, our knowledge of electrical
engineering was not then equal to the task of making the
machine electrically right. European engineers, however,
held to the work, and, following in their footsteps, we now
understand the rotary field motor, and the largest electrical
enterprise in the world, the fifty thousand horse-power plant
for sending the power of Niagara to light Buffalo and other
distant towns, will use the multiphase system that Tesla first
gave to the engineering world six years ago.
An apt illustration of the difference between the purely
theoretical or scientific mind, and the semi-practical mind
83
guided by scientific training, suggests itself here. Professor

Ferraris, of Turin, independently discovered and announced
the principle and operation of the rotary field motor at about
the time that Tesla did the same thing in this country. The
professor's announcement was in the form of a paper to a
scientific society. Tesla made many forms of the machine,
reduced his theory to a practical operative device, and, hav
ing protected his invention by many patents, he exhibited
his machines to the American Institute of Electrical
Engineers in May, 1888. Professor Ferraris's description,
however, antedates Tesla's exhibition by some months. It
is worthy of remark in passing, that three of the epoch mak
ing inventions in electrical advance are of Italian origin. I
refer to the chemical element, or Volta's pile ; the first direct
current generator invented by Pacinotti, and left in obscurity
for years ; and last, but greatest of all for the coming era of
long distance power transmission, the rotary field engine of
Ferraris and Tesla.
Before considering Tesla's more recent work, it seems ap
propriate to describe briefly the salient features of this ma
chine, which can be best done by comparing it with the
ordinary type of electric motor. This, in general terms, is
an engine having a fixed and a revolving part, of which the
latter, turning about its spindle, communicates motion to
other machinery. The moving part is always provided with
commutating devices that constantly shift the magnetic axis
backward, in the same measure and degree that the moving
part turns forward. These devices are always intricate and
complex. They are, in fact, the weak point of all electric
engines. The Tesla rotary field machine, being entirely free
from them, is a marvel of simplicity and ingenuity. To
understand this machine, one must picture a circular iron
ring, and conceive it to be magnetized along a vertical diam
eter, North Pole at the top ; then, a moment later, along a
horizontal diameter, with the North Pole at the right ; again
along the vertical diameter, but North Pole at the bottom ;
and lastly on the horizontal line again, with North Pole at the
left, thus completing a revolution of the North Pole around
84
the ring. Such an effect is called a rotating magnetic field,

and can be perfectly produced by the simultaneous use of two
independent alternating currents, which follow each other
periodically in such a way that one has always a maximum
value or strength when the other is zero, and conversely. If
now the iron ring is wound all around with a coil of wire
closed on itself, and one such current be introduced to this
winding at the extremities of a vertical diameter, while
another is simultaneously introduced to the same winding
at the extremities of a horizontal diameter, they will jointly
produce a revolving magnetic field that turns continuously
around the ring, while the latter remains fixed in space.
We then have a fixed magnet, but the magnetism itself, or
magnetic axis, is in motion. A compass or magnetic needle
suspended freely inside the ring would spin around in its
endeavor to follow the revolving magnetism or the shifting
magnetic axis of the ring.
Tesla delights in surprises for the public. He generally
brings a new line of development to fair completion before
giving it any public exhibition. The rotary field motor was
a genuine surprise to the world of electrical engineering in
1888. Nothing more was heard from him for two years,
and his motortalked of awhile as a sort of nine days'
wonderwas practically forgotten, while he was at work on
other problems, of which no hint was given until his cele
brated lecture at Columbia College, in the spring of 1890.
In this lecture he exhibited for the first time his wonderful
"high frequency effects," and certainly gave the scientific
world some promise of obtaining light without heat, al
though this accomplishment was far from fruition at the
time, and I believe is now abandoned as hopeless on the
lines attempted. Still, his researches developed many new
and surprising effects, which, aside from their purely labo
ratory interest, may have a certain commercial value. In
these researches, which constitute an investigation of what
have now come to be known as " The Tesla Effects," it was
his aim and purpose to establish by experimental process the
identity of light and some form of electrical manifestation ot
85
energy, and he gave to science much evidence of the electro

magnetic theory of light that was new, though the theory,
of course, had preceded his work, having been enunciated
by Maxwell from purely theoretical deductions, and proven
by Hertz by empirical methods.
Mr. Tesla started with the idea of setting matter into vi
bration at a rate approximating that of light (some two and
a half millions a second), with the expectation that under
such violent molecular agitation it would emit light. He
has not as yet succeeded in obtaining so high a rate, but a
much lower one produced some very surprising luminous
effects. The general plan at first was this : To construct an
alternating current dynamo that would produce this high
rate of current alternation or pulsation. This current, now
known as the "high frequency" current, will cause lumin
ous effects in different media. Thus, in a darkened room,
a bare copper wire conveying such a current will be seen to
glow, and vacuum tubes will shine brightly, as a result of a
molecular bombardment or agitation of the ether atoms,
when such a current is sent through them under very high
pressurethe very high electro-motive force of several hun
dred thousands of volts being used in most of his experi
ments of this character. The dynamo method for getting
very high frequencies was soon abandoned as inadequate,
and the oscillatory discharge of a Leyden jar or plate con
densers was substituted. This answered much better, al
though the frequency was then an unknown quantity and
quite beyond control ; and this departure led to the discov
ery of some very beautiful electro-static effects, which are
still being pushed by many investigators with the hope of
arriving at some result of commercial value.
As soon as news of Tesla's first lecture, and the experi
ments there shown, reached the other side of the Atlantic,
he was at once invited by various scientific societies of Europe
to deliver his lecture and perform his experiments before
them. This he soon did ; and the scientific minds of Europe
were quickly at work investigating the so-called Tesla effects,
the result being that the electro-magnetic theory of light may
86
Nikola Tesla and Sis Works.
be regarded as proven, while it seems equally well-established

that light without heat is not to be looked for as an out
come of the Tesla effects. A beautiful and startling exhibi
tion of what can be done with electric energy, under properly
arranged conditions, is that of causing vacuum tubes or par
tially exhausted bulbs to glow by merely holding them between
two metallic plates (about four feet square, and two or three
yards apart), which are made the terminal poles of a circuit
conveying a high frequency and high voltage current. It
was hoped that rooms could be lighted in this way by placing
the plates in the walls, where such tubes would glow without
any material connection whatever with the source of energy.
Mr. Tesla claims that all electric and magnetic effects
are traceable to the action of electro-static molecular forces,
and in confirmation of this theory he produces what appears
to be a veritable flame by the action of electro-statically charged
molecules of gas. A flame is actually shown issuing from
the tip of a wand, or from the ends of his fingers, which flame
is devoid of heat, and by it no material is consumed. Perhaps
the most surprising of the new facts elicited from his investi
gations is that the shock due to these very high voltage and
high frequency currents can be supported by a person without
any serious inconvenience. He passes a current of two hun
dred thousand volts through his body with perfect impunity,
whereas one of two thousand volts will produce almost certain
death from even a momentary shock. In one experiment, two
wires are stretched parallel to each other across the room.
When given the high tension current they emit streams of
light, or brush discharges so profusely that light enough is
produced to distinguish objects in the room. If the wires
are bent into concentric hoops, one inside the other in the
same plane, the annular space between them is filled with
streamers that make a sheet of flame a yard or more in area.
Mr. Tesla is viewed by some as an impractical inventora
mere visionary enthusiastbut this is hardly fair to one who
has built up an entirely novel method for the experimental
investigation of physical phenomena. This method, with
its vast array of beautiful experiments, is original, and goes
New Violins for Old.
87
some steps beyond any point reached by previous work in

the same line. There seems to be little of practical value in
it for the electrical engineer. So we may say, that to the
physicist Mr. Tesla stands as the pioneer of a new and wide
field of research, while before the practical man of electricity
he stands as the inventor of the " rotary field machine," a
beautiful and unique conception, which he soon left for the
practical man to figure odt.
Before the general public he stands as a phenomenal in
ventor from the Eastern World, from whom is expected little
less than if he carried Aladdin's lamp in his hand. This
view of the matter, of course, is wrong, and is an injustice
both to the public and the inventor. Mr. Tesla is a hard
and patient worker, and did enough for one decade in pro
ducing the rotary motor. He has doubtless much yet in
store for us, but the difference should never be lost sight of
between the work of the empirical physicist searching for
nature's truths, and the reduction of a single result to a form
for commercial use.
NEW VIOLINS FOR OLD.

BY EDWARD HERON-ALLEN, F.L.S., F.R.M.S.
" The fiddles of Cremona gained their reputation by supe
rior tone, but they hold it now mainly b}' their beauty. For
thirty years past violins have been made equal in model to
the chefs-d'ozuvre of Cremona, stronger in wood than Stradivarius, and more scientific than Guarnerius in the thick
nesses. This class of viqlins .... has one quality in
perfection power ; whilst the masterpieces of Cremona
eclipse every new violin in sweetness, oiliness, crispness, and
volume of tone as distinct from loudness. Age has dried
their vegetable juices, making the carcass much lighter than
that of a new violin, and those dry frames vibrate at a
touch."1 Thus wrote Charles Reade, the novelistthan
Charles Keade. "Cremona Violins. Four letters descriptive of those
exhibited in 1872 at the South Kensington Museum." Gloucester : 1873, p. 28.
88
whom no keener follower of the violin culture ever livedin

the Pall Mall Gazette, of 31st of August, 1872, and though
much has been written, volumes indeed, since, on the vexed
question of old violins versus new, no writer has stated the
initial dogma of the controversy with greater lucidity or
honesty.
It must be remembered that this dictum was recorded in
the earliest days of that mania for collecting old violins,
which has since reached such portentous proportions ; in the
days when the masterpieces of Stradivari were readily ob
tainable for two or three hundred pounds, and only four
months after the instrument variously known as " the Fountaine,""the Gillott," and "the Emperor" Strad. had real
ized at auction (at Messrs. Christie's) the sum of two hun
dred and ninety pounds, " amid great excitement."1 I cite
this instrument in particular, as it has recently formed the
subject of a sumptuous monograph,2 and is valued by ex
perts at one thousand pounds. This increase in value is re
markable, but not more remarkable than the increase which
had taken place in the value of the instrument since it
left its maker's hands, for it is on record that Stradivari's
usual price for a violin was from four louis d'or, or about
three pounds ten, to about ten pounds, whilst the younger
Cervetto (the violinist) himself told Simon Andrew Forster 3
that his father (old Cervetto), before he entered the musical
profession, had been an Italian merchant, had dealt with
Stradivari himself in musical instruments, and had brought
some of his make over to England ; but, as he could not ob
tain as much as five pounds for a violoncello, they were
taken back as a bad speculation. The curious in such mat
ters are referred to Sandys & Forster's " History," which was
written in 1864, and contains the fullest details upon the
then ruling prices of violins. The fact is, as Charles Reade
1 The VMln Times (London, 1894). Vol. I., pp. 92 and 109.
2 "The Emperor Stradivari. A histoiy and description of the famous
violin in the possession of George Haddock, Esq." London : 1893.
' W. Sandys and S. A. Forster. " The history of the violin and other instru
ments played on with the bow from the remotest times to the present." Lon
don: 1864, p. 227.
89
remarked in commenting upon the above circumstance, as

recorded by Foreter,1 that then, as now, England wanted old
Cremonas, not new ones. The " old Cremonas " that Eng
lish and all other players preferred to the new instruments
of Antonio Stradivari were, of course, the violins of Qasparo
Bertalotti, called da Salo, and his followers, and the early
instruments of the great Amati school. Abundant records
are extant among the archives of European courts of the
sums paid for such instruments for the use of the court mu
sicians of the time.
We may, therefore, start with the assumption that the
leading violin players are agreed in preferring an old instru
ment to a new one ; and it is debatable how far they are
right, and how far the victims of the time-honored beliefs that
it takes a century at least to bring out the full capabilities
of an instrument, and that any violin that has the requi
site age must necessarily have the desired tone. Than a
good old instrument, properly constructed ab initio, and not
subsequently tampered with, nothing could be more desir
able ; but, unfortunately, the supply of old instruments of
any kind is limited, and of old instruments unspoiled by the
so-called repairs and improvements of unskilled workmen
and fiddle-faddists, more limited still. It is my desire to
point a middle course between the advocates of new instru
ments, whose testimony is too often not beyond suspicion of
taint, and those gentlemen who hold that any new violin is
a thing abhorrent to the artistic eye and distressful to the
cultured ear. To the dispassionate observer are apparent on
one side the causes which place the violin of the Cremona
and Brescian schools, and of the schools founded upon them,
beyond the reach of the average amateur or professional vio
linist ; and on the other, the causes which militate in the
present day against the production and appreciation of firstrate modern instruments.
A glance at the records of the prices that have been given
in England and America during the past fifteen, ten, or five
years for the instruments of Stradivarius, alone affords an
1 Loc cit., p. 15.
90
New Violinsfor Old.
instructive object-lesson on the first of these heads, and the

financial records of some of the finest instruments in exist
ence have, during recent years been made easy of access by
the growing practice of publishing their histories in the form
of monographs similar to that cited above;1 a practice
which, though affording matter of great interest for the
student, is fraught with great danger to the general public,
as I have on many occasions and in many places pointed out.
There is a great temptation for owners of these instruments
to guard them jealously from prying eyes and sacrilegious
hands, and the way is thus opened for unscrupulous dealers
and others to attach these monographs to inferior instruments
of the same class, and dispose of them to amateurs and others
in remote centres of civilization, where the chances of the
fraud being discovered are relatively small. Such mono
graphs have been issued concerning the violins known as
" The Tuscan,"2 " The Salabue, or Messiah,"5 " TheGreville,"1
and "The Mercury;"5 and from these monographs we can
gain a knowledge accurate in its details of the growing in
flation in the prices of fine violins. "The Tuscan" was sold
to an Irish amateur in 1794 for twenty-five pounds, and this
gentlemen's grandson sold it in 1876 to Mr. Ricardo for two
hundred and forty pounds, who in turn sold it to Messrs.
Hill in 1888 for one thousand pounds. By this firm it was
sold to its present owner, who is reported to have refused
two thousand pounds for it. " The Salabue," which for many
years was known all over Europe as " The Messiah," was sold
by the heirs of Count Salabue in 1827 to Luigi Tarisio (who
may be said to have " invented " the cult of violin-collecting),
and he kept it unknown and inviolate until his death in 1854,
1 " The Emperor Stradivari. A history and description of the famous
violin in the possession of George Haddock, Esq." London : 1893.
'"The Tuscan. A short account of a violin by Stradivari made for Cosimo
de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany." London : 1891.
3 " The Salabue Stradivari. A history and critical description of the famous
violin commonly called ' Le Messie.' " London : 1891.
4 " The Greville Stradivarius of 1726." New York : 1889.
'"Description du Superbe Violin de Stradivarius dit ' Le Mercure.'"
Brussels: 1892.
91
when it was bought, with the rest of Tarisio's instruments,

for three thousand one hundred and sixty-six pounds by Jean
BaptisteVuillaume the great Parisian maker, on whose death,
in 1877, it became the property of Delphin Alard, at the price
of one thousand pounds. When this instrument was exhib
ited at the Exhibition of 1872, above referred to, Charles
Eeade valued it at six hundred pounds. Alard died in 1888,
and in 1890 "LeMessie" was sold to Messrs. Hill for two
thousand pounds, and immediately transferred to Mr. Craw
ford, of Edinburgh. The history of the Greville Stradivari,
which is now the property of Mr. E. K. Adams, of New
York, does not give the prices at which the instrument
changed handswhich is to be regrettedand the record of
"Le Mercure" errs in the same manner; but, since the pam
phlet referred to was written by Mougenot the Belgian dealer,
the instrument was sold by him to Mr. J. Williams, by whom
it was exhibited in 1892 at the Royal Aquarium, London,
where it was offered for sale at the price of one thousand
five hundred pounds.1 It would be easy, but unnecessary,
to multiply examples such as the above. It may be noted
while dismissing these facts that the highest price ever real
ized in the auction-room for any Stradivari violin has been
eight hundred and sixty pounds, at which price the "Ames "
Stradivari was sold by Messrs. Puttick & Simpson in 1893.
It has been to the interest and profit of chroniclers and
quidnuncs to record and exaggerate these figures, and a writer
in the ViolinTimes has made it his pleasure from time to time
to note and annihilate the ridiculous reports of violin sales
that periodically find their way round the "exchanges;" but
to the amateur and student of the violinand his name is
legionthe prices of violins have become a very serious
problem. Arthur, Alfred and William Hill are old and
valued friends of mine, we were boys together, and I have
1 The subsequent adventures of this violin are recorded in the Violin
Times, Vol. I., p. 53. It was offered for sale by Messrs. Puttick & Simpson,
but was bought in at 500, since when it has passed into the possession of M.
Tivadar Nachez, and has been advertised for sale in '/'/,: Times at the price of
700.
92
sometimes reproached them for the prices with which their

names are connected ; but they assure me that it is through no
fault of theirs, and that these prices, stagnating as they do
the trade in fine instruments, are greatly to their commercial
disadvantage. It is a well-known fact that on the sale of
" Le Messie " violin for two thousand pounds, their profits did
not amount to one cent. The instrument passed through
their hands, the prestige of the negotiation was theirs, and
that is all. In the case of the Stradivari violoncello, belong
ing to M. Batta, they paid for it fifty-one thousand francs,
(two thousand and forty pounds), and sold it for two thousand
two hundred pounds. It may, therefore, be conceded that
in the making of such prices the dealers have had no hand.
On a violin which is readily salable at three hundred pounds
to five hundred pounds, a clever dealer can make a handsome
profit ; beyond that sum the profits become small by degrees
and beautifully less. The responsibility for this condition
of things lies with the great players ; so long as Joachim,
Sarasate, Nachez, Wolff, Wilhemj, Remenzi, and the rest of
them insist upon playing only on the violins made by Stra
divari, in the name of Christ. Antonio, the prices of Cremona
violins will be maintained, and wax higher yet, and the
modern maker will starve. I could mention a dozen makers
living to-day who have received glowing testimonials for
their violins from one or other of these virtuosi, but does
one of them play in public on the instrument he has extolled?
Not one. And the cause of this neglect, or of the postponed
appreciation of acknowledged excellence, it shall be my en
deavor to explain, at any rate in part.
The cause is a manifold and complicated one. I am con
stantly asked " Whether violins are not made to-day as good
as any Stradivarius ? " and my answer is invariably, "Yes."
I am also asked " Whether an artist cannot produce as good
a tone from a modern violin as from a Cremona instru
ment?" and my answer is invariably, "No." The reason
of this is not far to seek. The modern violins with which
the market is supplied, far in excess of the demand, come
under one or other of two heads. There is the perfectly
93
constructed and scientifically seasoned violin, which is labori

ously fashioned by the first-rate workman, and there is the
trade-marked fiddle, extensively pushed and advertised, and
indulgently endorsed with testimonials by leading and other
players. Into the first category come the violins made by
Chanot, Hill, Sylvestre, Gand, Migge, Genu'inder, and a
dozen others in Europe and America ; into the second come
the fiddles imported from the workshops of Mittenwald,
Mirecourt and Markneukirchen, fitted up and "cor
rected"whatever that meansby enterprising tradesmen,
and christened with fancy names by way of trade-mark.
These latter often sound for the moment as well as, or bet
ter than, the skilfully made instruments of the makers above
referred to, but they are not built with personal love, and
their varnishthat vexed composition round which so much
controversy has raged, and upon which I refuse to touch in
this placeis a hard, beautiful and ephemeral concoction,
concerning which silence is merciful, and contempt is just.
In dealing with the carefully and scientifically made violin
I may, perhaps, be pardoned if I give a personal and egotistical
example. Twelve years ago, when I undertook the produc
tion of my book on violin making,1 1 apprenticed myself to
one of the greatest makers of the day, George Chanot ; in
his workshop I worked hard for two years and produced
two violins. One of these, copied exactly from the late
Prosper Sainton's Guarnerius, has been more or less
continually played upon ever since, andit may be from
parental prideI would rather play to-day upon this in
strument than upon any other that has passed through my
handsnot being one of the master violins to which refer
ence has been made. But it must be remembered that few
new violins have the luck, if I may so call it, to be thus
played upon during the first ten years of their existence.
During the last two years my violin has been played upon
and submitted to every tone test by Joachim, Wilhelmj, and
1 K. Heron-Allen. "Violin-making as it was and is, being a historical,
practical, and theoretical treatise on the science and art of violin-making."
London: 1884.
94
New Violinsfor Old.
Wolff among other virtuosi, and they have unanimously

volunteered the highest encomia upon this " amateur fiddle."
I call to mind another violin that has had a similar career, a
copy of Maggini, made twenty years ago by George Chanot;
this instrument also compares favorably at this date with
the masterpieces of Cremona. It may, therefore, be con
ceded that, given the right initial conditions of construc
tion, and the subsequent advantages of conscientious use, a
modern violin may successfully rival any but the finest Cremonas in existence. It must further be noted that the cele
brated instruments, to which I have referred, have all come
down to us in practically their original "new" condition,
the vast majority of Cremona instruments having been
wofully cut about and tampered with during this century.
Setting aside, therefore, this curable defect of "newness,"
wherein lies the artistic disadvantage of the modern violin ?
It is, primarily, in its absolute lack of artistic individuality;
and this results in the first place from the fact that the blind
craze for age prevents the new violin from commanding such
a price as will make it worth while for the modern skilled
maker to devote the time requisite for the construction of
violins perfect in all their parts ; and, in the second place,
from the mechanical perfection of modern tools and modern
methods of construction. The makers of the great Italian
schools worked slowly and laboriously with appliances
which would to-day be considered incomplete and rough,
but which brought out in their use all the innate talent of
the master's hand; the maker of to-day, with his perfect
mechanical and labor-saving contrivances, once he has made
his moulds and models, and settled the pattern he will fol
low, turns out violin after violin, absolutely identical in all
their parts one with another. The artistic irregularities of
Joseph Guarnerius could result at the present time only
from a want of manual dexterity inconsistent with good
work. Individuality is lost, and violins, even the best,
have come to be made with interchangeable parts like a
first-class microscope or American furniture. This being
the case, the door is opened for the frankly mechanical
95
productions of Markneukirchcn and Mirecourt, which, as I

have pointed out, are imported by the hundred, and placed
upon the market under fictitious, fancy, and misguiding
names, in defiance of the Merchandise Marks Act, 1887 (50
and 51 Viet., Cap. 28, Sect. 16), and the Custom House
regulations of all nations. The conscientious maker would
scorn to puff his work as these fiddles are puffed ; were he
to do so, he could not supply the demand so created. The
average amateur, incapable of appreciating the delicacies of
construction that are visible only to the practiced eye, is apt
to judge the new fiddle by its price, its puff, and its unconsidered "testimonials;" and, having been lured into paying
ten or twenty times the cost price of a factory-made fiddle,
experiences disillusion and vexation of spirit, and returning
to his tampered-with Italian violin, prefers its muffled sweet
ness to the noise of his "Pumpada," "Bongini," or "Guarnielli" art violin.
To conclude, let the collector of to-day profit by the expe
riences of the collector of yesterday. The finest violins of
the old Italian schools are safely beyond his reach in the
hands of the millionaire collector. Let him start anew and
collect the masterpieces of the modern makers. There are
fewer of these than of Cremona violins in existence, and
when the wrecked instruments of Stradivari, Guarneri,
Amati, Gasparo da Salo, Maggini et hoc genus omne have
passed into the limbo of disuse, or to the apotheosis of the
museum, he will be in possession of a collection that will be
a rich heritage for generations yet unborn.
96
The Great Duke of Maryborough.
THE GREAT DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.

BY SIDNEY JAMES Low.
Is there a Science of Biography ? A Science of History
is almost admitted, and some able writers in Germany, Great
Britain, and America, have tried not wholly in vain to pur
sue it. But the scientific treatment of biography is hardly
attemptedperhaps because the very idea of anything so
" dry " and abstract seems repellent in connection with the
most vital, the most human, the most sympathetic of studies.
The method which pervades all serious intellectual effort in
these times, exhibits itself in the domain of biography only in
the careful collection of materials, and the rigorous analysis
of evidence. No modern writer of repute would produce
such a work as Scott's Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, nor per
haps one like Macaulay's Essay on Warren Hastings. He
could not, it may be, emulate the graceful ease of the style
of the one, the vigorous dramatic movement of the other;
but neither could he build his structure on so loose and slip
pery a foundation, or rake together his miscellaneous mass
of chaff and straw, of fact and fiction, so hastily. The old
biographer let down his bucket into the depths, tumbled the
contents upon his laboratory table, and out of the battered,
water-worn fragments, he worked upoften, of course, with
the hand of a consummate artistthe more or less life-like
image of a man. The merit of the result depended chiefly
upon the literary skill and imaginative power of the crafts
man. If he was a geniusa Southey, a Scott, a Carlyle
you had a great work of art ; if he was a mere dryasdust
or pedant you might get some creaking lay-figure, with an
inside of sawdust and springs of wire, to cast its ugly
shadow over our libraries, till it had to be finally shouldered
into the lumber-room. Good or bad, we are not very likely
to have many more of such biographies as Carlyle's " Crom
well " on the one hand, or as Tomline's " Life of Pitt " on the
The Great Duke of Marlborough.
97
other. The generation which has studied its history with

Rauke and Stubbs asks for a better selection of materials, a
wider knowledge of the age, a more accurate grouping of
facts. But the science stops here. In our estimate of char
acter we do not often get beyond the elementary classifica
tion of the children's story-books. We want to know
whether the subject of the narrative was "good or bad;"
the hero of the piece or the villain ; whether he did things
that were in the abstract right or in the abstract wrong;
whether we are expected to admire him or condemn ; and
we criticise the biographer according to the manner in which
he supplies us with an easy answer to these questions. Some
may deem that it might take the life and the fascination out
of biography to do otherwise. Yet surely there is room at
times for a broader treatment, and one more nearly approach
ing the lines we have long drawn for our guidance in the
study of history. In one word, we might regard a great man
less as a kind of special creation than as the result of an
evolution, and the typical product of the age in which he
lived. We shall find in a Napoleon, a Caesar, a Henri Quatre,
only the exaggeration or the perfection of qualities and char
acteristics possessed by tens of thousands of unregarded
men of their time. We shall not be over-anxious either to
praise our hero or to condemn him; our chief concern will
be to account for him, and to describe his habitat, his envi
ronment, and the stage of national and ethical development
which made him what he was.
Lord Wolseley, in his admirable life of the great Duke of
Marlborough, certainly does not profess to be a scientific
biographer; though, no doubt, when he comes to treat of
Marlborough's continental campaigns he will be able to
bring to bear the principles of one special sciencethe sci
ence of the soldierin a fuller measure than most of those
who have written on John Churchill. This, however, is to
come in a later instalment of his work. The volumes before
us are occupied with the earlier career of Churchill, when he
was a political adventurer in an era of political adventure, an
intriguer in a court and society where every one intrigued ;
VOL. I.7
98
and here it does seem to us that the distinguished soldier, who

has written the hiography, takes a larger, a more just, and
a more nearly scientific view than some of the distinguished
men of letters who have heen his critics. All admit Lord
Wolseley's industry, his skill in narrative and description,
his accuracy in the ordering and presentation of facts, his
simple directness of style ; but he is censured because he
defends Churchill against the charges vehemently heaped
upon him by pamphleteers and essayists in the past century,
and reproduced by some great writers in this. The popular
conception of Marlborough, in spite of the labors of Coxe, of
Earl Stanhope, of the late Dr. Burton, and of that very in
genious writer, Mr. Paget, the author of " Paradoxes and
Puzzles," is that which has been stereotyped for Englishspeaking readers by the genius of Thackeray and Macaulay,
more especially the latter. There is no one picture in the
Macaulay gallery quite so striking as the savage portrait of
Marlborough. Why the great Whig historian should have
cherished this furious animosity against the great Whig
general, one does not quite understand ; nor why the wor
shiper, almost to the point of fanaticism, of the Revolution
of 1689, should sting and lash the man without whom the
Revolution of 1689 could not have been accomplished. But
the temptation to execute a masterpiece of paradoxical por
traiture was too much for Macaulay's sense of justice and
historic proportion; nothing could be more melo-dramatically effective than this picture of " the greatest soldier and
the greatest traitor of any age," as Colonel Harry Esmond
was accustomed to call him. Art is so often much more in
teresting than truth, and one would not willingly resign
that " lurid " and impressive figure, even to do justice to the
character of one of the greatest of Englishmen.
The consummate leader, so mighty in his intellectual su
premacy and his Olympian calm, that the very soldiers, whose
pockets he picked of farthings, admired while they hated
him ; the statesman, who at one moment was organizing the
march of hosts and policy of empires, and the next arrang
ing a dirty little swindle; the general, with his almost
99
inspired genius for war and command, and his truckling

baseness of soul that knew neither loyalty, honor, patriotism,
nor gratitude: this is the splendid puppet of the stage., which
Macaulay has illustrated by the glaring foot-lights of his
vigorous sentences, and Thackeray irradiated by the lucid
beam of his charming and penetrating prose. It is not per
haps surprising to find that Mr. Andrew Lang, who, if he had
lived a century and a half ago, would have drawn a clay
more for the Young Chevalier, and who even now cherishes
a sentimental attachment for the White Rose, cannot abide
the man who overthrew the Stuarts. Mr. Lang gives praise
to Marlborough's latest biographer; but he cannot agree with
Lord Wolseley regarding Marlborough as a person whose
character, apart from his abilities, one can admire, nor indeed
does he conceal his opinion that John Churchill was other
than a very gifted, conspicuous, and successful scoundrel.
In the later volumes of his book, Lord Wolseley will prob
ably be able to show how little ground there is for the
accusations leveled against Marlborough in connection with
his conduct of the campaigns on the continent of Europe.
It will not be difficult to show that he did not steal the
soldiers' pay or add to his fortune by shabby peculation.
But the heaviest charges against Churchill deal with his
conduct in earlier life. We are told that he was an advent
urer who took money from the abandoned woman, older than
himself, who was his mistress. One recollects Macaulay's
bitter sneer: "He was thrifty in his very vices, and levied
ample contributions on ladies enriched by the spoils of more
liberal lovers." Well, no doubt Churchill, as a young man,
did take money from the Duchess of Cleveland. It was
wrong ; one does not defend it. The " delicacy of the present
age " does not condone this particular kind of wrong-doing.
But there is a fashion in vice; and in Charles II. 's reign,
and long after, this species of vicious enterprise was not re
garded, as it would now be, as a proof of utter degradation
in a man. A fine young gentleman might be rewarded in
solid coin by the lady who had granted him her favors, and
not be thought entirely debased. Churchill's conduct in this
100
The Great Duke of Marlhorough.
matter is not so much a proof of his personal "thrift," as of

the general low standard of morals of the court and society
in the latter part of the sixteenth century.
We come to the more serious points. Churchill betrayed
James II., his king, his patron, his friend, to whom he owed
his fortune and his advancement. It is true he did so. It
is true, also, that in this desertion and betrayal of the narrowminded bigot, who, from mere ill-conditioned obstinacy and
unimaginative stupidity, was rapidly hurrying England to
a civil war, he was only joining all the ablest and best
English public men of the time, not to mention the king's
own closest relations. If Churchill intrigued against James
II., abandoned him in the crisis of his fate, so did James's
own daughter and his son-in-law ; so did men like Lords
Clarendon, Rochester, and Cornbury, who were connected
with him by closest family and personal ties; so did the
real leaders of the English governing classes, the great
nobles, like Halifax, Nottingham, Danby, Shrewsbury, Rus
sell, Sidney ; so did Sunderland, James's trusted minister and
adviser. But we may be told, Mr. Lang, in fact, tells us, that
this makes the matter no better for Churchill. He is none
the less a traitor because a great many other people were
traitors too. Treachery and falsehood were in the air, but
John Churchill took the infection, and has to suffer for it.
That Churchill, in company with the other Whig and
Protestant leaders, did deceive and betray James is undenia
ble. So far as Churchill himself is concerned the evidence
is clear that it was done very reluctantly, and only under an
overmastering sense of the danger which the Protestant re
ligion would incur if James II. were not dethroned. It is
plain to anybody, who will take the trouble to read Marlborough's letters with candor, that the strongest passion of
his life, next to his love for Sarah Jennings, was his devo
tion to the Church of England and the Protestant religion.
When it became clear to Churchill, as it did to the other
leading Whigs, that the king was obstinately bent on re
storing the Roman Catholic religion, what were they to do ?
Mr. Lang says there were three courses open. Marlborough
101
might, in the first place, have resigned his offices and gone
into private life ; or he might have openly and instantly
abandoned James and publicly declared for the Prince of
Orange, aud a change in the succession ; or he might, like
Mr. Lang's favorite hero, Dundee, have preferred his loyalty
to his religion, his king to his God, stood by James to the
last, and, if necessary, died fighting for the faith that was not
his own, and earned a hero's grave, as Dundee did at Killiecrankie.
Now, if these three courses had occurred to Churchill, as no
doubt they did, he must have seen that there were considerable
and perfectly valid and insurmountable objections in each
case. Mr. Lang's prescription for regulating the conduct of
a public man in a public crisis is generous, honorable, full
of chivalry ; but, if one may say so, it is not business. C'est
magnifique mais ce n'est pas la politique. Luckily, on the
whole, the men to whose fate it falls to mould and form the
destinies of nations do not often act with their biographies in
their mind. They have to do the rough actual workbusi
ness of the world, not to pose gracefully before posterity, or
to wear the white flower of a stainless historic life. And
fortunately, too, they have some of the sentiment of the
faithful old Scotch servant who refused, on his death-bed, to
tell the truth on a subject which reflected on the honor of
the family he served. "What matters my own soul, if I
save the honor of the family." Marlborough, it is true,
might have saved his own soul at the low price of possibly
ruining England and destroying the Church. He might
have resigned his offices, gone off to his estate, lived com
fortably on the moderate fortune he had already amassed, and
left others to save England, if they could. In fact, he might
have shirked. It does not strike one as very heroic to leave
your country and your religion to go to destruction, so that
you may " keep the bird in your bosom," and not have to
wear a double face, and do things which a person of scrupu
lous honor cannot approve. Suppose Churchill had done that
and if Churchill, why not Shrewsbury and Halifax, and
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London,
102
and the other leading men who plotted to bring over William
of Orange? If they had acted in that fashion,~William of
Orange could not have become king, at any rate not peace
fully; James would have re-established Roman Catholicism,
and supported it by an army of Irish mercenaries ; years of
desolating civil war might have thrown England a century
back in the scale of civilization, have checked the commer
cial and industrial development of the country, and have
rendered it unable to cope with France, Spain, and Holland
in the race for maritime and colonial supremacy. As far as
one can see, the history not of Britain alone, but of the whole
Anglo-Saxon race, might have been altered for the worse, if
the ruinous attempt to put back the religious and constitu
tional movement to Tudor conditions had not been speedily
and effectually defeated. Surely it was worth sacrificing the
private honor of some score or so of statesmen, courtiers,
and prelates, to gain such results. Archbishop Bancroft and
Bishop Compton thought so ; and they were two of the most
honorable and respected churchmen of the period.
But if it were right to resist James, why need they plot
against him in secret? Why, in plain words, deceive and
betray him? They might have taken the second of Mr.
Lang's alternativesopen abandonment of the king, and a
public declaration in favor of the Prince of Orange. But
" he who desires the end desires the means." The Whig
statesmen were more anxious to save the country than to
cherish their private honor. If they had openly declared
for 'William they might have filled a nobler place in the
pages of moralist or poet. Mr. Lang, perhaps, would have
poured over them some of the beautiful sentences in which
he deplores the untimely death of Dundee. "Better and
more desirable is the tomb in the kirk of Old Deer than all
the luxury of Blenheim." Perhaps; but if it was good
and desirable to save Britain from a papal tyranny or from
civil war, then Churchill and his co-conspirators went the
right way to work. To declare publicly for William would
have spoiled the whole game. Marlborough would probably
have been sent to the Tower, and his and some half-dozen of
103
the noblest heads in England would have fallen on the scaf

fold. James, forewarned and forearmed, could have secured
the army by a wholesale expulsion of Protestant officers,
and the peaceful progress of William would have been a
series of bloody campaigns. We cannot blame the men of
the Revolution that they chose to sacrifice their loyalty to
preserve Britain from this calamity; or whether we blame
them or not (and after all I do not know that it is the his
torian's business to deal much in praise or blame), we may
at least recognize that they went to work in the right way
to secure the end they had in viewan end which even the
partisans of the White Rose, like Mr. Lang, admit to have
been a good one. James, when once his determination to
restore Catholicism was manifest, was clearly impossiblea
danger not only to the liberties, but to the order and unity
of the kingdom. Marlborough's estimate of the situation
is stated with perfect frankness and clearness in the letter
he forwarded in May, 1687, through Dykvelt, the emissary
of William of Orange, who came to London to sound the
leading men about the court. "I thought it my duty to
your Highness and the Princess Royal, by this opportunity
of Mr. Dykvelt, to give you assurances under my own hand
that my places and the king's favor I set at naught in com
parison of the being true to my religion. In all things but
this the king may command me; and I call God to witness
that even with joy I should expose my life for his service,
so sensible am I of his favors. I know the troubling of
you, sir, with thus much of myself, I being of little use to
your Highness, is very impertinent; but that I think it may
be a great ease to your Highness and the Princess to be sat
isfied that the Princess of Denmark is safe in the trusting
of me, I being resolved, though I cannot live the life of a
saint, if there be ever occasion for it, to show the resolution
of a martyr." Macaulay says that the elevation in the style
and language of this letter is a sure proof that Marlborough,
when he wrote it, contemplated some deed of unusual base
ness. Readers less prejudiced will probably think that it
says what it means, and that its meaning is natural and jus
104
tifiable. If James seriously set about to overthrow Protest

antism, Marlborough felt himself bound to do his best to
overthrow him. James persevered in his mad enterprise,
and Churchill and his friends determined to drive him from
the throne. The way to do that, with as little bloodshed and
disturbance as possible, was to conspire secretly with the
Prince of Orange. Conspiracy is not a nice business to be
engaged in. Nor is homicide; but the soldier sometimes
hns to save his country by killingnot always in hot blood
;md the statesman, in certain conjunctures, may have to
serve a cause he holds sacred by what, in other circumstances,
would be perjury and deceit. "Had Churchill," says Mr.
Lang, " instantly quitted his service when he saw James's in
tentions, or had he gone over to Holland, or had he joined
Dundee, many a blow would have been struck, and the end
no man can guess." Exactly ; and this is surely sufficient
vindication of his treacherysufficient, at any rate, from
the point of view of the historian, who is interested in men
chiefly as they are the working parts of a great movement,
whatever it may be from the standpoint of the higher
morality who thinks that a statesman is entitled to save his
own soul at the cost of his country's ruin.
If that is the explanation of Churchill's betrayal of James
II., it is otherwise with his treachery to William during the
first years of that king's reign. The apologist of Marlborough finds it hard to account satisfactorily for the corre
spondence his hero undoubtedly kept up with the exiled
James. Those who are not concerned to represent Marlborough as a perfect character, or to defend all his actions,
may admit frankly that he tried to keep up with the late
king simply because it was not certain that there would not
be a Jacobite restoration, and, if so, he was anxious to be on
the safe side. It was not likely, but it was possible ; and
most of the leading men of the time, as well as Marlborough,
tried to "hedge" by cultivating a little interest with the
court of St. Germaine. It was a shabby and dishonorable
series of transactions, and is not mitigated by the considera
tions which excuse the plotting against James. For those
105
who must have a great man, good all through, or bad all
through, it must be difficult to admire Marlborough, with
the knowledge that he followed up the excusable treason
which set William on the throne by a baser treason, whieh
had no other object but that of saving his own head and for
tune, in certain not wholly improbable contingencies. But
we do not expect flawless perfection in our friends, exposed
as they are, as a rule, only to the comparatively less search
ing tests of private life ; we need not look for it in our heroes,
tried by the severe strain of war, command, or statesmanship.
Marlborough may have acted, under what I believe to have
been a high and sound sense of public duty, with ingratitude
to the prince, to whom he owed much ; he may, with more
ignoble motives, have intrigued against the king he helped
to place upon the throne ; but if we care to weigh his char
acter in the scales, and to balance good and evil, we may
remember that he was kind to his friends, and forgiving to
his enemies ; that if the soldiers idolized " Corporal John,"
it was not solely because of his unbroken success in battle,
and his Jove-like tranquillity on the field, but also because he
showed a real desire, rare enough among the commanders of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to secure the wellbeing and comfort of his troops ; and that in a loose and
licentious age he was the truest and most devoted of hus
bands. Something too much has been made of Marlborough's
faults and failings. One is glad to find that his latest biog
rapher, while admitting his errors, is more intent to explain
the circumstances, the training, and the characteristics, which
made Marlborough what he was.
" It is not," says Lord Wolseley, very justly, " to censure
his amours, to despise him for his niggardliness, or to hate
him for his double-dealing, that we wish to study Marlbor
ough 's character and to follow his career. "VVe do so because
we desire to learn the secret of his success, and to discover
the motives of his actions. We wish to know how he so
contrived to carry public opinion with him for nearly ten
years, that he was able to direct our foreign policy, and to
shape our history. Had he failed in this, not even his
106
The Rights and Wrongs of Toad-stools.
genius for war could have won for England that foremost
position in Europe to which he raised her. When the
whole civilized world rang with his name, when kings and
princes sought his advice, and were proud to obey his orders,
we still more want to know what was the spirit within him
that urged him on. There must have been some strange
power in the man who was able to endow his country with
such power and influence whilst he ruled her and guided her
destinies." What the " strange power " was, how it grew,
and how it worked, it is for biography to discover and ex
plainif biography is to be anything much better than
good-natured eulogy and malicious gossip.
THE RIGHTS AND WROXGS OF TOAD-STOOLS.

BY CHARLES MC!LVAINE.
Toad-stools have powers far beyond those indicated by
their humble position in plant society. No other vegetable
growth is so intimately interlocked with the welfare and ills
of the human race. As ferments in yeast, wines, and beer,
they are, in their microscopic kinds, of inestimable value;
as causes and promoters of various diseases of food-giving
plants, and of the human organism itself, they do untold
damage.
A few sympathetic and authoritative pens have excited
great popular interest in toad-stools as a food supplyone
plentiful, healthful, and everywhere abounding. These
writers, who years ago delved into the toad-stool family after
species to delight their palates, found many hundreds of
attractive shapes, and themselves most amply rewarded in
almost as many hundreds of edible, delicious kinds, nearly
all of which had been heretofore despised as food, and kicked
as virulent, hereditary enemies to man.
It is not certain, however, that the interest exciting friends
for toad-stools has not disproportionately increased the num
ber of their enemies. There is a valid reason for the doubt.
107
The toad-stool lover is forced, because of his careful and

honest regard for the lives of his fellows, to declare at the
very outset of his plea for toad-stools as a plentiful and
healthful food, that the woodland of every country is filled
with species of ,a family which is deadly when eaten. When
ever he proclaims the many virtues of his pets, he is forced
to head his proclamation with the capitals, BEWARE !
And further, while he feels quite safe himself in his selec
tion for and eating of dainty meals, made sure by systematic
testing, and lack of all foolhardiness in eating, he is by no
means sure that others will go slow, and intelligently make
selections. The only safe way for the amateur is to taste a
small piece of an unknown variety. If it commends itself to
sight, taste, and smell ; if no unpleasant after-effects occur ;
then taste a larger piece, cooked without pepper or salt.
Test on, increasing the quantity until a full meal is eaten, or
the first symptoms of disagreement occur. These will speed
ily disappear after taking a wine glass of vinegar and sweet
oil, or whisky in place of the vinegar.
Many species of toad-stools are unfitted for eating by their
texture. The polyporei, always found growing from wood,
are with one or two exceptions too tough for food. Some of
the clavarieiclub-shaped, branched fungi, growing from the
groundare stringy ; many of the varieties are delicious,
none are poisonous. Among the boleti, the species of poly
porei having under the cap tubes which are detachable from
the cap, and which always grow upon the ground, there are
some too bitter to eat, and this bitterness cannot be cooked
out of them; others, from the length of their tubes, make a
slimy dish. This can be avoided by removing the tubes
before cooking. Among the lycoperdons or puff balls, there
is not a single species which is not tender and delightful in
flavor, but they must not be eaten when water-soaked or dis
colored inside ; in such a condition they are extremely bitter.
There is one variety of lycoperdon found in the woods, and
in great quantity under beech treesthe scleroderma vulgare
which has a bluish-black interior. It is excellent so long
as it is firm.
108
After many years spent in investigating the edible quali

ties of the afore-mentioned species, and eating of the many
varieties I have found, I have failed to find a single one that
has given me the slightest indication of possessing poisonous
qualities. It may be that the bitter sorts contain a minor
poison, but, as no one can eat them, there is no danger from
them.
It is in the Order of Agaricini that by far the greater num
ber of edible toad-stools are found ; and it is in this Order
that the deadly species exist. The spore-bearing surface ot
all agarics is under the cap, and consists of gills radiating
from the stem to the edge of the cap. It is called the
hymenium. The agaricini constitute the first Order of fun
goid growth.
Standing at the very top of the Order and of all toad-stools,
beautiful, seductive, pretty as any of dame nature's products,
is the aristocratic Amanita. It is there by comparison.
If we, as typical personages of the highest race of men,
were not 'white-skinned, white-productive, we would not be
inclined to place our similars among toad-stools at the head
of their kind.
The amanita family are many-colored in the caps they
wear; they are many-figured in their statuesque bearing;
but they are always white under their caps, white in their
gills, and white in the spores or seeds they bear, and which
they shed from these gills to reproduce after their kind. Age
often mellows the color of the gills to a lemon yellow, and
the whole plant emits a smell unpleasant to those who object
to that of the polecat. The seeds remain white, and can be
caught by placing the cap, gills downward, upon paper or glass.
There are between thirty and forty distinct species of am
anita; of these probably not over eight are poisonous; the
others are among the very best of the edible kinds.
Notwithstanding that the common mushroomsthe Agaricus Campestris, and A. Arvensisbear dark purple spores,
and that their gills change from a light pink in youth to
almost black in age, the amauita very closely resemble them
in the early stages of their growth. It is because of this
109
close resemblance that fatal mistakes occur in gathering

them ; and these mistakes are generally made by those who
think they know the common mushroom. To those initiated
in the botanic marks of toad-stools, the differences are as
plain as between black and white. The principal objects of
this article are to point out these differences, and to instruct
the physician in what to do if called upon to treat a case of
amanitine poisoning.
In addition to the difference in color of spore and gill,
there is the difference of habitat ; the amanita grows in the
woods, the common mushroom never does. I have never
found an amanita growing in the open field. They frequently
do grow along the edge of woodlands, and upon ground re
cently cleared of timber. Their proper habitat is in deep
woods.
Now, to tell more definitely about its growth. All toad
stools, of whatever kind, grow from what is called mycelium,
a vine cellular in its structure, and reproducing cells, end
wise. Upon this vine a knob or conglomeration of cells is
formed. This knob, not larger than a pin-head, is the earliest
form of the baby amanita. Moisture, warmth from sunlight,
favorable conditions of soil created thereby, are invigorating
and cell-producing to the nodule. It swells within its babywrap. Rain comes. 'Wonderful is its growth and develop
ment! By simple increase of cells in a way not short of
intelligence, it bursts beyond its surroundings; puts its pro
gressive head above the soil, carrying with it fragments of
its former wrap, which adheres to its cap in the shape of
scales or warts ; leaves the rest of it in its ground-cradle as a
volva about its base, and soon stands upright upon a stem
composed of self-elongating cells, a perfect amanita, except
ing one thing: the cap is to become the parent of future
generations. To prevent it from becoming a mother too
soon, a membrane is stretched from the stem to the outer
edge of the expanding cap, and over the entire hymenium.
This is called the veil, and shields the gills until other cells,
thrown out from their surfaces and in some way converted
into seeds, are ready to be cast off as perfect, ripe. As the
110
cap spreads, this protecting veil is torn. Its stem-hold being

the stronger, the tear occurs at or near the rim of the cap ;
the veil falls back to the stem, and there hangs as an annular
ring or veil. Such, not to be mistaken, are the character,
istic marks of the amanita; a volva at the base, a ring or
veil about the upper part of the stem, white gills, white
spores, and remnants of the ruptured volva on top of the cap.
These distinctive marks are on some species so delicate in
their structure that they disappear soon after the plant has
reached its growth (excepting the color of the spores) ; they
are evanescent. Yet to the practiced observer, the remains
of the volva upon the capindicated by thin dried scales
the stain of the veil about the stem, the semblance of a
sheath about the base of the stem, and a slight ridge where
this sheath was adnate to the stem, are infallible guides. It
is highly important that physicians and others interested
should familiarize themselves with these toad-stools. They
can be found in the woods at any time, in the latitude of
Philadelphia, from the first of May until frost puts an end to
their coming.
The common mushroom has a downy adpressed scurf on
top of its cap ; it has a veil or ring about its stem ; but its
stem ends abruptly in a bunch of thread-like roots; it has
not a volva. It does not grow from a sheath.
There are among species growing in the woods those that
will effect delicate digestive apparatuses unpleasantly. They,
one and all, have a soapy taste when raw or cooked, which
generally arises from the presence of an oxalate of potash.
There are probably other minor poisons present which have
not yet been segregated. Unpleasant effects from eating such
varieties will be experienced almost immediately after the
meal, just as from any indigestible or unhealthy matter.
Relief will be at once experienced by taking an emetic and
using the simple remedy stated. The writer has eaten full
meals of over four hundred species of toad-stools, and has
never had to resort to a remedial agent, unless he purposely
tested a species far enough to be certain that it contained a
poison.
Ill
The physician called in to administer to a patient sup

posed to be poisoned by toad-stools, is enabled to draw a sharp
line as to what poison is at work, by the time elapsing be
tween the eating and the appearance of sickness. The poison
of the amanita shows no effect whatever under eight hours.
The first symptom is shown in an ashy pallor and peculiar
grayness of the eye. This is immediately followed by what
resembles a violent attack of cholera-morbus, together with
a foul breath, which must be guarded against by ventilation
of the room, or poisoning to all present will result. Gastro
intestinal troubles follow, insufferable tenesmus, coma, death,
in from forty-five to sixty-five hours after the ingestion of
the meal, unless the specific remedy is heroically adminis
tered. Emetics and stimulants are useless, worse than use
less, at the outset of the attack.
In October, 1885, my attention was drawn, through the
public press, to five cases of toad-stool poisoning in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Being anxious to gain all possible
information about them, I wrote to the physician in charge
of the cases, Dr. J. E. Shadle. I was able to obtain through
him samples of the toad-stools eaten, collected by one of the
survivors of the poisoning. I at once recognized the Amanita
vernus, and the Amanita bulbosus. I was extremely fortunate
in applying to such an intelligent and highly accomplished
physician as Dr. Shadle. He, knowing that a toad-stool
poison was at work in his patients, remembered that sulphate
of atropine had been indicated as a possible antidote. As a
last resource, he began using it, and thereby saved the lives
of three of the five persons. I was enabled to designate the
special poison at work, and Dr. Shadle was well fortified in
his statement that the sulphate of atropine was the antidote.
I have since repeatedly tried the effects of the amanitine
poisoning upon myself, and upon animals, and have not failed
in a single instance permanently to eradicate its effects. For
the first time, in these cases, the antidote was brought into
contact with a known toad-stool poison, amanitine, in the
human system. For a full report of these cases and their
treatment by Dr. Shadle, see " Amanitine and its Antidote "
112
Queries in Literature.
(McIlvaine, Medical and Surgical Reporter, December 12

and 19, 1885); also, "The Deadly and Minor Poisons of
Toad-stools" (McIlvaine, in The Therapeutic Gazette, May
15, 1893). This article has been reprinted in pamphlet
form by the publishers of The Therapeutic Gazette ; and the
first article mentioned has been included with several valu
able ones upon edible fungi, in " About Mushrooms," a book
quite recently issued by Lee and Shepard, Boston, from the
experienced pen of Mr. Julius A. Palmer.
It is possible that with toad-stools immediately affecting
the digestive apparatus, some of the amanita may have been
eaten. Therefore, all cases of suspected toad-stool poisoning
should be carefully watched for the appearance of amanitine
poisoning until the assigned time is safely passed.
Upon the first showing of a single symptom of amanitine
poisoning, as described, one-sixtieth of a grain of sulphate
of atropine should be subcutaneously administered ; and the
same dose should be given at short intervals, until the onetwentieth of a grain has been absorbed or the effects of the
poison have been counteracted. Heroic action is absolutely
necessary.
QUERIES IN LITERATURE: WHY DO CERTAINWORKS OF FICTION SUCCEED?

BY MARRION WILCOX.
In Hermann Oldenberg's scholarly work, " Buddha : Sein
Leben, Seine Lehre, Seine Gemeinde," we come upon the
statement (p. 204. Berlin : 1881), that Buddha's last illness
was occasioned by eating pork, which Cunda, the son of agoldsmith at Pava, set before him.
The naive passage is embedded in texts of rare beauty,
citations from the ancient literature of India, describing
Buddha's ideal life, and recalling Sir Edwin Arnold's smooth
est verses in " The Light of Asia," and it is as truly in its right
place in this German prize-crowned prose study, as it would
113
be out of place in an English poem. As such real things in

books have a way of doing, it starts an inquiry, and this in
quiry turns upon the cause of popular success in literature
a publisher's mystery and embarrassing problem of those who
promote the most esteemed of arts. That dish of pork is as
much a part of the subject, in a book treating of Buddha, as
is the doctrine of nirvana. Is the secret of success, then, to
be found in the choice of subject? Apparently not.
Within our memories such books as these have scored pop
ular successes: a book that has realized people and scenes at
the time of Christ and in Palestine (Wallace's " Ben Hur ") ;
a book that unsparingly dealt out sorcery and adventure in
an. unexplored region of Africa (Haggard's "She"); books
that glimpsed provincial Scotch people from little Presby
terian windows (Barrie's stories) ; books that dissected del
icate vice in Romein Paris (" Cosmopolis "" Sappho ") ;
hazardous tales of a Mr. Barnes, of New York, not less than
of the Wandering Jew made seemly as a " Prince of India ;"
grave religious questionings of Mrs. Humphrey Ward ; unmit
igated reek of French pot-houses in " L'Assommoir " and of
French peasants in " La Terre ;" nebulous aspirations, maid
enly adumbrations from an " African Farm ;" the New-World,
dandyish social cares of "Van Bibber;" the narrative result
of a German scholar's research into the life of an Egyptian
Princess ; South-European temperaments disclosed by Thomas
Hardy in depiction of English milkmaids; with Tolstoi's
evocation, volumes of shaggy-brooding Russians ; Spaniards
who discourse of love, the church and again love for Valera ;
at Howells's bidding, groups of sincere and witty Americans ;
bluff Anglo-Indian soldiers sympathetically dispersed among
civilians of all lands by Kipling ; a romance illustrating the
good and evil spirits that strive in every maneven a comely
" Dr. Jekyll ;" novels of modern Hebrew life by Besant
and Zangwill ; volumes of Warner's fine fancy and humor ;
a chilled and snowed-in love affair among coughing unfor
tunates in a Swiss mountain sanitarium ; and now, as a long
serial in a popular magazine that knows the public, if any
magazine does, an artist's story of a Parisian model with her
VOL. I.8
114
English, Welsh, Scotch, and nondescript admirers. Any

reader can extend the list, and perhaps every reader will
complain that his favorites have been omitted. Well, the
names have been set down rapidly, and in the order in which
they have come to mind ; and merely to illustrate the point
that the subject does not make any difference. It sounds
more temperate to say, " The subject does not make the differ
ence ;" so let the conclusion take that form. And, of course,
neither does the school of writing make the difference.
Leaders of romanticism, realism, idealism, are all in the list.
The conclusion would seem obvious enough ; and yet one
of the great publishing houses recently lost an author, whose
novels have gained immediate and general approval, because
a trusted reader for the house reported that the first work
submitted by that author was " too Scotch ! "
It is noteworthy that two or three of the books referred
to above are scarcely in Literature at all ; that is to say, it is
already apparent that they are just good "yarns," insuffi
ciently equipped with the artistic qualities that make work
permanent ; and such accidental and temporary successes may
be left out of the account. Aside from these, are there any
qualities, or is there any quality, common to all successful
works of fiction, and so essential that we may say, in judg
ing an untried work: "This novel, or this romance, will
succeed because it has such-and-such a quality? " It is the
writer's intention to make respectful inquiry, not to put for
ward a pretentious assertion. But, if the secret of success is
not in choice of subject, nor yet in adhesion to the doctrines
of any school in authorship, what can it be except insight
the faculty of seeing attractive things beneath whatever un
attractive, unfamiliar, indifferent exterior the subject may
present to the great public ?
A pretty example of insight, directed by womanly sym
pathy, is at hand. Henry James, writing in 1887, invited
public attention to the fact that a woman of Northern birth
had been the first, or among the first, to feel the "voicelessness of the conquered and reconstructed South," and to give
literary expression to certain aspects of life, after the war in
115
Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. As the fruit of a re

markable minuteness of observation and tender feeling, her
stories, said Mr. James, have a high value, especially when
regarded in the light of the voicelessness of the conquered
and reconstructed South. Miss Woolson strikes the reader
as having a compassionate sense of this pathetic dumbness,
having perceived that no social revolution of equal magni
tude had ever reflected itself so little in literature, remained
so unrecorded, so unpainted, and unsung. She has attempted
to give an impression of this circumstance among others, and
a sympathy altogether feminine has guided her pen. She
loves the whole region, and no daughter of the land could
have handled its peculiarities more indulgently, or commu
nicated to us more of the sense of close observation and in
timate knowledge.
Recently, Henry M. Alden, in the course of some very
beautiful comments that were called forth by Miss Woolson's tragic death, said that the Southern life, after the war,
had appealed to her very strongly, and that she had given it
form and voice before the South had produced writers of its
own, like Cable and Page and Harris and Miss King.
As a lover of the South, and of books dealing with the
scenery and temperaments that have the Southern charm,
the writer has been led by Mr. Alden's article, recalling Mr.
James's, to examine once again the novels by Miss Woolson
that have given so much pleasure to so many people, and to
note some of the characteristic passages.
Here, in "East Angels," are memorable paragraphs in
which she touched, with the caressing hand of an artist, the
scenery of Florida :
"The stream was bringing them toward a bower in the
heart of the Monnlings, or rather a long defile like a chink
between two high cliffs, the cliffs being a dense mass of flow
ering shrubs.
"Winthrop made no comment as they entered this blos
soming pass, Margaret did not speak. The air was loaded
with sweetness ; she put her hands on the edge of the canoe
to steady herself. Then she looked up as if in search of
116
fresher air, or to see how high the flowers ascended. But

there was no fresher air, and the flowers went up out of sight.
"The defile grew narrower, the atmosphere became so
heavy that they could taste the perfume in their mouths.
After another five minutes Margaret drew a long breath
she had apparently been trying to breathe as little as possi
ble. ' I don't think I canI am afraid' She swayed, then
sank softly down ; she had fainted.
"He caught her in his arms, and laid her on the canoe's
bottom, her head on the cloak. He looked at the water, but
the thought of the dark tide's touching that fair face was
repugnant to him. He bent down and spoke to her, and
smoothed her hair. But that was advancing nothing, and
he began to chafe her hands. Then suddenly he rose, and,
taking the paddle, sent the canoe flying along between the
high bushes. The air was visibly thick in the red light of
the torches, a miasma of scent. A branch of small blossoms
with the perfume of heliotrope softly brushed against his
cheek ; he struck it aside with unnecessary violence. Exert
ing all his strength, he at last got the canoe free from the
beautiful baleful place."
In the following extract from "Jupiter Lights," the point
of view, still intensely Southern, is moved across the river
that divides Florida from Georgia:
" The Atlantic was very calm, its hue was emerald green ;
it was so clear that one could see the great jelly-fish floating
down below. The judge, with his hands clasped on his cane's
head, stood looking eagerly at everything. His joy was deep ;
he felt himself an exile returning home. And oh, how beauti
ful home was ! To him, this Southern coast was fair as Para
dise; he welcomed the dark hue of the Southern trees; he
welcomed the neglected fields ; he even welcomed the brokendown old houses here and there. For at least they were not
staring, they were not noisy; to the judge the smart new
houses of Port-aux-Pins those with Mansard roofs had
seemed to shout and yell. Three negro fishermen, passing
in a row-boat with a torn sail, were eminently worthy crea
tures ; they were not impudent, well-dressed mulattoes of the
117
North, who elbowed him off the pavements; who read news
papers on steamers with the air of men of the world. When
the winding channelwinding through watercame to an
end at the mouth of an inlet, the white saud-hills on each
hand were more beautiful to his eyes than the peaks of the
Alps or the soft outline of Italian mountains. 'God bless
my country ! ' was the old man's fervent thought. But his
' country ' was limited ; it was the territory which lies be
tween the St. Mary's River and the Savannah."
Very perfect is the contrast offered by the two passages
which follow, of which the first is taken from "Jupiter
Lights," and the second from " In the Cotton Country "a
story in the volume entitled " Rodman, the Keeper: "
" Eve replied : ' You are the most extraordinary people in
the world, you Southerners ; I have been here nearly a month,
and I am constantly struck by ityou never think of money
at all. And the strangest point is, that, although you never
think of it, you don't in the least know how to get on with
out it.' "
So much for the easy and breezy Northern view of
Southern distress after the war. Now mark the heavy, anx
ious, weary tone in a Southerner's view of the same condi
tions :
" ' Down here in the country we were rich once, madam ;
we were richer than Northerners ever are, for we toiled not
for our money, neither took thought for it; it came, and we
spent it ; that was all.' "
And this, from " Old Gardistou," is so intimately true of
the private life of the distressful period that, if it had been
written by a Southerner, it would seem like a confession and
self-revelation :
" Gardis brought out some of the half-year rent money, and
a dinner was planned, of few dishes truly, but each would be
a marvel of good cooking, as the old family servants of the
South used to cook when time was nothing to them. It is
not much to them now ; but they have heard that it ought
to be, and that troubles the perfection of their pie-crust.
There was a little wine left in the wine-rooma queer little
118
recess like a secret chamber; and there was always the croco
dile china and the few pieces of cut-glass. The four forks
would be enough, and Gardis would take no jelly, so that
the spoons would serve also ; in fact, the dinner was planned
to accommodate the silver. So far, so good. But now as to
dress ; here the poor little mistress was sadly pinched. She
knew this; but she hoped to make use of a certain wellworn changeable silk that had belonged to Miss Margaretta,
in hue a dull green and purple. But, alas! upon inspection
she discovered that the faithful garment had given way at
last, after years of patient service, and now there was noth
ing left but mildew and shreds. The invitation had been
formally accepted ; the dinner was in course of preparation ;
what should she do? She had absolutely nothing, poor
child, save the two faded old lawns which she wore ordi
narily, and the one shabby woolen dress for cooler weather.
' If they were anything but what they are,' she said to her
self, after she had again and again turned over the contents
of her three bureau drawers, ' I would wear my every-day
dress without a moment's thought or trouble. But I will not
allow these men, belonging to the despot army of the North,
these aliens forced upon us by a strong hand and a hard fate,
to smile at the shabby attire of a Southern lady.'"
This is all true to life ; it is artistic, and sincere as heart
could wish. Could a daughter of the land (to revert to
Henry James's expression) have handled its peculiarities
more indulgently or communicated to us more of the sense
of close observation and intimate knowledge ? By the way,
this is what Miss Woolson said about one of the daughters
of the land ; she described Bettina "Ward as " a girl, young
and dimpled and dewy ; one of the creamy roses of the
South that, even in the bud, are richer in color and luxuri
ance than any Northern flower." In future histories of
American literature will the Northern gentlewoman, born in
New Hampshire, educated in Cleveland and New York, be
recognized as one of the earliest and one of the most sympa
thetic delineators of Southern life after the war?
Current Scientific Discussion.
119
CURRENT SCIENTIFIC DISCUSSION.

BY PROF. ANGELO HEILPRIN,
THE ORIGIN OF LAKE BASINS.
In a series of articles published in recent numbers of the

Fortnightly Review, Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace sums up in
a forcible manner the evidence and arguments in favor of
the glacial origin of lake basins. These papers, while they
are by no means conclusive in their argument, are, without
question, the ablest presentation of the case from the point
of view of the glacialist, and merit the attention of all
geologists. Mr. Wallace is an uncompromising follower of
the late Sir Andrew Ramsay, but he holds to a line of argu
ment very different from that of the distinguished geologist
who first propounded the theory which has latterly been
subjected to such warm criticism. Mr. Wallace's effort has
been to show :
1. That valley lakes of highly glaciated regions, such as
the Alps or Great Britain, for example, are of a markedly
characteristic or distinct class, since such lakes are almost
everywhere wanting in the mountainous tracts of nonglaciated regions.
2. That the deeper contours of such lakestheir flat or
saucer-shaped floors, extreme depths (in some cases, as in the
Swiss and Italian lakes, measuring one thousand or two
thousand feet, or more), and nearly even bordersare such
as could be explained only on the assumption of glacial
scour.
3. The insufficiency of the rival theory of mountain defor
mation or submergencethe view that is held by Bonney,
Desor, Forel, and Favrewhich, while it might sufficiently
explain the existence of certain lakes, could not account for
the remarkable inequalities of depth, and for the general
120
grouping around and about mountain bases. The final posi

tion is thus stated : " On the whole, I venture to claim that
the facts and considerations set forth in this paper showsuch a number of distinct lines of evidence, all converging
to establish the theory of the ice erosion of the valley lakes
of highly glaciated regionsa theory first advocated by the
late Sir Andrew Eamsaythat that theory must be held to
be established, at all events provisionally, as the only one by
which the whole body of the facts can be explained and
harmonized."
Mr. Wallace, in common with many scientists, makes the
mistake of holding firmly to a provisional theory pending
the discovery of one that more nearly meets the case. It
may be asked, wherefore? A theory that "best" accounts
for anything is of little value unless it is supported by hard
facts; it then, and only then, becomes convincing. A nega
tive agreement with conditions and factsi. e., a theory which
is seemingly best because there is little or nothing in conflict
with itremains negative. The question in the premises,
in the problem under consideration, is one that touches
primarily the mechanics of glacierstheir power as eroding
agents. Mr. Wallace, it seems to us, has so ably stated his
general proposition, that, recognizing the all-sufficiency of
glaciers to do that work which is asked of them, it is almost
impossible to avoid the conclusion which has been reached
by that naturalist. But it is just this work which is denied
by many competent observersgeologists and geographers ;
not only is the power to excavate rock-basins denied to the
glaciers, but even that of hollowing out basins in compara
tively loose and friable material. And it is an indisputable
fact that some of the largest sheets of moving ice have been
found to mount over gentle inequalities of their bedeven
loose stonesrather than remove them from the surface.
Such a practical glacialist as Mr. Douglas Freshfield indeed
holdsand he is supported in his views by a number of
geologiststhat the glaciers are really protectors of terrains
rather than destroyers of them ; and he asserts, as a result of
years of experience among the ice-rivers of Europe and Asia,
121
that glaciers, while they burnish and smooth rock-surfaces,

are entirely incapable to do the work of excavation. No
excavating of any amount was observed by him. Mr. Wal
lace ingeniously meets this deficiency of evidence by assuming
that, with a long duration (thirty thousand years) of the
Ice Age, the rate of erosion need not have been more than an
inch a year to account for the shaping of lake-hollows of two
thousand five hundred feet depth, such as we find in the
deepest of the Italian lakes (Laggo Maggiore). Of course,
no such minimum scour could ordinarily be detected in a
glacier. But the amount of scour could readily be increased
ten times, or even twenty timesto ten or twenty inches
annuallyand still nothing would be made apparent to the
ordinarily observing eye, since, even if we assume the work
ing power of a glacier to be restricted to six months of the
year, the daily excavation would be so slight (about oneninth of an inch) as entirely to escape detection. Reducing
the length of the glacial period to one thousand years, this
minute invisible work could still account for the depths of
nearly all known lakes. Mr. Wallace has not yet proved
his case, but his line of argument is such that it cannot
readily be brushed aside. The comparative study of the
contours and bottoms of assumed glacial and non-glacial lakes
would solve the question definitely.
IS THERE A WILD CAMEL?
Among the zoological trophies brought back by Mr. St.

George Littledale, from his recent remarkable journey across
the heart of Asia, are the skin and skeletal parts of a species
of camel, which, seemingly in considerable numbers, and
without owners, roams wild over the western parts of the
Desert of Gobi. The existence of this camel was first made
known by the Russian traveler Przevalski, who, fifteen years
ago, supplied the Museum of St. Petersburg with five speci
mens. As would naturally be assumed, the animal in ques
tion is a two-humped form, and apparently does not differ in
any essentials of structure from the ordinary two-humped or
Bactrian camel, which, in a domesticated state, is found over
122
the greater part of Central Asia, and even in parts of South

ern Russia. It is a question, whether the animals which
have been brought back by Przevalski and Littledale are
truly wild, in the sense that non-domestication means wildness, or whether they are not simply the domesticated animal
which in one way or another has regained full liberty, and
adapted itself to life in wild nature. A condition parallel
to this is furnished by the dromedaries of Southern Spain,
and by the remnants of the transplanted Texan stock which
still lingers in parts of the Rocky Mountains. Referring to
Mr. Littledale's find, and as bearing upon the possible ances
try of the domesticated camel, the Director of the British
Museum, Sir William Flower, writes as follows: "Wild
camels, until recent times, had been quite unknown, and the
origin of the domestic camel was, as is the origin of many of
our domesticated animals, involved in mystery. The history
of the camel, as has been revealed by recent geological explora
tions, is a very curious one. Though now living in Africa
and Asia, we have not at present found any fossil remains
of camels in early formations in the Old World ; but most
unexpectedly, during a survey that began about twenty-five
years ago, remarkable fossiliferous deposits were found in
pliocene, miocene, and even going back to eocene times in
the western part of North America, and there was discovered
the original home of the camel ; and the American paleon
tologists have traced it from a primitive generalized form of
the group to which the existing camel belongs by a succes
sion of minute changes; but, curiously enough, it became
entirely extinct in the region where it seems to have been
originally developed. Some, however, emigrated to South
America, remaining there in the form of the llama, vicuna, and
alpaca found in the Andes of South America and Patagonia ;
and the other branch appears to have crossed that bridge
which once extended across the North Pacific, and spread
over the regions of the Old World." Prof. Flower's views as
regards the American origin of the cameline animals, and of
the camel itself, are held by the foremost American paleon
tologists, such as Cope, Marsh, Scott and Osborn ; but it can
123
hardly be said that the full facts substantiate this position.

It is undeniable that a true cameline line has been furnished
by the American deposits ; but long before its culmination in
an animal nearest to the modern camel, the animal was already
in existence in India, as is evidenced by its remains from the
deposits of the Sivalik Hills. It is not impossible, therefore,
that a true chain of cameline animals was developed inde
pendently on the Asiatic continent, culminating in the modern
camel; while the parallel American line passed off into the
South American forms which to-day represent that animal
in the New World.
THE LATE PROF. GEORGE J. ROMANES.
In the death of this distinguished naturalist, which took

place a few weeks ago, in the forty-seventh year of the
scholar, physiological and philosophical science loses one of
its ablest cultivators. Prof. Romanes first became prominent
in the outer scientific world through his address on "Animal
Intelligence," read before the Dublin meeting of the British
Association, in 1878, and subsequently enlarged and republished as one of the volumes of the International Scientific
Series. But before this time he had already achieved suc
cess among the "closer corporation" of naturalists through
his researches into the nervous system of some of the lower
animals, such as the jelly-fishes, echinoderms, etc. When
only thirty-one years of age he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of London, having been, we believe, the
youngest Fellow elected at that time to that distinguished
body, with the exception of the geologist Judd. Mr.
Romanes enjoyed for many years the close friendship of
Darwin, by whom his course of investigation was largely
determined, and it can truly be said that in him the doctrine
of evolution gained one of its most ardent, if not always its
safest, champion. The psychological and hereditary aspects
of evolution more particularly engrossed his attention dur
ing many years, and latterly much of his time has been
occupied in defending certain premises assumed by him
against the criticisms of naturalists, like Wallace, Weismann,
124
Spencer, and Lankester, who believed that Romanes had

failed to grasp some of the essential concepts of the evo
lutionary hypothesis. His views on " Physiological Selec
tion " have met with comparatively little recognition, and,
perhaps, while it may appear uncharitable to disparage the
work of so prominent a figure in science, it would be no great
departure from the truth to say that Romanes's discoveries
in the field of science rest with his earlier years of investiga
tion. Probably, the best estimate of his work is furnished
by one of his sternest critics, Prof. Lankester, who says :
" Whilst it would be premature to claim for Romanes the
merit of a great discoverer or originator in psychology, or
in the philosophy of evolution, it is nevertheless true that by
his keen criticism, careful mastery of details, and great liter
ary fertility, he has exercised a most important influence
stimulating the thought and research of others by his
example and enthusiasm, and by those contests in the arena
of the 'reviews' with Wallace, Spencer, and Weismann,
which have made his name so widely known."
It is interesting to note that in the long line of discussion
which Prof. Romanes developed, and in which, apart from
its scientific value, it is claimed that the author took an in
tense delight, looking forward with equal pleasure to a
dialectic as to a scientific triumph, the name of Prof. Hux
ley barely figures ; whether from a disinclination to enter
the arena with the younger men, or through a belief, shared
by many, that much of the new struggle, with its varying
aspects of neo-Lamarckism, ultra-Darwinism and Weismannism, has been over words rather than of facts, the great
master of evolution has remained silent. Prof. Romanes
was a very fertile writer, and nearly all of his works have
been translated into French and German ; his " Darwin and
after Darwin," a popular exposition of the progress of evo
lution, hardly bears the impress of a scholar, and has been
criticised for not making proper acknowledgment to the
authorities from whom much of the material of the work is
borrowed. Romanes was at the time of his death a resident
of Oxford, where he founded the lectureship which bears his
125
name, and with which the names of Gladstone, Huxley, and

Weismann, as first "Romanes lecturers," are associated.
THE CULMINATING POINT OF THE NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENT.
The question as to which of the American mountain sum

mits wears the crown of highest position on the North Amer
ican Continent, again assumes an interesting phase through
the reported discovery of a mountain group in Alaska, in
the region of Mount St. Elias, whose altitudinal determina
tion would seem to depose both the Peak of Orizaba (Cit
laltepetl) in Mexico and Mount St. Eliasthe two peaks
which have for some time held the position of honor, and
which are so nearly of one height (eighteen thousand three
hundred and eighteen thousand two hundred feet), that one
might justly hesitate before finally awarding the palm for su
premacy. The new mountains, possibly representing merely
separated summits of a single mountain, upon which Mr.
Israel Russell has bestowed the name of Mount Logan, are
reputed to be nineteen thousand five hundred feet in height,
or fully equal to what was for many years assumed to be the
true height of St. Elias. The small angle of measurement,
through which the height of this mountain was computed,
does not permit us fully to accept the determination, and it
is by no means unlikely that Mount Logan will, on closer
scrutiny, share the fate which has befallen so many of the
North American mountains, such as St. Elias, Mount Wrangell, Mount Hood, etc.decapitation. The niceties of abso
lute measurement in the case of a high mountain are such
that only upon a most careful and repeated use of instru
ments can any dependence be placed, and this applies equally
to determinations that are made by the angle and the bar
ometric methods. At the present moment, the height of
what has been assumed to be one of the most accurately
determined summits of the Karakoram range of India
Mount Godwin Austen, or Ka has been brought into ques
tion, and only recently a resurvey of the Australian Alps
has restored Mount Kosciusko, with a height of seven thou
sand three hundred and thirty-six feet, to the first position
126
among the Australian mountains ; its rival, Mueller's Peak,

whose crown has received a special accumulation of visitingcards, scraps of paper, addressed envelopes, etc., in recognition
of its claims to superiority, falls short by sixty-eight feet.
The discrepancies in the results of mountain measurements
are such that one is tempted to ask : Are the results obtained
by a single investigator worthy of full confidence? The
personal elementby which we mean not only the desires
and non-desires in a determination, but the method of han
dling the instruments, the kinds of allowances that are made
for instrumental and ocular aberrations, and the uniformity
and similarity of the checks that are used to counteract these
aberrationsenters so largely, and seemingly so constantly,
into any calculation, as to make this almost individual or ap
proximative, rather than positive. Otherwise, indeed, it be
comes difficult to explain the differences of results that are
obtained by equally competent observersdifferences that
are in many cases far too great to be explained away on the
assumption of special difficulties of measurement. To men
tion only a few of the higher American summits, toward
the measurement of which no special difficulty ought to
have been encountered : Aconcagua has been oscillating
between twenty-two thousand four hundred and twentythree thousand nine hundred feet; Chimborazo between
twenty thousand and twenty-one thousand four hundred
feet ; the Illampu between twenty-two thousand and twentyfive thousand feet; Orizaba between seventeen thousand
four hundred and eighteen thousand three hundred feet;
St. Elias between fourteen thousand and nineteen thousand
five hundred feet; Ixtaccihuatl between fifteen thousand
seven hundred and sixteen thousand nine hundred and
sixty feet. It would almost seem as if there were cer
tain factors involved in mountain measurement which have
not yet been fully taken account of, for it is difficult to
explain such broad differences on the theory of individual
methods alone.
It has become customary, in scientific circles, to disparage
the use of the barometer as an instrument of precision in
127
the determination of heights ; and it is unquestionably true

that the most refined measurements have been made by
angle instruments. But, on the other hand, it is equally true
that many of the most divergent results have been obtained
through just such angle measurements, in which, especially
in the case of lofty snow-capped mountains, a critical method
and nicety of instrumental manipulation are required which
comparatively few travelers possess. Probably, the average
barometric measurement compares favorably with the trigo
nometric, even if it cannot produce, as an expression of the
best, an equal nicety of result.
EXTINCTION OF THE SOUTHERN FUR-SEAL.
Mr. F. R. Chapman contributes to the Canadian Record of

Science some interesting data regarding the virtual extermi
nation of the fur-seal from the coasts of New Zealand and
Tasmania, and of some smaller island groups. The millions
of seals which formerly inhabited those regions have so far
diminished in numbers that the animal is all but unknown
to the existing population. On the southern coast of New
Zealand, prior to 1825, seals were so abundant that in a
single season shore-parties secured as many as one hundred
thousand skins ; at the present time, it is said, that not a
seal is to be seen in those tracts sometimes for a period of
ten years. The waters of the Snares, Auckland, Campbell,
and Macquarie Islands have been similarly depleted. It is
claimed that this rapid extermination is due primarily to
reckless slaughtering, a condition analogous to that which
obtained until recent years, and still obtains to an extent,
along the Newfoundland coast. Protective legislation, al
though coming late, may yet do something to restock the
deserted waters, but it would appear that for much of the
regions little can now be done.
THE BRAIN OF THE CHINAMAN.
A singularly interesting contribution to the science of

anthropology has recently been made by Mr. C. H. Bond iu
his study of the Chinaman's brain, the results of which are
published in the English journal Brain. Incredible though it
128
may appear, it would seein that up to this time the brains of

only eight "Celestials" have been reported upon. Mr. Bond
emphasizes certain well-marked departuresassuming the
brain studied by him to be normalof the Chinese brain
from that of other people, the most pronounced of which is
the inordinately large size of the cerebellum as compared
with the cerebrum. The proportion stands in the relation
of one to five, instead of one to eight and one-half, as in the
average man, and is, therefore, very nearly what is to be found
in the chimpanzee (one to five and three-fourths). The total
brain-weight was found to be one thousand one hundred and
eighty-two grammes, or only one hundred and seventy-six
grammes less than that of the average male adult brain,
while in the convolutioual complexity of the frontal lobes
it somewhat surpassed what is assumed to be the normal.
The transverse furrows are more prominent than the anteroposterior ones.
OCEANIC CHARTING.
The importance of the work that is being carried on by

the hydrographic bureaus of different countries for the de
termination of danger rocks and shoals, and of other impedi
ments to safe navigation, is illustrated by the report, recently
published, of the hydrographer of the British Admiralty,
which shows that in the past year not less than two hundred
and one danger points had to be charted, and notification of
the existence of such positions sent to the mariners. Of this
number, twenty-six were rocks reported by H. M. surveying
vessels; thirty-five similar obstructions discovered by others
of H. M. ships; twenty-two reported by various British and
foreign vessels ; thirteen discovered by vessels striking upon
them, and one hundred and five reported by colonial and for
eign governments. Ten English vessels were employed in
this survey during the year, and perhaps the best work ac
complished by them was on the west Newfoundland coast.
Over an explored area of about five hundred square miles, it
is claimed that no chart, in which the navigator can place any
confidence, exists at the present time.
THE
NEW SCIENCE REVIEW

Copyright, 189!,, by The Transatlantic PMtehing Company.
VOL. I.
OCTOBER, 1894.
No. 2.
FLUORESCENCE OR PHOSPHORESCENCE,
AND PHOTOGRAPHIC ACTION AT LOW TEMPERATURES.
PROFESSOR DEWAR'S LATEST EXPERIMENTS.1
Fluorescence and phosphorescence are terms applied to
similar phenomena which apparently differ in degree only,
the first being practically an instantaneous effect, while the
other lasts for a measurable time. Familiar examples of
fluorescence are seen in solutions of quinine sulphate, acidu
lated with sulphuric acid, and some specimens of paraffin oil.
It has been shown by Stokes that the curious surface ap
pearances observed in these liquids are due to a change of
refrangibility of the light absorbed and again given off by
their upper layers. Tait, writing on " Light," remarks that,
"In every case the fluorescent light appears to belong to a
less refrangible part of the spectrum than does the incident
light which gave rise to it, thus affording an instance of dis
sipation, or degradation, of energy." The duration of fluor
escence is very brief, and in this respect only does it seem to
differ from phosphorescence.
1 Professor Dower's impaired health, consequent on the fatigues of an
unusually arduous session, unfortunately prevented him from completing
the article which we had hoped to publish in this number of THE NEW
SCIENCE REVIEW. In order, however, that the readers of the REVIEW may
not be disappointed at the absence of any contribution from his pen, Professor
Dewar has very kindly communicated the material for the subjoined account
of his experiments in regard to phosphorescence and photographic action,
recently described and illustrated by him at the Royal Institution, London,
in the presence of the members of the Chemical Sockty.
Vol. I.9
(129)
130
Fluorescence or Phosphorescence.
We may, therefore, regard phosphorescence as being

merely a species of fluorescence which lasts for a much
longer time after the excitation has ceased. Briefly defined,
it is the phenomenon observed when certain substances give
out light (usually in an altered form) which has been pre
viously absorbed. In thisthe most correctsense of the
term, it must not be confused with the luminosity due to the
slow oxidation of phosphorus, the acid vapors from which
shine in the dark with a faint, bluish light ; nor with the
phosphorescent appearance accompanying the slow combus
tion of decaying animal and vegetable matter ; nor with the
more or less voluntary display of light by fire-flies, glow
worms, and small marine animals.
The substances in which true phosphorescence was first
observed were barium sulphide (Bologna stone) and calcium
chloride (Homberg's phosphorus) during the seventeenth cen
tury ; calcium sulphide (Canton's phosphorus), in 1768 ; and,
later, strontium sulphide. When carefully preserved from
the air, in sealed glass tubes, these compounds appear bril
liantly luminous in a dark room, after exposure to bright
sunlight, and for a long time present the general aspect of
cooling bodies.
SOME OF THE PROFESSOR'S EXPERIMENTS DESCRIBED BT MONS.
E. HOSPITALIER.
The result of the professor's investigations in connection

with his work on the Liquefaction of Gases and Observa
tions of the Properties of Substances at Extremely Low Tem
peratures, is that the list of truly phosphorescent bodies has
been greatly extended and a knowledge of their peculiarities
in this direction increased, and he has now demonstrated
that oxygen is itself fluorescent.
On passing a stream of this gas or air, after it has been
electrically stimulated, through a very large vacuum tube,
highly exhausted, a comet-like globe of phosphorescent light
was visible, and ozone was formed in the tube, apparently in
dicating that some kind of molecular change had occurred.
It is essential that the air employed should be filtered, as any
131
considerable proportion of organic matter destroys the fluor

escence, and the length of the luminous brush formed is in
versely proportional to the amount of such impurity present.
Even the dispersion of a little ether or perfume in the room
may render this experiment impossible for several hours.
Hydrogen also destroys the fluorescence. The phenomenon
is produced only by gases containing oxygen, being shown
to a slight extent by carbon dioxide. In the case of calcium
sulphide, which after exposure to electric or magnesium
light is highly luminous, cooling by contact with solid carbon
dioxide diminishes the phosphorescence, and it is entirely
suspended at 80 C., though subsequent warming restores
the light.
ELASTICITY AS MODIFIED AT LOW TEMPERATURES.
The nature of the professor's work, which had led up to

the results obtained in regard to phosphorescence, was illus
trated by several experiments. The highly selective character
of the oxygen spectrum was shown when a tube containing
liquid oxygen was placed in the spectroscope, the dark bands
being very distinctly visible in the spectrum thrown upon a
screen. Further experiments illustrated the modification in
elastic properties in bodies cooled to low temperature, the
breaking strain of metals, for example, being increased. This
modification of elasticityboth longitudinal and torsional
was clearly shown by cooling spirals of very soft metal in
liquid oxygen to 180 C., when they became perfectly rigid
and sonorous, like iron. The influence of similar cooling upon
hard steel was demonstrated by comparing the notes from two
tuning-forks in perfect unison. On cooling one to 180 C.
its elastic constants were modified, thus causing it to vibrate
more quickly than the other, while the number of beats
showed the increased elasticity.
PHOTOGRAPHIC ACTION AT LOW TEMPERATURES.
No direct chemical action can be brought about by the

contact of bodies like liquid oxygen and phosphorus or po
tassium. Nor can any form of voltaic cell continue to produce
132
electricity when cooled to 180 C. Photographic action

can, however, be carried on at the lowest temperature yet
reached, though reduced to the extent of more than eighty
per cent. at 200 C. Thus, chloride of silver paper, when
partly sponged with liquid oxygen and exposed to bright
light, quickly turns brown, except where cooled ; little or no
action taking place at that spot. In the case of two very
sensitive photographic films, in which chemical action had
taken place at similarly low temperatures, magnesium wire
had been burnt in the dark room as a means of stimulation,
and phosphorescence had resulted.
It was also shown that the colors of bodies and their
specific absorption are materially affected at Jow tempera
tures. Thus, liquid oxygen turns red; iodide of mercury,
yellow.
CONCERNING OTHER PHOSPHORESCENT BODIES.
The professor's next experiments were devoted to showing

that gelatin, celluloid, paraffin, ivory, horn, and India-rubber
become distinctly luminous, with a bluish or greenish phos
phorescence, after cooling to 180 C.,and upon being stim
ulated by the electric light. Hydrokinone is more luminous
than the isomeric resorcin or pyrocatechin ; in the same way
pyrogallic acid was shown to be faint as compared with phloroglucin. All alkaloids forming fluorescent solutions become
phosphorescent at low temperatures. The hydrocarbons,
alcohols, acids, and ethers, of the fatty series, are all more or
less active, and glycerin, sulphuric and nitric acids are all
very bright, whilst concentrated hydrochloric acid and
strong ammonia are also very bright. Colored salts generally
show very little activity. Water, when pure, is only feebly
phosphorescent, but remarkably so when impure. Acetic
acid and acetanide appeared fairly equal in luminosity ; hippuric acid was very fine, and so were most substances con
taining a ketone group. Lithium platino-cyanide changed
from white to red on cooling, and was excelled in phosphor
escing power by yellow ammonium platino-cyanide, which
was exceedingly bright.
133
Definite organic substances possessing exceptional powers

of phosphorescence when stimulated at 180 C. are acetophenone, benzophenone, asparagin, hippuric acid, phthalic
anhydride, urea, creatin, urethane, succinimide, triphenyl
methane, diphenyl, salicylic acid, glycogen, aldehyde, ammo
nia, etc.
SOME REMARKABLE RESULTS.
Very remarkable were some results obtained by the pro

fessor with an egg and a feather. The egg shone brilliantly
as a globe of blue light, and the feather was equally brilliant,
its outline in the darkened theatre being clearly seen.
Other organic substances giving excellent results were
cotton, wool, paper, leather, linen, tortoise shell, and sponge,
all of which phosphoresced brightly, as did also a white
flower, a cultivated species of dianthus. Colored glasses and
papers do not, as a rule, exhibit any phosphorescence, and
when the alcohols are colored by the addition of a trace of
iodide, the luminous effect is destroyed. Milk was shown
to be highly phosphorescent and much brighter than water.
Metals also phosphoresce, but in this case the action is due
to some organic film deposited from the air, because it dis
appears on ignition. If the metal is subsequently touched,
the phosphorescence reappears.
Ordinary albumen is one of the most difficult bodies to
cool properly, on account of its tendency to expand and break
the tubes. It was shown, however, to possess greater phos
phorescing power than the yolk of an egg, white bodies
being generally inferior to colored ones in this result, and on
cooling a layer on the outside of a test tube and exposing it
to light passing through a quartz lens it exhibited a marvel
ous brilliancy.
The difference in luminosity when glass intervened was,
of course, due to the fact that glass is somewhat opaque to
the violet and ultra-violet rays, the latter of which are most
necessary to stimulate bodies and so induce phosphorescence.
Caustic soda, and many salts not normally phosphorescent,
are markedly so at low temperatures. As a rule, the chloro-,
bromo-, sulpho-, and nitro-substituted bodies show nothing,
134
" What Electricity Is"
or are but faintly luminous. Among basic bodies, nicotine

is more luminous than quinoline or pyridine.
[NOTE.Possibly, as an outcome of these experiments, some connection may
be shown to exist between phosphoresence and the structure of matter.
Already Professor Dewar has reason to believe that bodies may be naturally
classified, according to their luminous power, at low temperatures. As a pro
visional generalization, it may be considered that the greater the complexity
of structure in a body, the more likely is it to phosphoresce; probably on
account of the increased facility with which its structure enables it to take up
the light vibrations. Again, the luminosity of some of the heavenly bodies
may be due to phosphorescence at extremely low temperatures. However
this may be, Professor Dewar's researches will probably throw fresh light on
the constitution of matter; and further developments will be awaited with
general interest.]
"WHAT ELECTRICITY IS."

(Scientific opinion is invited.)
" Do you suppose we will ever know what electricity is ?"
As I have been asked that question more frequently than any
other since I became an electrician, I will try to clear the
electrical atmosphere a little, and endeavor to bring this ap
parently mysterious agent down to the level of those forces
with which we consider ourselves on more familiar terms,
and in this attempt the reader is presumed to have only a
common school knowledge of matters scientific.
Before considering, however, the immediate question what
electricity is, it will be well to ascertain first what we really
know about other natural forces, such as gravitation or heat,
both of which we observe in daily operation with -a sort of
contempt that is born of familiarity.
What, then, is gravitation ?
After a little reflection we are compelled to admit that it
is quite beyond our powers to define clearly what gravitation
is. We can only say at best that a terrestrial force affects all
material bodies in accordance with certain fixed principles
called the laws of gravitation, and on asking some professor
of science the question, he replies: " Gravitation is a mani
festation of energy, and its laws are so and so."
Let us try again. " What is heat ?"
" What Electricity Is."
135
Heat, we say, is a mode of motion, but we at once concede

that this definition is rather unsatisfactory, and does not
give us a clear idea what heat is. We know, however, that
heat affects different material substances differently. The
same degree of heat, for instance, melts one substance and
freezes another, and we make daily use of this knowledge.
Going again to the professor of science, he replies as be
fore, that " Heat is a manifestation of energy, and the laws
of its action are so and so." We note that his answer is the
same to both questions, so he has made at least one signifi
cant idea plain, which is this : Both heat and gravitation
are manifestations of energy, and so far at least are one and
the same thing. The only important thing, after all, seems
to be a knowledge of the laws that explain the action of
these forces when at work, for this alone makes them sub
servient to our needs.
Every form of force, therefore, should be regarded as a diferent method or way in which the same thing, more properly
spoken of as energy, makes itself known to the senses.
Of energy itself we can have no intrinsic knowledge, be
cause it is intangible and invisible ; and electricity is no
more mysterious in this respect than heat or gravitation. It
is fortunately placed within our power to learn by study and
experiment the laws that control the action of any force, and
it is, indeed, a great thing to say, even in this nineteenth
century, that the laws defining the behavior of electricity,
though of comparatively recent date, are as clearly formu
lated and as thoroughly understood as are those concerning
heat or any known force.
The expression, " Energy in the form of heat, energy in
the form of electricity," etc., is a trifle clumsy, but very
conducive to clear reasoning, and leads us to the consid
eration of an important law of nature, which, thoroughly
grasped, will bring the answer to our question, " What is
electricity ? " clearly into view.
This law is known as the principle of the conservation of
energy, and teaches that energy or force, like matter, is in
destructible. Thus, for illustration, a smith beats a nail with
186
a hammerraising the hammer against the gravity force, he

brings it down with considerable power. He is not only
doing work, but he seems to be expending or actually
destroying energy, for to the superficial observer a certain
amount seems to disappear at every blow, but the principle
we are now considering tells us this cannot be the case. It
tells us that force cannot be got rid of, it only seems to disap
pear by changing form, always appearing somewhere else in a
new guise or dress. Thus, as the nail is hammered, we soon
become aware of a new form of energy that has appeared on
the scene without any apparent reason or excuse for its pres
ence. In fact, the nail has become hot, and the question
arises, Where did this new energy in the form of heat come
from?
We now know that the heat apparently born of the action
of hammering is the mechanical energy expended by the
smith appearing in a new form; it is the same identical
energy that was delivered to the nail by the blows of the
hammer, and precisely the same amount. That is the con
servation of energy.
Having this law clearly in mind, we are prepared to attack
the main question, " What is electricity ? " for the law says
that all force is one, though its guise or form of manifesta
tion may be undergoing ceaseless change.
Take an illustration that comes a little nearer to our sub
ject. Nothing at first appears so mysterious as the attrac
tion a magnet exerts upon a piece of iron or steel, but this is
only because we are not accustomed to deal with this form
of attraction, and on reflection we are forced to the conclu
sion that magnetic attraction is no more to be wondered at
than the attraction of gravitation; both are phenomena of
nature, and both are equally calculated to excite surprise at
first view.
Whenever a force of attraction holds two bodies to
gether, or tends to do so, we use some other force, generally
in the form of heat, to separate them. Thus a heavy body
rests upon the earth, held there by gravity ; to lift it we use
mechanical energy. In some way, however, this mechanical
137
force always comes from heat, as when a steam engine is

made to do the work ; or if muscular power be used, as that
of a man or a horse, the power is still traceable to the same
source, for in this case also the force exerted originates in the
heat energy of the food, made available for use by combus
tion in the body, which is furnace, boiler, and engine all in
one machine, and which enables us to exert the muscular
power derived from the heat energy of food in a useful way.
If, on the other hand, gravity attraction is free to work
by causing a weight to fall from a height, then whenever
the falling body is either arrested entirely in its course, or
its motion is merely checked by a resistance, the gravity
force at work passes to the heat form.
These transformations between mechanical energy and
heat are quite generally understood. They are merely dwelt
upon here because of the close parallel that follows when we
apply the principle of the conservation of energy to cases
less familiar.
Return now to the magnet which holds a piece of iron
so firmly that it requires considerable force to tear it away,
and suppose power be applied to remove it. What becomes
of the mechanical energy thus exerted ? It seems to have
passed entirely out of existence, and it will require the clos
est scrutiny to follow the elusive changes of force that take
place in this simple act of separating the iron from the mag
net. "We may be sure, however, that the force has been
neither lost nor destroyed, and we must look for its appear
ance somewhere in the system in which the mechanical force
was expended.
Continue for some time to rapidly apply the piece of iron
to the magnet, and as quickly pull it away again. It will
in time become warm, and eventually hot, as a result of this
process, and so will the magnet also, though in a less degree.
Here then is force, that was originally exerted in the
mechanical form, as push and pull to overcome the attrac
tion of the magnet, appearing as heat in the piece of iron,
and it looks very much as if we had simply converted
mechanical energy into heat, as before explained. Energy,
138
however, is often very elusive in passing from one form to

another, and closer investigation in this case will show that
the change from the mechanical to the heat form 'involved
another step which escaped our notice, simply because the
intermediate form of force was not evident to the senses.
Thus our senses, too completely relied upon, are apt to cheat
us sometimes. The truth of the matter is that the mechani
cal action of pulling the piece of iron away from the magnet
and putting it back, set up electric currents in the mass of
the iron, which, though not apparent to the eye or the sense
of touch, could be detected by a compass ; and these currents
flowing back and forth in the iron heated it, because every
conducting substance, however good a conductor of elec
tricity it may be, opposes some resistance to the flow of
electricity through its mass, and if the electricity is forced
through it against this resistance, the conductor will be
heated as a consequence. We see, therefore, that two trans
formations took place in the iron instead of one.
Mechanical force applied to remove the iron from the
magnet was first changed to the electric form of energy,
existing as electric currents in the iron, but discoverable
only with a compass or other suitable instrument, and not
evident to the senses. The iron, however, opposing a resist
ance to the flow of the electric currents in its mass, altered
the energy again to the heat form, when it became again
evident to the senses, but in passing through these different
stages it was always one and the same energy, different con
ditions and resistances having twice quickly altered its form
or mode of manifestation.
It is important here to note how resistance of one kind or
another is always the agent that acts to alter energy from
one form to another. The attraction of the magnet (magnet
ism) opposed a resistance (mechanical) to the iron being
pulled away, but this resistance was overcome, and the
original forces were altered instantly by the resistance to the
electric form, existing momentarily as electric currents in the
iron. The iron opposed, however, an inherent resistance to
the flow of electric currents through its mass, but they must
139
flow because the iron \vas forcibly pulled away in the first
placethe fact which started all these changes going, and
which must come to a logical end. The resistance the iron
opposed to electric flow was therefore overcome, but as a
direct result the force at work (electricity) has again changed
form, and now appears as heat, in which form it is radiated
and dissipated into surrounding space.
It would, therefore, appear that electricity, as we have here
observed it, is simply a form or manifestation that the one
force better spoken of as energy may assume under given
conditions, and generally, as in the case cited, it is a mere
transitory stage between the mechanical form and the heat
form.
In most operations mechanical force passes to the heat form
without passing through the electric form ; but, whenever
magnetism is brought into play as a resistance that must be
overcome, then mechanical power applied to overcome this
resistance always becomes electricity, if only momentarily
in its passage from the mechanical to the heat form.
Can we not now answer in a fairly satisfactory way the
question, " What is electricity ? " by saying that it is simply
a form that energy may assume while undergoing transforma
tion from the mechanical, or the chemical, form to the heat
form, or the reverse ?
In this attempt at a definition I have purposely referred to
energy in the chemical form, not heretofore referred to, as it
is not apparent from the illustration given where the electric
current of a battery comes from, and how, in this case, it is
also traceable to a mere trapsformation of energy.
There are, fortunately, many ways of obtaining energy in
the electric form ; but in nearly every case, if not quite all,
it will exist as a transitory state of energy in its passage
from some other form to the heat form. Thus, in the case
of a battery, we start with energy in the chemical form, by
which we mean the affinity or strong tendency that an acid
has to unite with a metal to form a new combination, this
chemical energy or affinity being a potential force of nature,
like gravitation or magnetism.
140
Mental TrainingA Remedy for ''''Education."
As long as the circuit of the battery is closed, or, in other

words, as long as a path is afforded for the electric current
to flow, the chemical change will go on. When the path is
broken or interrupted in any way, the chemical change will
practically cease, because no transformation to heat through
the electric form can now take place. While, however, the
path is closed, chemical change is going on, an electric
current is flowing through the wire path, the wire becomes
heated, and there is dissipation of heat by radiation from
the wire, in direct proportion to the amount of chemi
cal energy expanded ; but the energy, before appearing as
heat, has been momentarily in the electric form, and can be
discovered by placing a compass under the wire path, which
is made hot by the invisible and intangible electric current.
Thus, the definition derived from our simpler illustration,
holds also true in this case, and the conservation of energy,
rigidly applied, will thus make the existence of force in any
form clear to the eye of the inind.
MENTAL TRAININGA REMEDY FOR

" EDUCATION."
WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN.
There are two great things that education should do for
the individualit should train his senses, and teach him to
think. Education, as we know it to-day, does not truly do
either ; it gives the individual only a vast accumulation of
facts, unclassified, undigested, and seen in no true relations.
Like seeds kept in a box, they may be retained, but they do
not grow. For years the mind is filled with facts that the
mind is not trained to digest. To the physical body food is
of value only when it is digested, so it is in the mind, with
mental food ; but if digestion were made continuous, perfect,
and ever equal to the supply of food, overfeeding either in
mind or body would be impossible. But in the education
of to-day the digestion is not equal to the feeding.
Mental TrainingA Remedy for ''''Education."
141
The greatest educational need of the individual is a trained

minda mind that is ready on the instantnot the next
day. With most persons the intellectual brilliancy, the proper
thing to say, comes as an after-thought. An after-thought
is but a beautiful possibility designed to fit a lost opportu
nity. It is no more helpful to a man than a flattering epitaph
on his tombstone. With most persons this wit is like a
night telegram,it is not delivered until the next morning.
Man expects his hand to be instantly ready to perform any
motion of which it is capable ; but he is resigned if his
mind does not act quickly. He says that readiness is born
with people ; it cannot be acquired. If man's heart, lungs,
or stomach are weak, he consults specialists, and never gives
up until he obtains relief. But if he cannot remember
names or faces; if he is subject to that intellectual remorse
known as after-thought ; if he has no eye for color, or taste
for music; if he has no command of language; if there is
lack of power in any respect in his mind, he is perfectly
resigned, and says, "I am as God made me, and so I must.
remain." When man fails he always does this. He says, " I
am as God made me ; " but when he succeeds, he proudly
proclaims himself a "self-made man." It is not necessary
to submit to any mental weakness. Training will do even
more for the mind than for the body.
The system of mental training by analysis, law, and anal
ogy briefly outlined in this paper, seeks to educate the mind,
to quicken, intensify, and develop its working, as a physician
does with the body, toning, and exercising all weak parts.
By a system of exercises it would train every sense, every
faculty, every memory, every power, part, and phase of mind,
every mental muscle, making it supple and instantly respon
sive,as a massage stimulates the body. It would reveal to
man his power and his weakness, teach him to know himself.
Man, whatever be his line in life, needs a trained mindone
quickened, and in best health and condition, to be used in
whatever be his activity. Education should give all men
this general ground-work of power, even if it give nothing
more. An untrained mind is like a torch,flickering,
142
Mental TrainingA Remedyfor "Education."
uncertain,scattering,wasting,andlosingits light. The trained

mind is like a search-light, that instantly cau turn every ray
of its energy ill perfect concentration upon any one point.
It is not the energy it takes to do a thing that tires men, it
is the energy they waste. Most men every day waste enough
energy to run a genius. The fault with persons is, not that
they have not good minds, that they are not naturally bright,
but merely that their minds are not trained, not systematized,
not reduced to order. This power " education" does not
give ; but it should give it as the fulfillment of its first duty.
In aught that may seem sweeping in this article, I wish it
understood as relating to the " system," and in no wise a
criticism of the splendid work of individual teachers, pro
fessors, and other educators who have been successful. What
ever success they may have had has been in revolt against
conventional machine-methods.
Medical science to-day tells us that a single fundamental
weakness in one organ in the physical body may assert itself
successively in the' course of years under perhaps a dozen
distinct phases in as many parts of the body. All may be
traceable, if our diagnosis be sufficiently analytic to discover
the unity masquerading beneath these disguises, to one dis
order. To this " root " we must direct all our energies. So
it is with the many weaknesses and failures in the education
of to-day. The root-weakness is constant impression without
a corresponding expression. Under a hundred phases is this
constant basic failure shown. Before pressing this point
further, let us seek for a moment to simplify the workings
of the mind.
The mind may be divided roughly into three parts, or facul
tiesImpression, Repression, and Expression. The first, Im
pression, receives all raw material through the sensessee
ing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, and the muscular
sense. The second is Repression, or memory, which by
cerebration analyzes all this raw material, combines, recombines, deepens, and classifies it ready for expression. The
third, or Expression, uses the material the senses have
received and memory has classified,in writing, speaking,
Mental TrainingA Remedy for "Education"
143
clear formulation in words, drawing, or some other form of

outward activity. Any thought expressed becomes modi
fied by meeting new thought, re-enters the mind, is again
retained in memory, again expressed; and this trifold process
is endlessly repeated. In the perfect mind this process is
constant and continuous ; in all minds the tendency to this is
us natural as the circulation of the blood. Our modern edu
cation forces material into the mind (and even this through
untrained senses) and, without a corresponding expression,
the mental food becomes congested, clogged, and unavailable.
Impressions, instead of being classified for instant readiness,
are buried under succeeding layers of impressions, as geologic
strata overlie and conceal each other.
Does not all the inability of an ordinary college graduate
lie in this matter of expression ? Is his mind quick to an
alyze a new subject and to see it in its relations ? To ask a
good question ? To give a quick illustration ? To make a
fair description ? To be ready in conversation? To sum up,
to epitomize, to formulate his own views ? To make a gen
eralization? He has information, but so has a library; he
has a vocabulary, but so has a dictionary. To be of service
to him in the battle of life his information and his vocabu
lary must be held in immediate readiness. Mental training
recognizes these three divisions ; gives each careful exercises
to keep each in its best condition as a part of the instrument,
and then trains the mind to pass every impression through
the trifold processa training that soon results in automatic
action. Perfect education in any line is but conscious train
ing of mind or body to act unconsciously.
This system of training by analysis, law, and analogy
is seen in perfect working in the mind of a child before it
has been perverted by false education. The mind of the child
is constantly analyzing. It is constantly seeking to trace
effects back to causes ; to predict effects from causes : it then
seeks constantly to know the how, the why, the reason, the
law governing what it sees. Then the child, wiser than it
knows, grasps the great truth that all law is universal, and
seeks to project the law discovered in the single instance into
144
Mental TrainingA Remedy for "Education."
other fields by analogy, saying, " "Well, if that's so, then

this must be so." A short time in public school tends to
weaken and almost stifle this process forever. The mind of
the greatest philosopher cannot rise above this trifold pro
cess of analysis, law, and analogy ; his discoveries become
great only as he dares to use this process to its perfection ;
dares to project it far into the hidden mysteries, reach the
revelation, and then verify the revelation by slow, careful
presentation of attesting facts. Newton's discovery of the
law of gravitation and Darwin's law of the survival of
the fittest were but supreme manifestations of this pro
cess. And a process, too, so wonderful as to be seen on
close, careful study, in a minified form, in every instance
wherein the mind has done its duty. This bird's-eye view
of the subject forbids fuller amplification of the possibilities
of these three words, analysis, law, and analogy. But when
taught in this spirit, with growing reverence for law, from
its most simple phase of mere "why" in a trivial instance,
to the grandeur of some majestic law that binds a million
of these " whys " into a simple formula,like a great cable of
countless strands,mental training becomes more than mere
mental education. The recognition of the inevitability of
consequent that comes from the growing belief in law
law, natural, mental, physical, moral, spiritualsoon enters
into the very fibers of man's character, and becomes an ethi
cal training that puts him into harmony with all that is best,
all that is highest, noblest, and exalred. It shows him that
his true mental training must be based on the harmonious
quickening, perfecting, and unifying of his mental, his
physical, and his moral nature.
Returning to the training of impression, the beginning of
all true education should be the direct training of the senses
of the individual. It is of vital importance that they, the
instruments that bring to him all the raw material of thought,
should be trained to bring clenr, vivid impressions to the
mind. Man may need his Latin, his Greek, or his calculus
occasionally in daily life, but his trained senses he needs
every moment. He needs to remember a face ; to recall a
Mental TrainingA Remedy for "Klucation."
145
date; to have some one's name ready on the tongue in an in

stant. Hundreds of instances might be cited to show the
constant call upon the sense?, and man may blame his mind
as weak and unreliable when it is merely his senses that have
been shamefully slighted and perverted. A piece of wood
that a man with a dull knife spends an hour in shaping into
a rude, clumsy boat, represents but the easy pleasure of a few
moments if that knife were sharp, sure, and quickly respon
sive tohis directing. " Education " is long, hard, tedious, and
a comparative failure in the end, even from the standpoint
of mere memorizing, partly because of this fundamental neg
lect of the senses. The child at its geography lesson, in so
simple a thing as bounding the States, wastes a terrific
amount of energy with but little real permanent gain.
With hard study he goes over the boundary by rote, re
hearsing the combination of descriptive words until he has
them "fixed in mind," so that they may be glibly presented
to the teacher on demand. This gives the child but the se
quence of words, not a distinct idea of the situation of the
State that is desired. This is the hard, tiresome method of
most children. Were the child trained by exercises in the
sense of sight, he would take a clear, vivid, and permanent
mental picture of the map of the United States which he
would never forget, and which he could revive at will.
Many men fail in spelling, hopelessly surrendering to the
belief that they " never can learn to spell," because the power
of visualizing words has never been developed. The study
of language, and the power of the sounds of words and of
their correct pronunciation, must come through an appeal to
the ear. There are few, relatively speaking, even among our
best educated men and women, who give the true, pure pro
nunciation of words in our own tongue. Often they cannot
detect any difference between two distinctly different sounds
of a vowel, showing that the ear bus not been trained to
delicate discrimination. This training is too vital, too farreaching in its possibilities, to be passed by with incidental,
occasional exercises in color, form, and size. It should be the
slow, careful, systematic training of all the sensessight,
VOL. I.10
146
Mental TrainingA Remedy for Êducation."
hearing, touch, taste, smell, and the muscular sense. Begin

ning in the very lowest classes with simple, easy, and inter
esting exercises and environment, this training should never
be lost sight of during the whole school and college course
of the individual. If modern education does nothing more
than this, if it would do nothing more than give the indi
vidual command of his senses, and teach him to thinkthis
alone would be great, infinitely better than making him a
mere weak solution of a hundred text-books.
The kindergarten does excellent work in the earlier train
ing of children; but even here is grave danger of merely
exercisimg impressions, and of falling in with the one-sided
development of the age, in making the exercises almost
exclusively an appeal to the eye, with but little definite and
specific call upon the other senses. But each of the senses
is of vital importance. Each has its limited range of im
pression, and no one can perceive what any other perceives.
The eye sees color; but we cannot smell, hear, taste, or touch
color. To perceive any phenomenon perfectly, we must test
it by all the senses, and no development of any one can com
pensate for the lack of training of another. Our concept of
anything is formed from the union of impressions received
through all the senses. With any one sense weak, our im
pression of the whole is weakened in proportion. An illu
sion is something that deceives one or two of the senses ; but
this is usually corrected through one of the others. Ko
illusion is clever enough to deceive all the senses. The six
senses are placed as six separate sentries to the mind ; they
separately challenge every phenomenon, making it name not
one pass-word, but six, before admitting it to the mind.
Therefore, each of the senses should be trained. But in our
lack of training we have permitted this beautiful cooperation,
this exquisitely perfect system of nature for the testing, classi
fication, and mastery of each fact, to fall into disuse.
Training the senses should exercise them constantly and
progressively (1) in taking clear, distinct images ; (2) in vivid
reproductions ; (3) in increasing the grasp of each sense, and
(4) in widening its range. These four phases are vital parts
147
of all training. The importance of clear, mental images in

the mind cannot be overestimated, and as this imaging is
developed more and more, the mind grows from vividness in
appreciation of concrete images to strong power in imaging
the abstract ; of thinking in phenomena. By constant exercise
in taking clear mental images, the mind is soon able, with a
single glance of the eye at a statuette, a print, a/ace, a name, a
date, a scene, to retain it in all its completeness in the mind.
Then the process of analysis, a constant accompaniment of
every'observation, a vital part of mental training, classifies it
in the mind in a certain relation, illustrative of a certain thing,
or connected with something else. This analysis fixes the
impression as an acid makes permanent the tracings of an
etching on a sheet of copper. The methods and exercises by
which these senses should all be trained for long years, can
not here be even suggested, nor can the plea for proper con
sideration of the so-called " lower senses " be more than noted
in passing. Memory in all its completeness is but the mem
ories of the separate senses. Whenever, then, we train a
sense to perfect working, with analysis, we train the memory
of that one sense. No complicated system of mnemonics or
chain-words is necessary. Many of the memory-systems now
in vogue, those based on artificial associations, are clumsy
expedients, like taking a steam-engine to run a watch.
Constant training in words is a vital part of mental train
ing. Words are but symbols for mental images. As we
quicken the mind to analyze and to note delicate differences
and shades of meaning, we are intensifying its powers of
expression to greater care and accuracy. This at once reacts
upon the impression, making the mind keener and clearer in
its classification, and more quickly responsive in action. This
is but one phase in which this constant analysis in the mind
is trained to higher and more accurate thinking. This one
great need in education to-day is passed by with a trivial
recognition that is a disgrace to education. There can be no
clear expression if there is not clear thinking. One great
failure in our education is that there is too much memorizing
of mere words, instead of memorizing of mental images or
148
Mental TrainingA Remedy for ''''Education"
pictures that these words call forth. Words should be looked

upon as living things ; to be studied in themselves, in all their
forms and phases, rather than merely studied about. We
should have laboratory work in words. Mere study of
synonyms from books will do but little real good ; the words
must be studied in life. I have found classes intensely
interested and quickened for an hour or more in the study of
a few lines of newspaper writing ; perhaps but a criticism of
some famous man of the day. It was studied word for word.
If any word was adjudged strong or fitting, the reason why
it was fitting in that situation was discovered; if it was
weak, in what respect it was weak. If it meant more or
less than the thought required; if it suggested an association
or an element not in harmony, another word was substituted.
In this was something higher than mere dogmatic individual
criticism ; for be the word good or bad the choice must be
justified. The critical and the imaginative faculties of mind
were here trained together; for every substitution of a new
word was an appeal to the imagination sustained by the
judgment. Thus, the ear became wondrously quick to per
ceive the force of a word, its music, its fitness. Words of
color were studied ; words of size, and number, and form ;
words expressing the extremes of ideas; words expressing
differing degrees of intensity of the same quality; the power
of short words ; onomatopes ; words of every class, looked at
from every point of view.
In the beginning of these exercises in words there were
many students who " felt a difference between the words, but
could not express it." A few questions, however ; a few
tests; or the stimulation from the general discussion, soon
showed that the power of expression needed only to be de
veloped. We have many teachers in our schools, and pro
fessors in our colleges, who value words, and seek to teach in
this spirit, so far as the rigidity of the system will permit;
but this is not enough. This study of words is so vital an
element in the training of the mind, that it should be begun
in the very earliest classes, and never be lost sight of in
the whole school and college training of the individual.
Mental TrainingA Remedyfor "Education."
149
Compositions are written by the pupils, and returned to them

with a few red ink interlineations and corrections of mis
spelled words, mispunctuation, wrong capitalization, or errors
in syntax, and but the occasional substitution of a better
word. One hour's study of words before a class, from any
one of these compositions, would be worth more than a
whole term of the usual work.
Questioning is a vital element in this training. Few men
can ask a good, direct question, that pierces the very heart
of an issue. This ability to question must be ready on the
instant ; the next morning the man and the golden opportu
nity have gone. When a man's mind is trained, he not only
has his knowledge classified, but his ignorance formulated
as well. He knows what are the points of which he is in
doubt. On the subject of faith-cure, for instance, a trained
mind would have perhaps a few clearly-defined questions,
doubts, possible misconceptions, as they have been accumu
lating for years, all ready to be delivered in systematic se
quence at the opportunity. These represent what the mind
has left over on the subject after it has classified his knowl
edge of it. These remnants, shreds, and rough edges of
ignorance the mind carefully assorts and piles neatly by* the
side of knowledge. The ignorance is ever ready to move
into knowledge. The goats may become lambs, in the mi
raculous mystery of mental processes, at any moment.
Conversationone of the great educational needs in the
life of an individualis passed by without notice, yet few
powers are of greater value to man's success and pleasure in
life, than quickness and readiness in conversation. The ability
to give an apt illustration, exactly paralleling a thought in
more familiar lines, is a rare power, but there is no reason
why it should be so if men were trained instead of being
merely "educated." The ability to define, to describe, to for
mulate, to systematically approach and study a new subject or
idea, to make individual deductions, should be the subject of
daily exercise. Reading, in all its phases ; the power to ab
sorb, to select, to condense, to epitomize ; the ability to know
how to study reference books; to use what one has read, not
150
as he has read it, but as that reading has become absorbed

and permeated by his individuality, should mean daily exer
cise for years. This mental training seeks to give man a full,
rounded development ; building up his mind and strength
ening it wherever it is weak. It must not be thought that
mental training would be a great cost to the State, for with
a decreased list of studies, and a diminution in the years of
service required for the course, it would really cost much
less than the elaborate menu now provided.
A single illustrative case from memories of mental clinics
will make my meaning clearer as to the practical use of
analysis, law, and analogy in observation. To a gentle
man taking a course in mental training, I was speaking of
the importance, in observation, of constant preparation for
instant use, and of the value of passing every impression
through this trifold process. We were just leaving the
Museum of Art, when I asked him what he had observed,
what he had classified and stored in his mind from what we
had seen ; for we had gone to the gallery with the idea of
training rather than for the mere aesthetic pleasure of the
pictures. He said he could not recall anything special,
but he gave a good list of statues and pictures as we had
seen them, showing that his eye-memory was well developed.
" This," I said, " is good so far as it goes. But in itself it
is not observation. The mere use of the senses is not obser
vation. They are but the instruments of observation, as the
telescope is the instrument of the astronomer. Observation
is impression plus deduction ; impression plus individual in
terpretation ; it is what we see, plus what we think of it. A
photographic camera can retain what passes before it, but it
cannot observe; the phonograph, that marvelous new,ear of
science, can hear and repeat what it has heard, but it cannot
observe. In every observation there should be a deduction, a
judgment, a classification, the beginning of an attempt at
generalization.
"Let us now test the gallery by our trifold process of anal
ysis, law, and analogy. First, what picture in the whole
gallery did you like best ? " This forced him to pass every
151
picture that he remembered in the gallery through a process

of analysis, more or less perfect, qualitative and quantitative.
After a few moments he decided on " Thesnulda before the
German Court." You remember the painting, a tall, regal
woman leading a child by the hand. She stands a captive in
queenly contempt before a barbaric Teuton court, lying at
ease on skins of animals. " What is the focus of the pic
ture ? " was the first question. " Thesnulda." " Wherein is
the great power of Thesnulda?" "Her face." "Now we
have roughly analyzed it, let us seek the secret of the face,
its force, its law. What does the face mean, what does it
show ? " In a few moments we decided that " it was the
noble superiority of a great nature that, in the moment of its
abasement, rises above its persecutors." "And now for the
analogy. Where in all your reading, conversation, or obser
vation can you recall a situation wherein such an expression
would have risen on the face of any individual?" "Galileo,
when he said, 'but the earth does move.'" "Another?"
After a little hesitation he said, " John Huss at the stake,
when they lighted the fagots." "Another ? " " Regulus
before the Carthaginians." "Another?" "The same ex
pression, softened, purified, and sanctified, would appear
on the face of Christ on Calvary." "That is enough. You
have passed this picture through the process of analysis, law,
and analogy, and have formulated a clear expression for your
impression. It may be that years from now you will again
see such a face, or hear of it, or read of it. Your prepared for
mulation will spring forth of itself; you will not have to halt
and stammer, and then build up a weak, tentative expression
of it. At the same time, the instances of Thesnulda before
the German Court, Galileo before his persecutors, John Huss
at the stake, Regulus before the Carthaginians, and Christ
on Calvary, will be revived together. You have trained them
to answer to a given call. You have made an appointment
with them. You have started a new centre of localization
in the brain, at which all similar instances later will be auto
matically classified. They are grouped, not by any accidental
resemblance, but by the highest psychological basis of classi
152
ficationlaw, the oneness of relation between cause and effect

shown in all."
A few other pictures were then studied, with a remark
able increase noted in quickness and grasp. In these exer
cises it was all individual work ; he was not repeating what
he had heard, he was thinking for himself. Some one else
might have given only one, weak analog}*, but the process
would have been the same. It may be said that this would
be an exceedingly tiresome process if one had to go through
it every moment, with each new impression. It would be
tedious were it always conscious ; but it is only a matter of
effort for a few times, then, at the mere glance of the eye,
the mind carries out the process. It would be hard if
we always had the same difficulty in writing our names as
we did at our first trial ; if bicycle riding were always ac
companied by the early "headers" and the delicate studies
in equilibrium ; but these efforts soon sink as processes below
the horizon of consciousness, and become almost automatic.
We are in this exercise, and in all others, only intensifying
and quickening a process all go through. It may be in a very
vague way, so misty as to seem only an emotion of pleasure,
or a feeling of interest without thought of process, or so al
most simultaneous with the impres>ion as to seem instant
and indescribable. This process would not blunt the resthetic
pleasure in the pictures, any more than a man's enjoyment
of a banquet would be lessened because the food were being
perfectly digested.
One of the new type-setting machines has an ingenious
mechanism for distributing the type after it is used. The
ninety different pieces of type used have as many different
kinds of nicking, all types of the same letter being nicked
identically. A large cylinder, with longitudinal ribs extend
ing from top to bottom, holds the type. These ninety ribs
are bent to correspond to the nickings of the type, and these
pieces of type fall in a continuous string as the key-board is
manipulated. In distributing the type after using, the "mat
ter" is placed, just as it is taken from the press, on a revolv
ing drum over the stationary cylinder, of the same diameter.
153
As the upper drum revolves, each piece of type falls when it

reaches the ridge to which it corresponds. In the same way
with a trained mind, the illustration, thought, word, or com
ment, drops down automatically at the pressure of need.
This is not an artificial system of mental training to " teach
one never to forget." It is not memory training, but mental
training. It is training the mind so that each new impres
sion calls out the classified activities of the mind on the
instant. If you put a package on the pan of a grocer's scale,
the index figure moves round on the dial and stops at the
number indicating the weight. If you press in succession
a number of buttons in an adding machine, instantly the
sum of those numbers is flashed before you. So it should be
with the mind; there should be instant decision, not because
the decision is given without thought, but because that de
cision represents years and years of thought and deep analy
sis of the principles and relations making up the decision.
An impromptu is but the lightning revelation of stored
memories instantly and perfectly combined to fit a need.
This process of mental training by analysis, law, and
analogy, is not a machine system to take in an ordinary man
and to turn him out a genius. It fully recognizes the dif
ferences in mental equipment ; it does not believe that men
are born equal ; it does not attempt to make them equal. It
aims only to give man power over the mental capital he has,
no matter how little it may be,to make it instantly avail
able; and it shows him how to ever increase this capital. It
teaches man to have all his powers in mental cash ; not in
checks, notes, or other forms of futures.
This training no "education" gives. If man were to have
the most complete education of our schools and colleges, with
the additional polish of the best European universities ; if he
never forgot one single thing he had ever learned: with all
this he would not have a trained mind. What, then, of the
millions who have less than this? Man, at the end of this
period of study, should have either the facts he has studied,
or the mental quickness from these facts, to apply to any
subject in life. I cannot see how education can escape this
154
Mental TrainingA Remedy for ''''Education"
dilemma. As the mere product of education, merely looking

at man from the standpoint of what education has done for
him rather than his natural abilities, he has neither. Few
men, two or three years after graduating, can give a good,
fair ten-minute outline, or resume, of any subject they have
studiednot ten minutes mere talking here and there on the
subject, but a clearly formulated grasp of its essentials. They
have neither the facts nor the mental strength and quickness
to coordinate those facts. Is mere culture and refinement, in
itself, a sufficient return for these years of study? The
amount of facts necessary to be studied and learned by man
is far less than is commonly supposed. The trained mind
will absorb and assimilate so much by its mere activity.
The cry comes from Germany, England, and other Euro
pean countries that the masses are overeducated and unfitted
for anything but the professional life. If education were
mental training, this condition could never occur. They
could not have the mind in "too perfect" a condition, just
as it is impossible to have the body " too healthy." A
man able to show he had spent these years in mental train
ing, would be valuable in any line of life, and no matter
what his duties,be they humble or great,he would do
them better because of his training. For the future of edu
cation there are many hopeful signs in the first rays of dawn
of mental training, that already warm and color the horizon.
The kindergarten teachings and methods of Froebel, with his
wondrous insight into the child mind, and the splendid work
of the past few years, is already bearing rich fruit. It seems
almost impossible to conceive of any higher educational
method for the youngest children than the pure educational
theory of Froebel. Occasional failures come from an incom
plete grasp of his theory, and from the danger of making the
exercises merely arbitrary and mechanical, but these are
only slight and incidental, not essential. Color-work, ac
cording to the Prang system, in the primary classes, is an
other step in the right direction ; the extension of drawing
is another ; manual training another ; the growing scientific
spirit of education, the passing away of examinations, the
155
broadening of options in studies in our colleges, and the

growing, live, liberal spirit of education are all hopeful, and
great steps in advance. Many others might be noted if space
permitted. Wonderful progress is made in the first year of
the child at school, but the progress weakens thereafter, and
is not proportionate. Our psychologic discovery, as shown
in recent experimental psychology, is far in advance of our
educational methods ; but every psychologic truth should be
translated into the vernacular of educational activity.
Mental training should step in where kindergarten ends.
It is not intended to substitute mental training altogether
for education, but the modification it would make in the list
of studies, and the methods and the term of service, would
so materially change our education, that it would be practi
cally a revolution in a very few years. Copernicus said of
the system of astronomy in vogue in his time, that its very
complexity proved its falsity. So we can say of our system
of education. A radical reform must work slowly, and can
not always begin at the bottom, but it should have recogni
tion of its need there. One thing I would suggest is, that
we have a Chair of Mental Training in our colleges, entirely
distinct from the Chair of Psychology, so well and ably filled
in our universities. The duty of such a professor would be to
take charge of some such course as here suggested ; a course
to take, say, four years, and to cover constant conversations
and exercises on training the senses, memory, reading, ob
servation, conversation, the study of nature, illustration,
imagination, questioning, words, analysis, law, analogy,
etc., etc.
The Professor of Mental Training should also be Consult
ing Physician on the Mind to the students of that college.
A student could go to him and eay, "I have studied my
mathematics faithfully for five weeks, and make no head
way. What is the matter with me? " The professor would
examine into his methods of study, his standing in other
branches; study his mind as a physician would the body, and
discover the reason for the inability. It might be a failure
to master the first problem, and all that followed was impact,
156
Mental Training A Remedy for "Education."
not progress; it may be that the student had an excellent

eye-memory and studied all his mathematics aloud, taking
it in through his weaker sense ; in fact, any of a dozen other
elements may be the one at fault. This discovered, the indi
vidual diagnosis would result in an individual treatment.
And so hours and months and years of wasted energy might
be spared to students, who force their way through many
studies as a gimlet cuts into wood. Xo matter what be the
trouble the student might have in his studies, or in using
them, he would receive some practical advice, because the
infinite instances can be reduced to a few general phases
merely with individual modification.
This training should be part of the normal training of all
teachers; and gradually its effect would be felt in a wonder
ful simplifying and lessening of the list of studies ; the leaven
of reform would then begin to work in the lower grades, and
gradually make itself felt throughout the system. But edu
cation claims, "I do not expect students to remember all
they have learned ; much is given only for mental discipline
and training." Then education must face the issue of re
sults ; its belief and theory are not followed out. It is in the
position of the man of whom his young son said : "Yes, father
is a Christian, but he is not working at it much now." When
man has given the best hours of his early life,from five to
twenty or twenty-five years of age,to education, he should
surely have the mental quickness and control of his mind for
those years. If education cannot justify herself on an ac
counting for that time ; cannot show an equivalent in mental
muscle for those years of study, then she is to that degree
weakunequal to her duty, her opportunity. As a mere
business matter, man should be able to demand of education
a settlement. He should dare to say : " Education, I have
given you fifteen years of faithful service to the course of
study you have establishedwhat have you given to me ? "
And education, if she cannot prove she has been equal to her
trust, must accept man's criticism ; must listen in simple
justice to his plea for special training in all that develops him
as an individual.
The Blood Stains on the Holy Coat.
157
In this series of brief views of the possibilities of mental

training by Analysis, Law, and Analogy, I have been forced
to reduce panoramas to thumb-nail sketches. It has made a
presentation, with everything crowded into the foreground,
like the pictures on the Japanese fans, with no proper per
spective. Much that may seem visionary and experimental,
I have tested and found true in my lectures and individual
instances. I have not left the main thought of this subject,
to question or to discuss the values of any particular studies
or branches. I have not ventured any criticism on the value
of lower or higher education in itself, but only sought to
show that the training of the mind itself ia of supreme, pri
mary importance, and that all true education must give the
individual, at least, a trained mind. If education gives this,
then education can erect upon that trained mind as elaborate
a superstructure of as many studies and branches as the
human mind will stand. But any system which does not
train man's mind, make him an individual, and teach him to
think, whether it be in the village school-house on the plains,
or in the university with its endowments of many millions,
is not equal to its possibilitiesis unjust to the individual.
THE BLOOD STAINS ON THE HOLY COAT.

BY EMILE GAUTIER.1
At the period of history at which we have now arrived
science plays so prominent a part in the machinery of society
generally, exercises so great an influence over people and
things here below, and governs the actions and impregnates
the minds of all to such an extent, that the forces of this
world have been compelled to take it into account in order
that it may not become their enemy. Even religion, which
was so long considered, whether rightly or wrongly, as the
1 Translated and abridged from Le Figaro (Paris).
158
The Slod Stains on the Holy Coat.
irreducible antithesis of science, will be obliged hencefor

ward to treat it respectfully, and, under certain circum
stances, to demand its services and its sacraments. I know
nothing, in this respect, more typical or more suggestive
than the initiative taken by Mgr. Goux, Bishop of Ver
sailles, in resolving to submit for analysis to profane savants
the celebrated seamless coat of Argenteuil, tinged, according
to legend, with the blood of Christ.
The Bishop could not have made a better selection than
when he fixed upon M. Philippe Lafon and M. Roussel to
perform the analysis, for their names were a guarantee that
the pious and delicate task would be carried out with due
regard to scientific orthodoxy, exactitude, precision, and
loyalty. The question which they were requested to solve
was this: "What is the exact nature of the spots which
etain the garment known as the Holy Coat of Argenteuil ?"
It must be admitted that there was nothing particularly
difficult in the task. Thanks to ingenious and subtle pro
cesses, contemporary chemistry is able not merely to say
with absolute certainty whether any particular mark is a
spot of real blood, but to tell us its origin, and whether it is
the blood of a man or an animal ; if of the latter, perhaps
even what animal. If we insisted, chemistry would also tell
us to what race the man who had shed such blood (supposing
it to be human blood) belonged, whether he was in good or
bad health at the time, and whether he lived on the moun
tains or in the plains.
The following well-known tests of the presence of blood
were applied by M. Philippe Lafon and M. J. Roussel, who,
at the request of Mgr. Goux, Bishop of Versailles, certified
that they bad made a chemical and microscopical examina
tion of " the Coat of Our Lord," preserved as a holy relic
in the treasury of the Church of Argenteuil. Their report
was as follows :
I. Reaction of the tincture of guaiacum and the essenfe of turpentine.
After ;i; v : u -; left fragments of the spots to be examined for several hours
in distilled water, we obtained on white filtering paper (or absolutely pure
blotting paper) the impression of two spots. After the application to those
The Blood Stains on the Holy Coat.
159
spots of a few drops of a mixture in equal parts of the tincture of guaiacum

and essence of turpentine, we obtained the green coloration which the blood
gives.
II. Spectroscopical examination.
The aforesaid spots, after a lengthened maceration in distilled water, gave
a solution almost colorless. Our researches with the spectroscope for haemo
globin, for its derivatives and transformations, ended in negative results.
III. The search for blood torputeleg.
We left in contact for several days in artificial serum (composed of dis
tilled water, sea salt, sulphate of soda, and bichloride of mercury), some frag
ments of spots. In this macerated liquid, after scraping and disintegation of
the material composing the coat, we found some rd globules of blood un
changed. The number of these elements, their forms, and their dimensions,
enable us to attest the presence of human blood in the fluid.
IV. Formation of crystals of httmin (blood crystals).
Another portion of the material was treated with a drop of solution of
chloride of sodium in the proportion of 1-1000, and allewed to remain for
several days ; of course, protected from the air. The saline rtsidue, obtained
after evaporation, was submitted to the action of glacial aeetic acid, and that
process was repeated several times. We always saw, by the aid of a micro
scope having a magnifying power of 500 diameters, blood crystals, or chlorohydrate of heematin, the proper elements and characteristics of blood.
V. The iron test.
This method of investigation may be equally utilized to determine the
presence of blood. In our attempts we put in parallel execution two series of
researchesone on a fragment of the material which was spotted, the other
on a fragment devoid of spots. From the two fragments we obtained abund
antly and distinctly all the reactions of iron by ferro-cyanide of potassium,
sulpho-cyanide, etc. The abundance of the reactions of the iron was too great,
in our opinion, to be due to traces of blood. Moreover, these reactions being
equal both in the spotted and unspotted parts of the material, w* cannot but
attribute the iron to the coloring matter with which the garment must have
been originally dyed.
CONCLUSION.
To sum up: From the portion of the Coat marked with rust-colored
spots, we obtained
1. A faint green coloration, with the tincture of guaiaoiim and the essence
of turpentine.
2. The revival of the red globules of blood, with the artificial serum.
3. The formation of crystals of hsmin, or of chlorohydrate of hsematin.
These indications are sufficient to enable us to affirm that the spots ex
amined are actually due to blood and to human blood. Judging by the
whole of our analysis, we presume that this blood is very old.
Drawn up in our laboratory, No. 7, Kue des Saints-Peres, April 10, 1892.
Signed,
PH. LAFON,
J. KOUSSEL.
160
Sanitary Delusions.
Three affirmative results out of five are surely more than

decisive, since, according to the rules of medical jurispru
dence, one such result suffices to carry conviction with it.
(A. Lacassagne, " Vade-Mecum in medecin expert," p. 65.)
Is it not miraculous that with nothing but watch-glasses,
a magnifying glass, some mysterious liquids, and some grains
of apparently harmless powder, we can thus accurately de
termine the presence of blood more than eighteen centuries
old?
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.M. Emile Gautier need not express so much sur
prise, as an event which happened eighteen hundred years ago is recent when
compared with Egyptian remnants dating six thousand years back, to say
nothing of the geological fauna and flora.
SANITARY DELUSIONS.
BY F. L. OSWALD, M. D.
The comparative study of popular fallacies might often
seem to justify the remark of the cynic Heine, that the in
accuracy of the various sciences bears an exact proportion
to the degree of their practical importance.
The prevailing errors respecting the motion of distant
stars and the composition of useless minerals have been cor
rected with indefatigable assiduity, while the most prepos
terous delusions concerning the origin of religions and the
health-laws of nature have been either ignored or tacitly
encouraged.
The necessity of observing a compromise between the
might of truth and the power of established shams cannot
wholly explain that discrepancy, and the persistence of sani
tary fallacies seems to be rather an after-effort of the antiphysical dogmas which for so many hundred years depre
ciated the importance of bodily welfare. Neither spirituous
nor spiritual quacks would, for instance, be apt to object to
an investigation of the alleged facts supporting the current
notions on the origin of " cold," though the truth or error of
Sanitary Delusions.
161
those theories is a question of almost constant personal

interest to millions of our fellowmen, and though their
absurdity could be demonstrated by the evidence of unequiv
ocal experiments.
" I shall not try to explain why catarrhs are caused by
damp rather than by wet clothes," Benjamin Franklin wrote
a hundred years ago, " because I doubt the fact, and suspect
that the causes of respiratory affections are totally inde
pendent of dampness as well as of cold."
Why has the suggestion of that shrewd surmise been so
little heeded? Amateur astronomers have traveled thou
sands of miles, and braved the vicissitudes of wind and
weather, to observe a transit of Venus and verify the con
jecture of a trifling error in the computed distance measures
of the planetary system ; why could no lover of sanitary
science, or of the human species, afford to brave the inconve
nience of a brief exposure to a low temperature, or damp and
cold air currents, in order to test the pleas of a delusion which
in all probability sends an annual average of two million
human beings to a consumptive's grave? In still plainer
words, have we a right to wrangle about the "Aramaic evi
dence of the Post-Pauline miracles," while an investigable
problem of life and death import to a third part of the
human race remains unsolved ?
Hunters, herders, and teamsters, exposed to all the thermal
contrasts of a fitful climate, enjoy an almost constant im
munity from troubles that affect the operatives of wellwarmed factories and the tenants of weather-proof city
dwellings. Consumptives, who cough away their lives in
stove-heated sick-rooms, recover in a highland camp of the
frosty Adirondacs. The sanitarium of a South German
country parson invites public examination of statistics that
prove the cure of lung patients who have been made to walk
barefoot in dew-drenched grass. Conductors and pilots are
none the worse for their daily exposure to the most violent
cold draughts. Camping soldiers who have got rid of socalled chronic lung-affections almost invariable experience a
relapse on their return to barrack-quarters. Is it possible to
VOL. I.11
162
Sanitary Delusions.
mistake the significance of these facts ? Do they not prove

beyond the shadow of a rational doubt that catarrhs are not
caused by cold outdoor air, but exclusively by the impurities
of warm indoor air?
Like the germs of cholera and yellow-fever, lung microbes
thrive in warm miasma, while their development is almost
instantly checked by the influence of pure, cold air, which is,
in fact, as grateful to our respiratory organ as fresh water is
to the palate; and Dr. Graham, in his magic dormitory filled
with perfume and sweet harmonies, cannot have slept sounder
than a Michigan lumberman in his winter camp that admits
the keen night air from all quarters of the compass, but defies
frost with a triple stratum of thick woolen blankets. It
would be decidedly worth the costs of the experiment to col
lect a score of catarrh-troubled tramps in the ill-ventilated
calaboose cells of our American railway centers, and conduct
them to a camp of that sort, where their horror at the pros
pect of work would be speedily allayed by the offer of three
free meals and a dollar a day as an offset to the risk of a free
bivouac on the backwoods plan. If, within a week, every
one of the twenty patients should have got rid of his catarrh,
and if that catarrh should in every case reappear within two
days after the return of the convalescent to an extra warm
calaboose cell, the result ought to be accepted as a conclusive
confirmation of Franklin's conjecture, as well as of the fact
that for more than a thousand years the most effective cure
of lung-disorders has been mistaken for their cause.
A similar experiment would establish the extravagant ab
surdity of the current belief in the perils of a drink of cold
water in the heat. As Herbert Spencer observes, it is time
to rid ourselves of the nightmare belief in a universe so dia
bolically arranged that its evils are attractive and its blessings
repulsive (an idea as common as other echoes of mediaeval antinaturalism). We should learn to trust our welfare to our
sanitary intuitions, and feel sure that a draught of Nature's
'own beverage cannot be injurious at a time when the voice of
instinct calls loudly for refrigeration, and that there is no
tenable physiological pretext for the advice to " wait till you
Sanitary Delusions.
163
are cooled off." We might as well admonish a tired child to

keep out of bed till it had overcome its weariness. During
a summer campaign in the highlands of Southern Mexico I
have again and again seen hundreds of panting soldiers kneel
down at the brink of a cold Sierra brook and quench their
thirst without stint and without the least misgiving of healthimpairing consequences. On one occasion we had failed to
find a drop of good water on an uphill march of fourteen
miles during the warmest eight hours of a sultry midsummer
day, and when at last a turn of the road brought us in sight
of a rivulet, fresh from its rock-spring, some two hundred
and ninety out of three hundred soldiersFrench, Austrians
and Mexicansflung themselves down and drank and drank
till the feeling of actual repletion forced them to desist. We
had still five miles to camp, and I availed myself of the op
portunity to question the mennot in the style of a medical
Rhadamanthus, but as a chat-loving, sympathetic sharer of
their toils. Had they experienced any disagreeable effects
from that horse-dose of cold water?
" Disagreeable ? Indeed, no; it seemed to put ten dollars'
worth of new life in my bones."
" I never felt so well since that cold swim in Lake Lerma;
it braced me up for the rest of the day."
"If you ask my opinion, I should say it would be worth
while to climb those fourteen miles over again for the sake
of a drink like that."
Only one man admitted that the first gulp of cold water
had given him a sort of congested feeling near the root of the
nose, a transient sensation sometimes experienced by hasty
ice-cream eaters. The belief in the deadly effects of cold
drinks is certainly not founded on experience, but partly on
the superstitious dread of cold, in all forms ; partly, also, on
the idea that a refrigerating draught, being extra pleasant
in warm weather, must therefore be extra dangerous. " What
ever is pleasant is wrong," was for centuries the motto of
monastic moralists.
Practical experiments might also demonstrate the truth
that " poison " and " stimulant " are interchangeable terms ;
164
Sanitary Delusions.
and that the stimulant habit is -wholly abnormal, and under

all circumstances prejudicial to physical and moral health.
Poisons are either repulsive or insipid. Arsenic, sugar of
lead, and antimony, belong to the latter class. To the first
born children of earth, certain mineral poisons were de
cidedly out-of-the-way substances, against which Nature
apparently thought it less necessary to provide special safe
guards. But, though less repulsive than other poisons, such
substances are never positively attractive, and often (like
verdigris and potassium) perceptibly nauseous. Vegetable
poisons are either nauseous or intensely bitter. Hasheesh is
more unattractive than turpentine. Opium is acid caustic.
Absinthe (wormwood extract) is as bitter as gall. Instinct
resists the incipience of an insidious second nature.
But that instinct is plastic. If the warnings of our physi
cal conscience remain unheeded ; if the offensive substance is
forced again and again upon the unwilling stomach ; Nature
at last chooses the alternative of compromising the evil, and,
true to her supreme law of preserving life at any cost, pro
longs even a wretched life by adapting the organism to the
exigencies of an abnormal habit. She still continues her
protest, in the feeling of exhaustion which follows every
poison-debauch, but permits each following dose of the in
sidious drug to act as a temporary reinvigorant, or at least
as a spur to the functional activity of the organism ; for the
apparent return of vital vigor is, in fact, nothing but a
symptom of the morbid energy exerted by the system in its
efforts to rid itself of a deadly intruder, and each new appli
cation of the stimulus is as regularly followed by a depress
ing reaction.
And only then the slave of the unnatural habit becomes
conscious of that peculiar craving which is entirely distinct
from the promptings of a healthy appetite ; a craving un
compromisingly directed toward a specialonce repulsive
substance; a craving defying the limiting instincts which
indicate the proper quantum of wholesome foods and drinks ;
a passion which each gratification makes more irresistible.
And every poison known to modern chemistry can become
Sanitary Delusions.
165
the object of that specific craving. Entirely accidental

circumstances, the accessibility of special drugs, imitativeness and the commercial intercourse of special nationsthe
mere whims of fashion, and the authority of medical recom
mendationshave often decided the first choice of a special
stimulant, destined to become a " national beverage " and a
national curse. The contemporaries of the Veda-writers
fuddled with soma-wine, the juice of a narcotic plant of the
Himalaya foothills. Their neighbors, the pastoral Tartars,
get drunk on koumiss, or fermented mare's milk, an abomi
nation which in Eastern Europe threatens to increase the list
of imported poisons ; while opium is gaining ground in our
Pacific States as fast as lager beer, chloral, and patent " bit
ters" on the Atlantic slope. The French have added absinthe
to their wines arid liquors ; the Turks, hasheesh and opiates
to strong coffee ; North America has adopted tea from China,
coffee from Arabia (or originally from Ceylon), tobacco from
the Caribbean savages, high wines from France and Spain, and
may possibly learn to drink Mexican aloe-sap, or chew the
coca leaves of the South American Indians. Arsenic has
its votaries in the Austrian Alps ; cinnabar and acetate of
copper victimize the miners of the Peruvian Sierras ; the
Ashantees are so fond of sorghum beer that their chieftains
have to keep special bamboo cages for the benefit of quarrel
some drunkards. The pastor of a Swiss colony, in the moun
tains of Oaxaca, told me that the highlanders of that neigh
borhood befuddle themselves with cicuta syrup, the inspis
sated juice of a kind of hemlock, that first excites and then
depresses the cerebral functions, excessive garrulity being
the principal symptom of the exalted stage of intoxication.
A decoction of the common fly toad-stool (agaricus maculatus)
inflames the passions of the Kamtchatka natives, makes
them pugnacious, disputative, but eventually splenetic
(Chamisso's Reisen, p. 322). The Abyssinians use a prepara
tion of durra corn that causes more quarrels than gambling.
It is a favorite beverage at festivals, and is vaunted as a
remedy for various complaints, though Belzoni mentions
that it makes its votaries more subject to the attacks of the
166
The Pendulograph.
Nile fever. According to Prof. Vambery, the Syrian Druses

pray, though apparently in vain, to be delivered from the
temptations of foxglove tea.
THE PENDULOGRAPH.
BY REV. JOHN ANDREW, BELFAST.
"He that built all things is God."
Every one who looks at a pendulograph is ready to con

fess that it is " a thing of beauty ;" but every one is also
ready to ask, " But what is it? " In explaining a pendulo
graph, we must trace it to its law, and point out its place in
nature.
The motions of the stars in their courses, the swinging of
pendulums, and the vibrating of musical instruments, are all
under one great lawthe law of GRAVITATION. If the stars in
their courses through the heavens, by a great pen attached to
them, were to leave a line behind them written on the pages
of space ; or if musical instruments would in their rapid vibra
tions record themselves, and by a fine pen attached to them
write a picture that would remain for the delighted eye
after their sounds had died away upon the delighted ear
these drawings, great and small, would be of the nature of
pendulographs.
The wondrous analogies between the harmonies of different
reaches of creation, which pendulographs demonstrate, and
which Mr. Keely's researches in the realms of acoustics
are drawing so deeply upon, prove that the great builder,
God, works throughout the universe under one law, the
law of harmony, and that He Himself conceived the varied
forms in which all things are built. His creative con
ceptions are marshalled in great groups. In each group
a vast variety of forms are further marshalled in lesser
hosts,God is "the Lord of Hosts." "He hath made His
works to be remembered." "The heavens and the earth
were finished, even all the host of them." Constellations ot
The Pendulograph.
167
stars fill the deep of space. Solar systems are formed and
arranged round warming suns. Orbs which are worlds, one of
them at least we know garnished with objects useful and
beautiful, which we first gee as great kingdoms of objects,
mineral, vegetable, and animal ; each kingdom further mar
shalled under great types of structure; these still further
grouped in classes ; these arranged in families with family
features; and these disposed in orders, genera, and species;
each individual creature being of some distinct species, be
longing to some genus, member of some particular family,
disposed in some order ; and the various orders all grouped
in classes under great types of structure and pertaining to
one kingdom or another of creation. Were it not for this
creative classification of the Lord of Hosts we should stand
bewildered, and our memory baffled in the midst of the
multitudinous variety of the natural objects which sur
round us, and in which the Creator has presented His thoughts
to us.
It has been the work of scientific naturalists to seek out
and exhibit this order of nature. Man's mind, being the
offspring of God, works after the same fashion to find out
the structure and plan on which all things are built. Man
himself also works after a similar manner, and his works
arrange themselves by the law of his mind and creative
faculty in certain great groups. As God has presented His
thoughts in His works, so man presents his in the same way ;
everything he does is representative of his thoughts, which,
either by words or works, are symbolized and presented to
the view ; by words of history, poetry, philosophy, or de
scription ; and by works of art useful and fine.
Belonging to the works of fine art are pictures, statuary,
and music; under pictures come paintings, pen-and-ink
sketches, etchings, engravings, photography, lithography,
etc. ; under pen-and-ink sketchings comes pendulography as
one of its orders, with genera and species according to their
kind. A pendulograph, however, differs from other pen-andink sketches ; other pen-and-ink pictures are by the art of
man ; a pendulograph is mostly by the art of God, it is a work
168
The Pendulograph.
of Nature. The pendulographer tunes the ratio, for by the

various ratios of the pendulums are genera produced ; and he
adjusts the penstand by which the species of those genera are
developed, for the penstand determines the species ; and he
starts the pendulums ; things being thus adjusted, all the rest
is left to the great operation of gravitation, and the picture
is built up by a natural action which may not be interfered
with ; the least touch of man would spoil the work.
Jacques Cassini, an eminent astronomer of the royal observ
atory of France in the last century, mapped out the course of
Venus in relation to the earth. From month to month he
noted the relative attitude of the planet through the years
from 1708 to 1716, a period of eight years, when it had re
turned to the same place. Cassini then drew an imaginary
line from month-place to month-place, and thus produced a
most interesting planetograph, written as it were in space.
He did the same for the other planets known in his time, and
thus produced a portfolio of celestial pendulographs, drawn
by these mighty pendulums in their relative movements
under the law of gravitation. Cassini's picture of the position
of Mars relati ve to the earth was continued through the months
from 1708 to 1723, a period of fifteen years, when it returned
to the same place ; that of Mercury was continued from 1708
to 1715, a period of seven years; for Jupiter, the period was
from 1708 to 1720 ; and for Saturn,from 1708 to 1737, a period
of twenty-nine years, in which times these planets wrote their
pendulographs and returned to nearly the same places, not
quite the same. These figures followed through a period,
lengthened out for a great number of generations, would show
that the pictures so written are SPIRALS, and so are all the
pen-and-ink pictures written by oscillating pendulums.
Pendulums, silently swinging, come in between the grand
movements of the stars and the quick vibrations of musical
instruments ; and they are so near, compared with the stars,
and so slow, compared with musical instruments, that we can
easily follow their movements ; and, in fact, looking at the
slow-moving pendulums swinging the harmonies is like look
ing through a magnifying glass at the vibrating strings, and
The Pendulograph.
169
seeing all the mysteries of their motions that are far too quick
for the unaided eye; and by attaching a pen to them we
can make them portray those movements. This is a pendulograph.
A system of pendulums tuned to swing the various ratios of
the musical soak forms a SILENT HARP of extraordinary interest.
A pen placed by means of a universal-jointed arrangement
between any two pendulums of this silent harp so as to be
moved by a blend of their various motions, writes, with all
the precision of gravitation, a portrait of the chord which
two corresponding strings of a sounding harp would utter
to the ear. This spiral writing is a pendulograph.
The pendulums may be of half-inch woodhickory or any
straight wood ; forty-nine inches long ; suspended on knifeedges ; eight inches of the rod being above the point of sus
pension. This upper part will oscillate in the same time as
the under length ; but, of course, in the opposite direction,
and is intended to carry the pen-arms. The suspension should
be in notches in a table, and running at right angles. The
pen-arms are joined to the pendulum top with ball-and-socket
joints; the other ends carrying tubes to hold the pen; the
inner tube holding the pen should move easily but steadily
in the other tube, and these tubes should stand in the angle
of 90. The pen should be made of a glass tube with a fine
polished point ; the ink drawn into it by suction. A little
table must be placed under the pen to carry the paper which
is to receive the writing. The bulbs of the pendulum should
be, say, each six pounds weight, and pierced so as to let them
slide up and down on the rods. The rod having the bulb
placed at the foot may be called the statical pendulum, while
the other has the bulb removed to any point, so as to allow
the perfect tuning of it in relation to the statical pendulum.
It is exceedingly interesting to watch the pendulums when
once their mass has been tuned to any ratio, say 4: 5 or 3:5
or 5 : 6, and see their undeviating obedience to the ordinance
of gravitation ; that wondrous action of the all-upholding
hand of Him who built all things. It is also very interesting
to watch the pen, by the blended movements, diverse yet
170
The Pendulograph.
harmonious, of the two pendulums, quietly but with fearless

sweep writing out the picture of this harmony ; and if undis
turbed there are no mistakes.
Let the paper on which you are to write be placed on a
small circular table, which can be turned on a pivot under
the pen ; and have the table marked as a mariner's compass,
with radial lines running north and south, east and west,
and to twelve intervening points. Have a standard mark near
the table, to which the points of the compass can be succes
sively and accurately set. Have also a series of concentric
circles drawn round the center of the table, on which, as well
as on the radial lines of the compass, the pen can be placed
by shifting the table under it. This we call the penstand ;
which, next to the ratio to which the pendulums are tuned,
is the most important part of the adjustment ; for from this
penstand the various species of the ratio-genus take their rise.
The time which the pendulums take to return to the start
ing point we call a period of the ratio ; each successive period
is a little smaller than the preceding one, till the pendulums
stand still ; so every pendulograph is a spiral line of either a
simple or more complex character, according to the ratio to
which the pendulums are tuned. If a figure is to be repeated
a number of times for a composition, in the way of creating
new designs, or illustrating the development of species, the
lines of the compass must be turned against the standard
mark carefully in succession, according to the number of
figures intended to be built into the composition ; each figure
must have the same number of periods, the sweep of the oscil
lation must also be the same, else one figure will be larger
than another and the symmetry of the composition will be
spoiled. If all these directions be carried out, it will be a
source of interest and delight to see the specific forms which
the same ratio-genus, the same color of ink, the same number
of figures, and the same number of periods in each figure
will produce. Each new penstand will give a new species,
or design. The resources of the instrument, if the artist be
inventive and expert, will excite wonder and admiration.
The ratio is the genus, and the penstand is the species in this
The Pendulograph.
171
domain of nature. Many varieties of the same species may

be obtained by color of ink, number of figures, number of
periods in each figure, and range of oscillation. Every series
of species should be headed by a figure of the ratio, which
is the genus to which they all belong; and this single figure
should be written with the same tuning as that used through
out the series.
If the table be mounted on a clock-work movement, by
which it may be carried steadily round while the pen is busy
writing any ratio picture, the writing will be spread out ;
every successive period, instead of being written within the
preceding one, will be written on new ground outside, and
many beautiful varieties of the same ratio and penstand may
be done in this way, in which it is sometimes very hard to
trace out the ratio, so unlike are the figures to those written
on the still table.
The ratio of 4 : 5 is one of formosal beauty. Dividing the
compass of 360 by 2, the octave number, till in the fourth
octave we have 22i, marking sixteen points of the compass ;
giving the pen this standpoint from point to point, the first
penstand being due east, and on a concentric circle of one and
one-half inches diameter; then keeping on this circle, but
for every new composition shifting the penstand 22, we
have a series of sixteen species;the oscillation should have
a sweep of six inches at the point of the pendulums. The
figure may be written twelve times round the compass, and
each figure of five periods ; this makes a composition of three
hundred oscillations ; the sixteen penstands being each treated
in the same way ; the same pen and ink, the same number of
figures on the compass, the same number of periods in each
figure, the same sweep of oscillation, the only difference being
the penstand ; the result is sixteen species, each structurally
differentiated, each a true and permanent species, " whose
seed is in itself after its kind ; " and a most interesting and
beautiful portfolio is originated.
Any naturalist finding in nature any one of these sixteen
forms, would be bound both by the structure and the embry
ology to define and arrange it as a species. And here is an
172
The Pendulograph.
illustration of the permanence of species ; for if this should

be written for a thousand years, the embryological element
of ratio, and the structural penstaud remaining the same, the
species would still be produced unchanged, with no tendency
to become anything else.
With regard to the analogy between music and pendulography, it is very remarkable how close it is. The tuning
pendulum, when so placed as to oscillate in the ratio of 2 : 3,
which is the ratio of the perfect fifth, F-C, C-Q-, G-D, for
example ; and when this ratio is perfectly tuned, and the
pendulums smoothly started together, the pendulograph will
be to the eye a picture analogous to the chord of the fifth in
the ear, very simply beautiful. And so through all the
The ratio of 3 : 4 occurs five times in the vibrations of the musical system.
chords of the musical system ; and through all its discords

as well. In confirmation of the closeness and truth of this
analogy, it will be found that all the discords which belong
to the system of music, and which have very complex ratios,
What Is Science?
173
such as 45 : 64, produce such intricate pendulographs that

they are as disagreeable to the eye as those discords are to
the ear. But nature has so ordered that these less harmo
nious chords should have few places in the system, while the
more agreeahle and welcome occur frequently ; 16 : 27, 20 : 27,
27 : 32, 27 : 40, 82 : 45, and 45 : 64 occur only in one place each ;
5 : 9 and 8 : 15 in two places each ; 5 : 8, 4 : 5, 8 : 5, 5 : 6 and
9 : 16 occur in three places each ; while 2 : 3 and 3 : 4 occur five
times each; and 2:1, the octave, occurs everywhere. The
discords are the " bitter herbs " which give relish at the feast
of harmony. Now, when all these ratios are tuned and
written, the pictures correspond in the eye to these cords
and discords.
If this article should stir up a desire to develop this art
of PENDULOGRAPHY, whether as an analogous and illustrative
domain of nature in the interest of SCIENCE, or as a new re
source of beautiful and very varied designs in the interest of
ART, the author will not have wasted his time in writing
it, and will be glad to give help for a start to any one who
might determine to pursue it.
WHAT IS SCIENCE?
COMPILED BY MRS. H. 0. WARD.
Science is a lucid madness occupied in tabulating its own hallucinations.
LOUIS FlOUIER.
Hitherto the progress of science has been slow, and subject to constant error
and revision. But as soon as physical research begins to go hand in hand
with moral or psychical research, it will advance with a rapidity hitherto unimagined, each assisting and classifying the other. JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
Underneath all the various theories which are only created to be destroyed ;
underneath all the hypotheses which one century regards as disclosing the
secret mechanism and hidden spring of the universeand which the following
century breaks to pieces as children's toysmay be recognized the slow prog
ress, slow but incessant, of mathematical physics.
DUHEJTE, " KEVTTE DBS DEUX MONDES."
" EACH AGE ANSWERS THE NEED OP ITS OWN TIME."
Edward Carpenter, in his " Criticism on Modern Science,"

says: "Science, like an uninformed school-boy, is most
174
What Is Science ?
definite and dogmatic just where actual knowledge is least.

Some day, perhaps, when all this showy vesture of scien
tific theory has been quasi-completed, and humanity is ex
pected to walk solemnly forth in its new garment, for all
the world to admireas in Andersen's story of the ' Em
peror's New Clothes 'some little child standing on a door
step will cry out : ' But he has got nothing on at all,' and,
amid some confusion, it will be seen that the child is right."
This forecasting of the fate of what has been called " phan
tom-science," is about to be realized ; but it is no child cry
ing out that the phantom has got no clothes on. It is science
herself, as defined by Walker, " Certainty grounded on de
monstration ;" by Chambers, " Systematized knowledge, truth
ascertained ; " better still by Ganot, "A knowledge of the
laws that govern the universe; " for it is this department of
knowledge which is about to be made known to, and under
stood by, all men who are able to comprehend it.
Religious science now leads the way to that knowledge of
what man is, and of the true relation to each other of all his
faculties, which alone constitute her legitimate realm, and
over which she has reigned, in all human societies that have
left the savage state behind them, until our age.
But what is religious science ?
Tolstoi answers that " it is the sum of all human informa
tion as to what relates to the destiny of man, and to the true
welfare of each man and of all men." He continues: " There
are innumerable quantities of subjects to which science may
be applied ; but the one science that determines the import
ance of other sciences, is the knowledge of what constitutes
the welfare and destiny of all men. Without this knowledge,
all other arts and sciences become a pernicious amusement,
and to this subject true science has always given, and must
always give, the first place.
" Mankind has been living long, and men have never been
without a science relative to their welfare. To a superficial
observation, this science appears to be different with Budd
hists, Brahmins, Hebrews, Christians, the followers of Con
fucius, and those of Laotse ; though one need only to reflect
What Is Science?
175
on these various teachings in order to see their essential

unity ; and now of a sudden it turns out that modern ' men
of science' have decided that this very science, which has
been' until now the guide of all human information, is in
the way of everything ; and this denial of knowledge they
all science !
"All that has been done in this direction from the begin
ning of the world by the greatest intellects of mankind are
trifles, and no longer have weight. According to this teach
ing you are a cell of an organism, and the problem of your
reasonable activity consists in trying to ascertain your func
tional activity. In order to ascertain this, you must make
observations outside yourself, and you must believe every
thing that people with the diploma of infallibility tell you.
" Looking back, we see that during thousands of years,
from among thousands of millions of men who have lived,
there came forth a few like Confucius, Buddha, Solon, Soc
rates, Isaiah, David, and others. Now-a-days, there is a
trade-corporation of learned men, and they prepare, by an
improved way, all the mental food which is wanted by man
kind. They have prepared such a variety that there need
no longer be any remembrance of the old producers; not
only of the very ancient, but of more recent ones. All
this, we are told, was the activity of the theological and
metaphysical period, and the true mental activity began
some fifty years ago. But when men are really called to
serve others by mental activity, they will have to suffer in
performing this labor; because it is only by suffering that
spiritual fruit is produced. Self-denying and suffering are
their portion ; because their object is the welfare of human
ity. It was not in vain that Christ died on a cross ; it is not
in vain that sacrifice and suffering conquer everything."
Tolsto'i gives no rational way of deliverance from the evils
inflicted on mankind by false teaching and error; closing
his book (" What to Do ") with these lines : " Women who
fulfil their mission are those who prepare new generations
of men in forming public opinion. Therefore, in the hands
of these women lies the highest power of men's salvation
176
What Is Science?
from the existing and threatening evils of our time. Yes,

mothers, women, in your hands, more than in those of any
others, lies the salvation of the world."
Here he leaves us, seemingly unmindful of the fact that
" God has entered human life, and by orderly steps is work
ing out His grand designs ;" choosing His instruments Him
self to work out these designs with Him.
It is a relief to turn from Tolstoi's pessimistic pages, and
futile suggestions " What to Do," to Carpenter's " Forecast
of the Science of the Future," wherein he leads us to see that,
as there is no invariable and absolute datum on the fringe
of humanity, no definable flying atom on which to found
our reasonings ; and as modern science, considered as an
actual representation of the universe, falls miserably to
pieces in consequence ; it may be possible that science has
made a mistake in the direction in which she sought for her
datum, and that she may yet find it, if she looks for it, in
the very centre of humanity, instead of in its remotest cir
cumference. " In attempting to solve the problem of science
by the intellect alone, a radical mistake has been made,
which could only land us in absurdity. In searching for a
permanently valid and purely intellectual representation of
the universe, science has been searching for a thing which
does not exist," writes Carpenter, proceeding to show that
in the individual feeling precedes thinking, that thought is
the expression, the outgrowth, the covering of underlying
feeling ; and that in the great life of man as a whole, as in
the lower life of the individual, his continual new birth and
inward growth cause his thought-systems also to change
continually and to be replaced by new ones.
" Like the bud-sheaths and husks in a growing plant or
tree, fhey give form for a time to the life within, then they
fall off; the husk having prepared the bud underneath,
which is to throw it off. So the thought has prepared and
protected the feeling underneath, which, growing, will in
evitably reject it ; for when a thought has been formed it is
ready to fall."
What Is Science t
177
Divining, as it were, what religious science is now ready

to make known, Carpenter asks, " Is it possible that here, in
the very centre of humanity, if we could penetrate, blazing
like a sun if we could only see itand the sun is its allegory
in the physical worldthere exists within us absolutely
such a thing; the one fact in the universe, of which all else
are shadows, to which everything has relation, and around
which, itself unanalyzable, all thought circles and all phe
nomena stand as indirect modes of expression?"
" The light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not."
This light, " blazing like a sun," ushers in the dawn of a
new era for humanity ; for " a fuller revelation of revelation "
has been vouchsafed to man, fitted to his growth and to the
growth of the tree of knowledge. One by one the bud-sheaths
and husks will fall off, rejected ; for in this " era of har
mony," foretold by prophets and apostles, the work of evolu
tion will continue on a far more grand and more rapid scale
than has been possible heretofore in the history of our race,
while the light shining in darkness was incomprehensible to it.
" To be pioneers in a new order of things," says John
Sartain, " is a privilege to be valued, and so also is it to live
just in this period of the earth's long history. The discov
eries of science follow each other in rapid and most bewil
dering succession ; and each new achievement is seen to be a
stepping-stone to further acquisitions. More has been accom
plished during the present century to give man complete
mastery over this planet than in all the countless centuries
of the past. He now grasps the key that will unlock the
many-leaved Book of Nature ; on whose pages are inscribed,
in everlasting letters by the very finger of God, the unchang
ing laws of the universe.
******
" Man is a double generation, divine and human. But be
hind and through all is the invisible, subtle spirit that moves
visibly in all bodies, and has its seat in the Divine Will.
Mind, pervading all, and through and in all the universal
creative spirit, known by various names in various climes."
("The Four Elements.")
VOL. 112
178
What Is Science ?
The law of sympathetic association is the key that has

unlocked " The Book of Nature ; " for it is the operation of
this law which governs the universe. Its discoverer holds
himself in readiness to impart his knowledge, whenever
" men of science " are ready to leave their laboratories and
witness his demonstrations of this controlling power.
So far, they stand aloof, " all, with one accord, making
excuse ; " researching their environments, boarding air-ships
anchored to the earth (to which they must remain anchored
so long as they are constructed on principles which ignore
the laws governing our " environment "), and too often occu
pying themselves in efforts to prove that the soul is the mere
product or offspring of organization ; that both grow up to
maturity together, existing in indissoluble union, and perish
ing at one and the same time, thus giving ground to the
general belief that science and religion are antagonistic. If
they have been so, hitherto, it is religion that will conquer,
and stand holding the olive branch and the cross over her
prostate foe ; for religion and science, in virtue of their natural
affinity, have met, in the brain of one man of genius, and the
world will get what it needs and cries for ; not a new reli
gion, but such overwhelming demonstration of the " inner
light " in man, of the immortality of the soul, that not one
skeptic, not one materialist, will find standing room on the
face of the earth, when science and religion have been made
known as one. The premature formation of theories and
systems of science in the past, which are now inadequate to
explain all the phenomena of nature, is in part the cause,
why, when the announcement was made in 1889 by men of
science that a force of nature had been discovered which
overcomes gravity and neutralizes weight, physicists rejected
the proffered proof. Not because they were able to demon
strate this information to be unworthy of credit, but because
it was irreconcilable with their present knowledge and their
preconceived notions of nature's operations.
"Is it possible," asks Carpenter, " that the phenomena of
chemistry only find their due place and importance in their
relation to living beings and processes, that the phenomena
What Is Science ?
179
of vitality and the laws of biology and zoology, evolution in

cluded, can only be explained by their dependence ou self
hood, both in plants and animals ? That political economy and
the social sciences (which deal with men as individual selves)
must, to be understood aright, be studied in the light of those
great ethical principles and enthusiasms, which to a certain
extent override the individual self ; and that, finally, ethics "
(now founded upon selfish greed) " or the study of moral
problems, is only comprehensible when the student has be
come aware of a region beyond ethics ? "
The key of " Nature's Many-leaved Book " opens up this
region to searchers after truth ; but, as has already been said,
our learned men have refused to accept the key, for the reason
that they are too much engrossed with their various re.
searches into the nature of the environments of man to waste
their valuable time on his destination and his inner conscious
ness of that destination. " If we are to use science," continues
Carpenter, " as a minister to the most external part of man,
to provide him with cheap boots and shoes" (to which list
should be added explosive substances and smokeless powder),
" then she is right to seek her absolute datum in his external
part, and to take the foot as her first measure. But if she
wants to find a garment for his inner being, or rather one that
shall fit the whole man, to wear which will be a delight to him,
and as it were a very interpretation of himself, it seems obvi
ous that science must not take his measure from outside, but
from his most central principle.
" Under the present regime (the foot regime), the universe
is usually conceived of as a medley of objects and forces more
or less orderly and distinct from man ; in the midst of which
man is placedthe purpose and tendency of his life being
" adaptation to his environments." To understand this, we
may imagine Mrs. Brown in the middle of Oxford street.
Omnibuses and cabs are running in different directions ; carts
and drays are rattling on all sides of her. This is her en
vironment, and she has to adapt herself to it. She has to
learn the laws of the vehicles and their movements; to stand
on this side or that ; to run here and stop there ; conceivably
180
What Is Science?
to jump into one at a favorable moment; to make use of the

law of its movement and so get carried to her destination as
comfortably as may be. A long course of this sort of thing
adapts Mrs. Brown considerably, and she becomes more
active, both in mind and body, than before. That is all very
well. But Mrs. Brown has a destination ; (indeed, how would
ehe ever have got into the middle of Oxford street at all if
she had not had one ?) and the question is, " What is the
destination of man?"
The present theory seems to be that "by studying your
environment," you will find out ; that is, by investigating
astronomy, biology, physics, ethics, etc., you will discover
the destiny of man, but this is about the same as saying that
by studying the laws of cabs and busses sufficiently you will
find out whither you are going. These are ways and means.
Study them by all means, that is right enough ; but do not
think they will tell you where to go. You have to use them,
not they you. In order, therefore, for the environments to
act, there must be a destination ; for notwithstanding the
prevalence of " the foot regime" there is in man a divine
consciousness as well as a foot consciousness. That there are
in us phases of consciousness which transcend the limit of the
bodily senses is a matter of daily experience. That we per
ceive and know things which are not conveyed to us by our
bodily eyes, or heard by our bodily ears, is certain; may
there not then be in us the makings of a perception and
knowledge which shall not be relative to this body, which
is here and now, but which shall be good for all time, and
for all stages of existence elsewhere? The doctrine of the
" inner light," taught by the ancients and adhered to still
by the Quaker denomination, gives the correct explanation
of the origin or seat of this consciousness. It is " the Spirit l
of Truth " which leads into all truth those that look to it
for guidance, unfolding to the enlightened eye of the soul
the mysteries of nature and of the highest science: the
science of religion.
"If this divine consciousness, this 'illumination,' this
' inner light,' really exists in man, then," says Carpenter, " an
iSt John, 16: 13.
What Is Science?
181
exact science is possible. Short of it there is only a tem

porary phantom science." " Whatever is known to us by
consciousness (direct)," writes Stuart Mill, in his "System of
Logic," " is known to us beyond possibility of question." This
question Carpenter modifies by saying, " What is known by
our local and temporary consciousness is known for the
mtment beyond possibility of question ; what is known by
our permanent and universal consciousness is permanently
known beyond possibility of question. Physics has been
unable to discover the elements of motion, and has aban
doned as fruitless the research of the moving power, the
vital principle, possessed by man, without which his various
organs would be utterly useless. Physiology, too, is ignorant
of what life really is, yet pretends to explain its phenomena ;
and psychology, not knowing in what manner the spiritual
faculties are united to the organization, is compelled to in
vestigate the operations of the intellect as if they were per
formed altogether independently of the body ; whereas, they
are only manifested, in the ordinary state of existence,
through the intermediate agency of the corporeal organs."
"You can not mix up physics and psychology," said a
physicist, not many years since, who now sees that no system
of science is complete that excludes all consideration of mani
festations, which, as phenomena of nature, are therefore a fit
subject of philosophical investigation. " What should we
think," asks Colquhoun, " of the wisdom of that man who,
in attempting to communicate an adequate idea of the opera
tions of the steam-engine, should content himself with a
mere description of its wheels and levers, and cylinders and
pistons, keeping out of view the moving powerthe steam,
and ridiculing all investigation into the nature, application,
and phenomena of this power ? "
James B. Alexander, in his book on " The Dynamic The
ory," says, " the advancement of the present generation has
been greatly assisted by its partial emancipation from the
dominance of the past, with its essentially vicious metaphys
ical methods. The study of dynamic agencies, and the infer
ences made, justified by the inductive method of considering
182
What Is Science?
them, furnish us with all the real knowledge that we possess.

The dynamic theory, by showing the connection between the
external stimulation and the internal sequel in mental action,
proves that both of them belong to the same class of physi
cal motion. A similar consideration extended to other
branches of physical phenomena, shows them all to be derived
from a common stock, and that, finally, we must consider all
energy as one."
The object that Mr. Alexander has had in this volume, he
tells his readers, is " to point out that all organisms, instead
of being hand-made, and purposive, are machine-built ma
chines; and, when built, are operated by forces outside of
themselves." In other words, he demonstrates the separate
existence and independent activity of the soul of man, as
well as its powerful influence over the corporeal organism,
and that it governs, instead of being governed by, the body.
From the earliest dawn of science, the apparently inter
minable controversy between the materialists and the spirit
ualists has been a great stain upon philosophy. The term
physics is derived from a Greek word signifying nature.
The materialists limit nature to matter and mechanism ; but
the phenomena of spirit are as much a part of nature as are
those of matter. It has been left for this age to reconcile
their differences ; proving by mechanical demonstration the
power of mind over matter ; and making clear, to the philo
sophical mind, how cosmical law works in linking all our
environments to the divine: one great law, in the proper
completion of its action, controlling every minute law gov
erning the plane of matter, and with equal exactitude the
plane of spirit. Kepler was able to penetrate so far into the
causes of the planetary movements, as to acknowledge that
in them was hidden the secret of the element of motion and
of force. "He was persuaded," writes Professor Bowne, the
Dean of Boston University, " that the full discovery of these
mysteries was reserved for the next age, when God would
reveal them to man."
The one law which nature works under, in all her opera
tions, is the pivot upon which all turns; providing, as it
What Is Science?
183
does, for the free and the forced, for mind and matter, and
placing them in a scientific relationship with one another;
the law of " sympathetic association." This law Dr. Macvicar called " The Cosmical Law ; " " because to it alone, ever
operating under the eye, and fulfilling the design of the Great
Creator, who is always, and in all places, immanent to His
creation, an appeal is ever made ; " but to demonstrate how
cosmical law is realized by a dynamic apparatus, he says,
" except in a very few steps at first, wholly transcends our
powers and belongs not to our day."(" Sketch of a Philo
sophy," 1868.) With Buckle, Macvicar affirms that "as yet
we have no sure basis for knowledge, and that science must
wait for the only solid foundation ; until some discoverer,
some ' Newton of the Mind,' has associated his discovery
with the laws of the mind that made it, and demonstrated,
in a mecanique celeste, the governing laws of mind and matter."
The conditions imposed by Kepler, Macvicar, and Buckle,
are now fulfilled ; the secret of planetary suspension has been
discovered ; the discovery is connected with the laws of the
mind that made it; the mecanique celeste is completed in a
dynamic apparatus which demonstrates how cosmical law is real
ized; and the "Newton of the Mind," whom Macvicar antici
pated, is the founder of a system of vibratory physics, which
gives to commerce the navigation of the air, and to science
a knowledge of the law that governs the universe ; the law
of "sympathetic association."
To triumph over matter and render it subservient to the
human will is the proper empire of the human mind. Notv
that physics, physiology, and psychology will be compelled
to unite their forces, and walk together the paths of scientific
research, hand in hand, each step will be an advancing one
toward that conquering of the material world which must
precede the final reign of spirit over matter.
Ernest Renan has predicted that " a general upheaval and
chaos" will follow the outhreak of anarchy and crime, now
threatening to bar the progress of civilization on all sides
and in all lands ; that " human intelligence will be check
mated, thrown off the rails, so to speak, by events as yet
184
Tolstoi's " What to Do."
unparalleled." Great discoveries come when they areneeded ;

never too early, never too late. With this hitherto unknown
polar stream of exhaustless energy harnessed, as it now is, to
machinery, we may expect an era of material prosperity to
set in such as the world has never known.
The anchor of ancient faiths was in danger of being swept
away by materialistic science, but the sheet-anchor of reli
gious science has been let down from heaven, in our time of
need ; teaching us, as Wagner expressed it, that " the world
lies in the bosom of God, like a child in its mother's arms,"
and with a mother's fond solicitude He administers to its
wants as they arise.
When the underlying purposes of God are comprehended,
the earth will be covered with the knowledge of God, as the
waters cover the beds of the seas ; and in that age of har
mony, foretold in the Christian's Bible, the answer to the ques
tion "What is science?" will be, "Science is religion, as
taught by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who said to His
disciples, ' the spirit of truth will guide you into all truth.'"
TOLSTOI'S "WHAT TO DO."

BY HENRY WOOD.
Among all the multiform contributions to the great cruci
ble of human thought there are perhaps none so unique,
or even startling, as those of Count Lyof N. Tolstoi. Re
formers and searchers for truth usually make their appear
ance in groups, or schools, in which various individuals,
who are much in sympathy, endorse and supplement each
other. Through a well-defined evolutionary process the
time arrives when the world is ripe for some new develop
ment in science, art, sociology, or religion, and then it seems
so to permeate the mental atmosphere that almost simultane
ously it finds expression through many different channels.
But there is only one Tolstoi. While he, like many others,
holds for his ultimate ideal the attainment of human har
185
mony and happiness, and the sweeping away of adverse con

ditions, yet his proposed modus operandi is so peculiar that
both the man and his philosophy are sharply phenomenal.
Of his earnestness, sincerity, and altruistic feeling there can
be no question. His self renunciation, as shown in the vol
untary and almost forcible abandonment of position, wealth,
and social environment, is a standing object lesson of his
whole-hearted devotion to the doctrines which he believes
so essential to the reformation of human society. Any fair
criticism of his opinions and methods must, therefore, be
made in the light not only of his great talent and wellknown benevolence, but also of the purity of his motives
and intentions. He is willing to pay the full price for his
eccentricity, though some claim that to certain natures there
is a selfish charm in acute and persistent originality.
Preliminary to a brief examination of Tolstoi's social
philosophy, as expounded and summed up in "What to
Do," it is pertinent to consider the abnormal features of his
early life, training, and environment. In his case it appears
that subjective coloring has given a morbid hue to all objec
tive social phenomena. In any true mental philosophy it is
axiomatic that things without are rated, weighed, and inter
preted through an inner personal bias, which often amounts
to a decided idiosyncrasy. This may lead to utterly errone
ous conclusions. If a score of people look out upon a land
scape and pronounce it beautiful, and a single observer at
the same time affirms it to be dull and gloomy, we conclude
that the abnormal gloominess exists only in the individual.
Intellectually he may be the superior of all the rest, but the
feeling, or temperamental color, which is deeper than the
intellect, gives a sombre shading to the whole picture. We,
therefore, conclude that the impression gained is in a degree
distorted. Not that normality is always lodged with the
majority, but that a consensus of opinion usually involves a
good degree of sanity.
The early life of Tolstoi, as shown in his " Childhood,"
" Boyhood," and " Youth," was, in his own estimation,
peculiar, if not morbid. His early feelings of isolation, fits
186
of intense depression, peculiar friendships, abstract and un

natural intellectual processes, supposed philosophical discov
eries, alternations of mental exaltation and depression,
together with his university experiences, as given by him
self, all indicate a mental combination far from symmetrical.
A tendency to extremes and impractical conclusions regarding
conduct and the philosophy of life, is, by his own testimony,
everywhere evident. Without dwelling incidentally upon
his early career, it is well understood that he indulged deeply
in the pleasures, excesses, and extravagances which high rank
and great wealth made easy in a country like Russia. At
length all these things palled upon him and produced a con
dition of great restlessness. Then in earnest he began the
study of his own nature, and human infelicity at large, and
to devise some means of general improvement. His first
efforts in social reform were made among the slums of Mos
cow. According to his own account, his plans proved an
unmitigated failure. In speaking of the expectations which
he held regarding the fruits of the organization which he
formed among his wealthy associates to abolish misery, he
says: " I already saw in the future begging and poverty en
tirely disappearing, I having been the means of its accom
plishment." Experience, at length, taught him that mere
material aid was no aid at all. After the utter failure of a
series of well-meant efforts to elevate character through the
distribution of money and food, he thus expresses his disap
pointment: "Unfortunately,! did not see this at the first,
nor did I understand that such people needed to be relieved,
not by my charity, but of their own false views of the world."
He finally concluded, not only that city poverty and degrada
tion are irredeemable, but also that cities themselves are an
abomination, and that only through pastoral or country life
is reform possible. Not only this, but that society must be
reorganized, and revolution, peaceful or otherwise, inaugu
rated, before much improvement can be realized. He ex
presses no confidence in evolutionary progress.
Tolstoi's philosophy, as summed up in " What to Do," is
not only positively materialistic, but deeply clouded with
187
pessimism. He sees little besides the dark side of life, and

human existence is everywhere characterized as " a struggle
with nature." The extreme contrasts of Eussian social con
ditions are taken as typical of civilized life in other parts of
Europe, and even of America. He has dwelt so long upon
human evils and disorders, that they cover his whole mental
horizon. He has a great and prolific mind, but all the more
he gathers and stores up gloom without limit. Individual
deficiency of character and immature development appear
to him to be a studied and criminal injustice, for which so
ciety is to be held specifically responsible.
Humanity, according to Tolstoi, is composed of two classes ;
the rich, who have " freed themselves from labor," and the
poor, who have not. The few who are favored by fortune
are characterized as oppressors, who hold the larger part of
mankind in bondage. Through the machinery of property
and money they monopolize all products, and although serf
dom has been technically abolished, the masses are still in
servitude. In " What to Do " there is very little recognition
of any possible progress through individual enterprise, in.
dustry, and excellence. Everything is fixed and fateful, be
cause of some assumed iniquity in the external order of
property, money, and wages.
That section of the human family who have "freed them
selves from labor," are variously described, as living entirely
for display ; getting up at noon after nights of dissipation ;
indulging in unlimited champagne, cards, and sensuality ; as
being selfish, weak, and effeminate ; as lording it over in
numerable porters, cooks, footmen, coachmen and laundresses,
who minister to their wants ; and, in short, as a rule, to be
the incarnation of greed, ostentation and (so-called) enjoy
ment. Any intelligent reader of " What to Do " will regard
this outline of Tolstoi's lurid word painting as moderate and
in no degree overdrawn.
That part of humanity who labor with muscle, Tolstoi
looks upon as victims, sufferers, and slaves, who are forced to
their unwilling tasks through the deceitful machinery of
trade, custom, and the impositions of the State. They are
188
creatures of fate, destitute of independence, and their lot is

one of intolerable hardship.
It is at once evident to the unbiased reader that Tolsto'i
is entirely mistaken in taking the extremes of Russian society
to represent the civilization of Europe and especially of
America. Any such premise is radically misleading. The
vast majority are found in neither of these conditions, which
only form the exceptions, or, more truly, the excrescencesOne of the first requisites of any sound reasoning is to care
fully discriminate between a thing per se, and its negatives
and abuses. Tolstoi seems utterly oblivious to the great, sub
tle and universal law of compensation, which not only infalli
bly judges all systems and persons, but also inevitably enforces
its penalties. He assumes that the luxury, and even vice, of
the rich are enjoyable, and, by inference, teaches that they
are a kind of benefit of which the poor are deprived. A
deeper and truer philosophy shows that excesses of every
kind invariably carry their punishment as an attachment, and
that cause and effect cannot be severed, or even cheated by
an iota. The fact that the poor have not the means to in
dulge in riotous living is therefore a blessing to them.
Tolstoi's definition of labor is virtually limited to that of
physical exertion. The multiform varieties of mental labor
he does not recognize. All such workers he puts into one
great class who have " freed themselves from labor," and
concludes that they are drones, or worse, in " the great strug
gle with nature" of which life is made up. He also ignores
the fact that only a fraction of the whole aggregate of human
effort is required to minister to the actual physical necessi
ties of the race. It would be superfluous to prove in this
connection that mental labor is truly labor, for every intelli
gent person knows that the average friction, wear and ex
penditure of energy connected with it are as great, and often
more so, than that which accompanies simple manual effort.
Still further, if man be anything more than an animal, it is
evident that mental activity is as important as that which is
physical. But it is inferred that the latter is a curse, and
that if one does not definitely take part in it, from that very
189
reason he tyrannizes over his fellows. He ignores the fact

that society is an organism, whose very unity, symmetry and
completeness are necessarily made up of variety, and pro
poses that it be leveled down to a tedious and materialistic
uniformity. Instead of diversity, specialty, and resulting
perfect production, through which civilization has been
evolved from barbarism, every man must occupy a large part
of his time in the crudest and least fitting occupation. A
vain attempt is thus made to repeal the universal and irrepealable natural law of adaptability.
Self-abnegationa normal amount of which is goodis
carried by Tolstoi to a disorderly extreme. The spirit of
altruism, which consists in lifting men up, is stifled in the
literal attempt to get down to their own level. Not that
manual labor is less honorable or useful than mental exertion,
but in the eternal order of things it is lower in evolutionary
grade.
Society is not arbitrarily made up of two classesunlucky
workers and favored idlersfor, as work or activity is a
universal law, all who in any measure evade it will receive
penalty instead of benefit. Any man who does nothing for
the world can as easily escape from his shadow while in the
sunlight as to defy natural law by reaping what he has not
sown. When, in future evolutionary progress, the plane of
general unselfishness is reached, non-resistance will be practi
cable and external government superfluous, because then
every man can and will be a law unto himself. But to force
such a step in the outward letter, with the inward spirit and
character immature and untamed, as they are at present,
would make society resemble a menagerie, with every cagedoor flung wide open. It is idle to galvanize goodness upon
the outside of men, for it will not go even through the
cuticle.
Man is more than body, and food and clothing comprise
but a mere fraction of his needs and aspirations. The
teacher or artist is as truly a producer as the farmer or boot
maker. The statement that " man shall not live by bread
alone," is scientific in its accuracy. The ego is immaterial,
190
and soul-hunger must be satisfied as man advances above the

plane of mere animality.
Tolstoi characterizes taxation as slavery. Here, again,
abuses are confused with that tvhich is normal. In itself it
is only a general and legitimate contribution for the public
good. When levied to support great standing armies or
luxurious courts, it is the distortion of a principle that is
good in itself. Abuses are not a part of the social system,
but are rather bare spots where there is a lack of it. The
system may be normal, while the deficiencies are located in
individuals who do not give it perfect expression.
Governments, property, and money are all characterized
as bad ; that is, bad in principle. He does not limit his criti
cism to their faults and shortcomings.
Regarding money, Tolsto'i observes : " I saw that money
in itself was not only not a good thing, but obviously an
evil one," and then goes on at length in the attempt to prove
and enforce the proposition. This is quite different from
the Biblical teaching, which, though condemning the love
of itor its acquisition as an endsays nothing against it,
of itself, or of its legitimate use. Again, he says (page 228),
" Property is the root of all evil ; and, at the same time,
property is that towards which all the activity of our mod
ern society is directed, and that which directs the activity
of the world." This is a direct invkation to return to bar
barism. If legitimate wealth, in itself, be an evil, then all
its accessories and results must be similar in quality. The
libraries, art museums, public gardens, parks, hospitals,
asylums, charities, and numberless other institutions of any
large city, are only made possible through accumulated
wealth. They are all open to the poor and penniless, and
are standing evidences of man's rapidly growing love for his
fellows. Property per se is good. It represents stored-up
labor, prudence, and industry. It is human accomplishment
in preservation.
It is almost pathetic to see a great mind like Tolstoi's,
eminent in sincerity, sympathy, and altruism, so darkened
with pessimism and so entangled in literalism, that he is
191
able to discern no light, no hope, no improvement. He has

gazed so long upon the negative side of the world that he
can see no positive good, and life seems barren and joyless.
For Tolstoi, and for the world in general, optimism would be
salvation. Mental ideas are ever outwardly expressing them
selves, and Shakspeare gave utterance to a profound philo
sophical principle when he said, " There is nothing, either
good or bad, but thinking makes it so." With the best in
tentions, it is quite possible for one to subjectively dwell in
abuses, deficiencies, and negations, until the entire objective
realm becomes deranged and disheartening. Tolstoi's som
bre beliefs and theories regarding human society and gov
ernment are the logical result of subjective hopelessness.
Theoretical anarchy is also the legitimate fruit of dwelling
upon evil until color-blindness to the universal good and to
evolutionary progress is complete.
The abnormality of Count Tolstoi's premises and conclu
sions in " What to Do " is so evident, that it seems quite
superfluous to controvert them, when it can only be done by
proving things which are already axiomatic. But the fact
remains that there are thousands of illogical and superficial
minds that are greatly influenced, and even thrown off their
base, by doctrines plausibly put forth by one so noted and
earnest as the great Russian nobleman. It is unfortunate
that, through such teaching, restlessness and bitterness are
increased, and that many sentimental and ignorant people
have their envy and avarice inflamed and class antagonism
stimulated. The " social system " is made the " scapegoat "
for all individual crimes, mistakes and deficiencies. So long
as any great adverse institution, outside, can be blamed for
seeming raisfortuiiea, there will be little attempt at individual
reformation. Those penalties which come correctively to
turn men from their personal errors, such as intemperance,
improvidence, laziness and vice, have no more connection
with the social framework than with the moon.
Tolstoi's great mistake, like that of many other impracticables, is in beginning at the circumference instead of the
center. The universal, unchangeable order of causation is
192
Tolstoi's " What to Z>o."
from within outward, and all external institutions and gov

ernments are, therefore, only expressive and resultant. They
are only the registers of the aggregate composite character
which is back of them.
If it were possible for Tolstoi to artificially impose his
ideas upon the world, the result would be the exact opposite
of what he professedly seeks. Under such a regime, life
would become drudgery, art wither, science expire, invention
cease, and enterprise and industry die out. Barbarism
would loom up in the immediate future, animalism become
rampant, and evolution be turned back, until mankind would
come down to the primeval level. But no one need despair.
Any such movement is impossible, in the very nature of
things. Evolutionary growth from within must go on, and
no power can hold it back. In proportion as human char
acter can be rectified, thinking elevated, natural law recog
nized, consciousness educated, and unselfishness realized,
external systems, governments, money, and taxes will fall
into line, for they are only the outward indexes of the human
mind.
The Influence of Heal and Cold upon Microbes.
193
THE INFLUENCE OF HEAT AND COLD UPON

MICROBES.
BT LAWRENCE IRWELL.
Although the magnifying property of the lens was known
eighteen hundred years ago, yet the microscope was little
more than a toy until the year 1757, when the introduction
of the achromatic lens caused it to reach a high place as a
scientific instrument. With the aid of modern inventions,
the microscope has now enabled scientists to learn something
of the habits of numerous low forms of life, whose very ex
istence was in doubt until recent years. At the present day
the expert microscopist can both see and measure objects no
larger than the three-hundred-thousandth part of an inch.
In the following pages the words "microbe" and "micro
organism " are used synonymously to mean the lowest forms
of life. The words " bacterium " and " bacillus " are often
used somewhat indiscriminately with the same significance
as the two former words ; but as " bacterium " and " bacillus,"
strictly speaking, refer to a distinct genus of micro-organ
isms, it may be well to avoid the use of them in the general
sense. The word " microbe " was originally introduced in
1878 to avoid any dispute as to the animal or vegetable
nature of low organisms.
The extraordinary variations of temperature to which mi
crobes can be subjected without the destruction of their vi
tality is almost beyond belief. So remarkable are the powers
of endurance of these minute forms of life, that they caused
one of the most serious controversies which science has ex
perienced. I refer, of course, to the controversy concerning
the theory of spontaneous generation, known to scientists as
the theory of " abiogenesis," the point involved being, can
life arise from dead matter de now, and without the inter
position of a parent? Of course, the microscope, with its
wonderful revelations, soon destroyed the ideas of spontaneous
generation in their ancient form, but a more scientific aspect
VOL. 113
The Influence of Heat and Cold upon Microbes.

of the theory was afterward developed, and it certainly sur
vived until a few years ago, and still exists, I suppose, in a
moribund condition.
The microscope has shown the world of microbes to be a
veritable wonderland indeed ; it has shown them to appear
so strangely and unexpectedly under certain conditions that
the believers in abiogenesis will not credit their having pro
ceeded from a parent, but profess to solve the problem by the
simple assertion that these small forms of life have come into
existence spontaneously.
It may be asked, how does this technical scientific ques
tion interest the public? The answer is, that it has now
been satisfactorily proved that many diseasestyphoid fever
and tuberculosis among the numberare caused by microbes,
and it would be well that every thinking man and woman
should clearly understand that these complaints cannot arise
spontaneously, but appear to be always produced by the
action of some already existing germs.
I must distinctly state that the following pages make no
claim to originality, and that this entire article consists
merely of a summary of the experiments which have proved
the truth of the theory of biogenesis, by which is meant the
doctrine that the production of living organisms can take
place only through the agency of a living parent or parents.
More than a hundred years ago it was confidently asserted
that animalcules were spontaneously generated from more
highly organized bodies in a state of putrefaction. Ever
since this theory has been periodically exhumed, and bol
stered up by new arguments, only to be refuted again and
again by carefully collected experimental evidence.
The most scientific upholder of the theory of spontaneous
generation wasI am unable to say whether he has changed
his views Dr. Henry Charlton Bastian, the author of
*' Modes of Origin of Lowest Organisms," and also of " The
Beginnings of Life." This gentleman reasoned that, as no
body denies that boiling water kills all forms of life, it
therefore follows that if living forms appear in fluids which
have been boiled in flasks, afterward hermetically sealed,
195
they must have arisen from inorganic matterinvestiga

tions show that they do so appear, therefore spontaneous
generation is a verity. Other observers repeated Dr. Bastian's experiments, and found them to be substantially cor
rect, and were then either forced to his belief, or were bound
to show that his premisethat boiling water destroys all
forms of lifeis incorrect. But, in justice to Dr; Bastian, it
should be mentioned that twenty years since he admitted
that the boiling for four hours of the seed of medicago, of
which "snail-clover" is one variety, failed to injure its re
productive power.
For the elucidation of this subject, we are very largely
indebted to the labors of the late Professor John Tyndall, who proved that a temperature of 212 Fahrenheit
cannot be relied upon to kill every form of living organ
ism. To this fact the upholders of the theory of spon
taneous generation paid little attention; they simply re
iterated their assertion : " In a few hours myriads of
animalcules appear in a few drops of putrescent fluid.
As they cannot have arisen in the ordinary course of nature,
they must have developed spontaneously from the particles
of decaying animal matter." This sounds very plausible,
especially to persons who are ignorant of logic ; and if we
look only at the laws of propagation among the higher ani
mals it might seem a valuable argument. But, as soon as
we have examined the life history of the lowest forms of
life, we need no longer wonder at their sudden appearance,
their survival under extraordinary conditions, or their uni
versal dissemination.
If a piece of hay be steeped in water, and examined with
the microscope after a few hours, countless swarms of mi
crobes are seen. Where do they come from, was the question
asked ? This was answered by Mr. Kent, who detected upon
newly-moistened hay coatings of extremely minute capsules,
or spores, one-twenty-thousandth part of an inch in size,
which were seen to increase and ultimately to develop into1
microbes. Mr. Dalliuger went a step further ; he showed
that these spores were the product, not of the decomposition
196
of the hay, but of living progenitors. With a wonderful

amount ot patience, he watched one particular adult animal
cule in all its wanderings, until it grew quiescent, encasing
itself, and at last breaking up its entire body into minute
particles or spores. These spores being distributed into the
surrounding fluid, were observed eventually to reach a con
dition identical with that of the deceased parent.
Mr. Kent showed that the liquid squeezed from dew-laden
grass, when inspected under the microscope, swarmed with
minute forms of life in an active condition. Where did they
come from ? Yesterday they were absent, for the grass was
dry ; and it is only in moisture that the adult microbes of
most species display activity. Whenever the heat of the
sun dries the grass, some of them become encysted, and their
animation is suspended until the rain, or the dew, causes
them to renew their activity. But it is to the sporeswhich,
owing to the extraordinary fertility and rapid maturity of
micro-organisms, are always being produced where the adults
arewe must look for the perpetuation of the species after
periods of prolonged drought. These spores, like the seeds
of plants, resist the dry weather and cling to the grass, thus
showing us how it is possible for enormous numbers of micro
organisms to be obtained from infusions of hay.
Hay is not, of course, the only residence of microbes, nor
is it by any means the only resting place of the spores ; the
air is full of them, being well supplied, by means of the wind,
from withered vegetation and dried-up swamps ; these spores
being ready to settle in any damp place and develop into
full activity. This explains how a fluidor any wet subBtancef=et aside after being thoroughly boiled, but not pro
tected from the atmosphere, may quickly show signs of life.
To this statement the believers in spontaneous generation
answer that nobody has seen the germs in the atmosphere
a reply about on a level with that of the man who insisted
that we could not know the distance from the earth to the
moon because nobody had taken the trip! Mr. Dallinger's
refutation of that argument was the following experiment
(M. Pasteur and Professor Tyndall also worked along the
197
same line): The first-named scientist took a fluid full of a

particular species of germs, and, after evaporating it to dryness, collected the remaining dust. He then scattered this
dust in a specially prepared vessel, and putting in a " steril
ized " fluid, found, when the dust settled into it, that only
the species which was contained in the original liquid de
veloped, thus showing that the vitality of the spores was not
destroyed while they were in a dry condition, and that moist
ure enabled them to recommence their active life. Repeat
ing the process with more of the sterilized fluid, but with
the sporidial dust of other species, these particular species
invariably appeared. Further, it was found that the por
tions of the liquid put in first, where no dust of more than
one species was used at the same time, gave rise chiefly to
the species having large spores ; the liquid poured in later,
chiefly to the species having smaller spores ; and finally that
none at all were producedthis evidence showing that the
larger settled first ; that the smaller ones took a longer time
to do so ; and that there came a time when all had subsided.
It is obvious that extreme care had to be taken not to shake
anything, lest any of the dust should be again stirred into
the air in the vessel. These results were much too regular
for spontaneous generation, which should either have given
the same species upon every occasion, or a heterogeneous
mixture of microbes each time.
I have mentioned a " sterilized " fluid, meaning one ren
dered free of all vital spores. The late Professor Tyndall has
shown how such a fluid can be prepared, although many
spores resist subjection to the simple act of boiling. The
process is as follows : Boil the water for a short time, that
kills the majority of the adult germs; then place the vessel
containing the liquid in a warm temperature for twelve hours,
when a large number of the spores will have approached de
velopment. Boil the water again, and these will be killed.
When this process has been repeated about half a dozen
times, the last spore will have matured sufliciently to be
killed by boiling, and no spore during the intervals of boil
ing will have advanced enough to reach the reproductive
198
stage. How long spores can retain their vitality in a dried

condition is not known, but they undoubtedly can do so for
years. Adult microbes are very frequently destroyed by
the simple process of boiling ; and while that process may
render the bacilli of typhoid fever innocuous, it will not
prevent the growth of the spores in the water, nor will it
remove the poisonous alkaloids already generated by the
bacilli. Whenever water of doubtful purity is intended for
drinking purposes, it should be boiled for not less than half
an hour. If that be done, a moderate degree of protection
against typhoid fever will be insured. Absolute safety can
only be obtained by boiling the water for at least two hours,
and by filtration afterward through some scientifically-made
filter. I doubt whether the latter precautions are practica
ble in most private residences.
The question of the power of resistance of microbes to cold
now presents itself.
Dr. McKendrick, of Glasgow, Scotland, wanted to ascer
tain whether prolonged exposure to cold of putrescible sub
stances in a hermetically sealed bottle would cause death to
the microbes. Putrefactive fermentation only takes place in
the presence of germs, and as the atmosphere is full of
them, the liability of certain substances to putrefaction need
cause no surprise. It is well-known that many kinds of food,
meat for instance, can be kept from putrefying by the pro
cess of freezing. Does this destroy the germs of decomposi
tion, or does it merely cause them to lose their vitality so
long as they are in the frozen state ? Dr. McKendrick em
ployed a Bell-Coleman machine, such as is used on ships for
keeping carcasses in a frozen condition. By this means he
was able, not only to get the lowest temperature yet reached
for such purposes, but also to maintain that degree of cold
ness for an unlimited period. He placed some meat in bot
tles, hermetically sealed them, and then exposed them to a
temperature of 20 F. for one hundred consecutive hours;
he then placed the bottles, still sealed, in a warm room, and
found, after twelve hours, that the putrefactive process was
in progres,a conclusive proof that the germs of putrefaction
199
were only dormant while the meat was frozen. To show

more directly the effect of extreme cold upon the microbes,
putrefying fluids full of them were exposed to 120 for a
hundred consecutive hours. The thawed fluid was examined
under the microscope, and the organisms were found to be
motionless. When examined again, after the liquid had
stood in a warm temperature, it was found to be swarming
with microbes in a vigorous state of activity.
As experiments had shown that repeated boilings sterilized
a fluid, it was considered possible that continued freezing
and thawing might have the same result. But this is not
the case ; it is not possible to destroy the various crops of
spores by any amount of freezing, consequently the greatest
caution should be observed in the use of natural ice for cool
ing food, or drinking water ; it is not safe to allow such ice to
come into contact with anything that is to be eaten or drunk.
As artificially manufactured ice, made from distilled water,
is not always procurable, natural ice should only be used out
side the pitcher containing the drinking water, and should
under no circumstances touch the food. The only exception
to this rule is when conclusive proof exists that the body of
water from which the ice is taken is not contaminated by
sewage.
The whole of this evidence, then, goes to show that the
spores of micro-organisms preserve their vitality from
120 F. up to 300 F., the former temperature being far
below anything experienced in the Arctic regions ; and also
that they may be dried up and quite inactive for years, and
yet resume their vitality under favorable conditions.
Although the specific germs of small-pox, cholera, and
many other diseases are not yet positively known, very little
doubt exists that these maladies are caused by living organ
isms. While it is unquestionably true that when the human
system is in a strong condition it will resist the attacks of
microbes, yet too much care in obtaining fresh and clean
food, as well as pure milk and water, cannot be taken.
The proper use of germicides and antiseptics is not under
stood by the public, which regards " disinfection " as the
200
A Remarkable Book, and Its Teachings.
substitution of the nasty smell of the drug for the previously

existing stench. If an inodorous so-called "disinfectant"
were employed, not even the imagination would be satisfied,
and the plan of living in a fool's paradisethe supposed
safety resulting from saturating the air of a room, or a whole
house, with the smell of chemicalswould die a natural
death. The only sensible method is to ascertain the cause of
the offensive odor, and to get rid of that cause. The use of
" microbe-killers " and germicides should be avoided, unless
advised by a properly qualified person. Carbolic acid is not
another name for magic, and its effect is often inferior to
that of hot water ; under no circumstances can it take the
place of that liquid.
A REMARKABLE BOOK, AND ITS TEACHINGS.1

BY WKNTWORTH LASCELLES-SCOTT.
" The very nerves and sinews of knowledge consult in believing nothing
r.i-sliiy."
EPICHARMUS.
Although the sentence quoted above was written long prior

to the commencement of the Christian Era, its intrinsic truth
remains even now in force and pertinency undiminished, and,
in latter-day diction, unsurpassed. By all inquirers into
that department of Nature's cosmical phenomena which,
not too happily, we call "physics," it maybe taken as a safe
guarding text upon which more than one long sermon of
absorbing interest could well be founded ; and, moreover, it
is a text which has always commended itself to the writer
as being of especial value and importance. When, therefore,
he was invited by the editor of this magazine to review for
its pages the work which forms the subject of the present
article, the words of the old Sicilian philosopher appeared
to be especially appropriate. But there are a good many
people nowadays who seem to act upon the Epicharmiau
dogma, minus the last word, the moment that any proposition
1 Keely, and His Discoveries. By Mrs. Bloomfield Moore. London : Kegan,
Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Limited, Paternoster House, Charing Cross Road.
201
is laid before them which does not fit in well with their
own preconceivedand not infrequently extremely narrow
views, or appears to be more or less at variance with the
"laws" cited in the orthodox text-books of the period.
However, between the Scylla of bigoted disbelief, and the
Charybdis of fatuous, unreasoning credulity, there is a mid
dle, and a more rational course ; it is the latter which should
be that of an impartial reviewer, and it is that along which
the present writer proposes to steer. Iu this way, whilst
"believing nothing rashly," it may be possible to give due
consideration to fresh results, or to novel theories, and thus
to make someif only infinitesimalprogress toward the
elucidation of some of the physical mysteries of Nature.
Mrs. Bloomfield Moore's "Keely, and His Discoveries" is,
in more senses than one, a most remarkable book, and those
who peruse it intelligently and dispassionately, can scarcely
fail to appreciate the enormous, not to say revolutionary, in
fluence these discoveries must necessarily exert upon physical
science both theoretical and applied, if but a fraction of the
propositions therein shadowed forth be (a) reduced to com
prehensible language and (b) industrially applied.
Keely, like most other inventive physicists, appears to have
started his serious researches with the notion of making an
engine, or mechanical motor, of such power as to completely
eclipse anything and everything of its class previously con
structed. In other words, it should do more "work"
i. e., raise more "foot-pounds" in a unit of timethan had
hitherto been accomplished with an equal weight of metal
and similar expenditure of fuel or its equivalent. According
to the authoress :
" He made the mistake of pursuing his researches of
invention instead of discovery. All his thoughts were con
centrated in this direction up to the year 1882. Engine after
engine was abandoned and sold as old metal, in his repeated
failures to construct one that would keep up the motion of
the ether that is necessary to hold it in any structure. Ex
plosion after explosion occurred ; sometimes harmless to him,
at other times laying him up for weeks at a time."
202
This state of affairs, which by 1882 had extended over

more than a decade, seems to have lasted several years longer,
until, partly upon his own initiative, partly at the instiga
tion of another, Keely appears to have exchanged, in a
measure, the role of an inventive mechanic for that of a
theoretical physicist. In other words, he then, in some
measure, abandoned the work-shop of the motor-engineer in
favor of theif not more exalted, at least more academic
regions of the laboratory and the study. During the former
period, however, which may be said to have terminated with
the year 1888, there can be no reasonable doubt that Keely
" discovered," either quite accidentally or by a process of in
ductive evolution, a force, or the resultant of two or more
forces, capable of performing " work," or manifesting poten
tial energy, which is not subject to the laws (as we at present
consider them) governing either gravity, magnetism, or elec
tricity, but yet a force of which the value, if it could be
adequately expressed in foot-pounds, would be found im
mensely superior to that of any hitherto known.
Having gotor believing that he had gotthus far, at
the outset, it was a very natural impulse which apparently
actuated the discoverer, long before he had any idea of the con
dition under which this force was generated or transmitted,
in endeavoring to confine, regulate, and generally control it
through the instrumentality of a machine or " motor."
The salient features in the history of the " Keely motor,"
and the syndicate or company by whom it was to be pros
pected for the benefit of the promoters (chiefly) and the en
tire mechanical world, are well, and on the whole fairly,
described in Mrs. Moore's book. The authoress knows full
well that her hero has faults, and she neither conceals nor
attempts to palliate them, as a more bigoted or less intelli
gent partisan would have done ; the entire fabric is unrolled
and opened out before us, and with almost supererogatory
honesty our particular attention is directed to the spots.
Nevertheless, the summary of the evidence adduced suffi
ciently shows that Keely himself cannot be held responsible
for the errors and the sharp practice of certain directors and
203
promoters, which he neither authorized nor benefited by.

In proof of the foregoing, the judgment of the Supreme Court
(New York, 1888) in favor of the inventor, as quoted ver
batim at pages 111 and 112, should be amply sufficient for
any evenly-balanced mind.
It is unnecessary in the present article to follow the for
tunes of the Motor Company. The name was casually men
tioned to the writer several years ago in such unflattering
terms that he took no interest whatever in the matter, and
the very name of " Keely " passed completely out of mind
until not quite three months ago. In the Nineteenth Century
for June of this year, an article appeared entitled " Modern
Explosives," which appears to have attracted an unusual de
gree of attention both in England and elsewhere. Herein
was shown for the first time the noteworthy fact that :
" When an intense explosive is approaching its critical
state, and its molecules, therefore, are in a condition of very
unstable equilibrium, the sudden emission of a musical note
will frequently bring matters to a climax and induce deto
nation."1 Illustrative examples having been adduced, an
explanation of the phenomenon is suggested in the following
terms :
" On the assumption that (in common with all other sub
stances) (a) the molecules of explosives were always in a
condition of either linear vibration or spiral swing ; (b) that
the velocity of such oscillations was constant with such sub
stance according to its composition ; (c) that the amplitude
or wave-length thereof varied with the temperature ; it
might not be unreasonable to suppose, as the oscillations ex
tended until they approached the point of disruption, that
the impact of sound vibrations bearing some simple numer
ical relation to their own, might carry those molecules too
far, and thus precipitate their severance."2
Elsewhere in the same article occur these words :
1 " Modern Explosives," by W. Lascelles-Scott. The ^ ineleenth Century.
Vol. XXXV., page 997.
" Modern Explosives," by W. Lascelles-Scott The Nineteenth Century.
204
" It is just this property of explosion by sympathy, if the

expression is permissible, which renders these substances so
valuableand dangerous."1
The writer had long believed thatnot necessarily syn
chronous, as some rather superficial critics have erroneously
imagined, butsympathetic vibrations exerted no insignificant
influence in the economy of nature, as evidenced, to his think
ing, iu (1) the starting and subsequent hastening of crystal
lization by the incidence of certain well-defined musical
notes ; (2) the earlier bursting of the anthers of flowers
under similar sound influences ; (3) the effect of luminous
vibrations upon chemical combination, and, more rarely,
upon chemical dissociation, and in various other ways.
In this connection it might even be pertinent to inquire
whether the seemingly purposeless waste of time often in
curred by bees and other insects in hovering just over a
flower whose anthers are barely "ripe," their wings emit
ting a steady " hum " the while for some time before alight
ing thereon, may not in reality be " instinct with purpose of
the great design." It has appeared to the writerwho had
intended to ask Sir John Lubbock whether he had any ex
periences tending to confirm or negative this hypothesis, but
omitted to do so in time for pressin the great majority of
instances watched by him, that the anthers burst shortly
after being subject to the vibration of that " hum ;" and it
was subsequently found thatin the case of lilies, at all
eventsthe fructification of flowers could be visibly facili
tated by prolonging and sustaining the " note" of the bees'
hum upon a concertina in the immediate vicinity of the
blossom.
Hence, when invited on behalf of the editor of this maga
zine to contribute for the October number an impartial review
of " Keely, and His Discoveries," from the standpoint of an
English scientist, the writer, up to that time knowing noth
ing whatever of either the book or the man, was naturally
startled by certain strongly marked coincidences.
'"Modern Explosives," by W. Liscelles-Scott.
The Nineteenth Century.
205
" Sympathetic vibration" is, as the Wagnerites might say,

the leit-motif running through the volume, and presumably
also the very foundation-stone upon which the entire struc
ture of Keely's researches and factsif they are facts; or
chimeras, if they are chimerasis based. That is to say,
that upon the assumption, or in the belief, that all substances
whether according to the present knowledge they be classed
as simple, elementary bodies, or as compoundsconsist of
molecules, which are in a state of chronic vibration or oscil
lation ; the vibrations occur at such regular intervals that
they are capable, acoustically, or graphically, of being repre
sented by a particular physical note or combination ot notes.
Moreover, if the identical note peculiar to a certain sub
stance be sounded by appropriate means in the immediate
vicinity of that substance, the particles or molecules of the
latter (in principle, although not necessarily by way of
emitting an audible sound) will " respond " precisely as a
harp-string or an organ-pipe tuned to the same note will do
under similar conditions.
Now, musicians and physicists have long been agreed
upon the subject of sympathetic vibration, so far as the uni
versally admitted fact that any solid body capable of emit
ting a sound, when excited to vibration (and, for that matter,
so far as we know, most fluids as well), may be induced to
" speak " the " note " peculiar to its composition, dimensions,
and conformation, in at least two ways ; viz., (a) by being
sharply struck with a suitable beater, and (b) by being ex
posed to the influence of the same note's vibrations sounded
in its vicinity. In addition to solids, atmospheric air and
other gases can also be musically actuated, if confined by
containing vessels of size and shape appropriate to the note
determined upon.
Within certain limits the result of the emission of musi
cal vibrations, or " notes," in this manner tends only to the
enhancement of the original sound by the resonating or
responding one, a fact constantly taken advantage of in the
construction of musical instruments. But if the operation
be continued under certain conditions, in such manner that
206
the vibrations of the resonator are progressively excited to

greater amplitude, it is quite possible that they may extend
too far for the cohesion of the " responding " body; in such,
the resonator itself falls to pieces.
The old story about the iron bridge at Coalbrookdale
illustrates the foregoing very well. When this bridge was
in course of construction, an itinerant musician, who had
been refused alms by the workmen, threatened to " fiddle
their bridge down " unless they gave him money. At first
the men only laughed ; but in less than a quarter of an hour
the player had found the particular note with which the
bridge was harmonically in sympathy, and by persistently
" fiddling " upon that note, the bridge at length began to
oscillate so violently that the foreman was alarmed, and
quickly came to terms with the performer. On the same
principle, an esteemed friend of the writer 1 gifted with a
powerfully resonant voice succeeded, at his instigation, on
one occasion, in breaking a large glass tankard, simply by
singing its own " response-note," which happened to be as
nearly as possible the bass Db.
But subsequently it was found that musical vibrations
were not only capable "sympathetically" of causing the
physical disintegration of various articles, but would influ
ence the chemical dissociation of certain compounds, as
already noted with regard to " intense " explosives. Experi
ments of this class are frequently complicated by the inci
dence of various disturbing causes, but the main features, as
published in the Nineteenth Century before quoted, are indu
bitable. Hence, when Keely speaks of " sympathetic vibra
tion " as a virile influence of considerable importance, it is
futile to insinuate a doubt, or venture upon a sneer, since
thus far he has been confirmed or anticipated by indepen
dent observers, having at the time no knowledge of his
theories, or of the man himself. In other words, after that
comprehensive proposition upon which the book under
Cafliach, Esq., of Wolverhampton, Staffordshire; formerly of
Zurich, Switzerland.
207
consideration is evidently chiefly based, may fairly be written

the Euclidian formula : Q. E. D.
It is in passing onward that the reader finds himself in
difficulties of no ordinary or superficial kind. KeelywhateTer may be thought of his conclusions, distinctions, and
assertions, per sehas certainly carried his researches upon
the sympathetic vibration principle very much further than
any one else has yet done, in public at all events ; and it is
here that some unlucky individualities of his own vitiate
in a greater or lesser degree all his so-called explanations,
and much of his actual work. The authoress, or, as with
excessive modesty she styles herself, the " compiler " of the
book, by this time probably seriously regrets that she has
permitted " Keely, and His Discoveries " to run through quite
so many chapters, and also that the physicist's own language
is so frequently and at such length quoted therein. For it
must be candidly admitted that this latter portion of the
text is so hopelessly entangled in a wild jargon of wronglyapplied technical terms, that it appears a very abracadabra
of unreason rather than the scientific notes and theories of
a nineteenth century experimentalist.
Novel hypotheses, instruments, and appliances not infre
quently require to be expressed in, and designated by, terms
peculiar to themselves, and coined distinctively ; but the re
sult of using such new words should be to facilitate compre
hension, not to render it impossible. Yet in the Keely patois
we have perfectly familiar chemical, physical, musical, and
other technical terms so wrongly applied, and so confusedly
mixed up, that the most painstaking reviewer speedily finds
himself in the midst of a verbose conglomerate of words,
which afford no clue whatever to their intended meaning.
When, however, we get rid of Keelyese and substitute the
authoress's own languageeven handicapped as it is by the
terms supplied to hera little light is thrown upon the Cim
merian obscurity of the physicist's diction, and it is possi
bleif we take the troubleto evolve something like a
rational notion of what Keely is doing, or what he has already
accomplished.
208
In the first place, whilst neither "holding a brief" for or

against the physicist and his ablest exponent, the authoress
of the volume now under review, the writer has not hesitated
to ask himself whether the whole thing is an imposture
(devised with the idea of inducing people to subscribe for, or
invest in, some Chateau d'Espagne limited), or is otherwise
an egregious congeries of blunders from beginning to end.
Were there nothing more to go upon than the inventor's in
scrutable vagaries of diction, the present article would, if
written at all, have dealt with the matter in a very different
spirit, and one or other of the preceding queries must have
been replied to in the affirmative. The results of over two
months' study, however, have fairly convinced the writer
(despite numerous errors of detail, and a few of some
magnitude), that there is a good deal of method in the ap
parent madness of Keely's physical researches; and, further,
that Mrs. Moore has written a book the teachings of which
will prove far more important in the twentieth century than
perhaps can be the case in this one.
"The sympathetic" influences of sound vibrations or musi
cal "notes" have already been slightly adverted to; but it
must be remembered that the vibration limits of audible
notes are comparatively narrow. Helmholtz, the distin
guished physicist, who has passed from our midst while these
lines were in course of transcription, considered that the
"note" produced by twenty-three vibrations per second1 is
the lowest audible one, and that all "sounds" produced by
more than thirty-eight thousand vibrations per second are
absolutely inaudible. Latterly, however,2 he gives sixteen
as the limit for low sounds. The range of musical percep
tion, however, varies greatly with individuals, and some
persons only hear the highest and the lowest octaves of a
1The range of an Erard seven-octave concert-grand pianoforte C. to C. iu
from thirty-three to four thousand two hundred and twenty-four vibrationi
per second, or from twenty-seven and one-half vibrations lor the seven and
one-quarter octaves instruments.
'Helmholtz.
Tonempfindungen, p. 30.
209
piano as so many knocks instead of notes.1 The late Prolessor Tyndall was once kind enough to test the writer's
sensitiveness in this respect, when it was found possible to
hear musical "notes" having as few as fourteen and as
many as forty-two thousand vibrations per second. Never
theless, sound does not cease merely because human tympani
are not excitable by vibrations of much over forty thousand
per second. By means of his ingeniously constructed whistles,
it was demonstrated by Galton, sixteen or seventeen years ago,
that some animals, and notably birds and cats, could hear
" notes " so shrilli. e., caused by such a high rate of vibra
tionthat the human ear could not distinguish them from
absolute silence. Yet one of these " inaudible whistles," the
writer found, sometimes sufficed to partly overcome the cohe
sion of a slender rod of quickly cooled resin. When, there
fore, we are toldas the authoress, in other words, tells us
more than oncethat if masses of certain substances be molecularly hyperexcited to sympathetic vibration by sound
waves, they will be more or less disintegrated, and may even
rapidly fall to pieces, it is impossible to meet the assertion
with either honest denial or careless ridicule. In this, at
least, Keely appearshowever great the ultimate mechani
cal results may prove to beto have simply developed and
immensely extended the manifestation of a principle previ
ously known.
Let the reader of average intelligence once admit this much
for, practically, he can scarcely help himself, since it is irref
ragableand both scientifically and logically he must go
still further.
The veriest tyro in physical technology will have gathered
from the foregoing that no limit whatever can be assigned to
the number of sound-vibrations per second of time which are
possible, whether the resultant musical " note " be audible to
any ear, human or feline, or not. But when such vibrations
too numerous in a given time, and therefore too " finely
1 To such people the " intense " shrill notes emitted by the grasshopper and
various ether insects are absolutely inaudible.
VOL. I14
210
divided "to affect animal tympaniwith ever heightening

" pitch," pass on from a few thousand to many, through sev
eral phases of what might be termed ultra-musical silence, to
a greatly enhanced rate, they again become appreciable by
the animal senses, although we no longer speak of their effect
as " music," or " sound." It is now called " heat." Lastly, if
the resilient speed of " heat " vibrations be further accelerated
until they amount to some hundreds of billions per second,1
they are then capable of appreciation by the retina and the
optic nerve, and we apply to such vibrations the term " light."
Surpassingly rapid as these vibrations undoubtedly are, there
is no reason for supposing that at eight hundred or one
thousand billions per second, their final limit has been
reached. On the contrary, it is quite within the bounda
ries of rational hypothesis that light-vibrations accelerated
to a yet higher " pitch " (to borrow a convenient musical
term, for the nonce) are in their turn " translated " into
somethingneither sound, heat, nor lightfor which we
have yet to coin an appropriate name. By way of evi
dencing the commencement of these ultra-luminous vibra
tions we may point to those "dark" actinic rays beyond
the violet end of the spectrum, which are such potent factors
in the dissociation of chemical molecules, as familiarly
demonstrated in photography, but which remain invisi
ble to human eyes until we (still speaking in music lan
guage) transpose them to a lower " key " by the aid of some
so-called fluorescent substance. Then the " dark " rays be
come " light " rays and we can " see " them.
Thus far we have been treading upon fairly solid ground,
although along a steeply ascending pathway ; but can it be
possible that Mr. Keely has gone beyond and above this se
cure resting-place of our cosmical journey, and that the ultra
sound, ultra-heat, ultra-light, ultra-actinic " rays " just hinted
at in the preceding paragraph, whose vibrations must num
ber thousandsor tens of thousandsof billions per second,
1According to Sir John Herschell the light vibrations of the solar spectrum
vary from 458,000,000,000,000 per second for the extreme red, to 727,000,000,000,000 for the extreme violet rays.
A Remarkable Jiook, and Its Teachings.
211
will supply us with that potent " triune polar stream " or
"etheric force" regarding which its discoverer is so san
guine ?
If any dispassionate student will attentively peruse, first,
the present article, and thensternly putting on one side
much of the labored, inflated, and needlessly nebulous diction
of the " Keelyese " portion of the textMrs. Moore's inter
esting and important book, his reply to the above question
will be: " Well, it really looks rather like it, after all ! "
It may here be as well to observe that the writer is well
aware that it is quite usual to draw a hard and fast line of
demarcation between sound vibrations, on the one hand, and
those of heat and light upon the other, by assuming that in
the former case the undulations are longitudinal, and in the
latter, transverse. But this clumsy and unnecessary distinc
tion in no way commends itself to the writer, who, therefore
(for divers reasons, impossible to enter upon here), prefers to
consider them as being similar both as to configuration and
direction. Again, whilst sound is very generally thought to
be only transmissible by material and ponderable media, this
hypothesis is supported neither by direct evidence, nor by
inductive reasoning of a conclusive kind. Doubtless, in
order to account for the wave-progression of radiant light,
heat, and magnetism, it was necessary to prognose the exist
ence of an apolaric, interstitial " ether " (in support of which
theory material evidence is constantly accumulating) ; but,
just because " notes " of low " pitch " cannot be heard through
an air-vacuum, it is no more reasonable to say that no sound
waves whatever are transmissible through the " ether," than
it would be to assume that windows are useless because we
cannot induce a beam of monochromatic green light to pass
through a sheet of ruby glass !
Hence, in these pages, it has been deemed expedient to
deal with these several " impulse-forces " upon a common
basis, as manifested or conveyed by series of vibrations of
like character, but of progressive intensity. The writer had
an opportunity of asking Professor Tyndallabout a year
and a half before his lamented deathwhether this view
212
commended itself to him or not, and his reply was to the

following effect :
" I was not always of that opinion, but now I am disposed
to think your views correct; so that with a few vibrations
per second sound is generated ; when more numerous, you
may, as you suppose, get light, heat, and electricity ; again
multiplying them by the squares of millions, and who can say
what might, or might not be the result ? Possibly, energy
enough to divert the planets from their orbits! But, then, where
are those untold myriads of vibrations to be derived from ? "
That, with the present writer, has remained one of the
insoluble questions of years long past. Can Keely, or his
best exponent, the authoress of the book now before us,
answer it in any degree ? So far aswhat the inventor him
self might probably designatean unregenerate outsider can
judge (from the broad intention and general context of the
treatise rather than from any comprehensible working de
tails), it is claimed that the Philadelphia physicist has dis
covered (amongst other things) a means of overcoming the
cohesion of various substancesquartzose rock, for example
without having recourse to the ordinary mechanical opera
tions of crushing or grinding. Also, that this is accom
plished by first ascertaining what is infelicitously called the
substance's " chord of mass," and subsequently sounding that
particular "chord" or "note"for these words are used in
discriminately, and, in Keelyese, seemingly mean the same
thingwhen the quartz, perforce, sympathetically respond
ing to its "key-note" 1 (or some overtones thereof) rapidly
breaks up into pieces or fine powder. As to this experiment,
the authoress herself bears witness to the fact ; she has seen
1 Helmholtz has shown (and all musicians are aware of the fact) that when
a note is sounded, say, upon the piano, not only is that special note . emitted,
bat the string also gives forth more faintly a series of higher notes whose
vibrations are not many multiples of the original note. Thus, if the Treble
C, of 528 per second be struck, the sound we hear is not C pure and simple, but
a mixture thereof, with certain "overtones" or "partials."
G.'
C."
E."
O."
528. 1056. 1584.
C.
C.'
1112.
1640.
2168.
Bb."
2696.
213
hard gold quartz reduced in this manner to an impalpable

powder, which was carried away by the effluent water.
Such a process, if really available for the treatment of
quantities of ore, etc., should be capable of very extended
applications in the industrial arts. But it is also claimed
for this method, or a modification thereof, that it will even
chemically dissociate various bodies, such as water, for in
stance, resolving them into their constituent elements, and
beyond. We are now carried completely past anything and
everything that has hitherto been accomplished, and the de
composition of hydrogen is referred to by the authoress in
the calm, almost commonplace, manner of one who speaks
from the assured ground of actual knowledge, as an eye
witness.
It is here that the writer, in his capacity of chemist, is
perhaps inclined to join issue with both the experimenter
and the authoress, since statements of this nature should not
be made except upon evidence of the most conclusive charac
ter, and which moreover can be demonstrated, when chal
lenged, in such a manner as to leave no possible loophole for
doubt to creep in. Mrs. Moore, who may be looked upon
as editor of the text-book of " sympathetic vibrations,"
might well have applied the "blue pencil" at this point,
unless empowered to afford such details of method that any
skilled scientist with her book in his hand, and the neces
sary appliances, could dissociate or split up pure hydrogen
into its ultimate components for himself. In addition to
the foregoing, it must be said that amongst the various
" unsatisfied requirements " of a question of this magnitude,
we are told of the accomplished dissociation of hydrogen,
but of that very essential corollarythe nature and proper
ties of its constituentswe have no hint whatever.
Hence, in the writer's opinion, either too little or too much
has been said, and, although not improbably the whole of
our so-called elements are decomposible, the alleged com
pound nature of any one of themhydrogen included
must, upon the evidence adduced so far, be met with the
Scotch verdict : " Not proven."
214
A pregnant example of the necessity for caution in deal

ing with questions of this kind was aftbrded at the meeting
of the British Association1 this year, when a "new gas"
was said to have been obtained by the electrolyzatiou of
nitrogen; nothing transpired, however, to show that the
authors of the paper had accomplished much more than had
been done long ago by Cavendish.
Nevertheless it would certainly appear that Keely in the
course of his "disintegration" and "dissociation" experi
ments has, or believes he has, discovered a new force, being
neither electricity, magnetism, gravity, nor any of the other
sources of energy with which we are acquainted, but consid
erably more powerful than either, taking into consideration
the comparatively small size of the appliances needed for its
collection and distribution.
Here, again, the actual modus operandi and the theoretical
conditions involved are so nebulously entangled in a dictional
whirlpool of Bohemian technology that any quoted explana
tion would only serve to confuse the reader in place of en
lightening him.
For instance, the term " enharmonic " is employed by phy
sicists and musicians in reference to very small intervals on
the diatonic scale, and is in such relationship generally un
derstood. Keely applies the word to one of the three kinds
of vibration he attributes as normal to the molecules of all
matter, so that the usual significance of the word is entirely
lost and its newer specific meaning is not explained. Simi
larly the sense intended to be conveyed by "harmonic,"
"dominant," "negative attraction," etc., etc., cannot be
gauged by the perceptive faculties of the ordinary reviewer,
their accepted significations being quite impossible.
Hence, we must content ourselves with the merest outline
of the idea as after prolonged study it presents itself to the
readerwhether such a version be correct from the inventor's
standpoint or not.
Eoughly, it will be gathered, that in the decomposition
'Vide: "A New Gas," by Lord Rayleigh.
215
of water by what, for brevity's sake, may perhaps be termed

vibroid analysis,1 a certain stage in the process is stated to be
marked by a sudden and immense increase of pressure. This
pressure was not to be accounted for by the expansion into
vapor, or its constituent gases, of the few drops of water
under operation, and, more recently, the phenomenon was
considered to be a development of a hitherto latent unknown
force constantly present as a constituent of every substance
known, and especially of that subtle, imponderable fluid,
the " ether," which pervades all space, and impregnates the
molecular interstices of all matter.
This "ether," the chief medium of transmission for heat,
magnetism, etc., and the sole channel in which light can
travel, hitherto unconfinable by glass or metal walls, how
ever dense and compact, was found, according to Keely,
safely imprisoned during these "dissociation" experiments,
so long as a high rate of vibration was kept up. It there
proved to be the medium of one current of the so-called
" triune polar flow," which Mrs. Moore, evidently speaking
" by the card," designates as " Nature's most powerful agent."
In this connection it is interesting to note that a few years
ago, Hertzanother of the work-thinkers of science untimely
lost to ussaid that " ether " was held fast bound in all
electro-magnetic engines.
Keely considers that this force, if we are reading the story
aright, is present in all magnets (including, of course, our
great magnet, the earth), and is that which acts as " fender "
to those forces of the opposite poles. Anyhow, it is claimed
that the long researches are now complete, and only wait
practical applications in the work-shops of the world. Objec
tions to the statement that gravitation can now be neutral
ized, do not, in the writer's opinion, appear intrinsically
valid, since we know, or ought to know, that this is not im
possible, by any means. A simple wire spiral along which
a strong voltaic current is passeda " solenoid " in fact
will keep an iron knitting-needle in the direction of its axis
1 For this term the writer alone is responsible.
216
The Battles of Science.
suspended in mid-air, despite gravitation, for any desired time;

and if a hollow sphere of xylonite be " excited " interiorly, a
pith ball may be " hung up centrally " in similar fashion.
Hence, when competent authorities like Drs. Leidy and
Tattle and others state that they have seenas the authoress
has also donebronze weights of five or six pounds each,
raised from the bottom to the top of an insulated glass jar
through the influence, without contact, of a " vibratory
lift," the time for careful and honest inquiry in the matter
by critical European scientists would seem to have arrived.
Large photographs, showing three positions of the weights
in their transparent receptacle, when examined by a power
ful lens reveal no evidence tending to vitiate the bona fides
of experiment.
But the period of argument, of blind faith, or of captious
incredulity, should have passed away ; and as soon as the
American physicist shows to an approved expert that he can
raise a dollar or a dime six inches in the air or the water, in
the manner described, it will not matter about incomprehen
sible language, or dictional idiosyncrasies ; aerial navigation
will be the fait accompli of the Victorian era, and John Wor
rell Keely, the discoverer, will owe to Mrs. Moore's remark
able book the great and generous recognition of his merits
by the civilized world.
THE BATTLES OF SCIENCE.

The Battle with Fire The Battle of the Forests The Battle
with DiseaseMinor Notes.
\_Thf American Aieoeiationfor the Advaneement of Science.]
RECORDED BY CHARLES BARNARD.

The meetings of the American Association for the Advance
ment of Science are becoming more and more each year of
wide general interest, by reason of the ever-growing appli
cation of science to useful work. Some of the meetings of
the association have in the past been milestones, marking
important steps along the path of sciencewhite stones
217
shining with the light of new discoveries. All the recent

meetings have had a steadily-increasing value, because of the
educational effect of these annual meetings on the men of
science. The forty-third meeting, held in Brooklyn, in
August, 1894, attracted more than usual public interest, and
was specially considered by the daily press, because of its eduwvtional value. At the same time, this forty-third meeting
was not marked by any startling announcements of new dis
coveries likely to appeal to the popular attention. It ap
peared, rather, to show that the advance of science in the
past year had been in the nature of a permanent occupation
of acquired territory, rather than a brilliant march into new
country. The papers read were largely reports of detail
work, records of tests and experiments of value to the future
student and experimenter, and historical surveys of certain
fields of work, to show the progress already made. The
allied associations that met at the same time, in Brooklyn,
also afforded an opportunity to see where science stands
to-day, and to give some hint as to the value of its conclu
sions to the actual work and business of the world. Of the
two hundred or more papers read during the week in Brook
lyn, three are here recorded, with some brief comment
on the useful application of these branches of science to mod
ern life and industry in this country.
Of the other papers read, by far the greater number were
short records of research and experiment, chiefly of value to
students in their particular fields. Of the longer papers, a
few may be mentioned by title as of special value. Of these
the address of the retiring President, Dr. William Harkness,
at a General Session of the Association in the Academy of
Music, on "The Magnitude of the Solar System," was, per
haps, the most interesting, from a historical point of view,
as recording the methods used in measuring the distance of
the sun. The paper summed up the result of all methods as
giving the mean distance between the earth and the sun at
92,797,000 miles, with a probable error of only 59,700 miles,
and for the total diameter of our system a distance of 5,578,400,000 miles. In Economic Science, a paper by Edward
218
Atkinson, entitled "A Forecast of the Future Commercial

Union of the English-Speaking People," another by the
same author on " The Evil Effect of Raising Prices by Depre
ciating the Standard of Value," and a paper by Henry Farquhar, of Washington, D. C., on "A Stable Monetary Stand
ard," were of value to students of this science. In the Section
of Anthropology, a long paper upon " Human Faculty as
Determined by Race," by Frank Boas, of New York, attracted
general interest. In the Section of Geology and Geography,
a paper on "The Niobrara Chalk," by Samuel Calvin, of
Iowa City, Iowa, was of interest to students of the geo
logical history of the Northwest.
THE BATTLE WITH FIRE.
An important paper, from an economic point of view, pre

sented in the Section of Chemistry, was read by the VicePresident, Thomas H. Norton, of Cincinnati, Ohio. The
paper had the attractive title of " The Battle with Fire,"
and, while largely historical, was of the greatest practical
value to the economist and taxpayer, as well as interesting
to the chemist.
The total annual loss on insured property throughout the
world is estimated at $200,000,000, nearly one-half this loss
being borne by the property holders of the United States ;
our fire loss in 1893 being $90,344,075. In addition to this,
it costs $20,000,000 each year to maintain our water-works
and fire departments. The total loss caused by fires in the loss
of wages, by accidents and death, cannot be computed ; it is
a very great sum every year. The actual loss of property
alone amounts to twenty per cent. of the net profits on all
the industries of the country. In reviewing the history of
fire extinguishing and fire prevention, the paper briefly con
sidered the history of fire-proof construction or slow-burning
construction; the use of brick, stone, and metal in ships and
buildings ; the abandonment of light open-work like lathing
and the growing use of solid and massive wood-work where
wood must be used, and the substitution of metals for wood
wherever possible. These things belong more properly to the
219
architect. Fire engines, in like manner, are the province of

the fire engineer. Chemistry seeks to aid both architect and
engineer, and the studies of scientists in this field have led to
chemical engineering, or the science of fire control by chem
ical means as distinguished from mechanical means. The
effective throwing of a stream of water upon a fire is a me
chanical problem. The actual operation of water thrown on
a fire is chiefly chemical. The province of the chemical fire
engineer is to increase the efficiency of water thrown on a fire,
and to prevent fires by causing inflammable materials, like
wood or fabrics, to burn slowly, or ignite slowly, under ordi
nary fire temperatures.
One of the most curious applications of chemical means
to the extinguishment of fire is the use of inflammable,
quick-burning powders. These powders, when thrown on a
fire, burn without explosion, and with a bright flame, pro
duce a strong odor and a great deal of smoke, and evolve
quantities of inert gas that tend to smother the original fire
by cutting off its supply of oxygen. In small enclosed spaces,
where there is little or no ventilation, they have proved effec
tive. Seven different powders, all depending for their value
upon a rapid production of gas, have been made the subject
of investigation. Naturally, the attention of the chemical
fire engineer has been given to the use of common water as
a vehicle for conveying to fire chemical solutions which render
the water more effective in smothering the fire and prevent
ing the access of air to the burning material, in the production
of aqueous vapor, or the mechanical protection afforded by
coating the material with a fire-resisting skin or coat. To
illustrate, the paper quoted an instance where a druggist ex
tinguished some burning benzine by drawing a pailful of soda
water from his fountain, and pouring it on the fire. Simple
water would here have been ineffective. On this idea are
founded all the various so-called chemical fire engines.
They are machines, not engines, unless employing pumps
to throw the prepared water on the fire. The principle on
which all are constructed is the formation of a carbonated
water under pressure, the gas formed in the enclosed vessel
220
serving to throw the carbonated water on the fire. The

paper reported a number of chemical preparations used in
addition to water, but the opinion seemed to be that the
carbon dioxide commonly employed is the best. The history
of this most important contribution of chemistry to the
extinguishment of fire was briefly considered, and some
account of six different forms of chemical extinguishers was
given. A brief history of the various forms of hand gre
nades was also given. These are glass bottles containing
solutions of various chemicals. These solutions aim to
smother the fire by giving off gaaes, or by coating burning
materials with an air-excluding skin. Their use is limited
to very small incipient fires, and they are often rendered of
no value by a failure to break when thrown into a fire. All
the various solutions used in these grenades are exceedingly
cheap.
The paper, having considered the history of these chemical
tire appliances, then made a most interesting suggestion for
future experiment and study. It would appear that chemists
have practically brought this branch of the subject to a
<legree of perfection in which it did not seem likely that
further important contributions to practical science would
be made. Research and experiment have given us the chemi
cal engine and hand grenade, and it might seem desirable
to see if carbon dioxide could not be used precisely as
water is now used in automatic sprinklers. In these sprink
lers, pipes containing water constantly under pressure are
placed near the ceilings of rooms. A fusible plug closes the
outlet (or sprinkler), and when a fire starts, the plug melts
and releases the water on the fire. While these sprinklers
are effective and useful, they have the disadvantage of flood
ing the building after the fire is out, and often doing thus
far more damage than the actual fire. A pipe system, open
near the floor of apartments, could be used to convey great
volumes of this harmless, inert gas into rooms where a fire
had started, and thus smother it without injury to valuable
property stored in the room, or on floors below. The actual
making of the gas in sufficient quantities, its storage and
221
delivery, were not considered, and Professor Norton contented

himself with making the suggestion, leaving to others to
attack the practical side of the matter. However, in all
science, it is the idea, the suggestion, that counts, because
the man of science properly studies laws in preference to
useful applications of laws, and prefers to add to the sum of
human knowledge rather than spend valuable time in mak
ing knowledge useful. There are busy minds and hands al
ways eager to gather up the sure facts and suggestions of
science, and here is one of those cases where a valuable sug
gestion should produce, in the hands of practical men, some
thing of real benefit to the people.
Allied to the use of chemistry to check snd smother fire,
is the equally important matter of preventing fire. Professor
Norton's paper gave an exhaustive history of a very little
known study. This is the treatment of wood, paper, and
fabrics with various chemicals, to cause them to ignite slowly,
or burn slowly, under moderate fire temperature. It is prac
tically impossible to prevent the destruction of these ma
terials in very high temperatures (that of a puddling furnace,
for instance). Professor Norton, in his paper, and by the aid
of actual experiments before the Section, proved that against
the relatively low firetemperatures,it is now possible to render
paper, cloth, and wood non-ignitable, or slow-burning. Be
ginning with the first experiments of Obediah Wild, in Eng
land, in 1735, he carefully traced the history of the very
many experiments that have been made in the so-called fireproofing of these materials. The researches of chemists in
this field have been most thorough, and their experiments
and results have received special attention within the past
few years, so that the paper may be regarded as summing up
the case of chemistry as an aid to the fireman, and showing
that it is possible to practically " fire-proof " those highly
inflammable materials. In protecting fabrics, used in dresses,
scenery, etc., it is not alone necessary to cause them to ignite
or burn slowly. The material must be cheap, and the pro
tected cloth must not be too heavy or stiff. It must be easily
bent without cracking the protective coating, and it must be

unchanged by washing or ironing, and the protection must
be permanent. Of the very many fire-proofing solutions or
preparations that have been under experiment, those contain
ing sodium tungstate, the borates of ammonium salts, alone or
in various mixtures, are chiefly used as best fulfilling all the
requirements of a practical fire-proof cloth. Experiments
during the reading of the paper proved that actual contact
with moderate flame produced no effect upon protected cotton
cloth, beyond a slight charring and blacking. It must be
understood, however, that given a sufficiently high tempera
ture, gases would be evolved, and these gases would burn and
the fabric be destroyed. The point is, that the protected
cloth will not burn in simple contact with flame, and even if
actually burning, will go out and cease to burn the instant
the cloth is taken away from igniting temperatures. With
a preparation of sodium tungstate, cloth can be " practically
fire-proof." For cloth that is to be worn, other preparations
may be used. The chief point is, that cloth can be made
tire-proof.
Paper in like manner may be made to burn very slowly or
ignite slowly. Experiments made with various examples of
prepared paper, showed that it could be made to burn very
slowly, or to merely smoulder in flame, and cease to smoul
der when the flame was withdrawn. A series of experiments
with prepared wood were shown in connection with the
reading of the paper, proving that slow ignition and slow
burning could be secured, even in light pine wood, in con
tact with flame. Woods are now commercially prepared
that are practically slow-burning or fire-proof. Professor
Norton's paper was not alone interesting as a history of
the efforts made in this important field of chemical engineer
ing, but it was valuable as showing that we now have it in
our own hands to protect our property against the enormous
losses caused by preventable fires.
THE BATTLE OF THE FORESTS.
The paper read atone of the evening sessions, by Prof. B. E.

Fenrow, Chief of the Forestry Department at Washington,
223
was profusely illustrated, and, while technical in its character,

treated of subjects that are of vital importance to all the
people. After an instructive and exhaustive history of the
rise and progress of the vast forests that once covered the
larger part of this country, and after showing the once
enormous extent of our forest wealth, Professor Fenrow
took up the subject of man's interference in the great cen
tury-long battle that always goes on in all wooded lands be
tween the weak and the vigorous trees, each striving for a
foothold in the soil and a chance to enjoy sun and air.
Forest growth begins on barren sands or bare rocks, by
the starting of shrubs and small plants, that, dying, leave
their remains to form a humus or soil in which better and
larger plants may grow. Trees create soil through their own
decay and death, and by catching and holding water and
drifting material of all kinds. A forest in active operation
creates its own soil at the rate of one foot in five hundred
years. The lumberman can strip an acre of forest of its
trees in a few days, and leave the soil that it cost two thou
sand years to lay down, to be totally ruined and destroyed
in a few months. The natural processes that instantly fol
low the cutting off or burning of a forest area, and the cor
rect methods of controlling them and the proper means to be
used in saving our forest wealth, form the Science of Fores
try. A rapid and graphic study of this science made the
most interesting and valuable part of Professor Fenrow's
paper.
Rain falling on forest-covered land meets with an elastic
surface. The leaves break up its down-pour, and the trees
and the vegetable growth under them act precisely as a
sponge, checking the on-rush of the water, holding it back,
and allowing it to seep slowly away, without injury to the
soil. Forests act as moisture holders, and keep the air damp
by checking too rapid evaporation. Drying winds and the
direct sunlight act more slowly in woods than on bare hill
sides. Strip the land of its trees by axe or fire, and the rain
strikes the soil with full force, accumulates in swift rivulets,
plows up the soil, and sweeps it away to lower levels. The
224
process is simple; the results are enormously destructive.

Streams that in forests ran evenly throughout the greater part
of the year, become capricious and uncertain, now raging in
destructive floods and torrents, now dwindling to mere riv
ulets, of no value to the miller or boatman. With incredible
rapidity the costly soil of mountain slopes is swept away and
lost, after the forests disappear. The soil gone, the rains
sweep down loose rock and cover the once fertile valleys
with wastes of sand and gravel. The process begins every
where the moment the trees are gone, and increases in destructiveness from year to year, leaving stony wastes on the
mountains and a wilderness in the valleys. That we do not
see more miles of ruined land and sterile mountain side -t
that our country is not as impoverished and desolated as
Spain and parts of France, is simply because we have not
yet gone far enough. The process has begun already, on a
gigantic scale, in several of our States, and it is only a ques
tion of time when the States, combined or singly, must in
terfere and control the farmer, the miner, and lumberman,,
who are now so barbarously destroying the present and
potential wealth of the country. Well may foreign writers,,
seeing our wasteful methods of tree cutting, and viewing
our inexcusable forest fires, say that we are " a barbarous
and uncivilized people."
The science of forestry offers both prevention and cure inforest control and reforesting. Reforesting, or restoring land
to a tree-growing condition, is expensive and comparatively
slow, so that its general adoption upon a large scale in this
country is perhaps doubtful. Forest control we can and must
institute at once.
The replanting of forests as practiced on the barren and
valueless mountains of France was fully described in Pro
fessor Fenrow's paper, and is interesting, as it is quite possi
ble that some modifications of it may yet prove profitable
wherever the price of land will warrant tree culture. These
mountains being absolutely denuded of all soil, are washed
by every rain, the debris covering the farm lands below.
The first step is to check the too rapid flow of storm-water,.
225
by building little dams of wicker work on the slopes to catch

the water, and compel it to flow slowly in a series of pools
and tiny waterfalls. In these slack waters, or catch basins, the
drift-sand gathers and forms little plateaus of soil that in a
very short time will sustain a growth of small hardy trees.
The roots bind and hold the new soil, and in a comparatively
short time the barren hillsides are green with infant forests.
Where the slopes are steep, and the damage has been great,
masonry dams are used, and soil is carried up and put behind
the dams to give a foothold to the young trees. Such pre
pared hillsides at once begin to act as water-holders, restrain
ing floods, and preventing droughts ; in fact, restoring forest
conditions. Whether this work will pay here is simply a
question of the cost of labor, and the value of the land, the
water, and the lumber crop. It pays some return at once, by
preventing further destruction of good land, and by saving
the water and controlling the streams. In New Jersey, where
water is money, it would undoubtedly be profitable to reforest
many square miles of now valueless mountain sides. There
can be no question that in time it will repay to reforest
barren mountain sides that are in reasonable reach of large
cities, because of the value of the water restrained and re
stored by forest growth. Ultimately, the lumber crop would
be added to the water crop.
Concerning the control of forest lands, Professor Fenrow's
paper was most impressive. We must do it, or some day
meet a lumber and water famine, and see our valley farm
lands ruined, and our rivers obstructed, and our cities waterstarved. Forest control means simply intelligent supervision
over the cutting of trees. The farmer and forest land owner
claims he has a right to do as he pleases with his own. Such
right implies no injury to others. In the case of forest lands,
the right to cut down the trees conflicts with the rights of
the entire community, and the rights of posterityand pos
terity has moral rights, if not legal rights. Fortunately, forest
control is not the mere suggestion of science. Forest control
is a science itself. Just as in France the science of reforest ry
is carried on as a function of government, so in Germany
VOL. 116
226
forest control is a proper and profitable branch of the gen

eral government. Trained foresters, the police of the woods,
patrol all forest lands, protect the trees from fire, decide
what trees shall be cut each year, and how and when every
single tree shall be felled. Poor and undesirable species are
culled out, and valuable commercial varieties saved and pro
tected till of merchantable size. Bare hillsides, and all cheap
or comparatively valueless agricultural lands, are replanted
and made to yield a timber crop where no other crop will
grow. In this country, State control of forests must come,
and come soon ; and the Public Forester must soon stay the
hand of the farmer and lumberman. The question is one of
vital importance, involving many diverging and apparently
conflicting interests. The highest skill and the widest knowl
edge must be brought by our State legislators to bear on
this question of our forests. Forest preservation does not mean
shutting up the woods to useless decay and overgrowth. Intel
ligent forestry means simply control ; preservation and pro
tection first, and then the proper and business-like cutting of
this, the greatest crop that the soil has ever yielded. As we
now stand idle, while the forest fires bring on us a loss of
millions every year, and while the unintelligent wood-chopper
is permitted to do as he will with what is not truly his own,
we are justly charged with being "a barbarous people."
" Woodman, spare that tree," was once a sentiment. It is
now a command of scientific duty.
Closely allied to the paper by Professor Fenrow were a
number of short papers read before the American Forestry
Association, that held its sessions during the week of the
American Association meetings. The eighteen papers sub
mitted had all, with one exception, immediate connection
with the science of forestry. The one exception was a de
scriptive illustrated paper by Horace C. Hovey, of Newburyport, Mass., upon the petrified forests of Arizona. This paper,
while entertaining, as an account of a visit to these curious
geologic remains, had no direct bearing on forestry as a
science. Its most valuable point in the interest of geology
was the wanton destruction of these curious and beautiful
The Batiks of Science.
227
relics of ancient foreat life by persons who only see in them

so much money to be won from their ruin and extinction,
and the suggestion that the law should be invoked to protect
this remarkable deposit before it be too late.
The remaining papers were all written by experts in the
science of forestry, and were valuable as showing the present
position of the science in this country as far as it relates to the
actual control of our woodland wealth. The forests in all our
States are now being made the subject of careful study, both by
individuals, scientists, and Forestry Commissions under State
and Federal control. In some instances the matter is under
the care of State Geologists and State Experiment Stations.
The study of forest fires and their prevention is also the sub
ject of earnest study in several States, notably in New Jersey,
where a complete system of fire protection is under consider
ation. The consensus of opinion at the meetings seemed to
be that we must copy the forestry laws of Germany, and estab
lish regular paid forest fire departments and patrol. All the
papers of this association, while almost wholly technical,
seemed to be worthy of the most earnest public attention, be
cause it was evident from the tone of the discussions of the
association that the great need to-day in this country is forest
education. It is not that the great mass of the people are in
different or careless ; it is not that they are willingly allowing
the lumberman and farmer to ruin the public wealth invested
in trees, but that the people do not realize how serious the
matter is, how gigantic is the annual commercial loss occa
sioned by forest fires and how ill directed our forest depletion.
The country seems well wooded to the unins-tructed eye.
The desolated hill country, bereft of its trees, is seldom seen,
and the demand for wood is enormous. These things have led
to a certain public indifference that is plainly reflected in
all our legislatures, and it was clearly the desire of the For
estry Association that educators throughout the country
should bring the public to a realizing sense of the value of
forestry science in saving our woodland wealth before it is
completely lost.

THE BATTLE WITH DISEASE.
Before the American Association of Microscopists, Dr.

'W. W. Alleger, Instructor in Bacteriology at Howard Uni
versity, Washington, read a paper on " The Limitation of
Tuberculosis." The title exactly defines the scope of Dr. Alleger's paper. It was to define and explain the most recent
views concerning the limiting or preventing of the spread
of this disease. The bacillus tuberculosis varies in length
from 1.5 to 3.5 micro-millimeters, and appears as a rod-like
vegetable growth in the sputum and lungs of persons suffer
ing from consumption. It does not appear able to grow and
multiply outside the tissues of a living animal. On the
other hand, it appears to be able to survive for months, per.
haps years, in the dry dust of dark corners, cracks, or crev
ices of walls and floors in rooms, and probably in fabrics and
clothing kept in dark closets. The sputum, carrying the
bacilli, may dry away to dust, and the dust float about in
the air, and the spores will still survive in the dust, at rest
or suspended in the air as microscopic seeds, ready, when
once planted in a suitable medium, to start again into life as
bacilli.
The spores of the bacilli may thus be inhaled or absorbed in
milk, and ultimately reach the lung tissue in great numbers.
If the conditions are favorable, if the tissues, weakened by
exposure, or cold, by other diseases, or from any cause are
susceptible to the spores, they may start into life and produce
the bacilli in great quantities, and the disease be thus estab
lished. If, by reason of excellent general health, freedom
from debilitating disease or conditions, the tissues resist the
spores, they may fail to grow. It would seem, therefore, if
hygienic conditions were, according to Dr. Alleger, favor
able, the disease may be, and is, continually resisted. If the
conditions are unfavorable, the first exposure to the spores
may lead to the starting of colonies of bacilli in the tissue
of the man or animal. It is thought that this has given rise
to the idea that consumption can be inherited. The unavorable conditions, the weakened constitution (weakened
rom other causes) may, indeed, be inherited, and give good
229
soil for the spores to germinate in, and the disease appear
to be thus inherited. Its actual inheritance seems very
doubtful.
In the treatment of the bacillus nature has given us one
simple remedy. Direct exposure to the sunlight will de
stroy the bacillus in a few minutes. Sputum containing it
may be rendered harmless by direct sunlight in an hour or
two, and even bright diffused daylight will slowly destroy
the vitality of the bacillus. Fire and heat also destroy the
vitality of the bacilli and their spores. The practical applica
tions made by Dr. Alleger of these facts are of importance.
First, of the sputum of consumptive patients. It should be
instantly received, not on cloth, but on paper, and the paper
at once burned. Handkerchiefs of paper should always be
used in preference to those of any fabric, unless, like the
paper, they are at once burned. No handkerchief, bib, or
other article soiled with sputum should be left to dry. In
fact, the sputum must be invariably destroyed before it can
dry, because the spores may then float in the air as micro
scopic dust, or cling to walls, furniture, or clothing, be car
ried in cars, state-rooms, or carriages, to be shaken off in the
air and inhaled by persons susceptible to their influence.
Table-ware should be washed in boiling water, linen burned,
and bedding disinfected or destroyed. Persons affected by
consumption should not be allowed to work in close apart
ments with others, both on account of danger to themselves
by reinfection and on account of exposure of others. Hos
pitals for consumptives should be separate wards or buildings ;
and in private dwellings patients should be kept in bright,
sunny rooms, alone, and not in close companionship of others.
Dairies and slaughter-houses should be rigidly inspected and
infected animals killed and their meat and milk destroyed.
Public disinfecting plants should be established in all cities
for the free cleaning and disinfecting of the clothing or other
material used by consumptives. Good manners forbid spit
ting by any one upon the floor or sidewalk at any time.
The spitting by consumptives upon the floor or sidewalk
is criminal. Education in this respect must teach that
230
science in this instance commands good manners. Public

spittoons, from the point of view of this valuable paper by
Dr. Alleger, should be made of paper and burned after use.
By these methods consumption maybe greatly lessened, and,
perhaps, ultimately stamped out.
Of the shorter papers, the greater majority were chiefly
interesting as records of experimental research in fields use
ful only to the experimenter. Incidentally, a few minor
points of general interest may be noticed. In the Section
of Physics a short paper by Alfred Springer, concerning the
results obtained in making violins of sheet aluminum, was
rather negative than positive. A violin exhibited during
the reading of the paper, . proved to have a loud but not
attractive tone. The instrument was light, and apparently
an exact imitation of a wooden violin, and yet, by the nature
of its material, it did not, and could not, give the peculiar
"wood tone" characteristic of a fine wooden violin. The
difficulty seemed to be in the uniform thickness of the sheet
metal. The back and belly of a wooden violin are of varying
thickness, and no ribs or other additions to the sheet metal
would exactly imitate this feature of even the most common
wooden violin. The speaker said, in his paper, that alumi
num sound-boards differed from those of other metals, and
were analogous to those of wood in not producing overtones
out of tune with the fundamental note. This advantage did
not seem to be sufficient to overcome the defects inherent in
a sheet metal violin.
In the Section of Botany, a paper read by B. T. Galloway,
on " The Growth of Radishes as Affected by the Size and
Weight of the Seeds," was valuable to the seed buyer and
seed dealer, as showing the difference between large and
small seeds. The radish seed sold by seedmen vary greatly
in size. The radish is a plant that quickly matures, and is
a good subject for experiment in this direction. The paper
reported, as the result of a series of greenhouse experiments,
that large seeds will mature their crop faster and more
evenly than small seeds, 85 per cent. of the total crop ma
turing at the same time. The average that can be gathered
231
from a crop from small seeds, is only 50 per cent. Iu point

of repeated crops or successive returns from the same ground,
large seeds produce five crops while small seeds produce four.
In view of the fact that seedsmen are advertising "selected,"
"screened," and "extra choice" seeds, these facts are of
value, as showing that seeds that are really "selected" or
screened for size, have an actual commercial value from 20
to 30 per cent. greater than the common, uncleaned stocks
of seeds. The experiments tried on the radish would prob
ably produce the same results in other seeds.
A short paper read before the Section of Economic Sci
ence by Byron D. Halsted, on " Weeds as Eelated to Civili
zation," was of interest as showing that the modern devel
opment of rapid transportation by land and sea had tended
to distribute the seeds of weeds over all countries, so that
the weeds of one country become common in the soil of
many other countries where they are not natives. The
exchange of agricultural products being rapid, the seeds of
weeds carried with other materials maintain their vitality
only to germinate in new soils and spread over new fields.
The so-called " Russian thistle " is an example of the
rapid spread in this country of a foreign weed. The paper
reported a very rapid increase of weeds in all civilized coun
tries, and suggested that all possible means should be used
in agricultural districts to exterminate weeds along road
sides and in unoccupied lands ; laws against weeds should
be enforced, and the public schools should be used to instruct
the rising generation how useless plants and weeds can be
exterminated.
A paper upon an allied subject, by Professor L. H. Bailey,
was entitled, " The Struggle for Existence [among plants]
Under Cultivation." The point brought out by this paper is
of interest as explaining the enormous number of novel forms
of garden plants and the rapid increase of new types and
varieties. Under natural conditions, in a wild state, through
the struggle for existence, in which only the most fit ever sur
vive, a variety or type maintains itself by the survival of
its strongest individuals. The tight is between type and
232
British Association Echoes.
type. The moment a type is brought under cultivation,

wholly new conditions prevail. Cultivation cuts off a very
large percentage of all the seeds that germinate. Fewer sur
vive, whether the most fit or not. The type, protected in
the struggle- with other types, is left free, and the struggle
becomes one of individual plant against another, instead
of against the common enemy. The tendency is, there
fore, to induce variability of type. Individuals of the
species become special, and tend to create variations from
the species. The struggle under cultivation may be even
more intense than in a wild state, and the most vigorous
plants perpetuate individual characteristics and thus estab
lish new types.
BRITISH ASSOCIATION ECHOES.

The clou of this year's gathering of the British Associa
tion in the stateliest, most picturesque and most interestingly
historical of all English towns was unquestionably the an
nouncement by Lord Rayleigh and Professor Ramsay of their
discovery of a new gas in the atmosphere. Elsewhere in this
number of THE NEW SCIENCE REVIEW we give the opinion
on this subject of Professor Dewar, of the Royal Institution,
London. This being the case, we shall confine ourself here
to a rapid passing reference to it.
Briefly put, the discovery comes to this. The two learned
men, whose names have been literally " flashed from pole to
pole," have found that, after all the oxygen and all the
nitrogen have been removed from a quantity of pure dry air,
a residue is left, amounting to nearly one per cent, of the
whole, which has a density greater than that of nitrogen,
and gives a spectrum with a single blue line, much more in
tense than a corresponding line in the nitrogen spectrum.
Up to now we are in ignorance as to whether this new sub
stance is or is not an element, and as to its physical and
238
chemical properties. Its chemical inertness has enabled it

to escape observation for so long a period, and also makes
further research difficult. The whole circle of the sciences
cannot fail to be affected by the discovery which has made
the Oxford meeting of 1894 notable.
Most beautiful were the experiments (also in the Chemistry
Section) of Professor J. J. Thomson, indicating that, in all
probability, if a gas were perfectly dry no electricsl dis
charge could take place through it, however high the tension.
There were more foreign scientists present at the Oxford
meeting than at any previous gathering of the Association.
Of much interest was the paper contributed by Dr. A. Bern
stein (Berlin) on " The Chemical Action of a New Bacterium
in Milk which Converts the Proteids of Sterilized Milk into
Peptone." On dit, that the new bacterium is much used for
ripening cheese. Papers in the Chemistry Section were also
contributed by Dr. S. Rideal, Professor Clowes and Dr. Haldane ; but we have only space to mention them, so great is
the pressure on our pages this quarter.
The Section devoted to Geology was rather uninteresting.
The papers were many in number, but nearly all were un
attractive. Those who perused Major-General Drayson's ar
ticle in our first number, will be pleased to hear that the Rev.
J. F. Blake discoursed on " The Mechanics of an Ice Sheet,"
while Mr. Edward P. Culverwell submitted a paper on " An
Examination of Croll's and Ball's Theory of Ice Ages and
Genial Ages," and Professor Bonney's paper was on " The
Probable Temperature of the Glacial Period."
. There were many papers on Applied Physics, and intense
interest was taken in the paper read by Lord Kelvin, on "The
Electrification of Air by the Removal of Water from it, and
on the Resistance Experienced by Solids Moving Through
Fluids." We gathered from these essays that progress is still
being made toward a knowledge of the ultimate cause of
electrical disturbances of the atmosphere, and of the perfect
shape for the hull of a vessel. Very notable was Professor
Forster's paper on " Displacements of the Rotational Axis
of the Earth," with its expression of belief that " the North
234
Pole wanders through about fifty feet only between its ex

treme positions." It was only paying the Professor a welldeserved compliment for the Section to ask the Association
to print the paper in extenso.
In this same Section was the Department of Meteorology ;
and it must have been humiliating to the Tinned able expert
to have to admit, that " the numerous reports on work done
on Ben Nevis and elsewhere showed that we are holding our
own, but, compared with present activity in America and on
the Continent, British meteorology was distinctly deficient."
In Section D papers were read dealing with the minute
structure and physiology of the animal and vegetable cell ;
Professor Strasburger's contribution attracting the keenest
attention. "Chlorophyll in Animals "served as a text for Pro
fessor Ray Lankester.
At one meeting no fewer than five papers were read, all
dealing, in one way or other, with Evolution and Darwin
ism. Professor D'Arcy Thompson ("Some Difiicultiefl of
Darwinism,") suggested that the mechanical and mathe
matical principles of growth itself may have affected the
form of animal life. Professor Riley (Washington) dealt
with the habits of ants, bees, wasps, and termites; his argu
ment being, that in this case the struggle for existence of the
colony, as a whole, must be substituted for that of the indi
vidual. We, unfortunately, missed the gathering at which all
these papers were submitted. In the Times we find this in
teresting comment on Professor Riley's remarkably able
paper: "An interesting point was made by Professor Haycraft, to the effect that the true role of sex was to keep down
variationthat by the combination of two individuals to
form a new individual, a mean between the two was always
obtained, and that in this way the race was kept constant ;
whereas, if that new individual could be produced from only
a single parent, the limits of variation would be unduly ex
tended."
Professor Osboru (New York), in his interesting paper,
" On Certain Variations met with in the Dentition of Fossil
Mammals," showed how two teeth might eventually come to
235
resemble one another closely, although the stages through

which they passed had been widely different. In the animated
talk which followed the reading of Professor Osborn's paper,
Professor Ray Lankester laid stress on the fact that the
younger biologists of to-day did not pay sufficient attention
to Darwin's works ; and, judging by the applause with which
this complaint was greeted, the professor's opinion was gen
erally shared.
Captain Wharton presided over the Geographical Section,
and gave an address which was listened to with deep in
terest. Current polar exploration was naturally to the fore,
Colonel Feilden's paper thereon being much applauded. A
paper on " Oceanography," read by Mr. Buchanan, described
the researches of the Prince of Monaco in the North Atlantic
and Mediterranean during the summer of 1894. The name
of the ruler of the miniature principality, which requires an
army (!) of eighty men only for its protection, is known to
the world generally as that of the Independent Sovereign
who draws the larger part of his income from the roulette
and trente-et-quarante tables. Scientists, however, recognize
in the Prince un homme serieux, whose delight it is to scour
the seas on researching expeditions in his yacht, the Princess
Aliceso named, by the way, after the Prince's second wife,
the Duchesse de Richelieu, who is so wealthy in her own
right that she wishes her consort to make short work of that
eyesore to the Riviera, yclept the Casino. Many members
of the Association were heard to express a wish that the
Prince had been present at Oxford in proprid persons ; we
hear it is likely that he will endeavor to assist at next year's
gathering, of which Ipswich is to be the scene.
The paper read by Mr. Buchanan, F. R. S., on His Highness's behalf, described in well-chosen phraseology the scien
tific researches of the Prince in his yachting excursions.
Careful soundings were taken in the course of the voyage,
and it was found that for a considerable distance eastward
from Gibraltar and Ceuta the surface water comes mainly
from the Atlantic. The surface temperature varied from
15C. to 17.4C. ; but under the influence of hot winds the
236
thermometer rose in the water to 28C. and 29C. The Prince

introduced several improvements in sounding and dredging
operations, and the dredge was successfully employed to
great depths of water. From a depth of 2,230 metres eightytiine black ground sharks were brought up of a species until
now considered to be exceedingly rare. The greatest depth
at which the dredge was used was 3,610 metres on July 8,
1894, when some fishes were brought up which have still to
be identified. Life was shown to be abundant where it has
hitherto been supposed to be scarce.
Highly important was Dr. Haldane's paper on " The Causes
and Prevention of Suffocation in Mines." As the result of
moat elaborate investigation, he arrived at the conclusion
that in colliery explosions the deaths from suffocation were
due, not, as was generally supposed, to carbonic acid gas,
but to the preponderance of nitrogen and the deficiency of
oxygen. Lifeconld be saved if the colliers could be supplied
with oxygen for an hour or so ; and he had devised and ex
hibited an apparatus for enabling a man to breathe oxygen,
of which sixty litres were compressed into a half-litre bottle
with tube and regulating taps, supplemented by a wire com
press for the nose to prevent breathing through that organ.
Professor Rutherford (who presided) said that Dr. Haldane
had greatly increased our knowledge, and had offered a prac
tical solution of a difficult problem. He presumed the pro
posal was that every miner was to be provided with the
apparatus. If saving of life should result from the adoption
of the apparatus, Dr. Haldane will have earned the grati
tude of humanity.
The new science of limnology was not neglected. There
were papers by Dr. Mill, on the English, and by M. Delebecque, on the French Lakes. Very few agreed with Mr.
Yule Oldham's argument that South America must have
been discovered by the Portuguese some fifty years before
the voyage of Columbus ; more especially as Mr. Oldham
founded his contention solely on the basis of a dubious out
line of land on Bianco's map of 1448.
The French Association Meeting.
237
In the Section devoted to Economic Science, a large num

ber of papers were read, and Professor Nicholson's lecture on
" Socialism " proved a great attraction. Mr. Edward Atkin
son's paper on " The Evil Effect of Raising Prices by Depre
ciating the Standard of Value," was much appreciated, deal
ing, as it did, mainly with the course of affairs in the United
States. " Whatever " (remarked the Times' commentator)
" may be thought of the criteria applied and the conclusions
come to, there can be no doubt of the value of the mass of
facts brought together and co-ordinated by Mr. Atkinson."
Very pleasurable were the memories of this ancient seat of
learning which the visitors took away. It was left to Pro
fessor Barker (Pennsylvania) to publicly return thanks for
the hospitality which had been accorded by the university,
the colleges, and individuals which had done so much to
make the meeting a success. The professor sympathetically
remarked that he had enjoyed the privilege of being a guest
at Merton College, of the warden and Miss Brodrick, and
to that college, as also to Balliol, New College, Magdalen,
Lincoln, Jesus, Corpus, and Brasenoseto the Duke of Marlborough, the Mayors of Woodstock, Wallingford, Windsor,
and Abingdon, the Great Western Railway, and other bodies
and individuals, he desired to express grateful acknowledg
ment. To this list, he begged respectfully to add her
Majesty the Queen. Needless to say how enthusiastically
the professor's observations were received.
THE FRENCH ASSOCIATION MEETING.

The annual congress was held at Caen, one of the most
interesting old towns in France ; the President being M. Mascart, member of the Academy of Sciences, Director of the
Central Meteorological Bureau, Professor at the College of
France, and President of the National Defence Commission
of Inventions, recently organized for the purpose of examining
those inventions of the well-known M. Turpin which have
provoked, and continue to provoke, so much criticism in
238
French scientific circles. M. Mascart's opening address,

which lasted nearly the whole of the first day (!), was par
ticularly interesting to Americans, for it was an enthusiastic
panegyric of the "private initiative in the realm of science
characteristic of the United States."
A contributor writes :
" M. Mascart's paper was a most brilliantly written one, and
the numerous references to American liberality in scientific
and educational matters were warmly applauded ; the more
so as private initiative in such matters is almost unknown in
France. An excellent abstract of the paper was published
it Le Temps, but even that resume, if fully translated, would
occupy fourteen or fifteen pages of THE NEW SCIENCE REVIEW.
Your readers will understand the elaborate nature of M.
Mascart's address when I state that it began with a reference
to the founding of the town of Plymouth by the English
Puritans, and then dealt with the establishment of Harvard
University. Harvard was dealt with in great detail ; and
then came references to Chicago and its Fine Art Institution.
The cost of that palace was given as six hundred thousand
dollars, ' and,' naively remarked M. Mascart, ' it is necessary
to quote figures, because in America they are the measure of
everything,' a humorous reference which the savants received
with a burst of good-tempered merriment. Chicago's first
university was alluded to, and all credit was given to Mr.
Rockefeller. ' That university,' said M. Mascart, ' has a
great future before it, and it will mark an era in scientific
progress.'
" The Armour Institute came in for a glowing, though
somewhat briefer eulogy, the President remarking that ' it
bore a name which the provision trade had made known all
over the world : that is sufficient to tell us where the dollars
came from! The same methods,' he continued, 'were to
be found in all the States, young and old alike; but it would
take a volume to give an idea of the generosity of American
citizens in respect of all kinds of educational establishments.
America has a place of honor for its astronomical dis
coveries, and its fame increases year by year. In all the
239
sciences its progress is rapid ; and very soon the United

States will have no cause to envy any of the older nations,
except for their history.' This was confessedly a very happy
and generous remark, and M. Mascart's words seemed to find
a ready echo among his delighted auditors. His peroration
was a glowihg one, and I cannot refrain from appending it,
remarking, however, that its effect is somewhat diminished
when robbed, as it is, of the life infused into it by the amia
ble President's eloquence.
" ' We must all agree that it is a grand spectacle to see a
people, whom it is easy to accuse of greed of gain and un
bridled worship of lucre, display so general a care for the
public weal, whether by the continued action of the citizens
or by the founding of princely institutions ; whether it is a
question of charitable establishments, model hospitals, fine
art institutes, elementary schools, professional schools, and
institutes destined to turn out engineers and mechanics ;
or whether it is a question of teaching, having for its object
the intellectual elevation of the mind, without any reserva
tion as to commercial profit. Energetic and courageous men
rapidly make fortunes in that country ; they are not pre
occupied to the same extent as we are with the desire to
bequeath the whole of the benefits to their heirs; while
others attach importance to the titles of nobility, the Ameri
cans seek to confer a lustre on their names by permanent
works, which shall be either useful to the community at
large or redound to the glory of their country.' "
After this gratifying recognition of the scientific life of
the United Statesa picture, remember, drawn by M. Mascart from his own personal experiencesthe learned Presi
dent broadly traced the history of electrical science, of
which he is to-day one of the most eminent representatives.
He showed his hearers, in a striking manner, how the most
abstract scientific theories lead to the most practical appli
cations. The various electrical industriesmore marvelous
than all others, as viewed by the light of recent discoveries
readily lent themselves to M. Mascart's able demonstration,
which cannot be too often repeated in order to encourage and
240
The Liquefaction of Hydrogen.
stimulate the zeal of those savants who labor for the benefit
of humanity, too frequently, alas ! without themselves par
ticipating in any of the tangible products of their toil.
THE LIQUEFACTION OF HYDROGEN.

It is worthy of note, in these days of well-nigh universal
culture, that there is only one daily journal in London which
attempts to deal, in anything like an adequate and reliable
manner, with scientific questions. That solitary example of
literary-scientific journalism is the Times, to the pages of
which we must all turn if we would keep ourselves well
posted in the advance of the sciences generally. Those of
our American readers who attended the Oxford meeting of
the British Association in August, could not fail to have
observed the vast superiority of the Times' reports of the
proceedings over those of any other paper. So it is with its
legal reports, which, as all lawyers will agree, are the only
accounts of what happens in the Courts of Justice which are
worth reading, so invariably accurate and impartial are they.
These remarks are suggested by a perusal of the valuable
account of some recent experiments in the liquefaction of
hydrogen, which appeared in the above-mentioned journal on
the 1 st of September. We have, however, a complaint to make,
viz., that the article is unsigned. We (who are, perhaps, a
little behind the scenes) can give a guess at the authorship ;
but the world at large can form but little, if any, idea on the
subject. This is the more to be regretted, as we do not hesi
tate to say that the report of the experiments in question is
of the highest importance and the greatest value.
The writer begins by ingeniously drawing an analogy be
tween " the strenuous efibrts now being made by physicists
to approach the zero of temperature, and the numerous
attempts that have been made, or are now being made, to
reach the North Pole
In both cases," he proceeds,
"success maybe said to depend upon equipment. persistency,
and the selection of the right road. In neither case can the
241
anticipated results be considered as likely to be of immediate

practical value. The North Pole will not be the signal-post
of a trade route, and the condensers of our engines are never
likely to reach the zero of temperature. If the latter could
be obtained, however, the results would be highly practical,
because we should then completely transform heat into
mechanical power, instead of getting only ten per cent. con
verted by our present means of working. The solution of
the problem of the North Pole will add greatly to our knowl
edge of physiography, and the approach to the zero of tem
perature will open out fields of investigation where matter
and energy can be examined under new conditions. The
parallel between getting to the Pole and reaching the zero of
temperature, breaks down, however, when examined a little
more carefully. There seems to be no reason why man should
not attain the 90th parallel of latitude as well as the 75th,
but in the case of temperature there are strong grounds for
the belief that the zero can never be reached. The temper
ature of celestial space can only be approached in the labo
ratory, yet the nearer we get to it the more important physi
cal problems become."
Liquid air or nitrogen is the agent most successfully used
in these investigations. Hydrogen is the only remaining
gas which has not been liquefied, although the text-books
sapiently state the reverse! So much for the value of such
short cuts to knowledge !
The possibility of making a gas pass into the liquid state depends (says
the able writer in our London contemporary), upon our being able to get below
the point of temperature known as the critical point. Unless this point is
reached, no amount of pressure can force the gas into the liquid condition.
Now, hydrogen has a critical point of about minus 240, and the question is,
How can we attain such a temperature, seeing that liquid air or nitrogen only
enables a temperature of minim 200 to be reached ? How i~an these 40 or
50, as the case may be, be bridged over ? This can only be done by construct
ing a new substance, having a critical point of minus 200, or some 50 lower
than nitrogen, which is the most volatile known liquid. Such a body i an be
made by liquefying a gas composed of hydrogen mixed with ten per cent, of
nitrogen. This is the direction in which Professor Dewar has been lately
pressing forward his investigations, and the new results give hope of further
advance.
VOL. 116
242
The really serious question is the extremely small proportion of the lique
fied material that can be collected in open vessels. In order to understand
this, it is necessary to keep in mind that, when a substance is near its critical
point, it lias a very small latent heat of evaporation, but a very high specific
heat. It follows, therefore, that, in order to get the liquid cooled by its own
evaporation from near its critical temperature to its boiling point, a very large
proportion of the liquid produced under high compression in the refrigerat
ing apparatus has to be sacrificed. Thus, for instance, one pint of liquid air
collected in one of the well-known open vacuum vessels necessitates the lique
faction of some three pints of liquid in the apparatus. In other words, twothirds of the original amount of liquid produced has to evaporate in order to
procure the remaining third at its own boiling point. The proportion of the
resulting liquid in each case depends, as above stated, on the latent heat of
evaporation and the specific heat of the particular liquidif we neglect for
the present the serious question of cooling the vesselsand the loss of heat by
radiation and conduction.
All our present experience confirms the view that the latent heat of
evaporation is proportional to the absolute critical temperatures or, what is
about the same, to the absolute boiling points. As the absolute critical point of
of hydrogen is about minus 240, while that of nitrogen is mimtt 128, it is clear
that the latent heatuf liquid hydrogen would only be one-third that of liquid
nitrogen or air. Further, analogy leads us to the conclusion that the specific
heat of liquid hydrogen is very much greater than that of liquid nitrogen or air.
The combined result must therefore be that, if practically only thirty per cent.,
as above described, of liquid nitrogen or air can be collected, a very much
smaller amount of hydrogen, say from one to five per cent., is all we can antici
pate as the yield by similar methods of manipulation.
Assuming that we had such a liquid, its use as a cooling agent would,
indeed, be very expensive, since its cost may be taken as at least twenty times
the cost of liquid air. One thing, however, can be proved by the use of the
gaseous mixture of hydrogen and nitrogen, viz., that by subjecting it to high
compression at a temperature of minus 200 and expanding the resulting liquid
into air, a much lower temperature than anything that has been recorded up
to the present time can be reached. This is proved by the fact that such a
mixed gas gives under these conditions a paste or jelly of solid nitrogen, evi
dently giving nil' hydrogen, because the gax coming off burns fiercely. Even
when hydrogen containing only some two to five per cent. of air is similarly
treated, the result is a white solid material (solid air) along with a clear liquid
of low density, which is so exceedingly volatile that no known device for col
lecting it has been successful. To attain such a result, it is necessary to liquefy
and expand more than one pound weight (or about seven cubic yards) of
hydrogen gas.
Knowing the difficulties from having to deal in the liquid state with the
accumulated small impurities in such large amounts of gas, Professor Dewar
will not declare that he has had pure liquid hydrogen in one of his vacuum
vessels, although what this liquid can be except hydrogen it is impossible to
say. The future progress of these costly and difficult experiments must
The Newest Explosive"Schnebelite."
243
depend very much upon questions of outlay, and it is to be hoped that the
public will not assume that the endowment so handsomely given to the Uoyal
Institution by Mr. Ludwig Mond, for the maintenance of a public laboratory
of research, to be called the Davy-Faraday Laboratory, can be used for the
prosecution of such investigations.
We cordially re-echo the hope expressed by the Times, and

trust that no difficulty will be experienced in getting together
the required funds. This is one of those scientific problems
in which all the world is interested, and to the prosecution
of which all nations can subscribe. The Times has brought for
ward a subject of much scientific importance at a most a propos
timea period when the echoes of the great gatherings of
scientists in America and England are still ringing in our
ears, and it affords us the utmost pleasure to second the
efforts of the great British newspaper in the direction herein
indicated.
THE NEWEST EXPLOSIVE"SCHNEBELITE."

Within the last few months the War Departments of all the
tirst^class powers have been approached with a view to their
adoption of the new explosive, to which the inventors, the Abbe
A. Schnebelin, and his brother, G. Schnebelin (formerly
an officer in the French Artillery), have given their name.
"Schnebelin," or " Schnebelite " powder has for its basis chlo
rate of potash, no other dangerous chemical compound being
used in its manufacture, and it is made in three formsfor mili
tary rifles, for sporting guns, and for mining purposes. It
goes without saying that superiority over all other explosives
is claimed for it, and certain it is that experiments in France,
Belgium, and England have been most satisfactory to many
experts. A leading merit of Schnebelite is its safety from
accidental explosion by any rough usage it may get in the
process of manufacture, or during its use or its transport ;
while the energy developed when it is fired from the new
magazine rifle, or from an ordinary double-barreled gun,
compares very favorably with that obtained with the most
modern explosives employed in these armse. g., Cordite,
Lebel powder, Wettereu L3, etc.
244
" The New Element of the Atmospliere"
Some of its other advantages may be briefly enumerated.

Its manufacture is simplicity itself; it is adapted for all war,
sporting, and mining purposes ; it is almost smokeless, with
a very slight recoil ; it is not permanently damaged by heat
or wet ; the gun does not foul or become oxidized ; no noxious
gases are produced from its combustion ; it is very cheap to
make; a temperature of 540 Fahrenheit is required to pro
duce combustion ; when a lighted match is applied to it in
its uncontined state it simply burns, no explosion being pro
duced ; the pressure developed by the charge of Schnebelite,
required to give the normal velocity to the bullet fired from
a military rifle, is from 1,600 to 1,800 atmospheres, as com
pared with 2,600 to 3,200 atmospheres, the pressure developed
by charges of other explosives when the same velocity i&
imparted to the bullet, and as compared with the best dyna
mite its force is as 55 to 45, or twenty per cent. greater, while
it does not pulverize the surrounding rock as dynamite does.
The inventors assert that Schnebelite can be manufactured
and sold at least fifty per cent. cheaper than any other known,
explosive of a similar character. Its adoption by the French
Government would, it is believed, result in a saving of 50,000,000 francs per annum.
" THE NEW ELEMENT OF THE ATMOSPHERE."

CONSIDERED BY PROFESSOR DEWAR.
Roral Institution, London, August 15, 1894.
In the Times' report of the important paper communicated

by Lord Rayleigh to the British Association on a new gas
eous constituent of the atmosphere, no mention is made of the
evidence of the existence of such a body drawn from wellknown phenomena occurring during the liquefaction of air.
If a vessel be cooled to the temperature of 200 below zero
Centigrade, it quickly fills with liquid air, and every gaseous
substance, elemental or compound, at present known, amount
ing to anything like one per cent., and boiling at a tempera
ture above200, must become liquid or solid undur such
" The New Mement of the Atmosphere."
245
conditions. Thus when air is liquefied it does not appear aa

a clear transparent substance, but as a fluid containing more
or less of a white deposit, due to the solidification of carbonic
acid and other gaseous impurities, which floats in the trans
parent liquid oxygen and nitrogen. When air under high
compression is used to produce the liquid in quantity, then,
however carefully it may be purified before compression, it
Always takes up traces of foreign substances in its passage
through the compressors, so that the amount of white solid
associated with the liquid air may vary considerably, but is
always present in greater or less quantity.
When I have been asked, during the last year or two, what
is the nature of the solid, in so far as it does not consist of
known atmospheric impurities, my answer has always been
that I could not say, not having made a special study of the
substance. Can this substance, which has been so often seen
in the theatre of the Royal Institution, be in the main any
thing else than Rayleigh's new nitrogen in the solid form?
If a hitherto unrecognized substance, elemental or compound,
exists in air, having a density [compared to hydrogen] of
about 19, and present to the extent of even a minute fraction of
one per cent., chemists would infer that the material must be
less volatile than nitrogen or oxygen, and, therefore, must be
condensed with them in the process of liquefaction. Further,
as the nitrogen of liquid air boils off first, leaving the oxygen
with its higher boiling-point behind,so the new substance ought
to remain liquid or solid after both these substances have dis
tilled off. If the white solid (known impurities of course
'excepted) be not the new gas of Rayleigh, then the gas must
liquefy along with the nitrogen and oxygen, and be approxi
mately equal in volatility with one or the other. Then, on the
'other hand, the white substance certainly does not amount to
one per cent. of the liquid, and whenever I have casually ex
amined it, the substance has turned out to be a mixture of
nitrous oxide, carbonic acid, and some other impurity.
Therefore the amount of any unknown substance must nec
essarily be extremely small. One is forced to the conclu
sion that if the new nitrogen is present to the extent of one-
246
',;.-
" The New Element of the Atmosphere"

.,
- ,
half to one per cent., and has a density of about 19, then it
is, indeed, a strange substance, being as volatile as nitrogen
or oxygen, and, therefore, not capable of separation by differ
ence of boiling-point.
These facts in no way detract from the interest of Lord
Rayleigh's discovery ; they only add some additional interest
to the subject, and may suggest some queries to be answered
by further investigation.
In the above observations I have pointed out certain
difficulties which suggest themselves as to the elementary
character of the new constituent of the atmosphere, and itspresence in normal air to anything like the amount of one
per cent. If, however, we assume the substance separated
by Lord Rayleigh and Professor Ramsay to be composed of
known elements, then the experimental results can be easily
explained. We have only to assume that when nitrogen
enters into chemical combination with another substance,
whether oxygen, as in the case of Lord Rayleigh's plan of
working, or magnesium, as in that of Professor Ramsay, a
small portion of the gas is condensed molecularly into an allotropic form, having one and a-half times its normal density.
We are familiar with such action in the case of the transition
of oxygen into ozone, and practically identical methods are
being employed in the assumed separation of the new sub
stance from air. It would appear that electrical discharges
acting alone upon nitrogen do not condense it, and in this re
spect it differs from oxygen. Yet it is well known that
electrical stimulation of nitrogen does produce two distinct
spectra, presumably due to different molecular conditions.
The theoretical density of the new nitrogen compared to
hydrogen should be 21, while the experimental numbers are
between 19 and 20, though these are admittedly too low.
Such a body, chemists would infer, ought to be characterized
by great inertness, because phosphorus, the element most
nearly allied to nitrogen, easily passes into an allotropic form
known as red phosphorus, which is relatively to the yellow
phosphorus an inert body. If, therefore, such an active sub
stance as phosphorus becomes, in its condensed form, far less
" I he fteio Element of the Atmosphere."
247
active chemically, then by analogy nitrogen, so inert to start

with, must, in its new form, become exceedingly inactive.
So. doubt the passage of the ordinary nitrogen, or the diatoniic form of the substance, to the triatomic form of the
same, takes place with evolution of heat, just as in the simi
lar* transition in the case of phosphorus. While this hypoth
esis accords with the facts, it does not, necessarily, support
the view that the triatomic nitrogen is present to the extent
of one-half per cent. in normal air. On the contrary, the
inference is that the new substance is being manufactured by
the respective experimenters, and not separated, as they im
agine, from the ordinary air. If the suggested view is correct,
it is certain that the allotropic nitrogen would be far less vol
atile than the ordinary variety, just as the vapor-pressure of
red phosphorus is small as compared with that of the yellow,
and, therefore, it ought to be separated from liquid air by its
higher boiling point, even if it did not become solid at the
existing temperature. Its non-appearance supports the view
that it can be present in air, if present at all, only in exceed
ingly small amount. Yet were it produced in ever such small
quantityfor example, by the passage of electric discharges
its very inertness would favor its accumulation, just as the
high chemical activity of ozone tends to its dissipation. If,
therefore, in the long course of ages, the quantity of this
triatomic form of nitrogen remains inappreciable, we are
scarcely entitled to assume its existence as a normal constitu
ent of the atmosphere, unless we also assume that it is being
utilized in some unknown way.
It is not the first time that chemists and physicists have
been tempted to believe in the production of an allotropic
form of nitrogen, and to accept it as explaining certain curi
ous phenomena, but hitherto the assumption has always
broken down on more careful investigation. This time we
may be permitted to hope that the elusive allotropic form
has been fairly captured.
248
CURRENT SCIENTIFIC DISCUSSION

LORD SALISBURY ON EVOLUTION.
Of the many brilliant meetings of the British Association

for the Advancement of Science none, perhaps, stands out
more memorably than the one of 1800, held at Oxford, one
year after the publication of Mr. Darwin's " Origin of Species,"
when the first great battle in defense of the new scientific
creed was publicly fought. Compared with the bitter battles
that were subsequently waged, it was, indeed, a weak contest,
but it broke the path for that triumphant army which the
hosts of science were slowly but surely gathering. From
that day to this the facts of evolution have been steadily
accumulating, and he would, indeed, be a blind naturalist,
who to-day ventured the assertion that more facts were
needed before the broad principles of transformism could be
accepted. The case was proved years ago, and the world
gradually settled down to the conviction that, even under
the new philosophy, which threatened disruption in religion,
politics, and the State, the wheels of commerce could still
move and the principles of ethics be maintained on as high
a basis as in the days of that more " lucid " philosophy when
the denial of one's own existence was privileged.
After an interval of thirty-four years, the British Associa
tion has again met at Oxford, and to the Marquis of Salisbury,
Chancellor of Oxford University, the President for this year,
has fallen the task of reviewing the advances which science
has made during recent years. The inaugural address, a
piece of beautiful composition and diction, more brilliant than
masterful in its presentation of facts, deals more with the
negative side of science than the positive, and emphasizes
the obscurity which still surrounds the three greatest of
"scientific enigmas :" the enigmas of elementary atoms, ether
and life. As part of the last-named subject-the noble Marquis
249
reviews the present status of evolution, and after paying

respectful homage to the great naturalist through whom the
doctrine of evolution was given birth, ventures to assail the
theory of natural selection, and once more to implant upon
the world its exceedingly willing and pliable predecessor,
the principle of design. Lord Salisbury's principal point of
attack falls upon the lack of agreement that exists, or is sup
posed to exist, between the mathematicians and biologists as
regards the time-limit in our planet ; the geologist and biol
ogist, it is claimed, require "muny hundred million j'ears"
to have effected that " chain of [organic] change so vast, of
which the smallest link is longer than our recorded history,"
while Lord Kelvin will grant only a paltry hundred million
years as the length of time during which our (cooling) globe
could have supported either animal or vegetable life.
The aspect of attacking or defending the theory of natural
selection on a plus or minus sign beyond a hundred million
years, will probably strike most people as bordering on the
ludicrous ; but to assume that fine knowledge which makes
it all but certain that several hundred millions of years were,
in fact, required to evolve that organic chain which we now
see before us, is still more ludicrous. It is, indeed, almost
inconceivable that any earnest student could seriously con
sider a calculation in which the known elements are so frag
mentary as they are in the present case. It is true that Lord
Salisbury asserts that in a historic period of some three thou
sand years " progressive variation has not advanced by a single
step perceptible to our eyes,*' but we venture to believe that
the noble lord would find it much more difficult to prove his
assertion than would his opponents the reverse. It is the oldtime argument once more brought to the front, only in the
present instance no attempt is made to satisfy statements by
facts.
Lord Salisbury's own position regarding natural selection
is clearly stated in his words : " We cannot even, with more
or less ease, imagine it." This is, surely, a remarkable ad
mission to make, and it comes with startling force from a
President of, perhaps, the most distinguished and powerful
250
scientific body in the world. With becoming modesty, how

ever, the President declared himself to be only a layman in
science, and it would be uncharitable to heap the sins of
wrong scientific perception upon a mind which virtually dis
claims all true knowledge of science. Lord Salisbury justly
attacks Weisnmnu for accepting natural selection " because
it is the only possible explanation that we can conceive,"
" because all other apparent principles of explanation fail us."
He classes this argument with that of the politician. " Jn
politics there is occasionally a certain validity in the argu
ment, for it sometimes happens that some definite course
must be taken, even though no course is free from objection.
But such a line of reasoning is utterly out of place in science.
We are under no obligation to find a theory, if the facts will
not provide one." All true lovers of science will agree with
these sentiments, and their emphasis cannot be made too
strong to the scientific community. Unfortunately, personal
fancies too often interfere with a proper conception of one's
own mental attitude, and often only when they are pointed
out by others are the shortcomings of our mind made known
to us. Salisbury justly objects to the Weismannian method,
but he himself admits the same tendencies when he asserts
that " if natural selection is rejected, we have no resource but
to fall back on the mediate, or immediate, agency of a prin
ciple of design." To the scientist it will appear strange that
the principle of design should have certain rights, while that
of natural selection has none.
THE ORIGIN OF OCEANIC CURRENTS.
The doubt and obscurity which for so long shrouded the

history of oceanic currents seem to have been forever dis
pelled. However tempting other explanations may appear,
scientists have gradually settled down to the conviction,
made inevitable by a practical demonstration, that the guid
ing power of these currents is resident in the non-periodic
winds, or such as blow constantly from definite quarters.
An exceedingly ingenious device to show this has been pre
pared by Mr. Clayden, and is in the form of a model, con
Current Scientific Di&mssion.
251
taining a water area shaped like the Atlantic, over whose

surface lycopodium dust has been sprinkled to show the water
movement that is generated by air-currents blowing from
specially directed nozzles. These nozzles are so placed as to
represent the direction of permanent winds. Not only were,
by this means, the main currents of the Atlantic reproduced
in miniature and with great accuracy, but also the minor
drifts, and even a number of the interacting return currents,
such as the eastwardly-trending winter equatorial current.
Referring to this demonstration, in a recent address, Captain
Wharton, F. R. S., Chief Hydrographer to the British Navy,
stated that it dispelled the last doubt that he held on the
subject. " After long hesitation and much argument, I think
it may be now safely held that the prime motor of the sur
face currents is the wind. Not, by any means, the wind that
may blow, and even persistently blow, over the portion of
the water that is moving, more or less rapidly, in any direc
tion, but the great winds which blow generally from the
same general quarter over vast areas. These, combined with
deflection from the land, settle the main surface circulation.
.... The trade winds are the prime motors. They cause
a surface movement of no great velocity over large areas, in
the same general direction as that in which they blow.
These drifts, after meeting and combining their forces, event
ually impinge on the land. They are diverted and concen
trated, and increase in speed. They either pour through
passages between islands, as into the Caribbean Sea, arepressed up by the land, and escape by the only outlet possi
bleas, for example, the Strait of Florida, and form a great
ocean current like the Gulf Streamor, as in the case of the
Agulhas current, and the powerful stream which runs north
along the Zanzibar coast, they are simply pressed up against
and diverted by the land, and run along it with increased
rapidity. These rapid currents are eventually apparently
lost in the oceans, but they in their turn originate move
ments of a slower character, which, on again passing over
shallow water, or on meeting land, develop once more welldefined currents
Compared to the great circulation
252
from this source, the effect of differences of temperature, or

of specific gravity, is insignificant, though no doubt they
play their part, especially in causing slow under-circulation,
and in a greater degree the vertical mixing of the lower
waters."
THE INTERNAL HEAT OP THE EARTH IN ITS EFFECT UPON OUR
CLIMATE.
It is a common belief, and one that is shared by many

scientists, that the climate of our planet has been largely in
fluenced by the thermal conditions of its interior. The more
elevated temperatures of past periods have been associated
with the earlier warm condition of the earth ; the temperate
<:limate of to-day, with the comparative cold which has re
sulted from a progressive cooling off and radiation of heat
into space. Lord Kelvin (Sir William Thomson), who has
few peers in his domain of mathematical physics, has in his
recently published "Geology and General Physics," given
some plain utterances on this subject, which will be a rude
shock to many who have definitely composed their minds to
old notions. Referring to the warmer climate, which is evi
denced as having existed at one time all over the earth, he
says: "The earth might be a globe of white hot iron,
covered with a crust of rock two thousand feet thick, or there
might be an ice-cold temperature within fifty feet of the sur
face, yet the climate could not on that account be sensibly dif
ferent from what it is, or the soil be sensibly more or less genial
than it is for the roots of trees or smaller plants." Manifestly,
therefore, the duration of life upon the surface can in no way
be dependent upon the length or intensity of heat-supply
from the interior. This, it is claimed, could not at the
present time melt a millimetre thickness of ice per annum.
Lord Kelvin explains the past warm climates on what he
terms the " almost infinitely probable " hypothesis of a warmer
sun. He takes occasion, in this connection, to point out th
fallacy which lurks in the general belief, repeated in many
geological text-books, that the increase of temperature from
the surface of the earth to the interior is an arithmetically
progressive one ; it is said to be asymptotic, and it is implied
253
that the temperature at or near the center need not be higher

than two or three thousand degrees.
THE PROSPECTS OF ARCTIC EXPLORATION.
At no time, probably, in the history of Arctic exploration,

have the possibilities of successful achievement in the icy
north been put to a severer test than they have been this year.
Four, more or less well-equipped, expeditions, each one framed
with the ultimate hope of reaching the " farthest north," were
in the field at one time, and with each, seemingly, lay an equal
chance of attaining the end in view. Wise speculation has
decided in favor of this or that route, and against certain prob
abilities here or there, but he would, indeed, be a prophet
who, in the present uncertainties of exploration, could fore
tell the issue in the friendly race for discovery, or indicate
within a near probability the actual conquest that would be
achieved. The steady advances that have been made iu
Arctic work, combined with an almost endless resource that
has been obtained from the experiences of travelers in other
regions ; the new methods by which old appliances are treated,
and above all, the more conscientious study of the conditions
that are likely to confront the explorer, all gave hope for the
resulta hope that was strengthened by the knowledge that
the commanders of the several expeditions were commanders
in fact, untrammeled by government orders, and free to act
as their best judgment dictated.
The unfortunate ending of two of the expeditions shows
that these hopes were not to be realized, and again demon
strates the uncertainties that attach to Arctic explorations
generally. Mr. Peary's brilliant record of 1892 had raised
high expectations for this summer's venture, and it was con
fidently believed that, unless some unlooked-for disaster early
overwhelmed his party, a new mile-stone would be planted
in the path of Arctic discovery. On March 6 he and his
seven associates, with ninety dogs and thirteen sledges, began
their arduous journey across the inland ice of Greenland, fol
lowing much the same course that was taken by him two
years before. Almost from the start the expedition encoun
254
tered the worst of Arctic weatherheavy snows, furious

winds, and an exceedingly low temperature (50 to 60
F.)and before long its effects told distressingly upon nearly
all the members of the party. The dogs are reported to have
frozen into " solid blocks," and of the ninety which were to
have proved the dependence of the party for a period of five
months, sixty-five succumbed within a month and a half, the
length of time during which the expedition, or a part of it,
obstinately battled against the elements which were daily
threatening its destruction. Less than one hundred and fifty
miles were covered on the inland ice up to April 13, when,
seeing that progress was more in the name than in the fact,
and that his frost-bitten and otherwise incapacitated party
one-half of whom had already been obliged to returnwould
be unable to accomplish their mission, the gallant commander
accepted defeat, and turned his back to the quarter upon
which he had centred all his hopes. On April 20 he arrived
at Anniversary Lodge, his winter quarters, on Bowdoin Bay.
With a heroic determination to attain his object, Mr. Peary
once more proposes to attack the problem, and toward this
end he and two of his associates, Matthew Henson and Hugh
J. Lee, have remained over in the icy " land of desolation."
Disaster, the crushing by ice of the Ragnvald Jarl, the
relief vessel of the expedition, has overtaken the Wellman
party, and we have another added to the list of ordinary
Arctic casualties. The accident happened at Walden Island,
in lat. 80 37' N., four days after Mr. Wellman and his thir
teen associates landed (May 24) on the ice, to begin their
struggle with the great northern "pack." With an energy
and determination worthy of the highest admiration, the
commander of the expedition, after returning to the scene of
the disaster and there reconstructing his crushed vessel into
a temporary storehouse or shelter, once more started on his
perilous journey northward. The party, as late as June 17,
were reported in good condition and still pressing forward,
but the unfavorable condition of the ice made advance ex
ceedingly laborious, and at a later day, when a relief vessel
arrived from Norway, the expedition was abandoned.
255
THE AOE OF THE NIAGARA FALLS AND THE MEASURE OF GEO

LOGICAL TIME. .
. -
Of the many " facts " which have from time to time been
brought forward to prove the comparatively recent occur
rence of the Glacial Period, few have been so generally
appealed to as those which are bound up with the work of post
glacial rivers. Knowing the rate of their work, or the rate
with which they have excavated their channels, it is seem
ingly an easy matter to ascertain the length of time during
which they have been in existence ; and where such streams
can be shown to have directly followed the melting of the
ice, it follows that they are the measure of the time which
has elapsed since the melting of the ice (or since the close of
the Glacial Period). The Niagara River (or gorge) has long
been assumed by many geologists to be the test-gauge of
measurement iu the case of the American Ice Age, and
officially or semi-officially its antiquity has been rated at but
little more than seven thousand years. In this length of
time, in other words, as determined by a careful computation
of the recession of the falls, and an assumption of past work
based upon its modern potentiality, it had cut out the few
miles of canon which terminate at Queenstown and shaped
its existing destinies. Born with, or shortly after, the melt
ing of the ice, itwas the determinant of time of the Ice Period,
and to the geologists who favored a barely more than recent
existence of the ice, the evidence that it carried with it was
of the most convincing kind. In reality, however, it cannot
be said that there ever was any evidence, that could be called
such, that indicated how soon after the melting of the ice
the river was first called into existence ; it may have been
shortly after, or it may have been long after ; the facts of
geology give little evidence on this point, and nothing that
is worth while building upon. Conservative geologists care
fully guarded themselves in this connection, and declined to
use the age-formula which was so eagerly presented to them
by the too zealous advocates of limitation in time. It would
now appear, moreover, from the recent careful analysis of
Prof. J. W. Spencer, that the very age of the river is under
256
stated by nearly five times, his determinations of work givingto it a period of not less than thirty-two thousand years, in
stead of the seven thousand that had been very generally
assumed. The backward wear is thus much less rapid than
has been commonly supposed, and a few additional thousand
years are added to the lease of life of this most wonderful of
nature's exhibits.
No problem in geology is, perhaps, more thoroughly sealed
than that of time-periodsthe measurement of work accom
plished by means of the yearly calendar. Whether it be the
measurement of the age of our planet, the rate at which sediments are formed or unformed, or the velocity of organic
evolution, so many uncertain factors are involved in the cal
culation that at best only a possibility of correctness in any
obtained result can be assumed. Mathematicians are apt to
force the issue of their calculations upon the geologist, but
the geology of the calculation must be first established before
the figures that are planted upon it can be given much weight.
THE MINIMUM TEMPERATURE OF VISIBILITY.
Mr. P. L. Gray, of the Mason Science College, of Birming

ham, England, has recently made some interesting experi
ments to determine the lowest temperatures at which bodies
heated could be made visible in the dark. The experiments
were conducted with bright and lamp-blacked platinum
strips, and give the following results : During the morning
hours, when the eye is least sensitive to radiation of low
frequency, the minimum temperature of visibility of a solid
is about 470 C. ; at night-time this temperature is reduced
to 410 C. ; and after resting the eye for some time in com
plete darkness, the temperature may be still further reduced
to 370. Different people's eyes differ in their " luminous "
perceptive powers, but seemingly to no great extent. The
losing color, or color of last appearance, however, seems to
be variously interpreted, to some appearing red or whitish,,
and to others, lilac and yellow.
THE
NEW SCIENCE REVIEW

Copyright, IS9i, by The Transatlantic Pubtuhing
VOL. I.
JANUARY, 1895.
No. 3.
THE UNION OF ASTRONOMY AND GEOLOGY.

BY MAJOR-GENERAL SIR JOHN COWELL.1
As the discovery of the second rotation of the earth, by
General Drayson,2 carrying with it, as it does, the complete
explanation of the causes of the Glacial Period, with all the
attendant phenomena regarding the geological evidences and
the remains of the fauna and flora which existed in past ages,
has happily passed from the purely scientific field into that
of an intelligent public inquiry, it is very important that all
should be made aware of the fact that beyond the ample evi
dences afforded by the calculations of Drayson as to the per
fect accuracy of his conception, proof of its truth has been
produced within the last few weeks by a process which the
recorded observations of the stars alone could supply.
1 The article here given acquires particular interest from the fact thatGeneral
Cowell, its author, was the first English subscriber to THE NEW SCIENCE RE
VIEW, and that before his death, which immediately followed the completion
of the article, he requested that it should be published in the journal above
named. We append the following interesting note from his daughter :
"30th September, 1894.
"This article was written by my father, Mjor-General Sir John Cowell,
last June. I copied it in the beginning of August, and I read it to him and
lie corrected it the evening before his death. The diagram was sketched by
him at the same time that he corrected the article.
"Clifton Castle, Bedale.
MARIE COWELL."
2 See NEW SCIENCE REVIEW, No. 1, page 1.
VOL. I.17
(257)
258
The Union of Astronomy and Geol6gy.
The proof is no less than this: That from the right ascen
sion and polar distance of a star taken at two different peri
ods, the angular distance of the pole of the heavens from the
pole of second rotation and from the pole of the ecliptic,
the angular distance of the pole of the ecliptic from the
pole of second rotation, the obliquity of the ecliptic, the
precession of the equinoxes, and the time occupied in one
revolution of the equinox (which is one revolution of the
pole of the heavens round the pole of second rotation),
can all be accurately and simply calculated, and that all
these items correspond with Drayson's beautiful discovery,
published by him more than twenty years ago, and arrived
at by a totally different process of calculation. Such a tri
umph will surely call forth the admission and admiration so
long withheld by those who, through too loyal an adhesion
to theories and orthodox teaching, regarded Drayson's dis
covery as a mere theory, whilst they supported by tacit ad
mission theories which never could be proved to be correct.
The formula by which the great law of the second rota
tion is proved to be true is the result of a geometrical inves
tigation by one of the most distinguished professors of
mathematics in England, arrived at by an analysis of the
known elements in the triangle involved., and without his
being in the least degree aware to what purpose the formula
was to be applied. The idea of such a crucial test of accu
racy as this is originated with, and the calculations made
from the formula were worked out by, Admiral de Horsey,
one of the best observers that the English navy has produced.
Passing from what we now know to be a well defined law,
under which the pole of the heavens describes a circle around
the pole of the second rotation with a radius of 29 25' 47",
it is manifest from geological evidences that this radius could
not have been so great before the great glacial epochs; conse
quently the polar regions could not then have been so stored
with ice as they have been during and since that period.
If we take as an illustration of this the coal beds which we
find scattered over the globe at various depths, and one over
the other, nearly up to the Arctic circle, with shale and
The Union of Astronomy and Geology.
259
sandstone between the seams, the following diagram will

explain the conditions which would, and unquestionably did,
produce them.
2."
Supposing that C is the pole of second rotation, round

which the pole of the heavens described a circle with a
radius of, say, seven degrees, due to the then position of the
center of gravity of the earth E, the pole of the ecliptic,
and P, the pole of the heavens; then P E would be the
radius of the Arctic circles, or the obliquity of the ecliptic,
and this might be about five degrees when the pole of the
heavens was at P. When it moved to P', P' E would be
about three degrees, and 'when it reached P" it would again
be about five degrees. Thus we may observe that whilst
the pole was moving from P to P" an almost uniform cli
mate-would prevail upon the earth, suitable to the growth
of that vegetation which produced the coal beds. But when
the pole reached P'" the Arctic circles would have crept
down about eleven degrees from the poles (they being con
temporaneous in both hemispheres), the consequences of
which would necessarily be the deposition of mud and sand
over the vegetable beds, which were formed under warmer
260
and more uniform annual temperatures when the Arctic

circles extended only from about three to five degrees from
the pole. These consolidating through the pressure gradu
ally heaped upon them by successive layers of matter of
various kinds would, and did, assume the character of coal,
shales, end sandstones as\ve now find them; the character of
each layer of coal being dependent upon the conditions under
which the vegetation grew, and the manner in which the
superimposed matter was precipitated in being washed over
it, or settling upon it, during the long interval of the partial
Glacial Period at that era of the earth's history, each page
of which is written in its crust, as recorded in the Mosaic
record. Repeating this movement, another rotation of the
pole about C, the pole of the second rotation, there would
be a repetition of the process referred to, and we should have
a succession of coal beds formed one above another, as we see
them, their vertical distances apart and structural peculi
arities testifying unmistakably to the conditions which then
existed.
The more recent deposits of coal indicate a great variation
in the extent of the Arctic circles, these necessarily being
consequent upon the changes in the position of the center
of gravity of the earth. Geologists are agreed that great
changes occurred through the transfer of the waters of the
ocean from one part of the globe to another previous to the
last Glacial Period, and this must have been attended by a
corresponding movement of the center of gravity, causing
the earth's axis to vary its inclination to the plane of the
ecliptic in obedience to the law of gyration.
Some geologists have hitherto objected to any astronomical
explanation of the cause of the Ice Age. They assume that
no change in the inclination of the earth's axis to the plane
of the ecliptic can occur, their view being based on the im
mobility theory and the assumed fixed angle of the obliqu
ity, whilst, in fact, there is no limit either way to the angle
of obliquity, or, what is the same thing, to the radius of the
Arctic circles. This is shown in Jupiter, which has an
almost vertical axis, and in Uranus, whose axis is almost
261
horizontal. The obliquity in the case of the earth can be of

equal extent only when the center of the earth corresponds
with its center of gravity, and as the center of gravity of
the earth is now located north of the equator, the Antarctic
circle is, of course, of slightly greater diameter than the
Arctic one, from the semi-axes of the earth describing cones
with their apices meeting in the center of gravity. Had
LaPlace realized the fact that the inclination of the earth's
axis to the plane of the ecliptic was the most important
object of discovery in dealing with the cause of the glacial
periods, he would not have devoted his great abilities to
ascertaining how much the plane of the ecliptic could vary
its position.
This he calculated to be 1 21', and unfortunately astron
omers and geologists were misled by this angle, which was
unconnected with the angle of obliquity between the earth's
axis and the ecliptic. This we now know varies as much as
twelve degrees at the present time and under present con
ditions in one revolution of the equinox, and this corresponds
with the evidences of the drift and boulder clay as we see it
after the last recession of the Arctic circle.
The earth tells its own tale by the curve which every
zenith traces, but until now this beautiful test of the accu
racy of Drayson's discovery has not been applied by astron
omers.1
1Admiral de Horsey, on being shown the manuscript of this article, stated
that Sir John Cowell was under a slight misapprehension the geometrical
investigation and analysis of the triangle not having been the work of the dis.
tinguished mathematician alluded to, who was not even informed that there
was any triangle or geometrical problem involved ; that which the professor
was kind enough to do was to reduce the equation submitted to him by Admi
ral de Horsey into a form capable of logarithmic computation.
262
The New Element of the Atmosphere.
THE NEW ELEMENT OF THE ATMOSPHERE.1

CONSIDERED BY LORD RAYLEIGH.
In the interests of the readers of THE NEW SCIENCE RE
VIEW Lord Rayleigh has been approached with a view to
ascertaining if he or his learned co-discoverer, Professor
Ramsay, had anything to add to the announcement made
by them to the members of the British Association at Ox
ford, on the 13th of August, 1894. Lord Rayleigh's an
swer was, as we had fully anticipated it would be, in the
negative, and we are consequently deprived of the pleasure
of publishing anything in the nature of a reply from those
two distinguished men of science, to the lugubrious criti
cisms of that London medical paper which pleasantly hinted
at the possibility that " a sad blunder " may have been com
mitted, and considered " the method of announcement most
unhappy."
Lord Rayleigh and Professor Ramsay displayed their
wisdom by simply announcing their discovery of the exist
ence of a new gas in the atmosphere, and preserving any
further expression of opinion until they should be in pos
session of fuller information.
Much has been written on this subject in the European
reviews and other periodicals, dealing more or less satisfac
torily with scientific questions ; but, so far as we have seen,
neither lay nor professional writers have directed much, if
any, attention to Lord Rayleigh's explanations of the man
ner in which the particular subject originally arose. We
propose to attempt to supply the hiatus to some extent ; and
this we are enabled to do by reference to an elaborate docu
ment bearing Lord Rayleigh's name as author, and forming
1 \Ve understand that Professor Crooks has examined the spectrum of the
new gaseous constituent of the atmosphere" the inert gas," as named by
Lord Rayleighand, after comparing it with the spectra of other known
gases, lias come to the conclusion that in this respect it behaves like an ele
mentary body.
263
part of the Proceedings of the Royal Society, of which his

lordship is secretary.
ON AN ANOMALY ENCOUNTERED IN DETERMINATIONS OF THE
DENSITY OF NITROGEN GAS.
In a former communication (says Lord Rayleigh) I have

described how nitrogen, prepared by Lupton's method, proved
to be lighter by about y-jjVff Part than that derived from air
in the usual manner. In both cases a red-hot tube contain
ing copper is employed, but with this difference : In the
latter method the atmospheric oxygen is removed by oxida
tion of the copper itself, while in Lupton's method it com
bines with the hydrogen of ammonia, through which the air
is caused to pass on its way to the furnace, the copper remain
ing unaltered. In order to exaggerate the effect, the air was
subsequently replaced by oxygen. Under these conditions
the whole, instead of on\y about one-seventh part, of the
nitrogen is derived from ammonia, and the discrepancy was
found to be exalted to about one-half per cent.
Upon the assumption that similar gas should be obtained
by both methods, we may explain the discrepancy by sup
posing either that the atmospheric nitrogen was too heavy
on account of imperfect removal of oxygen, or that the
ammonia nitrogen was too light on account of contamination
with gases lighter than pure nitrogen. Independently of
the fact that the action of the copper in the first case was
pushed to great lengths, there are two arguments which
appeared to exclude the supposition that oxygen was still
present in the prepared gas. One of these depends upon the
large quantity of oxygen that would be required, in view of
the small difference between the weights of the two gases.
As much as ^ part of oxygen would be necessary to raise
the density by 5^T, or about one-sixth of all the oxygen
originally present. This seemed to be out of the question.
But even if so high a degree of imperfection in the action of
the copper could be admitted, the large alteration caused by
the substitution of oxygen for air in Lupton's process would
remain unexplained. Moreover, as has been described in the
former paper, the introduction of hydrogen into the gas
204
The New'Element of the Atmosphere.
made no difference, such hydrogen being removed by the hot

oxide of copper subsequently traversed. It is surely impos
sible that the supposed residual oxygen could have survived
such treatment.
Another argument may be founded upon more recent
results, from which it appears that almost exactly the same
density is found when the oxygen of air is removed by hot
iron reduced with hydrogen instead of by copper, or, in the
cold, by ferrous hydrate. But the difficulties in the way of
accepting the second alternative are hardly less formidable ;
for the question at once arises, Of what gas, lighter than
nitrogen, does the contamination consist?
Of the possible impurities, lighter than nitrogen, those
most demanding consideration are hydrogen, ammonia and
water-vapor. The last may be dismissed at once, and the
absence of ammonia is almost equally certain. The question
i,f hydrogen appears the most important. But this gas, and
hydrocarbons, such as CH,, could they be present, would be
burnt by the copper oxide ; and the experiments already
referred to, in which hydrogen was purposely introduced
into atmospheric nitrogen, seem to prove conclusively that
the same burning would really take place.
[Lord Rayleigh then describes his examination of nitro
gen derived by reduction from nitric and nitrous oxides.]
The numbers which follow are the weights of the gas con
tained by the globe at zero, at the pressure defined by the
manometer when temperature is 15. They are corrected
for the errors in the weights, but not for the shrinkage of
the globe when exhausted, and thus correspond to the num
ber 2-31026, as formerly given for nitrogen.
NITROGEN FROM NO BY HOT IKON.
November 29, 1893
2-30143
2-29890
2-29816
2-30182
Mean, 2-30008
NITROGEN FROM N8O BY HOT IRON.
(The NjO was prepared from zinc and very dilute nitric acid.)
December 26, 1S93
2-29869 > ,
December 28, 1SH3
1-39940 } Mean- 2'29904
265
NITROGEN FROM AMMONIUM NITRITE PASSED OVER HOT IRON.
January 9, 1894
January 13, 1894
2'29849 1
2'29889 / Mean' 2'29869
With these are to be compared the weights of nitrogen

derived from the atmosphere :
NITROGEN FROM AIR BY HOT IRON.
December 12, 1893

December 14, 1893
December 19, 1893
December 22, 18r3
2-31017
2-30986 (H)
2'31010(H)
2-31001
9-31003
NITROGEN FROM AIR BY FERROUS HYDRATE.
January 27, 1894

January 30, 1894
February 1, 1894
2-31024
2-31010
2'31028
Mean, 2-31020
If we bring together the means for atmospheric nitrogen

obtained by various methods, the agreement is seen to be
good, and may be regarded as inconsistent with the supposi
tion of residual oxygen in quantity sufficient to influence
the weights.
ATMOSPHERIC NITROGEN.
By hot copper, 1892

By hot iron, 1893
By ferrous hydrate, 1894
2-31026
2-31003
2'31020
Two of the results relating to hot iron (those of December

14th and December 19th) were obtained from nitrogen into
which hydrogen had been purposely introduced. . . In
two and a half hours the hydrogen introduced into the gas
would be about 70 c.c., sufficient, if retained, to reduce the
weight by about 4 per cent. The fact that there was no
sensible reduction proves that the hydrogen was effectively
removed by the copper oxide. The nitrogen, obtained alto
gether in four ways from chemical compounds, is materially
lighter than the above, the difference amounting to about
11 mg., or about T^Vir Par* f *ne WQl>le. It is also to be
observed that the agreement of individual results is less
close in the case of chemical nitrogen than of atmospheric
nitrogen.
266
Our readers will, we are sure, peruse with the deepest in

terest this account of Lord Rayleigh's experiments. Taken
in conjunction with the observations printed in the October
number of THE REVIEW, the descriptive outline of those
experiments will provide new matter for discussion wherever
the English language is read. The great services rendered
to science by Lord Rayleigh and Professor Ramsay in their
recent discovery have been enthusiastically recognized, and
not even the most carping critic will question the accuracy
of Sir Henry Roscoe's graceful utterance at Oxford : " The
communication was one of the greatest possible iuterest and
importance, and the Section, as well as the distinguished
authors, were greatly to be congratulated on the announce
ment of the discovery of what would in all probability turn
out to be a new elementary body existing in the atmosphere.
The discovery appeared to be of special significance, as
being one brought about by the application of exact quanti
tative experiment to the elucidation of the problem of the
chemical constitution of our planet."
[This article, prepared for October from material courteously placed at our
disposal by Lord Rayleigh, was unavoidably held over for the present Dumber.]
The Dangers of Examinations.
267
THE DANGERS OF EXAMINATIONS.

BY MAJOR-GENERAL A. W. DRAYSON, F.R.A.S.
The subject of so-termed Education is one not only of indi
vidual, but of national importance. An individual who is
either not educated, or is only partially so, carries on the
race for life at a considerable disadvantage. A nation in
which a very large majority are deficient in education, must
eventually take a back seat when other nations are better
educated ; more especially is this the case when a nation is
governed by the majority, not by intellectual capacity. The
necessity for such a general education has long been recog
nized in England, and has been practically shown by the
formation of board schools, high schools, etc., and by the
introduction of competitive examinations for almost every
appointment under government, and yet matters are not
satisfactory in spite of all these proceedings. It is, therefore,
a most important question for investigation, whether the
system now adopted to give what is termed education, and
to test the amount of education possessed by each individual,
has not in it serious defects, which may possibly be remedied.
In the first place, it is desirable to inquire what we mean
by education. This is one of those vague terms, generally
used, and supposed to be understood by everybody, just as
we speak of " common sense " (the most uncommon of
senses). But numerous examples show that men may be
crammed with an enormous amount of stock knowledge and
learning, and yet be utterly deficient in what is termed
common sense. Hence, such men cannot be correctly termed
educated.
It, therefore, seems desirable that we should go a little
more into details, and express definitely what we mean when
we speak of education.
At the present time, where much is to be gained by success
at competitive examinations, there are men termed " Cram
mers," who prepare youths to pass these tests. Are these
268
youths educated ? From my own experience I unhesitatingly

say " No." They have been taught and crammed, but not
educated. It is, therefore, necessary that we should give some
description of what education really is.
Education is defined in a dictionary as " instruction ; the
training that goes to cultivate the powers and form the,
character." There is a vagueness about this definition, which
fails to supply us with a clear comprehension of education ;
and I, therefore, venture to divide so-termed education into
teaching, cramming, and reasoning. A person may have
been extensively taught or crammed, and yet may be unable
to reason ; or a person may be able to reason, but, in con
sequence of not having been taught, his knowledge of estab
lished facts is too limited to enable him to come to correct
conclusions. At the present time, what is usually termed
education ought to be described as teaching. The majority
of young people are taught, they are not educated, and there
seems to be a tendency, when a vast amount of teaching has
been crammed into the mind, for this mind to become in
capable of reasoning.
Many years ago, when I was stationed at Natal, young
Zulus were my constant companions on hunting expeditions.
No one would venture to speak of these men as educated, as
they could neither read nor write, and had considerable diffi
culty in counting beyond ten, yet their reasoning was so
sound and excellent that I learned much from them. Astron
omy was a subject that was not taught in Zulularid, and I
hardly expected to receive a lesson in this science from a
Zulu lad. One evening I had directed my telescope to the
half illuminated moon, when I was visited by three young
Zulus. I asked one of these to look through the telescope
at the moon. He did BO, and gazed during three or four
minutes. He then turned to me, and said, "Amasondo Injlovu (footprints of elephants). Very little elephant walked
first, then big elephant, then small elephant." At first I was
at a loss to understand what the Zulu meant, until I realized
that the circular marks in the moon, which we term craters,
are very similar to the footprints of a bull elephant; but
269
there was still a puzzle, viz., as to which had walked first

and which last. On asking the Zulu, he scratched in the
sand a fair representation of what he saw, which was some
what as shown helow.
-- -fr^.
I immediately applied my spooring
7>
knowledge, and saw that the large foot_5 #E Print B had partly obliterated the small
1 f
foot-print A ; therefore B must be of later
date than A ; whereas C had obliterated a
portion of B, and must therefore have
passed after B. After reflecting on this
matter, I perceived there was a means by which the relative
date of the craters in the moon could be arrived at, and that
this might lead to very interesting results. I concluded,
however, that the problem was so very simple that it must
be known by every astronomer. Some few years afterward
I met two distinguished astronomers, and asked them if
there were any means by which the relative age of the craters
in the moon could be determined. The answer was positive,
and was " No." I went a little farther and said, " Suppose
two craters were more than tangential, are there no means of
telling which is the later formation? " The reply was again
" Xo ; it is impossible to tell ; there is nothing to guide us.
If there had been you would have found it in Herschel's As
tronomy." Some years later I was passing through the
Kensington Museum, and saw some excellent photographs of
the moon. My companion was a gentleman who, as an
amateur, had made astronomy his special study. To him I
put the same question relative to the craters. After a careful
examination of a photograph, he said: "I cannot see any
means by which it can be told." I then explained the matter
to him, but, after again looking carefully at the photograph,
he said: " I don't see that anything is proved by what you
say."
Here was an interesting subject for inquiry, relative to the
human mind and so-termed education. The Zulu, without
one atom of what we term education, perceived a fact, and
reasoned correctly upon it. Two distinguished professional
270
astronomers, thoroughly taught, failed to perceive the fact

even. A third highly educated man perceived the fact, but
was not able to reason upon it.
I believe we have here the key to many mysteries con
nected with some of those failures, as- regards so-called mod
ern education, cramming and competitive examinations.
The Zulu had not been crammed with stock knowledge ;
he used his eyes, and, seeing a fact, at once set to work to
reason on this. From his stock knowledge as regards spoor
ing, it was manifest to him that if a small foot-print partly
obliterated a large foot-print, the small one must have been
made the later of the two. Had any person told this Zulu
that there were no means of telling which of the two
foot-prints was the older, the Zulu would have probably used
the word igesa (idiot), and would have found a difficulty in
imagining how any man in his senses could fail to perceive
that the crater C must be of a later date than B. Since that
time I have made a large diagram of the three craters, and
have put this before many persons, asking the relative date
of the three. Many singular exhibitions of an absence of
reasoning have been manifested, a very common one being
the statement that " the crater B must of course be the old
est because it is the largest." From this example it is
manifest that no amount of conventional teaching gives,
necessarily, either an aptitude for observation or a capacity
for reasoning.
When dealing with so-termed education, there ought to
be a distinction made between merely storing the mind and
actually strengthening it. In the majority of our schools
attention is given almost entirely to storing the mind. A
pupil who has been trained to pass an examination has been
crammed with stock knowledge, and (I can speak from fifteen
years' experience) is too often utterly unable to reason on any
subject, more especially if the subject is to him a novelty.
The capacity for judgment seems to have become almost
impotent, in consequence of the brain having been entirely
occupied during many years in storing stock knowledge.
Hence it has too often been found, that the man who has
271
passed in the most satisfactory manner a very stiff competi

tive examination, proves to be in after years excessively
dull and stupid. People then wonder how this man ever
managed to pass, and consequently they come to the conclu
sion that examinations are no test of intellectual powers.
Examinations, if the questions are judiciously selected, are
probably the best means of testing the amount of knowledge
possessed on any subject ; but the forming of these questions
is a matter requiring the greatest judgment. After reading
some of the examination questions, I have often felt the wish
that I might examine the examiners in the same manner in
which they had examined the candidates, and I believe very
few would have passed.
At present, and during many years, a battle has been going
on between crammers and examiners, which is undoubtedly
most detrimental to the intellectual development of candi
dates. A practical example in my own experience may
probably fully illustrate this fact.
During the period that I was Professor at the Royal Mili
tary Academy, at Woolwich, nearly eighty cadets per year
passed under my instruction, in two batches of forty each.
These batches differed considerably in intellectual capacity.
Each batch had to pass two examinations, one given by my
self, the other given by what was termed an " Independent
Examiner," that is, an examiner not holding any official
appointment at the academy. One batch was, I knew, very
superior to the average, and each member passed my exami
nation in a very satisfactory manner. The independent
examiner, however, reported that " the class had done very
badly, and did not seem to understand their subject."
On looking over the questions. I found that they were
vaguely put, and on asking some cadets how it was that
they had done so badly, they told me they could not really
understand the questions, as they were so obscure.
The very next class of cadets was certainly the worst I
had ever instructed, both intellectually and as to capacity
for work. I expected, therefore, a very bad report from
the independent examiner. A few days previous to the
272
examination by the examiner I looked over several of his old

examination papers, and selected twelve questions as very
likely to be given by him, and I coached the claps in these
questions. On the morning of the examination, the exam
iner's questions, carefully sealed, were given to me. I opened
these in the presence of the Inspector of Studies, and handed
a paper to each cadet. On looking over the examiner's
paper I found that ten out of the twelve questions were
exactly those I had explained three days previously to the
cadets. The report of the examiner was, that this class was
the very best he had ever examined. I was quite certain
that if this class had received no instruction during the half
year, but had merely had explained to them the questions I
had selected, they would have passed equally as good an ex
amination, though they really knew very little of the subject.
This was a practical example of cramming, but it clearly
proves that a number of individuals may be able to pass
very satisfactorily an examination on a subject of which
they know very little, and also that although well acquainted
with a subject, they may fail to pass a good examination in
this subject.
As regards this case, I was convinced, from having thor
oughly examined the work of each cadet during five months,
that the worst cadet in the class that had passed the bad
examination was better than the best cadet who had passed
the good examination. Successfully passing an examination
on any subject does not necessarily, therefore, prove that the
candidate is well acquainted with this subject. If he has
been under the instruction of a crafty crammer he will be
trained for a special examination and will pass, whilst another
candidate much better acquainted with the subject may fail,
in consequence of not having been specially trained to answer
the questions which it is almost certain the examiner will ask.
When a competitive examination takes place, the exam
iner has two great difficulties to surmount, when the
number of candidates far exceeds the number of vacancies.
The first is to give the relative marks justly ; this is a diffi
culty not due to any favoritism, but because, when looking
273
over several hundred questions, it is a severe mental trial to

keep the mind at exactly the same standard of criticism.
The second is to frame questions the majority of which ought
to be correctly answered, but among which there are two or
three which require able reasoning and a thorough knowl
edge of the intricacies of the subject. To have to report that
every candidate was qualified might be awkward for an
examiner. Hence, too often the questions put are more for
the purpose of finding out the few things that a candidate
does not know, rather than the many things with which he
may be well acquainted.
In connection with so-termed education, there is a most
important item which does not appear to have been hitherto
sufficiently attended to; this is the art of teaching, or
imparting knowledge rapidly. It seems to be imagined that
a man who has passed highest at some examination, or the
highly cultivated graduate of one of our universities, is, exqfficio as we may term it, at once fully qualified and quite
competent to teach that which he has acquired. This is a
most serious error. Teaching is an art of itself, and from
my very early experience I found that a great mathematician
who had gained the position of either first or second wrangler,
was unable to impart his knowledge to any one of the class
to which I belonged, whilst a far inferior mathematician,
who was his assistant, had a capacity for teaching which was
remarkable.
Whilst there are tests required before a person is consid
ered qualified to practice in any subject, there is no special
test ever considered necessary before a person is employed as
a teacher. To know a subject is considered quite a suffi
cient guarantee that the individual is fully competent to
teach this subject. This, however, is an error, as every pupil
knows from experience ; some profoundly clever men being
quite unable to impart their knowledge to others, while the
pupils, not having been properly taught by these men, suffer
from the effects during the whole of their lives.
Education is sometimes imagined to consist in storing the
mind with a multitude of the supposed facts which are
VOL. 118
274
accepted and promulgated by the scientific authorities of the

day. A small amount of reason will show the danger of such
a conclusion. We will suppose that at the date 1540, previ
ous to Copernicus having published his work, De revolutionibus orbium ccdestium, the Royal Society, the Royal Astro
nomical Society, Oxford, Cambridge, and other great centers
of learning had existed. In each and all of these, it would
have been taught that the earth was immovable. A highly
cultivated graduate of one of our universities might have
been selected to go round the country lecturing on this sub
ject, and at that date he would have been considered fully
qualified to do so, if he taught the then orthodox belief that
the earth was immovable. Classes who attended these lec
tures, and accepted this teaching, would have been considered
well taught as regards astronomy, yet such lecturers and
societies would merely have acted as head centers for the
promulgation of error.
When individuals have successfully passed several exam
inations, and have perhaps gained honors by doing so, there
is a danger of these persons drifting into the conviction that
they have arrived at the summit of all knowledge. If the
science taught three hundred years ago, three years ago, or
at the present time, was perfect, this belief might be justifi
able ; but as we are really only learning the A, B, C, of na
ture's laws and of science, men who hold such a conviction
become absolutely dangerous. Believing that nothing can be
true, or even exist, which is beyond what they have learned,
they become mere obstructionists, usually ridiculing and ig
noring new facts, or declining even to examine these, in con
sequence of their belief that their teaching has included
everything that can be known.
Throughout all ages these results have occurred ; it has
not been the untaught who have most vigorously opposed
an advance in any special science, but it has invariably been
those men or societies who at each date were possessed of
the largest amount of stock knowledge in that science.
Thus, for example, when Benjamin Franklin brought the
subject of lightning conductors before the Royal Society,
275
his proofs were not even looked at, and the subject was con
sidered such rubbish that it was not even discussed. When
Arago wanted to bring into notice the subject of the electric
telegraph, the French Academy of Sciences ridiculed the
idea. Sir Humphry Davy stated that the idea of lighting
London with gas was too absurd even to speak about.
A multitude of similar examples, even up to the present
time, could be given, proving that the mind is not necessa
rily strengthened because it has been stored and has success,
fully passed examinations. The colossal importance now
assigned to competitive examinations seems, therefore, not
to be based on facts, but as there are a great number of men
who obtain a good income by cramming and by examining,
it will require great pressure from outside influence to
prevent this system from continuing to expand.
As regards success in competitive examinations, the prac
tical man who can do a thing would stand no chance with
the crammed man who could not do it. A story is told of
the late W. Cook, the billiard player, that a mathematician
once entered his room and talked very learnedly about the
angles of incidence and reflection, and wound up by saying
that " no man could be a good billiard player who did not
thoroughly understand the principles of these angles." Cook
replied that he did not know in the least what incidence or
reflection meant, but he would allow this gentleman to study
these items during a week on his table, and would then give
him forty out of one hundred, and play him for a sov. a game.
If Cook and this mathematician had been tested by a
competitive examination, as regards their relative knowl
edge of billiards, Cook would not have been in it, and the
mathematician would certainly have been selected as the
better teacher of billiards. This leads to the conclusion
that, wherever and whenever possible, examinations should
be of the most practical character.
What we require in every walk of life is practical men
who can do a thing, not those who can merely glibly write
or speak about the theories and principles of how a thing
ought to be done.
276
I have seen too many examples not to know that one

among the many dangers of cramming, or over-teaching, and
competitive examinations, is not only a loss of health, but a
weakening of the brain-power of individuals, which may not
be prominently shown until some years have elapsed. Heal thy
out-door exercise and calm reflection, so essential to keep
the brain efficient, are too frequently sacrificed, in order that
a quantity of stock knowledge may be packed into the mem
ory, with the purpose of passing an examination. This
knowledge, not having been digested, is soon forgotten, and
consequently only a temporary benefit is obtained ; but this
temporary benefit is everything to the crammer, who can
advertise his successful pupils. At the present time on the
turf, we do not run our two-year-old horses over a two-mile
course, with nine stone on their backs. If we did, these
horses at five years old would not be of much value, either
for the race course or the stud, yet we adopt such a proceed
ing with our youths, and then wonder how it is that men of
mature years make the most palpable blunders, when it is
remembered what wonderful so-termed talent they showed
as young men in passing examinations.
There can be no doubt among the clearest and most able
thinkers of the day that examinations are now overdone.
Candidates are prepared to look out for perpetual complica
tions and puzzles, and, like the detectives in Edgar Foe's
tale of the purloined letter, seem quite unable to perceive a
simple truth when it is put before them.
As an examiner and instructor of over fifteen years' ex
perience, with officers of mature years, and with cadets whose
average age was about nineteen years, I can speak from ex
tensive experience. It is with the hope that I may check that
which has developed into a system (not only unsound as a test
of mental capacity, but also damaging to the active and accu
rate exercise of the brain), that I have penned these lines, at
least as a caution.
Food-Nerves.
277
FOOD-NERVES.
BY T. W. NUN*, F.R.C.S.
Among the great, whom Heaven has made to shine,
How few have learned the art of artsto dine !
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
The question whether food taken shall become really nour

ishment or become poison in a great degree is a question of
nerve-force. The study of the chemistry of food materials,
short of being exhaustive, has been fairly carried out. The
appropriation of food materials by the organism is not
merely a matter of chemical change, but is the work of
agencies more subtle than those at command in the chemical
laboratory.
The recent researches in biology have afforded a glimpse
into an unlimited field for scientific investigation into the
dominion of the minute. The importance of a given mass
is not its size, but its potentiality, its capacities. There may
be more actual wood, weight for weight, in a birch broom
than in an alpenstock, but the broom would not serve for
climbing, nor would the alpenstock be suitable for the lowly
duties of the broom. Bacilli and microbes are minute, but
nevertheless constitute dangers even greater than standing
armies. Independent nutritional processes are required to
be continuous from the date of birth to the moment of death.
The circulation of the bloodcommenced long before inde
pendent existenceis the means by which nourishment is
carried to the tissues of the living body; but the blood must
be first fed before it can feed the tissues. Digestion and
assimilation, or the appropriation of what digestion has
furnished, hold, therefore, a preeminent status ; the contin
uous activity of these functions is demanded, as they are
not proper to an epoch only, like the functions of the repro
ductive organs.
278
Food-Nerves.
After food material has been landed in the stomach, it is

impossible that its chemical constitution shall remain un
altered, for the stomach being a moist, warm, membraneous
bagconsidered irrespectively of its special endowments
hardly any organic substance could long remain in such a
bag unchanged, and without some rearrangement of its ele
ments. Many of the food materials are peculiarly prone to
decomposition or decay, giving in their decay very obtrusive
evidence of becoming rotten, while other food materials can
change so as to assume a different chemical shape without
undergoing destruction. The special secretion of the salivary
glandsof which, by the way, there are three pairs, not to
mention appendagesand of the mucous membrane of the
stomach, have the property, in a healthy state of the system,
of determining the changes and metamorphoses that occur
in the stomach, and of preventing sepsis and decomposition.
Here steps in nerve-force. Every one knows how mental
emotion, intense cerebral nerve action, will arrest the ordi
nary secretions of the mouth. It is the arrest of the secretion
r the moisture of the mouth that makes it necessary for the
" unaccustomed " orator to have ready before him the where
with to wet his tongue and lips. In India, when occasions
of theft have arisen in a battalion, and it is desired to detect
the thief, the soldiers are paraded, and into the mouth ot
each a few grains of rice are put. After an interval, on in
spection being made of the rice in the men's mouths, it is
found dry in the mouth of the thief, the nervous excitement
due to the apprehension of being detected having stopped
the flow of salivary secretions and other moisture of the
mouth.
The gastric juice, or special secretion of the gastric mu
cous membrane, which membrane is thickly set with tubu
lar glands affording this special secretion, is dynamically
far in advance of the secretion of the salivary glands and
mucous membrane of the mouth ; but the special secretion
of the gastric mucous membrane is poured out only in
response to nerve impulses, otherwise there would happen
in life what is occasionally seen to have happened after
Food-Nerves.
279
deaththat i8, a self-digestion or solution of the coats of

the stomach. The nervous stimulus that excites such secre
tion may be direct or indirect. The stimulation may begin
in the stomach, or be the result of a reflex influence from a
nerve center.
The nervous system of the digestive apparatus is of great
extent and intricate arrangement, and of manifold powers.
The cerebro-spinal and the sympathetic nerve cords combine
in controlling, guarding and directing the indispensable
function of nutrition. The first or " olfactory " nerve
counting the nerves as they issue from the skulldetects the
odor of the food; the second, or optic, appreciates the
colorby no means an unimportant sensation. As an in
stance of the effect of eye-sight on palate sensation, a
patient who, from the condition of his eyes, was obliged to
be kept in a dark room, happened to be an habitual smoker,
and reported that without light to see the smoke of his
cigar no palate gratification' was gained. The great nerve
called the fifth, gives the senses of taste and touch to the
gums, teeth and lips, and also gives off the motor branches
to the muscles of mastication. The seventh nerve is the
motor to the muscles of the face, and in some degree helps
the fifth. The eighth nerve sends branches to the back of
the tongue and tonsils and the tissues round about, and
from it a large trunk descends to the stomach, picking up
in its course others from the spinal and prevertebral or
sympathetic nervous systems; and from the same region of
the intracranial nervous mass the brain and medulla
oblongataissues a great nerve, the ninth, the motor nerve
of the tongue and its associated muscles. By the move
ment of the tongue the food is favorably placed for masti
cation and deglutition, or the act of swallowing; during
which act the edges of the tongue are moved backward
against the tonsils and the greater surface of the tongue is
pressed against the palate, and thus the appreciation of
flavor is intensifiedas one estimates the coarseness of a
powder by rubbing it between the finger and thumb. The
movements of the tongue have thus an intervening and
280
Food-Nerves.
important share in the fitting of the food for introduction

into the stomach.
Where the tongue has been entirely removed by surgical
operation, say for cancer, the act of swallowing is, under or
dinary circumstances, possible, but the mobility of the tongue
may be usefully active under very adverse conditions. In a
man in whom " lupus " had eaten away the upper lip and
nose, and had utterly destroyed the palate and upper jaw, so
that a huge chasm only represented the space between the
tongue and floor of the mouth and the skull between the
eyes, swallowing was made possible by the tongue. When
suitably prepared food was placed upon it, the top of the
tongue, curving in the reverse manner in which an elephant
curves his trunk, seemed to seize the food by bending up
ward and backward, and the morsels were handed over to
the gullet to be swallowed. This person, it may be added,
declared he could distinguish the flavor of one kind of food
from that of another.
It may be stated that in the humblest organic forms pos
sessing a distinct nervous system, the nerve-mass is situated
at the aperture for food. This proximity of the nerve center
to the mouth may be taken as the key-note of the relation
between the nervous and digestive systems. In man, the
highest of the vertebrata, the blood-vessels distributed to
the digestive system are surrounded by nerves derived from
the vaso-motor system, nerves already alluded to as sym
pathetic and as prevertebralfrom their situation outside
and in front of the vertebral column in place of being within
the spinal canaland comparative anatomy teaches the grad
ual development of the sympathetic nervous system along
with the increasing complexity of the other organs.
The nature of the food required by man depends on the
climate in which he lives. To maintain the normal temper
ature of the body under varying conditions of climate, there
must be supplied those kinds of food-stuff which most liber
ally yield the heat-making elements to the blood. The
proximal constituents of the food of a Greenlander are
Food-Nerves.
281
required to be very different from those which suffice for an in

habitant of the Soudan. The human being, in common with
some other animals, can, however, exist on very various food
substances. Man has the desire to make his food various in
flavor. He aims at changes in the impression on his nerves
of taste and smell, at least. The graduations in this respect
from the absolute savage, who will eat his neighbor raw, to
the fastidious epicure, would form the subject of an interest
ing treatise on gastronomy ; a work, in fact, of comparative
food preparation. Instinct at first, perhaps, points the way
in the search for fresh impressions on the gustative faculty.
Let it be clearly understood that without stimulation of the
nerves of the tongue and the palate no secretion of saliva
will take place, and that without saliva food, other than
liquid food, could not be swallowed, neither could the diges
tive process be completed.
It may be incidentally mentioned that the quantity of the
daily demand for saliva is much larger than would be
guessed ; to afford this quantity the salivary glands must be
aroused from the almost dormant state which, fortunately,
they chiefly maintain, since it would be very inconvenient
were the slavering of the infant to continue through life.
To awaken this function of the salivary glands to full
activity, the stimulation of the gustatory and other nerves
is the means. The resort to condiments is one of the devices
for stimulating these nerves ; going beyond the maxim that
" hunger is the best sauce," condiments mark a stage in civil
ization. Salt is the universal and favorite condiment, and as
it supplies something that is essential to the blood, it stands
in a unique position among condiments. Hunters in the far
West know that if they lose their supply of salt, the finest
venison can hardly be swallowed. So necessary is it for the
palate to be stimulated by something beyond a monotonous
food.
The various modes of preparing and cooking food have
been invented with the aim of accommodating the flavor ot
the food to the instinctive longings of the palate. The primi
tive essay in cookery, namely, the conversion of raw flesh
282
Ftod-Nerves.
into roasted meat by the actiou of heat, with the coagula

tion of the albuminous and fibrinous elements of the inmost
part and a disintegration almost to burning of the outermost
part, causing the development of some volatile empyreumatic,
which appeals more or less agreeably to the palate and sense
of smell is, in effect, the manufacture of a condiment. Cook
ing should be considered a branch of practical physiological
chemistry, and duly recognized as such.
Among condiments alcohol must be reckoned. It is a
pluralist condiment, however, andit goes without saying
is a dangerous condiment in more senses than one. A good
deal that has been said about alcohol might be urged against
other condiments. Mustard, for example, if largely mixed
with water and freely taken, produces vomiting and occa
sionally inflammation of the intestinal mucous membrane.
Salt, even under circumstances when not counterbalanced by
vegetable juices, induces a disease of hideous type. In re
spect of alcoholics, the result of their employment depends
on the quantity and quality taken. Alcohol given quickly
in large doses is a deadly poison. Diluted alcohol taken
slowly and repeatedly during the day irritates the mucous
membrane of the stomach and secondarily the neighboring
organs, and does violence to the delicate tissues. The
nearer the fluid is to "absolute" alcohol, the more inju
rious it is likely to prove. But the combination of alco
hol with other substances besides water modifies its
effect in some instances for the better, in others for the
worse. In looking through a pair of spectacles, the glasses
of which are tinted with one metal, the world seems of a
fire tint, with another metal the world seems cold and
ghastly, frozen and dead. Infinitesimal quantities of added
matter, so to speak, alter the properties of the man. The
domain of the infinitely minute is a broad one. It was lately
stated at a scientific meeting that a single drop of ether
thrown on the floor of the laboratory, would entirely prevent
the success of experiments illustrative of certain electrical
phenomena. A pin-hole in the door of a photographer's
" developing " room will ruin his freshly taken plates.
Food-Nerves.
283
The chemistry of wine and other liquids in which vinous

fermentation has taken place, has been little studied in rela
tion to physiological action. The changes which occur
under given conditions in the conversion of grape-sngar and
water into alcohol and carbonic acid while in contact with
other substances, give as a result a fluid of unstable char
acter. Altering the temperature and the degree of free
dom of access of air, very different products will appear,
ether and acetic acid among the number, both of which
yield physiological effects different from alcohol uncombined with either. The immediate effect of alcoholics of a
certain strength is to stimulate the palate, the sense of
taste, and perhaps the mucous membrane of the stomach.
The next step is due to absorption of the alcohol by the
stomach and its entry into the blood. By the blood thus
contaminated the nervous centers are influenced, which in
fluence reaches from the favoring of a greater activity to
actual inhibition.
A distinguished physician, writing in one of the magazines
a few years since, expressed the opinion that the use of alco
hol and water was the best and simplest way of giving an
alcoholic stimulant. Now, bearing in mind the modification
of result due to minute additions to simple solutions or com
binations, the dictum of the writer above indicated is open to
question. The use of alcoholics is a matter not of quantity
only, but of quality. The quality may be deteriorated by
sophistication or by chemical changes going on in the fluid.
One of these changes is a production of acetic ether and acetic
acid at the expense of the alcohol. The influence of the state
of the nervous system on the digestion and assimilation of
food should be thoroughly recognized.
Neglect to satisfy the demands on the nervous system in
the nutritive processes carries heavy penalties. The amount
of the nervous force producible by the nervous system is not
unlimited, and if this is exhausted the digestive processes
are obstructed or impeded. When great fatigue has been
endured, or intense nervous excitement has been undergone,
sufficient nerve-force is not left. The nerve-force being
284
The Railroad in Asia.
reduced to a residuum, the digestive capacity of the stomach

is unequal to its duties, lacking the support of nerve-force ;
therefore, it is wise, under such circumstances, to take a very
light meal, and to rest after the meal.
By rest the nervous system is recuperated. During the
state of repose the great nerve centers feed upon nutritive
material that has been stored in the blood and tissues. Then,
when the organs are again in a state of full functional activ
ity, the ordinary meals may be taken. There are some
anomalies or idiosyncrasies of digestion that are parallel to
anomalies of respiration. Asthma of a certain kind will be
induced in some persons by the scent of flowers that others
will enjoy. The inhibition or the impeding of digestion,
with poisonous consequences, will follow the taking of some
common articles of food which the majorit}^ of persons can
take without prejudice. It may be that there is, under such
circumstances, the development of an organic poison, or that
the noxious material paralyzes the gastric nerves.
THE RAILROAD IN ASIA.

BY CHARLES MORRIS.
The drowsy Orient has at length been invaded by what we
may term the Great Awakener of the nineteenth century,
and is beginning to gaze in wonder through sleepy eyes upon
this marvel of the uneasy West The railroad in Asia, out
side the limits of British India, is one of the newest of facts.
Ten years ago it was little more than a bare conception. To
day it is a thing accomplishedon a small scale, it is true ;
but it has come to stay, and the iron horse has become one
of the genii of the land of the Arabian Nights.
China, with its enormous population, its active industry,
its great wealth of products and want of ideas, was naturally
the first land to which occidental enterprise turned its atten
tion, in the matter of railroad building. It proved to be the
most obdurate. To build a railroad over Chinese soil might be
a small matter ; to build a railroad through Chinese prejudice
The Sail-road in Asia.
285
was likely to prove a large one ; and for twenty years civili
zation has been knocking, almost without effect, at the door
of the great kingdom of Cathay.
The Chinaman is not slow through natural dullness ot
apprehension. His mind is merely preoccupied through a
vicious system of education. For centuries the thoughts of
the dead past have been poured into his brain till there is
little room left for the ideas of the living present. But he is
not dull to the question of material advantage, if once he can
be made to see it, and it is not improbable that, as a result
of the present war, he may become as ready as his brother
of Japan to accept western ways and means, if not western
thoughts and sentiments.
As regards the railroad, the struggle with Chinese conser
vatism has been a severe one. The advocates of the iron road
have had to deal with a layer of prejudices thirty centuries
deep, in which old saws are of infinitely more consequence
than modern instances. European and American railroad
syndicates have been led on for years past by tantalizing
hopes of success, through the astute indirectness of Chinese
diplomacy, which is an adept in the art of holding out prom
ises with one hand and withdrawing them with the other.
Yet despite a stubborn unwillingness to try the experiment,
the advantages of railroad traffic have slowly penetrated the
astute official mind of the Celestial Kingdom, and the iron
highway has at length gained a partial admission to Chinese
soil.
The first step in this direction was taken in 1876, when
some English capitalists of Shanghai laid, without official
sanction, a short experimental line from that city to Woosung,
a distance of about ten miles. This railway was very well pa
tronized by the people, but proved a serious eyesore to the
officials, who had been deceived in its building. The Taouist
priests also bitterly opposed it, on the plea that its wicked
roar and rumble would trouble in their graves the dead
who lay sleeping beside its path. It could have been legally
torn up, for it had been illegally laid, but international dif
ficulties might have arisen, and the authorities chose to deal
286
with the problem in a less aggressive fashion. In 1877 they

purchased the road, and immediately stopped its operation.
Eventually the whole thing was torn up, root and branch,
rail and sleeper, and the road and the difficulty were stored
away to rust and rot together.
The next step in railroad building was taken in a similarly
surreptitious manner. Of the many coal mines in China,
only one series was worked by English engineers and with
improved machinery. These were the mines at Kaiping and
Tongshan, in northeastern China. The engineers in question
were not content with the ordinary Chinese method of carry
ing coal to marketin wheelbarrows, steered by coolies and
drawn by donkeys. They preferred some more expeditious
method, and asked the government for permission to build a
railroad to Hokou, on the Pehtang, a river ten miles north
of the Peihoa distance of twenty-seven miles. This request
was unhesitatingly refused, the only permission given them
being to dig a canal to the waterway. This they did as far as
it was available, but seven miles of high land remained, over
which the canal could not profitably be extended. By a
second humble petition to the government they gained per
mission to build a tramway for this distance, the government
carefully avoiding the use of the word " railway," and ex
pressly stipulating that only horses and mules should be used
on it.
The tramway was built and when finished proved to be
a very efficient steel-clad railway. The only kind of horse
the engineers had any private thought of using was the iron
horse, and they built a locomotive secretly in their shop, out
of odds and ends of railroad material which they had got
together. This locomotive when finished was a rough-look
ing affair, but had been built by men who knew their busi
ness, and proved very serviceable. It made its first run in
1881, and continued to run despite the occasional hostile fulminations of the government. The mine was in a remote
district, far from the principal highways. News moved there
slowly, and no official visited the spot to see for himself how
far the government orders had been evaded. The locomotive
287
continued to run, and the daring engineers afterward imported

two others and placed them on the road.
A railroad having been thus smuggled into China, and no
convulsion of nature having occurred in consequence, the
government made no objection to its later extension to the
river, and the original seven miles became twenty-seven in
1887, the extension being built of materials brought from
England.
Here was an object lesson of which any wide-awake China
man could not fail to see the advantage, and the next step
of railroad development was taken by the government itself,
it being due to the intelligence of Li Hung Chang, viceroy
of the province of Chihli, who proved to be that rara avis,
an educated Chinaman with modern ideas.
In 1888a date to be remembered in connection with the
history of the railroadthe Chinese government took the
initiative, and ordered the extension of the Kaiping road to
the large city of Tientsin, a distance of eighty-seven and a
half miles. The route selected passed through the seaport
of Taku, at the mouth of the Peiho River, and the road
was completed by the autumn of 1890. This first author
ized railroad in China presented some, but no very difficult,
engineering problems. There are in its course about fifty
bridges, one of them of iron seven hundred and twenty feet
long. The road was built by Chinese labor, under English
superintendence, and worked by European engineers and
officials, though owned by the Chinese government. The
business of the original road had been confined to the haul
ing of coal, but passengers and freight alike are carried on
this road, which has become a profitable and popular enter
prise.
The only Chinaman who seemed fully awake to the im
portance of introducing the railroad into China was the farseeing Li Hung Chang. His efforts met with the strongest
opposition from officials, priests, the Board of Censors, and
the Empress Dowager, who were all deeply infiltrated with
the ancient Chinese prejudice against innovations. His only
powerful ally was Prince Kung, uncle of the youthful em
288
peror. The viceroy, however, was persistent, and his influ

ence at court grew. His first great success was with the
telegraph, which, fostered by him, has extended, until now
there is a network of about ten thousand miles centering in
Peking, and extending to the great commercial and impe
rial cities of the empire. The system has now been con
nected with the Russian telegraphic system, and messages
can be sent from China to all parts of the world.
The ordering of the Tientsin railroad was quickly fol
lowed by a government decree that it should be extended to
the river port of Tungchow, thirteen miles from Peking.
This extension, however, was abandoned through official
opposition. In 1889 the progressive viceroy succeeded in
obtaining a decree for a much more ambitious project, that
of a railroad from Peking to Hankow, on the Yang-tseKiang River, a distance in a direct line of about seven hun
dred miles. Chang Chi Tung, the viceroy of Honan, was
ordered to build itthe work to be begun at both ends.
Unfortunately for this project Heaven, the official deity of
China, declared itself against it. The Yellow River over
flowed its banks in a terrible inundation. The temple of
Heaven at Peking was burned. The priests affirmed that
these disasters were due to that vile invention of the enemy
of mankindthe railroad. Superstition proved stronger
than viceroyal influence and the order was revoked.
Yet Li Hung Chang has since then persistently pushed
his schemes of progress, and has gained ground with theauthorities, even the Empress Dowager having been brought
into sympathy with his plans. He has constantly presented
the claims of the railroad from both military and commer
cial points of view, and has, to some extent, penetrated the
dense wall of Chinese conservatism. As a result of his efforts
the project of a southward coast road toward Shanghai is
entertained, and the road to Hankow is again being con
sidered. The Tientsin road is being extended to Shan Hai
Kwan, at the sea end of the great wall of China, with the
purpose of continuing it from that point into Manchuria.
289
Such is the status of railroad building to-day in the great

empire of China ; the only roads in active operation being
that from Kaiping to Tientsin, and a road of seventeen miles
in length built in 1890 in the island of Formosa, whose gov
ernor is a supporter of Li Hung Chang's views. The lack
of progress has been partly due to the wish of Chinese states
men that the roads shall be built by Chinese capital, and of
steel rails manufactured from Chinese iron in Chinese furnaces.
They have been moved by a praiseworthy desire to avoid
foreign debt, and though acknowledging the military value
of railroads, could not see in the near future any immediate
danger of war, or need of undue haste ; but the war has
comeunexpectedly and disastrouslyand China is likely to
pay dearly for her short sighted policy. Had Li Hung
Chang's projects been carried out the Celestial empire might
have been in a very different position to-day from that of
crouching at the feet of her island foe. Troops and munitions
of war could have been hurried from the center of the empire
to Peking, and dispatched with rapidity into Manchuria,
the seat of the war, toward which the viceroy's far-seeing
eyes have long been turnedthough his desire for military
protection was directed against Russia, and took no heed of
Japan. It is very probable that, had China military railroads
extending into Manchuria, the Japanese armies might have
had a very different problem to deal with. And it is equally
probable that the present war will teach China a sharp and sal
utary lesson, and that the future of railroad enterprise in that
ancient empire will be in decided contrast to its past history.1
In Japan the railroad has met with no impervious wall of
prejudice and superstition. Railroad building began there in
1 In this connection the following item of newspaper information is of inter
est: "Since the capture of Port Arthur Li Hung Chang has secretly reported
to the Government of Peking his inability to check the advance of the Japanese
armies. In his report he deplores the want of railroads more than the lack
of troops, thus getting even with the censors who formerly frustrated his
schemes for the development of the resources of the empire. Chang Chi
Tung, the new viceroy of Nanking, is very active, and is making extensive pro
jects for the reformation of the empire. Among his plans is the construction
of railroads to Shanghai, for the purpose of opening up the Nanking trade.'
VOL. I.19
290
1869, and has since then steadily grown. The roads were at
first of English construction and management. The engines
are still imported, but are now run by Japanese. Railroad
building in recent years has gone on with encouraging rapid
ity. By the year 1889 there were nine hundred miles of
road open to traffic. The total length in 1893 was one thou
sand eight hundred and sixty-four miles, half of it built
within four years, and the work goes actively on.
Nowhere in Asia, outside of China, has railroad building
been hindered by superstitious fears or the self-sufficiency of
presumed superior knowledge. The slowness of its progress
has been due to supineness rather than to prejudice. India, in
deed, cannot be included in this category, for there the roads
are all English enterprises, and have been constructed with
out regard to native opinions, though their operation must
have considerably modified these opinions. In British India,
in 1893, there were in use seventeen thousand nine hundred
and eighty-three miles of railroad, with two thousand three
hundred and seventeen miles under construction. Ceylon
had, in all, over two hundred miles of railroad ; Java and
the Dutch possessions about eight hundred and fifty miles ;
the Malay States, fifty miles ; and Cochin China, fifty-one
miles. Siam had fourteen miles in use, and over three hundred
under construction.
If we turn again to the distinctively Asiatic States, those
free from European control, it is to find two in which the
supineness of barbarism has proved as effectual a check to
progress as more active mental obstacles elsewhere. Persia,
of old among the most alert of Asiatic civilizations, is to-day
the most dormant. The Persian King, indeed, has made visits
to western Europe, " riding on the rail," and seeing count
less wonders of occidental civilization, but he seems to have
returned to his own country as empty of progressive ideas as
he came, and his only effort to emulate the marvels of western
engineering has been in the building of a nine-mile toy rail
road from Teheran to Shah-abdul-azim, which was opened in
July, 1888. There is another short road, built by Persian
capitalists, for commercial purposes, from Mahmudabad, on
291
the Caspian, to Barfurush and Amol, a distance of twenty-one

miles. These two short lengths comprise the present railroad
mileage of Persia. They have the one merit that they were
built and are operated 'by Persians, no Europeans being
employed upon them. The Persian King, however, is said to
have pledged himself that no more railroads shall be built in
his kingdom during the present century. The neighboring
kingdom of Afghanistan has still less to boast of in railroad
enterprise than Persia, its length of road being estimated in
yardage instead of mileage. Its only road is one connecting
the Amur's palace with Baugh-e-alum Ghuzni, fifteen hun
dred yards in total length.
In Turkey, the contiguity to Europe, and the influence
of European engineers, have given rise to more activity in
railroad building, though without this influence the Sublime
Porte would probably have remained sublimely content with
existing conditions. The Asiatic roads of the Turkish
empire have been built within a few yc&ra past, their total
length being nearly one thousand miles. Asia Minor has
four roads branching from Smyrna, one running to Dinair,
two hundred and thirty-four miles ; one to Alashar, one
hundred and five miles ; one to Odemish, sixty-eight miles,
and one to Sevedikeni, nine miles. Another road runs from
Mersina to Adana, forty-two miles, and one from Mondania
to Broussa, thirty-two miles. But the most important rail
road enterprise is the road recently completed from Scutari
to Angora, the capital of Anatolia, a distance of three hun
dred and sixty-five and one-half miles. Of this the section
from Scutari to Ismid, fifty-seven miles, has been for some
years in operation ; a second section, from Ismid to Adabazar, twenty-five miles, was opened to trade on June 2d,
1890, and the whole road is now in operation. It is about
to be extended by German capitalists from Angora to Caesarea. This is an enterprise of no small importance. Con
stantinople is already connected with western Europe by a
trunk line of railroad. The road to Angora and beyond
carries this continuous line far toward the head of the
Euphrates valley, and it may before many years have elapsed
292
be extended to Bagdad and the head of the Persian Gulf.

Such a road will be of inestimable advantage in carrying
civilization into the heart of the Orient.
Syria and the Holy Land are being invaded by the iron
horse. A concession was granted May 18th, 18'JO, by the
Sultan, for the building of a railroad from Damascus to the
seaport of Acca, on the Bay of Acre, the trunk line to be
one hundred and fifteen miles long, with several branches.
This is being completed with the aid of English capital, its
terminus to be Haifa, on the southern part of the same bay.
Another concession was granted to build a road from Jafl'a
to Jerusalem, fifty-four miles long, with branches to Nablous
and Gaza. This was opened to travel on September 2titht
1892. The locomotive has thus become the mailed crusader
of modern times. There are other railroad projects in Asia
tic Turkey, all of them indeed due to Western enterprise,
but when the iron monster thunders right and left through
the valleys and over the hillsides of this long dormant
region, even the Turk must awaken to the question of
material advantage, and the spirit of enterprise make some
entry into the locked chambers of his intellect.
We have so far confined our attention to the native States
of Asia, with a mere glance at the British and other Euro
pean dominions in the southeast. There is another very
important European dominion in Asia, that of Russia, which
needs to be treated at greater length. This comprises what
has been for ages the most unprogressive section of the
whole great continent, the very home and haunt of nomadic
barbarism. It is singular, indeed, how closely the Russian
accessions in Asia have been confined to the realm of
ancient barbaric dominion, the nucleus of the empires of
Genghiz Khan and Tamerlane, while in all the countries so
far mentioned something approaching civilization has for
ages existed. Siberia, Mongolia and Turkestan have con
tinued the realm of the nomad and the breeding place of
barbarian aggression, whence for many centuries flowed suc
cessive waves of conquest over Europe and Southern Asia.
On this broad land Russia has now laid her hand in strong
298
repression, and over it she is beginning to extend the iron

fetters of the railroad. The dominion of Russia in Asia is
as yet largely a military one, and railroad progress in this
new empire has been dictated by military much more than
by commercial considerations. But the Russians are very
far from being blind to the advantages of trade and com
merce, and their railroads so far built have developed a
very promising volume of traffic.
The great achievement of Russian railroad building in
Asia up to the present time is that of the extensive Transcaspian road, which penetrates from the borders of Europe
into the very heart of Turkestan, extend ing from the Caspian
Sea to the long-sealed and mysterious city of Samarcand,
the ancient capital of Timur the Tartarthe Tamerlane
of historyin whose long silent streets already is felt a
restless stir, the first faint echo of the coming roar of civil
ization. Not many years have passed since all we knew of
this realm of steppe and oasis was the sparse information
brought back by adventurous travelers, who penetrated the
land disguised as Mohammedan dervishes. In addition we
had complaints from Persia of the invasion of its provinces
by fierce Turkestan horsemen in quest of slaves and plunder.
Then came the Russian invasion and conquest, and the long
reign of untamed barbarism was at an end. With the es
tablishment of Russian dominion the era of the railroad in
barbaric Asia begana new and more powerful beast of
burden having come to replace the camel, the time-honored
" ship of the desert." In 1880, a narrow-gauge road was ex
tended from the Caspian over the steppes, which after the
conquest of Merv was continued to the oasis of Akhal Tekke.
The ancient method of progression, however, was not yet
ended, this road being at first operated by camels, in
stead of locomotives. This method of travel did nt long
suffice for the growing demands of Russian trade, and in
1885 the emperor ordered that the narrow-gauge should be
replaced by a broad-gauge road, which should be extended
to Samarcand, and completed within three years.
294
This was no minor project. The road ordered was to be

nearly one thousand miles long, and to be built over a water
less desert, in'.which the engineering difficulties of ordinary
railroad building were replaced by the necessity of conquer
ing that restless enemy of the engineer, the shifting sand,
and of supplying water for thirsty laborers and locomotives.
The task, however, was accomplished within the period
named, the completed road being opened to traffic on May
27th, 1888. The main purposes of this road were military.
Connecting, via the Caspian, with the railroad system of
Russia in Europe, it furnished a ready means of throwing
an army into the heart of Asia, for repressive or aggressive
operations, as might be needed. It was constructed under
the directions of General Annenkoff, who added to his mili
tary experience effective engineering ability, and overcame
the natural difficulties of the way with much of that auto
cratic decision with which Napoleon overcame the Alps.
The Transcaspian Railroad has its western terminus at
Usun-ada, on the southeastern shore of the Caspian, opposite
the important petroleum district of Baku, in European
Russia. It extends by way of Kizil Arvat, Merv, Charjui,
on the Amu Daria or Oxus River, and Bokhara, to Samarcand, crossing eight hundred and ninety miles of desert.
The route lies over two immense steppes, waterless and scorch
ing hot in summer, the lack of water and superabundance of
sand being the main engineering difficulties, the wind having
an awkward inclination to bury the rails beneath a blanket of
moving desert soil. To supply the workmen with drinking
'water, condensers were employed, and the salt water of the
Caspian'thus made fresh. This was conveyed in tuns over the
completed portions of the road to the working parties, which
comprised in all about twenty-five thousand men. To make
a stable foundation for the road, salt water was poured on the
sand and this mixed with clay. The difficulty of the drift
ing sand was partly got over by planting along the line of
the road the steppe-scrub, a sand-loving plant which seems
to flourish without need of water. The first steppe proved
the worst, and the labor became pleasant when the oasis of
295
Akhal Tekke was reached. The Oxus River was crossed by

a great wooden bridge, supported on an island in the middle,
and claimed to be the longest in the world. It is by no
means solidly or strongly built, however.
In the operation of this road petroleum is used as fuel,
the oil wells at Baku furnishing an inexhaustible supply.
The carriages are of mixed classes, some of them being two
stories in height, each story of a different class. One sin
gular fact connected with the road is that some of the sta
tions are miles from the line. The station at Bokhara, for
instance, is ten miles distant, while the Samarcand terminus
is five miles from that city. The Russians have some militar}r purpose in this. Possibly, also, they do not deem it
expedient to shatter too suddenly the prejudices of their
new subjects. The Central Asiatics are not in love with the
railroad. They regard it as a device of Shaitan, the evil
spirit. Yet they are growing accustomed to the " fire cart,"
as they call it, and beginning to find it a very convenient
son of sin. Possibly it may seem to them a just retribution
on the evil one to make this fiery Satan haul their grain to
market.
The Transcaspian road, indeed, promises to be of inesti
mable value in the industrial development of Central Asia.
Already in 1889 its equipment included one hundred and
ten locomotives and one thousand two hundred carriages,
and these proved greatly insufficient for the traffic offered.
General Annenkoff stated in 1889 that the net profits of the
road to that time were $20,000,000, and that 72,000,000
pounds of cotton had been transported. Since then the in
crease has been steady, and the road promises to give a great
impetus to cotton growing in the oases of Central Asia.
The time of the journey from the Caspian to Samarcand is
stated to be sixty-six hours, and that from St. Petersburg
ten to twelve days.
An extension of this road from Samarcand to Tashkent
is contemplated. This will not run in a straight line, but
will traverse the cultivated districts of Khojent, in order to
approach the projected railroad system of Ferghana and the
296
oil basin of Turkestan. These are not the whole of General

Annenkoff's railroad schemes. He advocates the building
of a road northward to connect the Central Asiatic with the
projected Siberian system, and also an extension southward
to the borders of India.
These performances and projects are of startling signifi
cance. To send the iron, horse careening across the empire
of barbarism and rushing into the very metropolis of super
stition, to disturb the silent centuries of the orient with the
scream of the steam whistle, and to gridiron nomadic
Turkestan with steel rails, are no every-day achievements,
and it almost takes one's breath away to think of stations
and time-iables in connection with the stronghold of orien
talism, the long-abiding homestead land of the terrible
Tartar. This son of the desert is destined to be civilized
despite himself, and to be taught the arts and ideas of the
west by the irresistible logic of steam and iron. Truly, noth
ing of greater promise than this railroading of Asia has been
performed of recent years. It signifies the breaking down
of the millenial isolation of Asia ; the stern repression of its
warlike spirit ; the development of its industries; the unfoldment of its intellect, and its invasion by books,
machinery, political economy, socialism, science, and all the
multitudinous arts and isms which now lift the West so
loftily above the East in all the elements of human progress.
We have still to speak of the greatest of all Asiatic rail
road enterprises, and one which will vie with the most ex
tensive feats of railroad engineering, the Transsiberian Rail
road. The original form of this project was the design to
lay across the continent of Asia a continuous line of rail,
four thousand two hundred mile* long, with branches bring
ing the total length up to four thousand nine hundred and
fifty miles. The state of Russian finances, however, checked
this ambitious scheme, and in November, 1890, it was an
nounced that a less costly plan had been adopted, and that
the road as first constructed would be a combination of rail
way and waterway. As remodeled, the length of rail be
tween Tomsk eastward to the Pacific port of Vladivostock
297
was to be one thousand nine hundred and sixty-seven and a

half miles, the remaining distance being covered by naviga
ble rivers and lakes of Siberia.
Tomsk, it is true, lies far eastward from the western border
of Siberia, but a long reach of navigable waters on the Obi
and Irtish Rivers brings it within effective reach of the Ural
Mountains. An important branch of the road in this region
is already finished, running from Perm in European Russia,
to Tyumen on the Irtish, whence steamers ply to the Sibe
rian towns of Semipalatinsk, Barnaul and Tomsk. The
European terminus of the road will, however, as now de
signed, be at Samara, on the Volga. This town is particu
larly suited to be the starting point of the Siberian railroad
system, from the fact that a great iron bridge, the longest in
Europe, crosses the Volga here, and thus establishes all-rail
connections with the general railroad system of Russia. The
other important towns on the Volga have at present to trust
to ferry connections. No less important is the fact that a rail
road already exists from Samara to Ufa, three hundred and
twenty miles eastward, and that this Samara-Ufa road is
now being extended to Zlatoust in the Ural Mountains, on
the Siberian border. From Zlatoust the distance to Tyumen,
on the Irtish, is but a few hundred miles, and the closing of
this gap will give continuous rail-and-water-way from St.
Petersburg to Tomsk.
Such was, until recently, the state of the Transsiberian
railroad. The road from Tomsk eastward as yet exists on
paper only. As projected it was to run from Tomsk to
Irkutsk, a distance of over one thousand one hundred miles.
From Irkutsk the route was to be by water on Lake Baikal
to Mysowaia on its eastern shore, whence a railroad would
run to Stretensk on the Shilka, a branch of the great Amur
river. From Stretensk there would be an extensive steam
boat link, down the Shilka to the Amur, down the latter
stream to the mouth of its southern affluent, the Usuri, and
up the Usuri to Grafskaia. From this point a short line of
rail would reach the eastern terminus, at the port of Vladivostock, on the Sea of Japan.
298
This plan, however, has been more recently revised, an

increased length of railroad being contemplated, the line to
run around the southern shore of Lake Baikal, while the
Vladivostock section is to start from the Amur. This sec
tion was begun on June 1st, 1891, with the laying at Vladi
vostock of a memorial tablet by the Czarewitchwho had
been made president of the enterprisein commemoration
of the opening of the first portion of the road. The route
up the TTsuri, two hundred and fifty-eight miles long, is well
advanced, its first section, sixty-three miles long, to Nicolsk
having been opened in September, 1892. It is expected that
the whole road will be finished by 1905.
A southern route has been chosen for this important un
dertaking, alike to avoid the forest region and the hostility
of the natives of the north, and to take advantage of the
agricultural wealth of southern Siberia. The product of the
extensive wheat lands of that region will probably in the
future be very great. In addition, the road will pass through
the rich mineral district between Lake Baikal and the Amur
River, whose treasures of natural wealth include an abundance
of petroleum.
The commercial value of the road must, in fact, be im
mense. In addition to the Siberian traffic with Europe,
which will be extensive from the start, and promises to in
crease abundantly in the future, the road will stimulate an
important trade with China long before its completion. So
far as relations with China are concerned, however, commer
cial traffic is not the leading purpose of the Russian govern
ment. The road has a strong military outlook in the direc
tion of the Celestial Kingdom. China does not forget that
Russia gained possession of the rich Amur region by the
piratical method of seizure, and her Manchurian railway
projects may have, as a leading design, the recovery of this
province, of which she was unceremoniously robbed. Russia
however, is not good at letting go, and the Transsiberian
Railroad is an effective measure to provide against any hostile
movement of China in that direction, while its extension to
Vladivostock has in view the defense of that highly import
299
ant Pacific outlet of Russia in the event of war with an

European power. It may be said, in conclusion, that the
road as now contemplated will be closed six months of the
year by the freezing of the Siberian rivers, and that an allrail road must eventually be built. The time from Moscow
to the Pacific, by river and rail, is estimated at from thirty
to forty days ; by all rail, fifteen days.
The remaining railroads in Russian Asia comprise a road
from a point on the Black Sea to the petroleum district of
Baku, on the Caspian, and one now building from Vladikaukas, north of the Caucasus range, to Tiflis on the south,
a length of about two hundred and seventy miles.
The Russian railroads in Asia are destined to be of the
utmost future importance in both military and commercial
directions, and to play a leading part in the coming history
of that continent. By the aid of the Transcaspian road,
with its connections with the European system, the Russian
army can be quickly concentrated in force on the borders of
Afghanistan, in readiness to be poured into India in the
event of any future war with England. It will be of equal
advantage in aiding any Russian projects for the acquisition
of more territory in Central or Southern Asia, and in keep
ing the Turkoman population of the steppes in peaceful sub
jection. Commercially it gives Russia an immense advan
tage in its competition with England and France for the
markets of Central Asia, and must lead to a great develop
ment of the material resources of the oases of Turkestan,
and particularly of the cotton culture, which is now being
actively pursued in Turkestan and Ferghana. That a
demand for European wares will grow up among the Asia
tic agriculturists is beyond question, and the energetic desert
nomads, having lost their favorite amusement of war and
pillage, may join the inhabitants of the oases in gaining
new ideas, habits and industries when the iron web of the
railroad has been stretched far and wide through their
country.
The Transsiberian road can be of no less utility from
both points of view, that of enabling Russia to control its
300
restless population in Siberia and the fiteppes and to hold a

continual threat over China, and that of inducing a rapid
growth of population and an immense development of agri
culture and mining in Siberia, and opening a great overland
trade with China.
The railroad in Asia has come to stay. Nearly all that
has been done, outside of India, is the work of the last ten
years, and in great measure of a still briefer period. Already
the results have been great, while the future is rich with
promise. The sleeping giant of orientalism is stirring un
easily in its bed, and opening its drowsy senses to the shrill
alarm sound of the locomotive whistle. It is destined to be
rudely and fully awakened within the coming years, when
the continent shall become covered with railroads as by a
great spider web, and the restless spirit of occidentalism
invade regions which for thousands of years have rested in
the bliss of ignorance and self-satisfaction.
For centuries past Western civilization has beaten like
the waves of a sea on the shores of Eastern barbarism, with
scarcely a breach in their firm barrier. At length the bar
rier is broken. The West is forcing itself into the East at
a hundred points. With the extension of the railroad it
promises to spread over the oriental world like an inunda
tion. New habits and new ideas cannot fail to follow in the
track of the iron horse, new industries and new conceptions
to be developed. Gradually hostility must be repressed,
industry aroused and taught new methods, machinery intro
duced, new religious, political and economical ideas pene
trate, and the coming generation is likely to see the growth
of a radical improvement in the conditions of Asiatic com
munities in general, perhaps not less marked than that which
is progressing under our eyes in Japan. It is too soon to
predict what effect the present war may have upon the
future of China, but it may almost be said that a railroad is
equal to a war in overcoming conservative barriers to pro
gress and opening a broad highway for the influx of new
ideas.
The Amateur in Science.
301
THE AMATEUR IN SCIENCE.

BY GRANT ALLEN.
It is the tendency of things human to fall into an ortho
doxy, and orthodoxy is sleep ; baneful though it be, it springs
from the somnolent instinct in humanity. It means unques
tioning acceptance of certain infallible and unassailable dog
mas, to doubt which is heresy, and to deny which is to render
yourself anathema maranatha.
Most people know that this is so in other things ; but they
think science is a complete exception. The scientific brain,
they fancy, is naturally alert, unprejudiced, skeptical. The
world believes that the man of science proves all things, and
holds fast to the truth. And it is right in a way, for that is
undoubtedly the spirit and test of the truly scientific mind
of the men who are born, not made, scientists.
But routine tends always to establish itself in everything,
and in scientific education no less than elsewhere. The
human mind is prone to laziness. It is easier to swallow a
dogma ready-made than to search the Scriptures, like them
of Berea, seeking whether these things are so or not. And
the more perfectly organized is your scientific education, the
more likely is the student to accept without demur the or
thodox standpoint. He comes to the subject with a mind
like a sheet of blank paper. He is introduced to a class,
knowing little or nothing of the matters to be taught in
it; often enough he has no special "call," as religious
people sayno innate impulse urging him toward chem
istry, for example, or physics, or physiology ; he goes in
for this thing as a necessary part of his technical education,
because his father has decided that he is to be a doctor or an
engineer, a manager of nitrate works or a manufacturer of
electrical apparatus. He finds himself face to face with a
professor who confessedly knows a vast deal more than he
does about the subject at issue. Questions are permitted,
indeed, but only as to details, and they are answered from
302
the standpoint of superior and apparently exhaustive knowl

edge. Doubts or objections are not encouraged ; skepticism
as to fundamentals is treated as hopeless. Science has decided
things thus and thus ; you will find all about it in Joule or
Clerk Maxwell (you will read to the contrary in Miiller or
Herrmann) ; you will see your puerile objections anticipated
and refuted in Tyndall or Helmholtz.
Moreover, the pupil, thus grounded, grows up with a be
lief that all these things are not matters to be treated as
debatable and uncertain, to be subjected to scrutiny as true
or false, but merely as questions to be answered thus and
thus in examination. This answer " pays," that other will
pluck you. To-day you must be a disciple of Joule, to
morrow of Kerner. Now Weismannism is fashionable ; now
this or that other view of Tesla's, or of Crookes's, is in favor
with examiners. Thus orthodoxy grows into a compact
body of settled opinion, with a professional staff just as
much interested in keeping up its dogmas as a heirarchy is
interested in keeping up the dogmas of its particular church,
or sect, or faction. We have established and endowed an
infallible and unassailable scientific priesthood.
Pay men to teach, and they teach accordingly. They be
come a vested interest. They view with dislike, with
scorn, and with terror the intrusion of other and upsetting
ideas from the " unqualified practitioner."
It was not always so. Once science was open. But of
late years, in particular, since the Germanization of scien
tific education in England and America, this danger has
become daily more real and more urgent. Our men of
science nowadays are drilled and dragooned by methods
analogous to those in accordance with which, since the days
of Frederick William, the Prussian soldiers have been drilled
and dragooned into the most perfect and compact mass of
man-slaying machines the world yet wots of. For drilling
really produces most excellent machines; the pity of it is
that machines are not, after all, the best type of instrument
for securing the enlargement and advancement of science.
Nay, more, a strict mathematical and mechanical train
303
ing is not in itself the best preparation for the work of

mathematical and mechanical thinking. It fits men for
dealing deductively with minor problems; it does not fit
them for dealing inductively and constructively with great
ideas and great principles. The ordinary training of the
chemist, for example, is almost always destructive of those
wide imaginative and cob'rdinative faculties which are
needed by the man who would really do great things in
advancing science. Hence the universal pettifoggery of
chemistrythe absence of broad and spacious generaliza
tions. The tendency of the Teutonic system in scientific
training, in fact, is to produce admirable small specialists,
who can carry out excellently well certain established lines
of thought along inevitable or preestablished grooves ; who
can investigate further the mode of fertilization in the
family of the St. John's worts, or can invent ad libitum fresh
varieties of ethyl and methyl compounds, but who are utterly
incapable of taking vast strides along unknown paths, and
who never dream of calling in question the ultimate first
principles, decided for them long ago by their pastors and
masters. Capital men in their way ; but bricklayers, not
architects.
It was not so that the great leaders of science in the past
were produced. Nay, more, it is a fact that no great archi
tect has ever yet arisen in these mattersKepler, Coperni
cus, Linn?eus, Darwinwho had not to begin, like the
French Revolution, by pulling down the whole rotten edi
fice of his predecessors, and building the entire superstruc
ture afresh from the ground from the demolished materials.
Look at Darwin, for example. He has become so much of
an orthodoxy now himself, and is even further refined upon
by our Weismanns and our Ray Lankesters to such an extent,
that people have almost quite forgotten that he was once
a startling heterodox leader. But I can remember the time
myself when there existed in Europe a biological orthodoxy
of the school of Cuvierwhen people spoke of Erasmus
Darwin as "an ingenious but crack-brained theorist," of
Oken as " a poor fool," of Lamarck as " a wild speculator,"
304
of the " Vestiges of Creation " as " clever but unscientific."

Now Darwin was not a professor. He was not a trained
physiologist. He was not a drilled and dragooned South
Kensington student. He was merely an amateur, a lover of
truth, who was impelled by curiosity and by sundry ideas
suggested to his mind on a journey round the world to
observe certain facts and formulate certain theories. The
science of the time at first frowned upon him severely.
Owen, the greatest of "orthodox" biologists, as men then
saw orthodoxy, had nothing but contempt and dislike for
his theory. Virchow would have none of him. Even Lyell,
who came gradually round at last, because he had an open
and candid mind, was at first quite scandalized. In France,
especially, where scientific orthodoxy is always strongest,
because of the academic and governmental influence, the
new ideas were laughed at as ridiculous. The antiquated
and dogmatic doctrine of Cuvier was regarded as the last
word of wisdom on the subject of species. But still, the
new ideas triumphed for all that, because they were true ;
and as soon as they triumphedhi, presto, forthwith, they
were erected in turn into a fresh orthodoxy, and were em
ployed to crush out all honest attempts to explain hereditary
transmission of functionally acquired modifications, by apply
ing to all suggested advances the easy formula of, " It doesn't
agree with Weismann's germ-plasm theory." So each step
gained becomes with time a bar in its turn to all future
progress.
Look once more at the earlier stages in this very advance
of biologic science. How slowly they were made! How
fiercely they were fought against! Erasmus Darwin, who
first had a glimpse of the truth of organic evolution, and
who saw clearly many things far ahead of his contempo
raries, was treated, of course, as a harmless lunatic. La
marck, whose width of knowledge none could deny, was
regarded, nevertheless, as learned but insanea sort of zoologic Blakebecause he beheld things denied to the aca
demic and formal eyes of the orthodox Cuvier. Goethe,
again, was "a mere amateur;" but his splendid discovery
The Amateur in Sdence.
305
of vegetable metamorphosis (though largely false in detail)

is now hailed as the beginning of scientific botany, and is
turned of course into an orthodoxy of its sort, which bars
the way against the true theory, that the stamen preceded
the petal in time, and that the real transition is from stamen
to petal, not vice versa. Up to the very moment when Dar
win wrote his epoch-making work, it was enough for a man
to adopt the now dominant opinion to put him out of court
at once as a " sound " biologist.
Look at Herbert Spencer. No man has more profoundly
modified the trend of opinion on all subjects in our cen
tury. No man has so revolutionized the ideas of lead
ing thinkers in every direction. No man is going to pro
duce so lasting an effect upon the thought of the future.
Yet Herbert Spencer was never in any direction orthodox.
He went through no course of drill ; he rebelled sturdily
against school and college ; he determined to look at nature
and man from his own point of view, resisting all attempts
to warp or thwart his individual judgment. And he came
out of the struggle the most profoundly original and pregnant
thinker the world has ever known. He made his own views.
Unlike Darwin, he is not yet an orthodoxy, because he is still
too far ahead of his public. In most things he is heterodox
extremely heterodox ; and his heterodoxy is greatest where
what he has to teach us is newest and most original. Many
people follow him in those parts of the " Principles of Bi
ology " which stand closest to Darwin and the Darwinians,
but part company at once when they come to the vastly more
valuable and interesting parts of his work, like the marvel
ous theory of Physiological Units, perhaps the finest concep
tion ever yet begotten by a human brain. They will accept,
instead, the puerilities of Pangenesis, or the metaphysical
rubbish of an unprovable germ-plasm. Others, again, can
swallow large portions of these physiological theories, but
fail wholly to grasp the " Principles of Psychology," and
especially such salient parts of that work as the Physical
Synthesis, and the wonderful theory of Transfigured Realism.
And so on throughout. The orthodox folk-lorists will have
VOL. I.20
306
nothing to say to Spencer's magnificent demonstration of the

origin of the belief in supernatural beings, which will be
" orthodox " when all memory of their work has faded as
utterly from man's mind as Arkite worship or the Druidical
nonsense. Always in Spencer's case it is the newest, and deep
est, and grandest work that gets least acceptance. What is
nearest to man's own thinking they can swallow and assimi
late ; what takes them just one step ahead of their own stand
point, they can conquer with an effort ; but what utterly
transcends their capacities of comprehension, they contemn
and laugh at as clearly ridiculous.
The orthodox scientist, then, is the man who follows closely
along accepted lines the accepted notions. He can add a
detail, but he cannot possibly upset, reconstruct, revolutionize.
This last is almost always the task of the inspired outsider.
For the outsider comes to the work fresh, and with a fresh
impulse. He has not been drilled and dragooned. He is not
a mere martinet produced by an educational system for its
own furtherance. He takes a lively and personal interest in
his subject. He aims at truth. He wants to know, and he
goes straight for knowledge. As a rule, he has begun by
attacking certain special problems that interested him much,
because they demanded an answer of him. In such a case,
he tries first the works of the authorized pundits, the acknowl
edged priests of the scientific hierarchy ; and, often enough,
he finds no answer, or only an evasive and delusive answer,
there. Often enough, again, he spies flaws and absurdities
in their treatment of the subject. He notes errors and
blunders, and, unlike the docile pupil whom orthodoxy loves,
he insists upon following up these suggestive trails, tracking
the misconception home to its lair in the heart of the subject,
and forcing it to show itself in the open light of day, envel
oped in all its disfiguring mist of verbiage and dogma. Then
he questions everything ; takes no definition for granted ;
mistrusts such silly phrases as that, " energy is that which
performs work ; " insists upon going to the root of the matter.
He will not make his judgment blind ; he will not say,
"It must be so, absurd as I see it to be, because Mr. Karl
307
Pearson and Professor Oliver Lodge dogmatically tell me it

is so." He cares nothing for authority, but a great deal for
truth, for logic, for reason.
And his way is hard, of course. Most often, like Young
(who ventured to discover the undulatory theory of light
without consulting the pundits), he goes down to his grave
before he has ever succeeded in making a single fellowcreature see eye to eye with him. The further ahead his
doctrine takes us, the more revolutionary and subversive it
is, the more must this be so. The man who sees a thing a
few years in front of his contemporaries, may live to con
vince them of the truth of his vision. But the man who sees
things a century in front, like Erasmus Darwin, can only
hope for their scorn or their pity. " Poor fellow, he's mad,
you know ; has ideas of his own on the origin of life which
the great Linnaeus says are untenable," or " which the great
Cuvier declares are quite unfounded ! "
" The price of liberty," said Jefferson, " is perpetual vigi
lance." The price of science is perpetual heresy.
At the present moment it is physics that stands most in
the way of the systematic thinker. We have arrived at a
point where the existing beliefs of scientific men are wholly
unsatisfactory, even to those of themselves "who have the
courage to say so, and -who can see a little way beyond their
own cloud of facile verbiage. The current ideas of force and
energy, in particular, are formless and meaningless, full of
contradictions, and purely anthropocentric in conception
and expression. They are the ideas of an intelligent but
unphilosophic mechanic, and they are couched in terms of a
workingman's vocabulary. When you get to their very
core, they insist upon going round and round forever and
ever in a vicious circle. Certain physicists of our day, in
deed, of the orthodox type, but possessed of some originality
and vividness of imagination, like Crookes and Tesla, are
trembling on the verge of immense discoveries. But out
siders, as I believe, have already seen further than those
orthodox explorers. Approaching the subject without pre
conceptions, and spotting by pure logical faculty the weakest
308
points, the pelitiones principii and circular arguments, of our

Balfour Stewarts and our Taits, they have arrived at newer
and more consistent conclusions as to the nature and rela
tions of forces and energies than our recognized teachers.
These new ideas are in the air. They are pregnant with
the most gigantic practical results to the future of human
ity. When once they have been accepted, understood, and
thoroughly assimilated hy engineers and mechanicians, they
will he applied in practice. A revolution in human life will
then take place, compared to which the revolutions caused
by steam and electricity are mere trivial episodes. Bound
less stores of energy are waiting at our doors for men to
utilize. But time is needed before men's minds can take in
or grasp these fundamental concepts, so wholly unlike the
orthodox concepts with which they are now familiar. And
the change, as usual, must come from outside. No church,
no orthodoxy ever reforms itself. It resists reform till thelast possible moment. It only accepts accomplished facts
when they can no longer be denied ; when they have worked
themselves out visibly ; when they are as plain to behold as
the sun in the heavens.
A hundred years hence, every child in the street will know
for itself which is the true and fruitful system of physical
philosophy.
309

A REVELATION OF FORGOTTEN KNOWLEDGE.
(COMPILED BY MRS. BLOOMFIELD MOORE.)
IN TWO PARTS.
PART I.
The laws of nature have their sole seat, origin and function in the human
mind. Not oue single discovery has ever been made which has been con
nected with the laws of the mind that made it. Until this connection is
ascertained our knowledge has no sure basia. The Influence of Women on the
Progress of Knowledge.
BUCKLE.
The mieanique celeste of mind is still waiting its Newton to disclose it.
MACVICAB, in 1868.
Now that modern science has proclaimed, from her seat of

learning (at the recent annual meeting of the British Asso
ciation), that it knows nothing of " the great central mys
tery, the origin of life"that "the stupendous problems,
associated with the operation of the laws of nature," which
the highest scientific intellects have been wrestling with for
several generations, are still unsolvedthat the questions,
"Whence come we?" "Why are we here?" "Whither
go we ?" remain unanswered ; and that if we strain our eyes
to pierce the cloud of mystery which envelopes these phe
nomena of nature, it is only to feel the conviction that it is
impenetrable ; that no certain knowledge can be obtained
now that science thus admits her abject ignorance on all
these subjects, could there be a more fitting time to make
known to the world the fact that Keely's system of Sympa
thetic Vibratory Physics solves these problems, answers these
questions, and demonstrates in mechanics what its canons
assert ?
Oersted, in his book, " The Soul in Nature," writes : " As
infidelity is usually created by the progress of science, its sup
pression is more easily accomplished by still further scientific
310
progress. Skepticism carries with it the germ of its own

downfall ; and, in so far as it gains the upper hand at any
particular time, it thereby approaches its own destruction.
Morality is undermined, and, as a consequence, is little
valued. All the secret ties which unite families and states are
loosened ; everything sacred is scorned, and the spirit of per
secution becomes associated with it, as it formerly was with
superstition. It ends in great revolutions and regenerations
of the social'system ; unless the mental powers are made able
to overthrow it (by some new revelation of truth in the still
further progress of science). Such revolutions are always
accompanied, as is well known, by throes so terrible that
they must be considered as the tremendous punishment of
degeneracy."
" When the punishment grows out of the crime," says
Victor Rydberg, " forth from the punishment shoots the ex
piation." Never has there been a time, in the history of the
human race, when the terrible consequences of a lapse from
the requirements of virtue, of duty, of justice, of faith,
seemed to be so imminent as now.
" Appreciation of the magnitude of the peril and concerted
action are the supreme needs of the hour" writes Mr. Flower,
in " Civilization's Inferno." Never were truer words spoken ;
and, as "each age answers its own need," the Divine Provi
dence, who sees fit ever to work in and by instrumentalities,
has so directed events that the antidote for the skepticism
and infidelity which modern science has made itself respon
sible for, now, in our age, lies within reach of all, in Keely's
discoveries ; opening up as they do a new field of research in
which physicists and psychologists can join forces, and prove
the immortality of the soul to the utter destruction of mate
rialism. The law of Sympathetic Association" whereby all
creation is balanced and subserved in its multiplied ranges
of action "is a trinity of sympathetic union ; and only by
understanding the operations of this " governing law of the
universe," can science hope to check the advance of the evil
which she has created. She must join hands with religion,
if she would face the peril and avert the threatened cataclysm.
31 1
" All waits, or goes by default, till a strong being ap

pears ; a strong being is the proof of the race, and of the
ability of the universe; when he or she appears, materials
are overawed," writes Walter Whitman.
In this founder of a new system of physics, we have the
needed " strong being " to lead the way, but the men of
science who walk with him must leave their laboratories,
turning aside at once and for ever from " the path of great
danger" pointed out by the Marquis of Salisbury, in his
recent address at Oxford. That path leads to no solution
of " the mysteries of gravitation, of chemical atoms, of the
luminiferous ether, of the electrostatic forces, nor of the
greatest mystery of allthe mystery of the human will."
There seems to be nothing left for " science " to attempt,
since she has acknowledged that she has reached " an im
passible barrier," other than to retrace her steps to her
starting point. The path is open for all, and, as it is the
path of knowledge (not the path of learning}, those who
traverse it will soon be able to answer the question, "Why
is it that against this instantaneous, untranslatable gravita
tion, this adamantine, impalpable ether, science has so long
banged its devoted head in vain ?"
They will find their answer in the simple truth that,
when science rejected creative design, when she turned her
back upon the God in whom we live, and move, and have
our sole existence, she entered a wilderness of quagmires
and quicksands, every step over which led her further and
further away from the truth on " the path of great danger "
which she is still pursuing.
" The Ancients " were on the right road, as is now demon
strated in Sympathetic Vibratory machinery. They knew
more of the causal world, of the unvarying laws of nature,
than all the men of science of our time know, or ever will
know until they pursue their researches on the path opened
to them in Sympathetic Physics.
In this system, force and energy are classified as opposites, working in antagonism to each other: Force as "a
positive power which initiates aggregative motion, and
312
resists separative motion, in three postules of ponderable

matter in the etheric medium ;" Energy as " a negative
power, which initiates separative motion, or disintegration,
and resists aggregative motion, in three postules of ponder
able matter, also of the etheric medium."
The path of research, to attain the knowledge sought by
savants, is laid in the conditions connected with association
and dissociation, electric under the latter, magnetic under the
former. On the line intimated, every researcher will find it
in his power to answer Pilate's question, " What is Truth ?"
for we possess over " The Ancients," to whom these truths
were revealed, a tremendous advantage in being able to
verify them by all the means which inventive genius places
at command in our day. When once men of science are
convinced that nature's sympathetic laws, as taught in
Keely's system of physics, are the laws which control and
govern all her operations, they will bend themselves with
unflagging energy to this only true line of research, instead
of seeking for " manifestations" of unknown powers in the
human organism, through "mediums" abnormally affected.
These manifestations are of such a character as to prove, if
they prove anything, that cases of " obsession " did not
cease with the days of the Apostles, on whom the power
was conferred of " casting out devils," or evil spirits. "As
a man is so his ghost is." Spiritualism has done a great
work in counteracting some of the effects of the reign of
skepticism inaugurated by materialistic science. Spiritism
is quite another thing. Like counterfeit coin, which repre
sents sterling gold, it counterfeits spiritualism.
Sympathetic Physics teaches that, until we know the laws
of nature which govern the operations of mesmerism, hyp
notism, and spiritualism, the making use of these unknown
powers is like placing an obstruction on a railway. The
(rain may dash along over it unharmed, or, it may wreck the
train.
To those who have witnessed, in Keely's work-shop (which
was converted from a stable into a primitive laboratory), the
operation of a current of will-force, in the revolutions of a
313
globe of metal, insulated on all sides, it is painful to see the

unexplained " manifestations " of " mediums ; " especially
after having (in some spiritualist seances) detected the hum
bug or deceit of the medium, when no precautions had been
taken to prevent discovery. The globe of metal, moved by
will-force, must first be so "graduated" as to be, in its mole
cular vibration, in harmony with the brain of the operator,
who remains within sight at a distance of about thirty feet ;
always in broad daylight.
Sympathetic Physics demonstrates, in vibratory machinery,
that " there is nothing new that is not forgotten knowledge,"
and that the views handed down from the times of " The
Ancients," regarding the operations of the forces of nature,
are correct. In later times, Pythagoras taught his pupils, as
this system teaches, that the same principle underlies the
harmonies of music and the motion of the heavenly bodies ;
and in this conception harmony is revealed as "the mainstay
and supporter of the material universe." The theories of the
great mathematician, the late Professor Peirce, are said to
lead to the same conclusion. Numa Pompilius comprehended
some of the operations of the forces which we call electricity
and magnetism. Epicurus asserted that gravity is inherent
in all matter. Leucippus believed that atoms possess within
themselves a principle of energy. Anaxagoras, Heraclitus,
and Empedocles taught that matter is infinitely divisible ;
and the theory of Democritus regarding the soul's construc. tion approaches one of the hypotheses of Vibratory Physics,
n>., that heat is an order of spiritual vibration, and is latent
in all substances.
The lights of " The Mystic School " taught that matter is
latent force, and force free matter. Dogmatic science, having
rejected all these teachings as false, is, naturally, not prepared
to accept them from one whose ignorance of physics, as taught
in the schools, has been his safeguard from error.
The requirement of all branches of science is that every
demonstration shall give proof of what is asserted. When
Keely was ready to give this proof to physicists, a messenger
was sent, as in the Scripture parable (Luke xiv.), to those
314
who had been bidden to this feast of knowledge : " Come,

for all things are now ready," with the same result; "they
all with one consent began to make excuse."
" The man who would bring about great changes," writes
Amiel, " must have an enormous belief in himself, an un
bounded confidence in his cause, and a large faith in the
future."
All these requisites, coupled with a godlike patience, are
possessed by this founder of a new school of science ; who, for
more than twenty years, has borne calumnies, unmerited ob
loquy, scorn and contempt, without answering his accusers
or reproaching his slanderers ; while, Prometheus-like, he has
been toiling to bring down fire and light from celestial re
gions for his fellow-men.
Some noble exceptions there have been among men of
science, who, invited to witness Keely's demonstration of
" negative attraction," and the production of the unknown
force by the disintegration of water, accused him of fraud
and used their powerful influence to prevent others from
examining for themselves. Among these few exceptions
were the late Professor Joseph Leidy, Dr. Willcox, and
Professor Daniel G. Brinton, three of Philadelphia's most,
learned men, all of whom in 1889, or later, announced it as
their opinion that Keely was on the road to the overcoming
of all the difficulties attendant upon safe navigation of the
air. Keely's system of aerial navigation is now completed ;
he has succeeded in attaching his machinery " to the very
wheel-works of nature." The no longer " unknown " force of
" sympathetic negative attraction," though not yet connected
with the mechanically complete propeller of his air-ship,
can be made available, without transmission, at any point
of the universe.
The delay occasioned this summer and autumn by the
operation for cataract, and a serious illness which followed,
has prevented the adjusting by Mr. Keely of the final
" requisites," but it matters not to science, if only an authori
tative announcement is now made of the work that he has
315
already accomplished, whether this century or the next sees

its completion for commerce.
" It is almost enough to take one's breath away," writes
the editor of The Herald ( Boston), when Tesla declares that
he expects to live to be able to set a machine in the middle
of his room, and move it by no other agency than the energy
of the medium in motion around us. Such a declaration
comes perilously near the bounds of the old fallacy of per
petual motion; the pursuit of which has subjected so many
a hair-brained philosopher to the ridicule of his fellows.
"And even to the much-vaunted and much-scorned claims ofKeely
it lends an air ofplausibility."
" Prove all things ; hold fast to the truth," is as wise a course
to pursue in science as in religion. This is what Keely has
been doing with the teachings of " The Ancients," in regard
to the forces of nature, viz., proving their truth by " dynamic
apparatus."
"The old Kabbala," writes Dr. Seth Pancoast, in The
True Science of Light, " with its curious and comprehensive
symbol-language, is at once an elaborate system of natural
philosophy, and a profound system of theology; an illumi
nated exposition of the mysterious truths of nature " (t. e., the
hidden things of God) " and of that higher science which the
book of nature unfolds to the enlightened eye of the soul ;
the science of religion. Our readers would be slow to real
ize, many even unwilling to recognize, the fact that the grand
old Kabbalistic theosophy was the native root, the central
trunk, whence all the religions the world has ever known
sprang as shoots and branches from a parent tree. Yet this
is absolutely true. Our Bible is a translation into words of
the symbols of the Kabbala. The reader would be aston
ished if he could read the Bible in the light of the Kabbala ;
first, to discover this close accordance ; second, to find inter
nal evidence, so clear as to be irrefragable, that the book of
nature, true science, and the written Word, are one in source
and significance ; and third, to learn that the Bible is not
the book of enigmas that ordinary commentators would make
us believe, but is the written revelation of God's work,
316
and ultimate purpose in creation ; and of His essential attri

butes as well ; "but only to those who understand its hidden
symbolic and esoteric meaning. 1
This is written of the Hebrew Kabbala,the Hebrew theosophy. The Hindu theosophy is not a religion ; it is a system of
philosophy derived from the wonderful Kabbala ; the teach
ings of which, concerning nature's sympathetic streams (flow
ing from the central sun of the universe), led Keely into the
path of research which has enabled him not only to " hook
his machinery on to the machinery of nature," but to disclose
the moving power, the vital principle.
PART II.
THE REVELATION.
If galvanism be only a bidden form of electricity, then magnetism can be

only electricity in a more hidden form. Vieics of Chemical Laws of Nature.
OERSTED, 1813.
The real origin of magnetism is yet to be revealed.
TYNDALL.
To the question, " What is Electricity ? " there is but one answer. We do
not know.
" POIULAK SCIENCE."
The magnetic needle is ruled by an all-pervading principle, emanating from
the center of the universe, which sustains and regulates the motions of ma
terial worlds. How many ages will it be before the world will comprehend
and believe in the electric aura, or subtle ether, which pervades creation as
the atmosphere surrounds our earth. All created things move in this etherial
aura; by means of which harmonious unison is established between every link
1 The late Mrs. F. J. Hughes, a grandniece of Erasmus Darwin, gained from
her study of the Bible the material for her book on "The Evolution of Tones
and Colours," which work, Keely says, saved him years of research in the
realm of inaudible sounds possessed by man, without which his various organs
would be utterly useless.
A discovery has been made which is connected with the laws of the mind
that made it; and " the meeanique celeete " no longer waits its Newton to disclose
it. Truth stands in the temple of science unveiled, in all her majesty, point
ing the path to a region that science has never yet entered ; for, it is no merely
material prospect that opens to her view.
The invisible things of Him, from the creation of the vorW, are understood by the
things that art matte.
ROMANS i: 20.
317
in the chain of animated nature. Every faculty of the mind has its power,
which extends through all space, and this vital power may be exerted at will
by its possessor, according to its native energy or strength.
KRITZ LEMBERG.
Hans Christian Oersted who, in the year 1820, discovered

"electro-magnetism," or the law of reciprocity between
electrified bodies and the magnet, had, as early as the year
1813, in his " Views of Chemical Laws of Nature," expressed
his anticipation of the existence of a near connection between
electric, galvanic, and magnetic currents.
For two centuries the opinion had been alternately
accepted and rejected, that electricity and magnetism have
a common origin; yet all endeavors to prove this accordance
had been in vain. By Oersted's experiments, electro-mag
netism was thus introduced as a universal force of nature.
In a later work, " The Soul in Nature," Oersted writes :
" Natural science is in perfect harmony with religion, in
teaching that everything has been brought forth and is sus
tained and governed by the Divine Will. Mankind, in its
infancy, learnslike the individual manby instinctive in
tuition" (the inner light). "Facts are ascertained, demon
strated, taught and forgotten, while theories, vague and un
certain, even in the minds of their weavers, have been ac
cepted for science."
As an example of this assertion may be mentioned the
emission theory advocated by LaPlace, but opposed by
Huyghens, Young and Fresnel, who adopted the undulatory
theory.
One alone of Keely's experiments disproves this theory,
now so universally accepted.1 Light as it comes from the
great solar reservoir, writes Dr. Pancoast, is a unitnot
seven rays, but one sunbeam. Though it contains the dual
attributes (the active and passive, the positive and negative,
the polar force and the chemical function) they are so exactly
1 When that rhythmical action, named a polarized current, shall have come
to be understood, a great revolution in the conception of merely mechanical
undulation may be expected.
DR. MACVICAB, 1868.
318
equilibrated, so perfectly in harmony, that they form abso

lutely a unit ; their unity being slightly affected by contact
with our terrestrial atmosphere, which extracts from them
in transitu a small amount of chemical blue, and a portion
of calorific energy, but being substantially maintained until
in actual contact with the earth and earthly objects, when
the beam is interrupted, and its rays distributed, in order to
permit each principle of virtue to perform its part in
nature's vast laboratory. The prism has not changed the
light, nor its united and separate nature and attributes. It
has only shown us that the great unit has seven members, so
to speak, working in perfect harmony, obediently to the laws
of "The Supreme." This one fact of the unity of light
utterly suppresses the waves, or undulations, of modern
scientists. A sunbeam cannot come in seven parts upon
seven sets of waves. The impulse and tension theory of the
old philosophy justifies itself, if the justification of a theory
consists in its competence to account for actual phenomena ;
but the secrets and mysteries of nature regarding the
essence of light, and its great work in creation and provi
dence, must be studied elsewhere. (See " Blue and Red
Light," by Dr. Pancoast.)
Sympathetic Vibratory Physics teaches that the laws
governing the disturbance of sympathetic equilibriums are
quite remote from, and antagonistic to, the present teach
ing ; and that the views of light, as enunciated by the late
Dr. Seth Pancoast, and as held by " The Ancients," are cor
rect, although Mr. Keely cannot accept this learned man's
teachings on other subjects.
Sound waves, writes Keely, are only propagated by mul
tiple interference, and may be expressed as echoes of the
introductory impulse of sound itself, made audible to the
tympanum by such interferences. The explosion of dyna
mite or electricity in a vacuum would not be audible to
our imperfect sense of hearing, nor can our eyes appreciate
the hidden world until the microscope reveals to us what,
but for it, we could not know exists. Yet the conditions
that reign in the inaudible and invisible realms are of ten
319
thousandfold more importance and power than any that our

senses are cognizant of. In our environment we are limited
in our instruments of research, as well as otherwise, to
boundaries which we cannot cross ; but Sympathetic Phy
sics, in revealing the laws governing nature's operations in
the invisible and inaudible world, places us in a position to
appreciate the foundation on which knowledge will here
after stand. When that position is taken, " the new science"
religious science(which is '''the sum of all that human
information has given as to what relates to the destiny of man
and to the true welfare of each man and of all men ") will be
able to hold its own against the disorder that now threatens
to retard progress in the encroaching steps of the vanguard
of anarchy. "In the Annals of Christianity," writes Pro
fessor Draper, " the most ill-omened day is that in which
she separated herself from science."
But Christianity has not separated herself from science.
She could not if she would ; for Christianity, as taught and
upheld by Jesus of Nazareth, is true science. Pseudor
science has made war on Christianity, and is now about to
suffer the penalty in the crumbling away of its foundation
stones. " Wise men believe nothing but what is certain,
and what has been verified by time." Until now true sci
ence has not been able to verify the wisdom of "The
Ancients" by any dynamic apparatus showing how cosmical
law works, and as yet it is not fully realized that, " in order
to protect science, men of learning carried empiricism to
its extreme skeptical consequences, and thereby cut the
ground from under the feet of science ;" sowing seeds of dis
order broadcast for two generations, which, wafted from one
land to another, have produced year after year a fruitful
and ever-increasing crop of skepticism, materialism, and in
fidelity blossoming into anarchy.
The nations of the earth are now united in demanding
justice for all men as never before ; and science finds herself
powerless to avert the danger in any other way than by sup
plying the implements of war, and providing new explo
sives ; or, in encouraging fallacious schemes for destroying
320
cities by means of "flying machines," more dangerous to the

invaders than to those they seek to annihilate.
As science has done nothing to avert the evils which she
has fostered, Christianity comes to the rescue with a system
of spiritual physics susceptible of proof to the senses. The
day has gone by in which, as Professor Schuster said, '* a
knowledge of scientific theories kills all knowledge of scien
tific facts ;" for this resuscitated system makes it clear to all
who have powers of mind sufficient to comprehend it, that
we are related to the whole universe, and that " the funda
mental doctrine of universal attraction " is part of the much
sneered at (by the ignorant) cosmical law of " sympathetic
association."
In the time of Pythagoras, it was especially forbidden to
divulge this " law of attraction and repulsion," which con
stitutes nature's greatest secret, except under the most bind
ing obligations of secrecy.
It is this secret which has enabled Keely to make applitions of the unknown energy that had its birth in mechanics
in 1872, in the " hydro-pneumatic-pulsating-vacuo engine "
that he was inventing at that time, with the expectation
that it would supersede the steam engine. It was only par
tially developed under the conditions of this quadruple
force. In the year 1888 the teachings of " The Ancients "
regarding what we call electricity and magnetism were
brought to Keely's notice ; and taking up another line of
research, he soon became convinced that the force he had
discovered fourteen years before, is the third current of the
triune stream of electricity or "negative attraction."
" The Ancients " taught that these forces which we call elec
tricity and magnetism are one and the same, and that between
them is "a neutral force." When a force becomes neutral it
is inactive, and is no longer a force ; consequently the name
given is misleading. Keely calls this third element " the
latent neutral," which is a better name for it. Dr. Pancoast,
in his book on the Kabbala, gives the Kabbalistic teachings
in his own words, regarding nature's most powerful agent,
the triune polar flow. He writes : " Electricity is a peripheral
" What Êlectricity Is."
321
polar force moving out of equilibrium, i. e., independently.

Magnetism is a polar force moving in equilibrium. They
are one and the same in essence and power ; and their source
is light : " the light from the great central sun of the uni
verse, around which all solar systems revolve.
There is but one difference between them. In electricity
two forces are never found in one substance. In the true
magnet they are both present in an active state, but in exact
equilibrium. In a magnetic body both are present, neutral
and inactive.
Terrestrial magnetism is the earth's electricity. The atmos
pheric vapors of the earth absorb the greater part of the
calorific rays, and the actinic rays pass almost entirely into
the earth ; the former become charged with the positive, and
the latter with the negative force ; and thus the negative be
comes characteristic of the earth, and the positive of the air.
Then the rain falls and the hail and the snow, bearing the
positive with them ; which, upon entering the earth, is com
pelled to come into a state of harmony with the earth's
negative ; the two poles acting in equilibrium constitute
magnetism. Hence the earth itself becomes a powerful mag
net ; and everything earthly partakes of its nature, in some
degree.
What Faraday called diamagnetic bodies are bodies con
taining one electric force only, and consequently are not
magnets in any sense of the word.
In both electricity and magnetism there are the two oppo
site forces, the positive and the negative. In both, the two
forces attract each other, and each repels its kind. In elec
tricity the two are never present in the same body. In both
there is between the twoforces a " NEUTRAL FORCE," which places
itself, in electricity, as a resistant wall between two opposing
clouds, or a positive cloud and the magnetic earth. In a
magnet, where the two forces are always present actively
in the one substance, the neutral appears midway in the sub
stance; separating the two, and thus preventing their blending
with and neutralizing each other. In the natural magnet the
equator shows neither attraction nor repulsion, because the
VOL. I.21
322
attractive power of each ingredient of the natural is rendered

inoperative by the presence of the other. (See "The True
Science of Light," by Seth Pancoast, M.D.)
This latent neutral force Keely has diverted, and brought
about " coordination between the two mediums, celestial
radiation and terrestrial sympathetic outreach."
But light is not only the source of these forces, it is also
the great electro-magnetic polarizer. In the formation of
the atom it receives the polar energy that gives it its in
dividuality ; its polarity constantly changes in dropping old
and putting on new affinities ; but the tendency is to equilib
rium, or harmony. In inorganic matter the atoms are more
angular than in the organic ; the spheroidal form being pro
portioned to the stages of development. Each atom of mat
ter contains one of the electric forces and is surrounded by
an etherial atmosphere of the opposite electricity, thus each
atom is a miniature of the earth.1 The atomic similarity
to the aggregation of atomsthe earthis most remarkable
in the fact that the electric or magnetic force of each atom
has a current, like the earth's current, pouring in at the poles
and out at the equator ; thus atoms contain within themselves
the elements of their own existence. When the positive and
negative forces of electricity harmonize, they move in equi
librium, as in terrestrial magnetism ; when they are sep
arated they become antagonistic, and positive electricity be
comes" a blind force," as the Ancients termed itthey symbo
lizing electricity in equilibrium by a serpent swallowing its
tail. Positive electricity is the active polar force, and the
negative is the passive depolarizing force. Positive electricity
is the ether tensely polarized, and when pushed to its utmost
tension fire is produced. (See " Red and Blue Light," by the
late Dr. Seth Pancoast.)
" With our present knowledge," writes Mr. Keely, " no
definition can be given of this latent force ; which, possessing
all the conditions of attraction and repulsion associated with it, is
free of magnetism. If it is a condition of electricity, robbed
of all electrical phenomena, or a magnetic force, rebellant to
1 " Every monad is a mirror of the universe."
LEIBNITZ.
323
the phenomena associated with magnetic development, the

only philosophical conclusion I can arrive at is that this in
definable element is the soul of matter. Were not every form
of matter, even to the cerebral convolutions of the brain,
impregnated with this latent element of force, which is sym
pathetically subservient to celestial radiation, nature would
be like a still-born child, or a marble statue dead to the
sympathetic association that induces motion. Matter could
not exist without this element, this spiritual essence, this
impregnation from the Deity, which is its soul, any more
than a man with an ossified brain could have motion or
life."
Thus are we led to see that the soul may be defined as life in
latent suspension ; that there are no boundaries set to knowl
edge in the life of the soul ; that there are no truths beyond
its reach ; and, in short, that the soul is the indestructible prin
ciple of life. " The blind, dull powers inherent in our passive
earth," writes Kritz Lemberg, " could never produce and re
produce her myriad productions with such uniform regularity
without this vital force."
" I do not believe," said Edison, " that matter is inert ; to
me it seems that every atom is possessed of a certain amount
of intelligence;" and, in different words, Professor Riicker
has given expression to the same opinions. Spiritual science,
religious science, teaches that when theâi went forth, " Let
there be light ! " the latent celestial radiation that illumines
the universe was liberated. When " the breath of life " was
breathed into man, he was impregnated with that latent soul
element that made him "a living and moving being."
" In whatever direction one pursues physical science,"
writes Professor Dolbear, "he is at last confronted with a
physical phenomenon with a superphysical antecedent where
all physical methods of investigation are impotent."
But Sympathetic Physics shows us that the ways of Deity
are notfpast finding out; and IIe who was endowed with wis
dom from on high " proved His divine authority by revealing
these ways to His disciples, and by conforming to them in
all things Himself."
324
" How blind we have all been ! " writes the revered Dr.
Furness, D. D., of Philadelphia, " what a palpable error it
is to regard the extraordinary works that Christ wrought a*
suspensions of the laws of nature. They are directly the
reverse ; they are illustrations of the power of mind over
matter, of the spirit over the flesh. For this representation
of the so-called miracles, we have the express authority of
Jesus Himself. Although He ascribed his extraordinary
work directly to God, in the same breath He declared with
equal explicitness that they were wrought, not by any pre
ternatural power which He alone possessed, but by faith ;
thus basing his authority, as a messenger of God, not upon
any departure from the laws of nature, but upon the power
of the very highest law of nature."
Is it not strange, indeed, that it should ever have been
thought that in all this vast and varied universe, in which
the most lavish provision is made for this mortal life of ours,
no provision exists for the safety of the immortal soul ; that
to save the soul from utter perdition it was necessary to break
through the established order of things, and suspend the
action of laws whereby this order is maintained ?
The unhappy consequences of this widely accepted error
concerning the remarkable things done by Christ, is that it has
put in opposition to each otherto the serious injury of man
kindtwo things which are to be forever most intimately
united: science on the one hand, and religion on the other.
Science acknowledges a general providence, developingraces, not caring for individuals, but the revelation through
Jesus that "God is Love" (and of the divine possibilities of
human nature) shows us that the Immortal Spirit possesses
the power of making all things, failures as well as successes,,
sorrows as well as joys, all work together to strengthen and
elevate the soul, even as Jesus made His suffering tributary
to His perfection.
Bewildered, lost, as men of science areamid the mysterie*
of beingunable to account for the phenomena of physical
nature, the science of religion still points to the illuminat
ing Cross of Christ, which must spread its unearthly glory
325
over all nations before the human race can follow "The
Higher Example," and enter into the promised "larger
coming time : "
" No more Jew nor Greek, thentaunting
Nor taunted no more nation nor tribe ;
But one confederate brotherhood, planting
One flag only to mark the advance,
Upward and onward, of all humanity."
Before this approaching age of harmony can arrive, the

knowledge of God must cover the earth as the waters cover
the beds of the seas. Suffering humanity must be taught
that "the existence of 'The First Cause' is a necessity of
Imman thought," and that the only cure for sorrow lies in
the helpfulness and the hopefulness of the Gospel of the Son
of God. Other religions tell of men stretching out their
hands to God for help. The Christian religion tells of God
reaching out His hands to man.
The key-note of Christ's Gospel is in the Fatherhood of
'God and the brotherhood of man ; and this is the key-note
which the revelation of Sympathetic or Spiritual Physics is
.about to sound. It will awaken a sleeping world to that
"knowledge of God" which is (as defined by Pythagoras)
-"Truth clothed with light, or absolute verity."
"The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but
things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children
forever."Deuteronomy, 29: 29.
326

BY C. J. REED.
The anonymous writer, who, in the NEW SCIENCE REVIEW
of October, asks what electricity is, offers to define it as "a
form that energy may assume while undergoing transforma
tion from the mechanical (meaning doubtless the kinetic), or
the chemical form, into the heat form ; or the reverse."
There is nothing particularly new in this definition. It
serves, in a general way, the purpose of an approximate defi
nition, by describing vsguely the genesis and exodus of
electrical energytells where it comes from, and where it
goes. But if this definition is supposed to throw any new
light on the subject, or is intended to be an exact scientific
definition of electricity, it is of no value whatever. A defini
tion, to be of any value for scientific purposes, must describe
the object defined in such a way as to distinguish it from
everything else. It must be complete and exclusive ; that is,
it must include every species and variety of the defined object,
and must not include anything else. The definition of elec
tricity given by our unknown author is neither complete nor
exclusive. It includes only electric currents, generated by
the transformation ofchemical, or kinetic energy, into thermal
energy ; " or the reverse." It does not include thermo-electric
currents,[except such as happen to be used either for electrol
ysis (to produce chemical energy) or for producing mechan
ical motion. A thermo-electric current, used for heating or
lighting, or"for producing a magnetic field or a secondary
current, would not be included in the definition. All kinds
of induced currents, such as alternating currents, produced
by the transformation of a pre-existing electric current, are
excluded. Also, all continuous currents, of whatever origin,
that are transformed into secondary currents, into light, or
into anything except heat, motion, and chemical energy, are
excluded. The definition does not include photo-electric
currents, such as those generated by the action of light or
selenium in contact with the metal.
327
The definition includes, moreover, many forms of energy

which are not electrical. Muscular energy, for instance, is a
form that energy may assume while undergoing transforma
tion from the chemical to the heat form. Kinetic energy is
also a form that energy may assume while undergoing trans
formation from the chemical to the heat form. This may be
illustrated by mixing an acid with a metallic carbonate. A
spontaneous reaction takes place, evolving a gascarbon
dioxidewhile chemical energy (energy of position) is con
verted partly into heat and partly into the kinetic energy of
gaseous molecules. If the mixture be placed in a closed vessel,
the pressure of the gas may be utilized to operate a steamengine, and this mechanical motion may be readily converted
into heat.
Light is also a form that energy may assume while under
going transformation from the chemical to the heat form.
This is well illustrated in the phosphorescence of bodies un
dergoing slow and cold combustion.
We might multiply illustrations, but the above are suffi
cient to show that the definition given by the author in ques
tion does not define, or even accurately describe, electrical
energy. The definition includes light, heat, kinetic and
muscular energy, at least ; while it excludes numerous and
important varieties of electrical energy.
To say " electricity is a form of energy," would be as good
a definition, if not better. It is complete, though not exclu
sive. Such definitions as " heat is a form of energy," " light
is a form of energy," and " electricity is a form of energy,"
serve practical purposes very well, and express with sufficient
accuracy our ignorance of the real difference between these
physical agents. They are all disguises worn by the same
thingenergy. All we know of the essential nature of
energy is that we never meet with it except in one of its
numerous disguises, and that it passes out of one into another,
like a prestidigitator, who changes his dress during the instant
a curtain is drawn before our eyes. We see it now in one
form, and now in another ; but how it gets from the one into
the other we do not see.
328
So eminent an authority as Dr. Oliver J. Lodge, D. Sc.,

L.L.D., F.R.S., Professor of Experimental Physics in Uni
versity College, Liverpool, differs entirely from the view of
our author. He says, on page 7 of his wonderful book,
" Modern Views of Electricity," that " electricity may possi
bly be a form of matterit is not a form of energy." Dr.
Lodge is able to see a great difference between electrification
and electricity. So vast is this difference, that in his view
one is energy and the other is matter. He says : " Electrifica
tion is a result of work done, and is most certainly a form of
energy ; it can be created and destroyed by an act of work.
But electricitynone is ever created or destroyed, it is simply
moved and strained like matter. No one ever exhibited a
trace of positive electricity, without there being somewhere
in its immediate neighborhood an equal quantity of negative."
If, in this last sentence of Dr. Lodge, we substitute the
word " electrification," or the word " magnetization," for the
word " electricity," the statement will be no less true. Hence,
the same argument would prove in exactly the same manner
that electrification and magnetization are also forms of matter.
It is unfortunate that some learned doctor has not by his
dictum ex. cathedra made electricity and electrification ex
change names. It would be a matter of great convenience ;
for not only engineers and electricians, but the general public
also, have fallen into the pernicious and universal habit of
calling the object that can be created and destroyed by an act
of work dfctiicity, and not electrification. Street cars are
frequently said to be operated by electricity ; but who ever
heard of operating them by electrification !
Against this high authority on " modern views " we may
place the very ancient, yet respectable authority of Sir Ben
jamin Thompson (Count Rumford), who laid the foundation
of the doctrine of the conservation of energy ninety-six years
ago, when he said : "Anything which any insulated body, or
system of bodies, can continue to furnish without limitation,
cannot possibly be a material substance."
329
" WHAT ELECTRICITY IS."

BY HENRY CLAY.
Broadly, it is a product, not an element ; it is objective
energy, not subjective power ; it is the sequence of a condition,
a tertiary resultant, viz., light, absorption, energy or electricity.
To comprehend the effect we must first seek the cause, the
material cause, that perceptible to some one or more of the
five sensesthe primal cause admittedly being the Creator
the material cause being the first creation, the power of light.
"And God said let there be light, and there was light, and
God saw the light that it was good, and God divided the
light from the darkness." Gen. i: 3, 4. And with the birth
of light electricity for the first time in the history of the
arth was produced, for energy or current became possible.
Xot a contest between light and darkness, but the absorp
tion by darkness of the power of lightby the negative of
the positiveproduced a sequent condition of a new energy
in matter, between its individual atoms, whether remote from
or near to each other. This was electricity ; its result, be
cause of atomic friction (agitation or resistance), was and
still is heat, the temperature of which is radiated to the
adjacent portions of the atmosphere. Hence the natural pro
gression islight, absorption, current (electricity) and heat.
In contradistinction to this natural progression the artificial
progression isheat, current (temperature), absorption (resist
ance in matter) and light.
Light being vibratory in its natural action, all matter sub
jected to its influence will become more or less subservient
to its rays. The light is not absorbed, its energy is converted
into a new condition and preserved by the conservation of
energy ; it being a fixed quantity, an entire state of being, as
eternal as God.
The solar emanation is light, not light rays, neither is it
heat. Were life not dependent upon either of them, without
the atmosphere we could not see the sun, without the material
earth we could not feel the heat, regardless of its comparative
330
temperatures ; as it is, we but see the sign of the sun, the

light rays.
There are between the twolight rays and heattwo
stages of progression. 1st. Absorption or appropriation of
the light rays in proportion as each atom of matter receives
its sympathetic portion of the vibration, that with which it
may be in harmony. This divides the light rays into indi
vidual parts, with an affinity for each other. In the prism
this is made evident by the varied color rays, each of which
merges into the other instead of exhibiting lines of demarkation. The same division occurs when light rays are inter
cepted by any matter;. they are absorbed in proportion as
the individual atom may have an affinity for the vibration in
harmony with itself, to the exclusion of all others. 2d. In
the readjustment of these individual atomic affinities, so that
a universal or average harmony of the mass may be attained,
there is brought into existence a new condition of energy.
This is electricity, and it constantly maintains the natural
average harmony of all the atoms contained in the mass.
A disturbance of this harmony is constantly being made
by the effort of each atom to assert its power over its neighbor ;
to separate itself from the average harmony of the mass, and
become independent. This brings into existence another new
condition of energy, heat, of a temperature proportional to
the quantity of the atoms operating in unison. The indi
vidual atoms are each sustained by the life, or, in other
words, the vibrations. The atoms independently separate
(by individual affinity) from the light rays, but are restored
to the average harmony of the mass, after absorbing said
vibrations, by the new coudition of energy " Electricity."
Their individual opposition to the average harmony of the
mass causes heat of a temperature proportional to the number
of atoms which at the time may be in unison each with the
other, in the action of opposition to the average harmony.
Its resultant is light rays, of a color in consonance with the
proportional opposition ; so that the more nearly perfect the
equilibration of the atomic opposition is to the average har
mony of the mass, the more near will the resultant be to the
color of the quintessence of light, viz., white.
331
So also in proportion as the number of atoms whose affin

ity for a specific vibrationequal to a specific color ray
may predominate in a given mass, will the resultant light
ray be in color, as the electrical energy restores the average
harmony of the mass toward its perfect equilibration ; hence
the opposition will be proportionally equilibrated and the
resultant light ray will be of a color in accordance with the
average vibratory harmony of the mass, as is clearly demon
strated in all artificial light.
In the generation of currents of voltaic electricity, the ap
paratus used is a battery containing two elements more or
less metallic in their entirety ; the simplest form being com
posed of metallic copper and zinc, in a sulphate of copper
solution. These metallic elements, being connected outside
of the solution by a wire, complete a circuit and form a given
mass. Zinc and copper are each composed of individual
atoms or molecules, and each atom absorbs the same quality
of light rays as the other; hence they are equilibrated and
in unison. That is, the copper atoms are not in average har
mony, they are in unison ; every atom of the mass of copper
is in absolute harmony with every other atom. The same is
the case with the atoms of zinc.
The sulphate of copper, being a chemical resultant, has
been restored to the average harmony of the mass by the
energy " electricity," in proportion as its elements, sulphur
and copper, may have absorbed the vibrations of light rays,
for which their individual atoms had an affinity. The crys
tals having been deposited in water, the opposition to the
average harmony is more powerful than the electrical energy
can resist, and the mass disintegrates.
The atoms of copper (which had been combined in aver
age harmony with the sulphur) having an affinity for the
copper element of the battery, are deposited thereon and
become in unison therewith, while the sulphur, being a cor
rodent of zinc, attempts to displace the zinc element. This
attempt at displacement is resisted by the atomic unison of
the zinc mass, and makes a new average harmony necessary ;
then the new energy to restore orderelectricitybecomes
332
operative, and not being able to enter the zinc by way of

the solution, because of the deposit upon its surface of
oxide, it rushes as a current through the wire circuit to the
.zinc, and in its passage harmonizes with the absorbed light
rays of that portion of the mass, and slightly disturbs its
atomic unison, hence resistance (and magneto-inductive
action). Order is restored, however, and it reaches the zincAnd in restoring to an average harmony the atoms of the
opposing zinc and sulphur, the zinc in the solution is disinte
grated ; a portion of its absorbed light rays escaping as hy
drogen gas, and the balance being united in average harmony
with the sulphur in a new mass, sulphate of zinc, whose
equilibration is the color of the quintessence of light, white.
The operation of dynamic electricity is precisely the same.
The revolution of the armature destroys the unison of the
mass, and brings into inductive proximity the new condition
{atomic opposition) that requires a new condition of energy
electricityto restore the mass to an average harmony,
and the greater the rapidity with which these changes occur,
the greater the tension of the electrical current ; so that if
an apparatus can be made that can disturb the mass unison
with sufficient rapidity, and restore it again before the
natural equilibratorelectricitycan act, there will be
'drawn from the mass its life, the vibrations of light rays,
and an artificial light be possible that is not the resultant
of heat, but which will be similar to the Aurora Borealis.
I doubt if further detail could make more clear " What
Electricity Is," though it is possible to recite many applica
tions in proof of the accuracy of this hypothesis. Indeed, one
may take any subject, and by its application be able to com
prehend how " electricity " is a factor, and in what relation.1
I 1 use the term " average harmony " in contradistinction to " harmony " and
" unison," no one term being expressive of the three conditions. The analogous
application in acoustics is particularly demonstrated in music, where in an
octave the first and eighth are in unison ; first, third, fifth and eighth are in
harmony ; first, third, fifth and seventh are in average harmony. A perfect
fifth is harmony. A minor third is average harmony. In the seventh and
minor third there is a discordant factor thnt i.s neither in unison nor in har
mony with any other factor, yet in the average harmony of all the factors the
discord is eliminated or rather averaged with the other factors, the resultant
being the average or composite harmony of the mass of acoustic vibrations ;
co likewise in light rays.
The Elseviers.
33S
THE ELSEVIERS.
(THE FAMOUS DUTCH PRINTERS.)
BY THE BARONESS ALTHEA SALVADOR.
Foreigners who visit Leyden lament the disappearance
of the Elsevier establishment, from which were sent out so
many typographical masterpieces of great value, masterpieces
that now are only found in museums and rare collections.
To the mind of a book-lover, Elsevier and Leyden are
synonymous terms. ' In the sixteenth and seventeenth centu
ries Leyden was the most prosperous town of Holland, andr
in number of inhabitants, second only to Amsterdam. Victo
rious over the Spaniards, after a most memorable siege, it
was rewarded by William the Silent with a university, which
in those days had no rival. Leyden became first the in
tellectual center of Holland, afterward the beacon light for
all Europe.
The reputation of the University of Leyden attracted to
that town Louis Elsevier, a Flemish book-binder, obliged to
flee from Louvain because of religious persecution. With
his wife, five sons and a daughter, Louis Elsevier arrived in
Leyden at the beginning of the year 1580. Of his ancestors
nothing is known, and although the Elseviers are said to be
an old Flemish Catholic family, called Helschevier, we are
more disposed to believe that they were of the Semitic race,
and belonged to the Israelites who fled from Spain in the
sixteenth century.
334
The Elseviers.
Louis Elsevier was not without fortune, for he bought a

house opposite the Leyden University, and established him
self as a book-binder. Many volumes, bound by him in
vellum, may be seen to-day in the University Library. But,
anxious to increase his modest income, Louis Elsevier added
book-selling to book-binding, and in 1583 we find that
Johanni Drusii Ebraicarum qucestionum sive qucestionum ac
responsionvm libri duo, videlicet secundus ac tertius, in-S, could
be procured apud Ludovicum Elsevierium, e regione scholcs
nova, Lugduni Batavorum.
This work, of 126 pages, bore the emblem of a hand ruling
music paper, and the device JEquabilitate. Certainly the
Drusius was not edited at the expense of Elsevier, for in
that case his name would have appeared as publisher.
In 1586, after some service rendered the University, Louis
Elsevier was appointed pedellus, or bedel, with a salary of
seventy-two florins a year. In the following year Louis
Elsevier addressed a petition to the curators; he prayed that
he might be allowed to construct a small building on the
University grounds, and the request was granted. Until
1595 no rent was required for the land, and even then
Elsevier was asked to give, annually, only the sum of seventyfive florins. Thus, under the auspices of the Leyden Uni
versity, was erected an humble establishment, the founda
tion of the Elseviers' fortune, and the cradle of their glory.
In 1594 Elsevier was made a citizen of Leyden, and though
until that time he had suffered much financial embarrass
ment, from that day fortune showered upon him favor and
prosperity. Before 1594 Elsevier had only published, at his
own expense, the works of Eutropius, the historian of the
fourth century, but after that date publication followed
publication. The emblem of the Eutropius is an angel, hold
ing in one hand a book, and in the other a scythe ; but after
the appearance of this work, Elsevier used his famous
embleman eagle, with the bundle of seven arrows and the
motto Concordia Res Parvw Crescuntfor twenty-five years
the distinctive symbol of the house. The sheaf of arrows
represented the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands,
The Mseviers.
335
a flattering tribute to the govern

ment of the Dutch Republic, under
whose protection Louis Elsevier
had placed himself. At the same
time he began to frequent the
semi-annual fairs at Frankfort,
then the great international mar
ket for European book-sellers.
There he had a book-stall, and,
acquiring the confidence of many
celebrated publishers, Elsevier not
only sold books, but entered into relations with savants and
gens de lettres. In fact, he gained an honorable income, and
at the same time won the esteem of the most distinguished
men of his age. The town of Leyden showed its appreciation
of his merit by naming him Aeer, or chief of his quarter. In
1616, when Louis Elsevier was seventy-five years old, his
grandson, Isaac Elsevier, bought a printing establishment,
and thus, during the lifetime of the founder of the family,
were united all the elements of future glory. Louis Elsevier
had never been more than a publisher, and all his publica
tions were printed in the presses of his colleagues. Conse
quently, we understand that before 1617 no works were
printed by the Elseviers, although some published previous
to that date bear the name.
We have said that Louis Elsevier had been made bedel of
the University; in 1607 his son Matthew was appointed
assistant, and in November, 1616, when a portion of the Uni
versity was burned, it was discovered that the fire was caused
by the negligence of the bedels. Matthew was asked to
resign, but, because of his great age, Louis Elsevier's resigna
tion was not requested. He was much affected by this sad ac
cident, and three months after the occurrence he passed away.
Of Louis's seven sons, five were identified with the cause of
printing and publishing. Matthew, the eldest son, after the
death of his father, was restored to his place as bedel of the
University, and, with his brother Bonaventure, for a number
of years carried on the book-selling and publishing business
336
The Elseders.
in Leyden. The names of Matthew and Bonaventure appear

on only two works of Simon Stevin, published in 1618 ; their
remaining two hundred and forty-four publications are signed
ez-officina JElsevieriana.
In 1622 Matthew sold his share of the business to his son
Abraham, for 11,217 florins ; the partnership between Bona
venture and his nephew, Abraham Elsevier, lasted thirty
years, and immortalized the name.
Isaac Elsevier, of whom we have already spoken, was the
second son of Matthew ; he was the first of the family to own
a printing establishment, and in 1620 Isaac was named
"legal printer" of the University. In 1621 he was author
ized by the curators to construct a small printing house, next
the establishment of his father. This was so arranged that
all the type-setters and apprentices could enter by the pub
lishing house, while professors and students were admitted
by a door opening into the courtyard of the University.
Isaac's first productions date from 1617, and these were
printed at the expense of his grandfather. Among them,
there is only one small-sized edition, the Satyrcc duce. When
Louis Elsevier died, Isaac continued to print for Matthew
and Bonaventure, then for Bonaventure and Abraham.
Appointed "legal printer" of the University, Isaac adopted
the typographical emblem of the elm, embraced by a grape
vine; a philosopher standing before the tree tries to pluck
a bunch of grapes. The motto is non solus. From that
time this emblem was used by the Elseviers of Leyden.
In 1625 Isaac Elsevier bought from the widow of
Erpenius, the Orientalist, his presses, blocks, stamps and
types. Erpenius had established a press in his own house
for printing works of Oriental writers, but when he died
there was no one to carry out his plan. The University pro
fessors looked upon Isaac Elsevier as a patriot when he
bought these valuable types and continued the work. How
ever, at the end of the year 1625, Isaac sold to Bonaventure
and Abraham his presses, types, and the building in which
they were installed for the sum of 11,000 florins, and his
typographical career was ended. The same year Bonaven
The Elseviers.
337
tare married Sarah, daughter of Daniel van Cuelen, a Calvinist exile from Ghent, and Regent of the Wallon College,
in Leyden. Daniel van Cuelen's son was Professor of Law
in the University of Leyden. Bonaventure Elsevior was a
strict Calvinist, and his faith was that formulated by the
famous synod of Dordrecht. Consequently, all the Cal vinistic
savants patronized the Elsevior presses. Bonaventure and
Abraham had the fixed intention of producing chffs d'auvre,
of which their predecessors had never dreamed, and each
year marked their progress, until in 1635 they issued the
Plinii, Ccesar, and Terentius, that carried them to the apogee
of their fame.
They had succeeded Isaac as "legal printers" of the Uni
versity, and in the division of labor Bonaventure was pub
lisher, while Abraham, nine years younger, devoted himself
to typographical work. Daniel Hensius, the great savant. ex
ercised much influence over the Elseviers, and seldom did they
undertake a work of importance without asking his advice.
Abraham Elsevier died August 14, 1652, and one month
later his uncle, Bonaventure, followed him to the tomb.
The University of Leyden caused a medal to be struck in
honor of Abraham, who was the greatest typographer of his
time. Without Abraham, Bonaventure would have been a
simple publisher, and the successors of the former had only
to follow his example. None ever surpassed him, and Abra
ham is remembered as the greatest of the Elseviers.
Bonaveuture left by will his half of the printing and pub
lishing interests to his son Daniel, and Abraham's share
became the inheritance of his son, Johann. Both Daniel
and Johann had represented the Elseviers in France, Den
mark and other countries, thus forming many acquaintances,
very useful to them, when they became proprietors of the
printing and publishing establishment. It was difficult for
two young men, the eldest not thirty years old, to maintain
the fame of so renowned a house, but in no way did they
diminish the splendor of the name. There arc no more
beautiful Elsevier editions than the Jm Italian of Jesus Christ,
and the Psalms, both signed by Daniel and Johann.
VOL. I.22
338
The Elseviers.
However, the University of Leyden was then passing

through a crisis, and the title of "legal printer" became a
burden to the Elseviers. The curators found the bills for
printing exaggerated, and the partners understood they must
seek their patrons outside the University. One of their rela
tives, Louis Elsevier, son of Josse, the fourth son of Louis I.,
after traveling in France, Italy and Denmark, after gaining
the friendship of the greatest savants in Europe, of Lucas
Holstenius, the Librarian of Cardinal Barberini,of Meursius,
Vossius, Corvinus, and 'Wicquefort, had established himself
in 1637 as a publisher in Amsterdam ; but from the begin
ning he had one ambition, to add to his publishing house
a printing establishment. Although many works were pub
lished by Louis Elsevier before 1640, we find that only from
that date were all his publications printed on his own presses.
Louis Elsevier prospered, and soon his establishment be
came a rival of that in Leyden. Between 1640 and 1655,
Louis, unaided, published two hundred and nineteen works,
and finding that it was impossible to continue without a
partner, he invited Daniel Elsevier, of Leyden, to join him.
Daniel had married Anna Becrninck, niece and ward of
Louis Elsevier, so that he looked favorably upon the pro
posed partnership, and, especially as the Amsterdam house
was in so flourishing a condition, he saw the advantages that
would become his by transferring his interests from Leyden.
Thus, two years and a half after their inheritance, Daniel
and Johann dissolved their partnership. Although Johann
did not' lose courage after the departure of Daniel, the
Leyden house became less and less prosperous, and in June,
1661, Johann died, aged only 39 years. His widow con
tinued printing, and was made "legal printer" of the
University, but while the Tacitus and the Confessions of Saint
Augustine, published by her, rank with the great Elseviers,
the glory of the Leyden house had departed. Joharm's
widow died in 1681, and was succeeded by her second son,
Abraham. He was also made "legal printer "of the Uni
versity, but in his hands the Elsevier establishment became
a disgrace to the name. February 20, 1713, a few months
The Elseviers.
339
after Abraham's death, the printing establishment with

presses, type, the Erpenius blocks and characters were all
sold at auction for less than 2,000 florins, and the curators
of the University published a report in which it was written
that "for a number of years the bad administration of this
printing house had been injurious to the University. The
type was worn out, the paper bad, the proofs were not cor
rected, and many students preferred to send their work to
Utrecht." Fifty years before, at the death of Abraham's
grandfather, the University had caused a medal to be struck
in honor of his illustrious name. What a downfall !
While the Elsevicr establishment in Leyden diminished
in prosperity, that of Amsterdam flourished to the greatest
degree. During the ten years of partnership between Louis
III. and Daniel Elsevier, we count one hundred and fifty
publications. The chef d'ozuvre was the Desmarets Bible,
two volumes in folio, which appeared in 1669, but was
planned by Louis before he retired in 1664. In 1670 Louis
died, and although for six years Daniel had tried to manage
the business alone, at the death of his partner he felt almost
helpless. Fortunately, he procured the services of Heinrich
Wetstein and Jacob van Zetter, young printers noted for
their talent and zeal, and with their aid Daniel Elsevier
realized his ambitious dreams. From all quarters came
patrons, and between 1675 and 1680 ninety works were
issued from his presses. Daniel's death in 1680 was con
sidered a national calamity; his wife published four or five
volumes in 1681, but in March of that year she passed away,
and the situation of the Amsterdam Elseviers was desperate.
Daniel left seven children ; his only son was nineteen years
old, and had no knowledge whatever of the business that had
made his family famous. There was nothing to be done but
to dispose of printing presses and books, and the unique
collection of typographical chefs d'ocuvrewas sold to the high
est bidder. Daniel was really the last of the Elseviers, for
the establishment at Leyden was then unworthy of its past.
The Elseviers were not a family, 'but a dynasty; and
among the others known to fame were Louis, second son of
340
The Elseviers.
Louis I., who, as early as 1590, had a book-stall in the Binnenhof of The Hague. There he remained until 1621, and pub
lished seven works ; among them were the Repentance ofJean
Haren, in French and Dutch (1610), and the Sentences Against
Oldenbarneveld, HugoGrotius, Ledenberg and Hoogerbeets (1619).
Grilles, third son of Louis I., replaced his brother one year
at The Hague, and, in 1599, published a book, Navigatio ac
Itinerarium Toh. Hug. Liuscotani. Josse, fourth son of Louis
Elsevier I., was bookseller at Utrecht between 1598 and 1617.
Jacob Elsevier, son of Matthew, succeeded Louis II. as
bookseller at The Hague, in 1621, and there remained until
1636. Two works bear his name, and both were printed by
Isaac Elsevier, in the Leyden presses, at the expense of Jacob
Elsevier. They are Homilia in locum Johannis (cap. xvii
vers. 9, 1625pet., in12), by Daniel Hensius, and Albert
Girard's Tables des Sinus, tangentes et secantes (1626). Both
of these works bear the emblem designed by Isaac Elsevier,
the " elm, grapes and philosopher."
Pieter Elsevier was grandson of Josse, and great grandson
of Louis Elsevier I. In 1667 he became bookseller at Utrecht,
and from 1668 to 1675 he published about ten works. The
war between Louis XIV. and the Dutch Republic discour
aged Pieter Elsevier ; and when, in 1672, the French troops
entered Utrecht, he decided that, should he find a purchaser,
he would sell his publishing house. Isot until 1675, how
ever, did Pieter dispose of his books at auction, and after
that date we hear of him only as holding public office in the
town of Utrecht.
The Elsevier editions are distinguished from others by
their form, size, type, typographical characters, vignettes,
tail-pieces, and initial letters. The paper used by the Else
viers was brought from France and Germany, until, in 1671,
the States-General passed a law that no more French paper
should be imported. From that time, the Elseviers employed
paper manufactured in Holland. The greater number of the
Elsevier editions are in duodecimo form, although works of
all sizes were printed.
The Elseviers.
341
Before 1639, Bonaventure and Abraham Elsevier employed

paper much smaller than after that date, and the duodecimo
editions vary from five inches to five inches and threequarters in length, as seen in the Ccesar, of 1635, the Seneca,
of 1640, and the Malebranche and Saint-Disdier, published in
Amsterdam, 1680. The Boccaccio, of 1665, and Titus Livius,
of 1678, were in duodecimo form, six inches in length.
Only five works were printed on vellum by the Elseviers.
These were the De Contemptu mortis, of Daniel Hensius,
printed by Isaac Elsevier, in 1621, quarto, two copies; an
octavo of the same work, printed at the same time ; Malvezzi's Tyrannus, printed in 1636, small duodecimo; Nova
cubi Hebrcei tabella, a pamphlet, in 1627; and the Aphorisms
of Hippocrates, 24m., published by the widow of Johann
Elsevier, in 1666. Three Elseviers were printed on colored
paper: Aphorisms of Hippocrates, 1628, on yellow, Corpus
juris, of 1681, on green, and Spigelus, 1633, on blue paper.
The duodecimo Elseviers are the most characteristic of
typographical art, and the only ones sought by collectors.
Guez de Balzac, the philosopher, who lived in the first half
of the seventeenth century, gave permission to the Elseviers
to publish his works ; and so delighted was he with their
duodecimo form, that his gratitude was expressed by a
charming letter : " I am more grateful than you can think.
To be placed among your authors is to take rank with the
Cieeros and Sallusts. What glory to be able to say that I
form a part of this immortal republic, that I have been seen
in this society of demi-gods. Indeed, we all inhabit Leyden
under the same roof. Thanks to you, I am sometimes
opposite Pliny, sometimes beside Seneca, sometimes above
or below Tacitus and Livy. I occupy little space, but I am
very comfortable, and in very good company. I am far from
complaining that you have placed me in a small volume, and,
although not in folio, I am, no less, your obedient servant."
The beautiful type that has always been called " Elsevierian
type "was really made by a Dutch engraver, Christopher
van Dyck, who died about 1670, and who, as after much re
search has been discovered, manufactured the type not only
342
The Elseviers.
for the Amsterdam Elseviers, but also for those of Leyden.

Of this type, nothing remains at the present day, for, after
the Elsevier auctions of 1681 and 1713, the van Dyck type
passed from hand to hand, until the last piece was melted.
Only afterward was it discovered that the van Dyck type
had aided in immortalizing the name of Elsevier.1
Every volume published by the Elseviers bears, on the
title page, one of their four typographical emblems. We
have already spoken of the "eagle" and the "elm," used in
Leyden, but the Elseviers of that town employed also the
" palm tree," with the motto, Assurgo pressa. This was the
emblem of Erpenius, Professor of Oriental Literature; and
when the Elseviers bought his press, they used the " palm tree"
on ten works ; among them a Syrian Psalter and an Apocalypse.
The Elseviers of Amsterdam used but one emblem, the
" Minerva," with the motto, Ne extra oleas. This motto was
translated from a passage of Aris
tophanes, My exrbz TMtj k).aa1u.
There is another Elsevierian
mark, common to both houses ;
this is a "burning bush,1' and is
supposed to be the allusive arms
of the Elseviers,
as lse-vier, ac
cording to the
' old pronuncia
tions, means "alder-bush fire." But a special plate was
never made for this mark, and it is only seen on the frontis
piece of a few volumes ; among them the Hippocrates, of 1628,
and the Barlceus, of 1631.
After careful investigation, we find that the Elseviers of
Leyden and Amsterdam employed sixty-four vignettes and
1 Monsieur Alphonse Willems, a Belgian writer, says that in the archives of
the Plantin Museum, Antwerp, he discovered that the widow of Daniel Elsevier wished to sell the van Dyck types to this museum.
The letter of Madame Elsevier clearly states that Christopher van Dyck
was the greatest engraver of his time, and that to him the Elseviers owed
their great success as printers.
The Elseviers.
343
tail-pieces. Among the Leyden vignettes are the "elm and

philosopher," chapter heading of Barclaii Argensis; the
"bufl'alo head," which
appears for the first time
in Picherel, 1629; the
" Syren," employed first
in Golnitz, in 1636, and
a " bouquet of flowers and fruit,"used in De la Place, 1658.
The principal tail-pieces employed in Leyden are the
" grotesque mask,
supporting a bouquet," Quintus-Cur?,1633;the"open
book,with the keys
of Leyden, crossed,"
Ovidius, 16-29 ; "Medusa head," Ccesar,
1635; "mask holding a crab," Terentius, 1635, and the
" globe," seen for the
first time in Sacro-Sosco, 1626.
Among the vignettes in use at Amsterdam was the " York
rose," with a crown, and the letters E. R., signifying Elimbetha Begina ; another was the " delta ;" and still another
represented " crossed sceptres," surrounded by English roses
and Scotch thistles; this was seen on the Pastissier Francois,
of 1655.
The tail-pieces were very similar to those of Leyden : an
"angel blowing a double cornet" and a tail-piece with
the monogram E. T. D. are those that show more originality.
In early times the Elseviers ornamented their initial
letters with shaded strokes, and with figures of men and
animals. These initial letters were rarely em
ployed in the small editions ; but in 1627, when
they adopted the ornaments of foliage, these
letters were used for all formats. The estab
lishments of Leyden and Amsterdam employed
initial letters that differed in size and character,
so that by regarding these letters alone one
can easily determine in which of these two
towns a work was printed.
It is strange that the Encyclopcedia Britannica makes only
two statements about the Elseviers, and that both these
344
The Elseviers.
statements are incorrect. The Encyclopcedia spells the name

" Elzevirs," instead of Elsevier, and also informs us that
Louis Elsevier, founder of the family, was the first to ohserve
th^ 'listinction between the consonant v and the vowel a
d i - ; . iotion before recommended by Ramus and other writers,
but never regarded. It is only necessary to examine the
Elsevier editions in order to be assured that these honest
printers had not the slightest idea of a distinction between v
and u ; and certainly, until the third generation of Elscviers,
not a member of the family had sufficient instruction to
understand the importance of a distinction. The Elseviers
never pretended to be more than printers and book-binders,
who took pride in using the best paper, type, and bindings,
but were perfectly incapable of correcting the proofs of their
various editions. However, their proof-correctors were
chosen among the most experienced of the time. A German
writer says that women were employed as correctors, because
" they dared not modify the text in an arbitrary manner,"
but this is a mistake. Often a work was submitted to several
correctors before it was revised by the author. This may be
a reason why there is no systematic orthography in the Else
vier editions ; we find vt and ut, Pompejus and Pompeiiis,
epistolce and epistofe. In spite of the care taken by correctors
and authors, some of the editions are very faulty. For in
stance, Nicolas Hensius could not read his father's famous
edition of Virgil (1636) without anger, because of the errors
in orthography, etc. This same Hensius wrote to Daniel
Elsevier, complaining of the mistakes in his edition of
Paterculus. The publisher replied: "I am surprised that
you still find mistakes in your work, for the proofs were
reviewed by three correctors and revised by yourself. If,
after that care, the printing cannot be done correctly, it is
better not to attempt the work !"
The Elseviers printed twenty-one catalogues of their
works, from which we learn that their publications amounted
to one thousand five hundred and eighty-seven. This number
includes the famous "Republics" (Respublicce diversorum
aactorum), but not the "Theses," which, as legal printers of
The Elseviers.
345
the Leyden University, the Elseviers were obliged to publish.

Between the years 1654 and 1712 two thousand seven hun
dred and thirty-seven "Theses" were printed by them.
The first catalogue issued by the Elseviers is dated 1628.
A copy of this is in the Plantin Museum, at Antwerp. The
National Library of Paris possesses that of 1634, and also
copies of the catalogues of 1653 and 1659. These catalogues
are very curious, because the prices of the books named are
mentioned therein. Editions then sold for two or three
florins are now valued at hundreds of florins.
For instance, there is the Pastissier Francois, a work of
very little merit, published in ordinary form by the Amster
dam Elseviers in 1653. The price marked on the catalogue is
thirteen stuivers (twenty-six cents), and the thirty copies in
-existence have been purchased on an average of $1,000 each.
In 1878 a noted Elsevierophile did not hesitate to pay $2,000
for his copy of the Pastissier Francois.
No precise record of the number of copies in an Elsevier
'edition has been made, but it is certain that few editions of
less than one thousand copies were ever issued. Many edi
tions had more than one thousand copies, and the famous
Elsevier edition of the New Testament (Leyden, 1636), com
prised two thousand copies. This work conformed partly
to the text of Stephen, partly to that of Beza, and has been
called the "iextus receptus" or received text.
Although for the past one hundred and eighty years the
Elseviers have not been identified with printing and publish
ing, members of this family, called by Vlitius Suavissimos
Msevierios, have won distinction in the Dutch navy and
government service.
In 1820 King William I. of The Netherlands, ennobled
the Elseviers, but this honor was granted, not in memory
of their typographical talents, but for their services to the
country and their fidelity to the House of Orange.
LEYDEN, December, 1894.
The Elseviers.
346
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The World's Cables.
THE WORLD'S CABLES.

BY MOSES P. HANDY.
347
"All idea of connecting Europe with America by lines extending directly

across the Atlantic is utterly impracticable and absuid. . . . But by way of
Bering Straits the whole thing is practicable, and its ultimate accomplishment
is only a question of time." (Historical Sketch of the Electric Telegraph, by Alex
ander Jones, New York, 1852.)
The feelings of Mr. Alexander Jones, when he closed the

first chapter of his very entertaining volume with these words,
were probably those of a man who is certain that for once
a quota of truth has been added to the mass of fallacious
prophecy that, adorns the pages of the world's history. Alas!
the glorious uncertainty of the prophet's calling ! Not two
years later Mr. F. N. Gisborne, the pioneer of telegraphy in
the maritime provinces, was discussing with a certain Mr.
Cyrus Field, of New York, a serious project for a trans-At
lantic cable; a project which, after partial success and failure
in 1858, was destined to glorious and permanent triumph in
1866. And now, if Mr. Alexander Jones still lives, he may see
the Bering Straits a peaceful sealing ground, while under the
North Atlantic lie twice as many miles of telegraph wire as
in 1852 could be found in the whole length and breadth of the
United States.
Moreover, that Atlantic which seemed an insuperable
barrier fifty years ago, is by no means the only ocean that has
yielded its bed to the demands of science and trade. Accord
ing to the last report of the International Bureau of Tolegraphs, the submarine cables of the world have found their
way into every sea, and touched almost every land, until com
bined they reach the very great length of one hundred and
eighty-one thousand four -hundred and thirteen miles. No
less than thirty governments and twenty-seven companies own
these cables, which vary in length from a mere fraction of a
mile to more than two thousand miles. And this growth has
yet to reach its maximum. The Pacific is almost a virgin
field, lacking as its does even one great intercontinental line;
348
The, World's Cables.
while the multiplication of short cables, linking together

islands, if not continents, goes on continually. The cable,
which in thirty years has not only become well-nigh ubiqui
tous but also one of the absolute necessities of commerce, is
but another illustration of the marvelous fecundity of nine
teenth century invention. Without the cable the merchant
of to-day would be lost in a wilderness of uncertainty, the
statesman would miss one of his most useful and necessary
servants, and the newspaper would lose half its title to the
name.
Having existed during the life of but one generation, it is
natural that the cable should still be to many an object of
mystery, and the extent to which its ramifications cover the
world a matter of considerable ignorance. In dealing1 with
the cable system of the world, it is perhaps as well, there
fore, to begin at the beginning, and that is naturally the
making of the cable.
Now the making of an ocean cable is a task involving
no small amount of skill and mechanical ingenuity, and it
is something to the credit of the first cable makers that
their pattern has not greatly changed in thirty years. When
the Commercial Cable Companywhich, as the most purely
American of all the companies, makes an excellent subject
for illustrationdecided to lay anew Atlantic cable last year*
the work was entrusted to the firm of Siemens Bros., of Wool
wich, London. As this firm has constructed no less than eight
out of the eleven cables now linking Great Britain and the
United States, its methods of manufacture may be watched
as typical of the best.
The first care of a cable manufacturer is to secure the very
best materials. The copper wire, which forms the heart and
essential part of the cable, must be of the purest metal, since
the purer the metal the higher its standard of conductivity
will be. Every strand and every coil of wire that goes into
the cable is expected to reach a certain standard ; and to such
si degree of excellence is the making of copper wire for elec
trical purposes brought nowadays, that the material submitted
is more frequently above that standard than below. The
The World's Cables.
349
single wires havingjpassed the test for purity and conducting

power, eleven similar strands are taken and spun into a slender
rope in lengths of one mile. Gutta-percha insulation is then
applied in sheets prepared from the raw material as it comes
to hand from Singapore and other Malay ports. These sheets
are wrapped by experienced hands so firmly and smoothly
round the wire that not an air-bubble can remain between the
copper and its insulator. The " core " is then ready to be
submitted to a galvanometer test, to ascertain whether the
insulation is perfect, or as nearly perfect as that very elusive
agent electricity will permit. That test having been satis
factorily passed, a workman, whose sole business it is to
attend to the joining of the lengths of cable, splices the ends
of the mile lengths. Again the insulation test is applied.
The galvanometer indicating no very appreciable loss of
electricity, even under the strain of an alternating current
of five thousand volts, the core is passed into the hands of the
sheathers, whose care it is to surround the copper and guttapercha with a more substantial protective covering before
they are submitted to the rough action of the sea. And now
the weight and size of the cable become appreciable. Already
each mile length has in it some five hundred pounds of pure
copper, and three hundred and forty pounds of pure guttapercha. Over this is spun a coat of jute yarn weighing nearly
six hundred pounds to the mile. Then the cable is made the
center of a twisted sheath of steel wires of the stoutest kind,
averaging more than four thousand pounds to the mile. And
finally a compound of tar is laid over the whole, which brings
its own weight of eight hundred pounds to the mile. After
the tar is applied, the cable is coiled and left to soak in tanks
of water until such time as the cable ship shall be ready to
lay it in its last resting place.
Such a cable as this is made at the rate of fifty to fifty-five
miles per twenty- four hours. As the latest Atlantic cable
was two thousand two hundred and one miles in length the
work kept Messrs. Siemens' men busy through the winter of
1893-'94, and it was not until April last that the cable ship
Faraday, a vessel of four thousand nine hundred and seven
350
The World's Cables.
teen tons, took the first two sections on board and proceeded
to the Commercial Cable Company's station at Waterville,
Ireland. There the first section was laid for one hundred
and forty-three miles in a westerly direction, the end being
then buoyed, and left to the mercy of the Atlantic, and the
perils of passing vessels. Crossing the ocean, the Faraday
laid a shore-end from Canso, the Nova Scotia station, east
ward for five hundred and two miles. Again a buoy was
dropped to mark the sea-end of the cable, and the vessel
returned to Woolwich to take on board the deep-sea portion,
amounting to some fifteen hundred miles. In June the
Waterville cable was picked up again and a splice made
with the middle length, and after ten days steaming the
connection was made with the Canso end. Congratulations
passed over the wire from Ireland to Nova Scotia, and, her
work safely and expeditiously accomplished, the Faraday
returned to her Woolwich station. In the neatness with
which the work was done and its freedom from mishap this
laying of the eleventh Atlantic cable formed a striking con
trast to the laying of the first, and may be taken to demon
strate that the science of cable-laying has reached almost
the acme of perfection. The use of three sections requires a
word of explanation. In the manufacture of an ocean cable,
while the core remains the same, it is very necessary that
the sheathing should be materially strengthened at the shoreends, where the cable is liable to the stress and strain of ice
and rough weather, or the danger arising from wrecks and
the dragging anchors of vessels. Accordingly, while the
sheathing of the middle portion generally consists of a large
number of small steel wires, the shore-ends will show in
cross section a second sheath consisting of a dozen interwoven
strands, each strand itself being composed of three twisted
wires. In spite of this double protection the shore-end of a
cable is not infrequently crushed flat by the pressure of ice
floes. In mid-ocean, sunk to a depth sometimes of two
thousand fathoms, the cable has little to fear unless from the
not impossible contingency of earthquake.
The World's Cables.
351
The Faraday, with its complicated gearing for paying

out cable, its grappling instruments for finding and raising
lost or broken cables, its delicate electrical apparatus, and its
complement of skilled officers and men, finds its parallel in
nearly forty vessels belonging to the great cable corporations
and cable construction companies of the world. The British
and French Governments, which are the only two actively
engaged in the business, each owns two vessels. In this
substantial fleet, which gathered in one spot would make
quite an imposing appearance, there are three vessels of over
four thousand tons burden, three over three thousand, and
twenty over one thousand. They are stationed in all parts
of the world, from Formosa to Callao, and Brest to Halifax.
The men who belong to them form a class by themselves,
and acquire a remarkable familiarity with cables, and their
tricks and vagaries when buried beneath the surface of the
ocean.
That the cost of maintenance of a cable is no small matter
is suggested by the statement that the Mackay-Bennett, a
superb steamer, with every appliance dictated by science and
experience, was built by the Commercial Cable Company for
the express purpose of keeping their north Atlantic lines in
repair, and is kept constantly in use. Constructed at an ex
pense of about half a million dollars, the cost of keeping this
steamer in commission is about one hundred thousand dollars
annually. Within four hours she can be under weigh,
prepared to steam with precision to within a thousand yards
of any spot where a defect in the cable may exist.
Having sketched the making and laying of a cable, it
is not out of place to inquire how a message is recorded.
The system that is in favor at the present time is the siphon
recorder, invented by Sir William Thomson (now Lord
Kelvin), and improved by later electricians. In this the
principal parts are a light rectangular coil of silk-covered
wire and a powerful magnet. The coil is suspended between
the poles of the magnet, and, when excited by the current
from the cable, swings on a vertical axis. Its movements
are recorded on a paper ribbon, drawn at a uniform speed,
352
The World's Cables.
before the fine point of a glass siphon. The stream of ink

from the siphon responds to and multiplies every movement
of the coil, and leaves on the ribbon an inky trail which,
while meaningless to the uninitiated, can be readily tran
scribed by the operator. The Commercial Cable Company,
which uses this siphon recorder, claims for it a constant
speed of two hundred and fifty to three hundred letters per
minute.
Accurate recording is one of the essentials where great
speed is attempted in the sending of cablegrams. For two
recent speed records one has to turn again to the doings of
the Commercial Cable Company. It appears that in Sep
tember of last year, a Manchester packing company had
occasion to telegraph to their manager, at Victoria, British
Columbia. The message was handed in at the oflice of the
Cable Company, in Moult street, Manchester ; a trial of speed
was attempted, and the answer came back in ninety seconds,
the total distance by the wires being thirteen thousand miles.
Equally sensational was the dispatch and receipt of a mes
sage over the New York and London wires in five seconds,
a feat performed in October last.
After all, it is not the making, laying or work of the cable
that appeals most strongly to the mind of the user, as the
prime feature of the cost of dispatching a message. Here one
treads on unstable ground, for rates are constantly changing
as the parallel lines increase and as the clients of a cable
company grow. Ten years ago it cost nearly twice as much
to send a cablegram from one side of the Atlantic to the
other as it does to-day. When the Commercial began busi
ness, it started with a rate twenty per cent. lower than that
of its older competitors. A rate war ensued, which resulted
in the establishment of a uniform rate of twenty-five cents
per word, and at that figure it is likely to remain until a
lower rate can be made profitable. But the cost of crossing
the Atlantic is only the first and most moderate charge in
the case of many cable messages. The man who wishes to
reach the antipodes by cable must figure closely on the num
ber of words he is about to use, or otherwise his cable
The World's Cables.
353
account will run into alarming figures. If he finds it neces

sary to send a message to Australia, the Eastern Extension
or Indo-European Company will charge him $1.33 per word,
in addition to the twenty-five-cent rate to London. If, by
any mischance, the lines of that company are out of order,
and he is compelled to fall back on the longer land route
through Siberia and China, controlled by the Northern
Company, he will be asked to pay $3.33 from London, for
each word in the message, including the address. He is
more fortunate in one way if his message goes to Foochow,
Hong-Kong or Shanghai, in China, for though the rate is
$1.71, he has choice of either route. To Canton, in the same
country, he must pay $1.84, and to other places, $2.14. The
cable rates from London to Africa, naturally, vary consider
ably, as between the northern and the southern extremities
of that great continent. One can have the distinction of
sending a dispatch to Tunis for seven cents a word, or thirtytwo cents in all from New York ; while, if the destination
is Fort Salisbury, the capital of Cecil Rhodes's new empire
in South Africa, nothing less than $2.59 a word will suffice;
though to Cape Town, which, geographically, is still further
south, the rate is less by six cents. If, for some inscrutable
reason, one wishes to reach the city of Maskat, in Arabia,
two ways lie open. The telegram may be sent to Gwadur,
in Baluchistan, to be forwarded thence by post ; or it may
be sent to Jask, in Persia, at a cost of $1.13 a word, and
from this place by special boat. Only let the sender beware,
in the latter case, that he adds to his dispatch the words
"Boat paid Jask," and not only pays for the additional
words, but deposits, with the Indo-European Company's
agent, the sum of $13.71 for extra boat hire. To make an
excursion once more to the far East, note that the cost of
cabling to Corea is $2.56 by any route, and to Japan, by the
Northern, $2.21 ; by the Eastern, $2.86 ; from which one
may imagine something of the cost that merchants, having
business relations with those two countries, have been put to
during the war, to say nothing of the bills paid by news
agencies.
VOL. 123
354
The World's Cables.
To come nearer home, one finds that the first charge on

telegrams to Central and South America is a rate of nine
cents to Galveston ; the charge for the use of the Cuba cable
to Havana, forty cents ; and the Bahama cable to Nassau,
thirty-five cents. To reach Bermuda, a message traverses a
circuitous route by way of Halifax, N. S., and the rate is,
therefore, eighty-four cents. The most expensive cablegram
that might be sent from New York by a direct route, and
excluding such vagaries as " extra boat hire," would be in
the form of a message to New Caledonia, the. French penal
settlement in the Pacific. The line connecting Bundaberg,
Queensland, with Gomen, New Caledonia, was laid two
years ago by a French company, assisted by a subsidy from
the Australian Government. Its cost was naturally out of
all proportion to the bulk of the business it was likely to do,
and, consequently, until it forms part of the trans-Pacific
line, the expense of using it will be considerable. The charge
for a message from New York to New Caledonia is $1.76
per word.
To the fact that the world is so well supplied with cables,
we are indebted for the ability of the press to give us the news
of the world from day to day. The cable companies have done
much to foster newspaper enterprise by making press rates as
low as possible. And yet the cost of the briefest dispatch
from Japan or Brazil to New York would astonish the unini
tiated. To show the comparative expense of commercial and
press messages from Brazil I may instance the fact, that
while the merchant pays $1.66 per word, the newspaper pays
eighty-four cents. In this connection it is worth noting
that the old-fashioned and much derided custom of " fak
ing " foreign dispatches no longer prevails, but it is con
sidered perfectly legitimate to rewrite and amplify cabled
matter. In this way a hundred words are not infrequently
expanded to twice that number, and made intelligible to the
reader. On the other hand, however, there are frequently
filed important documents which it is necessary to send word
for word, and no enterprising newsp'aper which has a cable
service hesitates at the expense.
The World's Cables.
355
It is not only an excellent lesson in geography, but an

almost fascinating pursuit, to take the map of the world and
trace the cable routes from one point to another in their
proper sequence. It involves, of course, some land excursions,
where the shorter route is " cross country " rather than by
sea. Take for example the sending of a message from Buenos
Ayres to Colaiev, from the great city of Southern America
to the little station in the far north of Russian Siberia. One
starts the message at Buenos Ayres over the wires of the
River Plate Telegraph Company to Montevideo, and the
Platino Company takes it up and forwards it to Rio Grande
do Sul, then the Western and Brazilian Company gives it a
lift to Pernambuco, where the western end of the Brazilian
Submarine cable is landed. Over this it flashes with scarce
a halt at the by-stations of the Cape Verde Islands and
Madeira to Lisbon, crossing at this big leap nearly four thou
sand miles of ocean. From this point the Eastern Company
takes hold and sends it to London, which is the great nervecenter of the cable and telegraph systemsof the world. Now,
probably, the simplest route for our message will be by way
of Newbiggin, in England, to the Danish island of Bornholm,
and thence to Libau, in Russia, which is the starting point
for a dispatch traversing the great overland telegraph route
through Siberia to Colaiev.
Instead of sending a message from one end of the earth to
the other, start one on a journey round the Dark Continent.
The Mediterranean is networked by wires belonging to the
Eastern Company and the many governments bordering on
its shores, and balf a dozen routes may be traversed in jump
ing from point to point along the northern shore. At Alex
andria, it will be well, however, to take the land line of the
Eastern through Egypt to Suez, and one of its four cables
from Suez to Aden. At this latter port the South African
Company's cable will forward the message by way of Zanzi
bar, Mozambique and Delagoa Bay to Durban. Here the Cape
Government wire must be used to Cape Town, where the
South African Company will again take your message in
hand and effect a junction with the West African Company
356
The World's Cables.
at Loanda by a line touching at Mussaraades and Benguela.

From Loanda the West African connects with St. Thomas
and Bonny, and from this latter port the African Direct
enables one to connect with the system of the Eastern once
more at St. Vincent. Other ports on the west coast arejoined
by cables owned by the German Government and two Spanish
companies, and offer slightly varying routes.
Great Britain and its Eastern possessions are joined by two
main telegraph routes. The Eastern Company's route passes
through Malta, which is reached by way of Lisbon and
Gibraltar, and also by a special leased line through France to
Marseilles, and thence to Alexandria. Land lines pass through
Egypt, quadruple lines go down the Red Sea to Aden, and
triplicate cables connect with Bombay. The Indo-Euro
pean Company's route crosses the North Sea, and traverses
Germany and Russia to Teheran in Persia. From this place
land lines are maintained by the Indian Government to
Bushire,and cables are laid along the Persian Gulf to Gwadur
and Kurrachee.
Americans have special cause for pride in the Commer
cial Cable Company, which controls what is commonly
known as the Mackay-Bennett cable, and is in close alliance
with the Postal Telegraph Company of the United States.
The progress of this company, owning as it now does ten
thousand miles of submarine cable, has been simply phe
nomenal. It is now the leading cable company of the world,
and has brought cable telegraphy to the highest state of per
fection. Originally projected by Mr. John W. Mackay and
Mr. James Gordon Bennett, for many years Mr. Mackay has
been the controlling spirit of the enterprise, and he has spent
millions in furtherance of its success, holding all else subordi
nate to the public interest. He has planted his money as
freely in the sea as he took it out of the bowels of the earth,
and at an age when most men are content to take their ease,
his activity in this, the crowning work of his life, is as great
and his enthusiasm as spontaneous and untiring as if he were
still in early manhood. Mr. Mackay is surrounded by an
fficial family, composed of some of the ablest men in the
The World's Cables.
357
profession of telegraphy, and is at the head of an army of

ten thousand men, every one of whom regards him with
something akin to filial affection. Incidentally it may be
observed that he insures the life of every employe of his
company, himself paying the premiums and the policies
being in favor of the families of the insured. It is by such
consideration for their welfare, as well as by broad and lib
eral management, that he has brought into being an esprit
de corps among his employes such as is rarely to be seen.
The great question in the world of cables to-day is, when
will the trans-Pacific cable be laid, and who will lay it ? To
many it may seem a curious thing that the world should
have to wait so long for the last link in the girdle that
science has been forging round the globe ; but it is not sur
prising when one realizes not only the great physical diffi
culties that stand in the way, but also the greater difficulties
in the opposition of the powerful European companies which
at present control the lines reaching to the far East. A
trans-Pacific line would materially reduce the volume of
business done by the Northern, the Eastern, and the Eastern
Extension Companies, and would mean a " cut " in rates to
Australia and Japan which would have its effect in reduced
rates everywhere. Therefore, in spite of the fact that Canada
and Australia have long demanded it, and Americans doing
business with the East have given their adhesion to several
practicable schemes, the promoters of trans-Pacific cables
have so far received little encouragement from the kings of
the cable world. Recently the governments of Canada and
Australia have taken the matter up in a more vigorous and
promising manner, and the former have asked for estimates
and tenders for the construction of a line. Without stumbling
into the pitfall of prophecy, one may safely surmise that not
many years will now pass before the Pacific cable is an
accomplished fact, and that American enterprise will lead in
the work.
358
Pre-Scientific Electricity.
PRE-SCIENTIFIC ELECTRICITY.
BY HORACE HAYDEN, JR.
The electricity of to-day and that of the future have been
the subject-matter of many recent articles. In fact, the
general reader should by now be well acquainted with what
has been accomplished in this science during a period of less
than three hundred years, and must readily apprehend that
more wonderful things will yet be achieved. Why all this
has not been effected earlier is a problem which we shall
attempt to solve, and which may prove to be interesting to
those that care to accompany us over the period when this
wonderful force played a part in the life of man in strong
contrast to its obedient servility of the present day.
Classical scholars are familiar with the superstitious rev.
erence the Greeks had for amber, and the tendency among
them to use the word electron (fjhxrpov)which is the Greek
word for amberjust as the word adamant was frequently
used as designating some ideal, some imperfectly-known
substance, possessed of almost miraculous properties. The
Greeks even thought that the yellow semi-pellucid substance
lived and had a soul, for, when excited, it seemed to become
animated in its attraction for small particles that came
within its influence. The name itself appears to have been
derived from this physical myth, Elector (HUxrotp) being
one of the names of the sun-god.
In the twilight of legendary Greece, we find that familiar
and beautiful myth of Phaethon, son of Phoebus Apollo, who
rashly undertook to drive the solar chariot through the
heavens. We all remember how the chariot approached so
near the earth that the mountains began to blaze, and rivers
and fountains dried up, and that Zeus, enraged, hurled his
thunderbolt, thereby precipitating the charioteer into the
River Eridanus. There he was found by his sisters, the
Heliades, who, lamenting long and bitterly, were at last
changed by the gods into ever-sighing poplars ; and their
359
tears, which continued to flow, became translucent amber as

they dropped into the stream.
The Greeks, even at this remote period, thus revealed their
knowledge of the origin of amber. The tears of the eversighing poplars, becoming amber as they dropped into the
stream, is but a poetic way of expressing the fact that amber
is the resinous exudation of trees, that becomes fossilized by
the action of the water.
Without much effort of imagination it is possible to trace
this chain of analogies a step farther. The myth of Zeus's
thunderboltwhich we know to be synonymous with the
lightning strokeseems related to the properties of amber.
By exciting amber it is possible to produce miniature light
ning, and it is more than probable that the Greeks made
this comparison. If the Electro, (HUxrpa) of these legends
who, we will remember, was the goddess of brightness
is, as has been pointed out, the personification of lightning,
the comparison would then seem almost certain, for the re
semblance between the names JElectra and electron cannot be
accidental.
Amber was highly prized by the Greeks as an amulet, and
was precious as an article of jewelry. This we perceive in
the Odyssey, when the Phoenician traders offer to the Queen
of Syra "a gold necklace hung with amber." And thus,
being constantly worn, the friction of garments would often
excite sufficient electricity to cause it to attract, as Pliny
remarks, "the fine threads of fringe" and other small par
ticles, a remarkable fact which was very likely to be noticed
by the wearer.
Thales was the earliest philosopher that made direct men
tion of this property of amber, and is, therefore, too often
credited with the original discovery. He appears to have
regarded the entire world in the light of a living being,
gradually maturing and forming itself from water, the
imperfect seed-state. This view endues the universe with
vitality, and considers the world as a mere spontaneous
development of a preexisting germ of life. Thus he is said
to have looked upon the apparently dead as animated and
360
ensouled ; and, hence, taught that amber and the magnet

possess a living soul, from which their power of attraction
is derived.
The adamant or magnetto which the Greeks compare
amber, although they knew it to differ from the latter in its
attractive properties being inherent and only exercised upon
ironwas originally found near the town of Magnesia, in
Lydia, and from this circumstance was called magnes (fidpî;),
from which the present name is derived. Plato tells us, in
the "Ion," that it received this name from Euripides, but by
the people was called the Heraclea stone. He adds, " For
not only does this stone possess the power of attracting iron
rings, but it can communicate to them the power of attract
ing other rings ; so that you may see sometimes a long chain
of rings, and other iron substances, attached and suspended
one to the other by this influence."
Here we clearly see that he had observed the power of the
magnet to impart its magnetism to other pieces of iron ; but,
without better authority than we have, it would be impru
dent confidently to assert, as others have recklessly done,
that the ancients had any definite conception of the polarity
of electricity or of magnetism.
Their deficiency in positive experimental knowledge, how
ever, was abundantly replaced by prolific powers of imagina
tion. They have told us that the magnet would attract both
wood and flesh ; that by holding a magnet in the hand we
might find relief from both gout and convulsions ; that its
effect on the brain causes melancholy ; that it acts as a love
philter ; that its power is lost after being rubbed with garlic,
but may be restored by a treatment with goat's blood ; and
that it has no power in the presence of the diamond. All
which assertions, and many more, were eagerly grasped by
the wonder-loving writers of the Middle Ages.
It seems impossible to determine whether the Europeans
themselves discovered that a suspended magnet will lie in the
direction of the magnetic medium, or whether they received
this knowledge through the Arabs, who, in turn, received it
from the Chinese; for the latter claim, as early as the sixty
Pre-Scientific Mectricity.
361
fourth year of the reign of Ho-ang-ti (2634 B. C.), to have

been acquainted with this property of the magnet. After
this fact became known in Europe, the magnet evidently took
the name of lodestone (leading-stone) a name used by early
writers; although we find no record of the mariner's compass
until some centuries later.
If, now, we follow the Greeks into Egypt, our attention is
attracted by the singular proposal of Dinocrates, the great
architect and designer of Alexandria, to construct the arched
roof of the temple of Arsinoe entirely of magnetic material,
so that the iron statue of the princess might float unsuspended within the temple. But before the work was finished
lie died, as did Ptolemy Philadelphus, who had ordered the
temple to be built in honor of Arsinoe, his sister and queen.
We have considered at some length the knowledge which
the Greeks possessed of the electrical property of amber and
the attractive power of the magnet, and must now pass
rapidly over their acquaintance with the more familiar phe
nomena of atmospheric electricity.
The electricity of the earth usually concentrates itself in
sharp mountain peaks, the natural dischargers of the planet,
but sometimes will flow from smaller objects resting on the
earth and projecting into the air. Some years ago Dr.
Werner von Siemens, the noted physicist, while on the top
of the pyramid of Cheops, at Gizeh, during a storm, per
ceived that a flow of electricity escaped from his finger when
extended toward the heavens. The current manifested itself
powerfully enough to cause a loud hissing noise, and from
the metallic button of his gourd he obtained electric sparks.
Scholars have told us that the word pyramid is derived
from the Greek root pyr (mip), which means fire ; and add,
that this name was chosen to indicate that pyramids termi
nate in a point, in the shape of a flame. If this be the cor
rect derivation of the word, it seems more logical to agree
with Fonvielle, that at some time in the many centuries during
'which the pyramids stood before the Christian era these moun
tains of stone had been seen crowned with flameilluminated
362
by the energies of the earth ; but this is mere conjecture, and

the most recent authorities maintain that the word pyramid
is a derivative from the Egyptian word pir-em^-us, which
means perpendicular height.
The manifestation of this form of atmospheric electricity
is usually in the shape of a brush or a star of light. The
records of the display of these lambent flames have accumu
lated with years, and are found in the literature of all
languages, and of every age and country.
Among the ancients they were distinguished as Castor
and Pollux, the favorite sons of Jove, who watched over the
games, and also over travelers, especially those following the
sea. The Dioscuri are represented on ancient coins as eques
trians with a star floating over the helmet of each, and between
them a zigzag line that Professor Schweigger deems a rep
resentation of an electrical spark.
In modern times, around the Mediterranean, these electrical
displays have been hailed as the light of St. Clair, St. Nico
las, St. Helena ; elsewhere they have had the appellation St.
Barbe and St. Elmo. The Portuguese call them Corpo San
to, and the English, Comazants. Even at the present day of
enlightenment, sailors attach a certain importance to these
signs ; for they suppose that the apparition of one of these
natural lights portends that the severest part of the storm has
yet to come, while two of them at once indicate a cessation of
the tempest. In all of this we trace an inheritance from
antiquity ; Pliny, in fact, telling us that these lights are dan
gerous and unlucky when coming alone, but that when two
come together they bring comfort and foretell a prosperous
voyage and chase away that " dreadful, cursed, and threaten
ing meteor, Hellena." Thereupon, men at sea invocated the
gods Castor and Pollux.
In the conception of Castor and Pollux we at once see the
evidence of a predominant facility to seize the passing event,
and a sensibility wonderingly alive to all the phenomena of
nature. Thus, the ancient historians, with this character
istic facility, never omit to mention, with minute care, the
phenomena arising from this natural electricity.
363
Seneca relates, as a strangely significant warning to

Gylippus, that a star came and hovered over the shield of
that general as he was sailing to Syracuse.
Plutarch, after speaking of the great victory of Lysanderwhich finished in one hour a war that had been pro
tracted in its continuancerecords : " Some, therefore,
looked upon the result as a divine intervention, and there
were certain who afdrmed that the stars Castor and Pollux
were seen on each side of Lysander's ship, when he first set
sail from the haven toward his enemies, shining about the
helm ; and some say the stone which fell down was a sign
of the great slaughter."
"The foremost man of all the word," intellectually dis
tinguished by extraordinary genius in diversified pursuits,
we must acknowledge to have been a strong-minded man,
yet Caesar does not neglect to inform us that the spears of
the fifth legion appeared on fire during the African cam
paign ; Castor and Pollux thus announcing that he would
soon disperse the remainder of the Pompeian party. An
other instance was the fire seen around the head of Ascanius.
We now turn our attention to that other form of atmos
pheric electricity, dignified by the ancients as the thunder
bolt of Jupiter. Some of our modern authors, and others
more zealous than wise, would have us believe that if
Franklin did not actually appropriate the idea of others,
his experiment was, in fact, anticipated by the ancients thou
sands of years before.
Herodotus, one of their authorities for this assumption,
says: "The Thracians, when it lightnings and thunders,
let fly their arrows toward the heavens, uttering threats
against the god, for they do not believe there is any God
but their own." It is quite evident that the Father of His
tory does not intend to have us understand that they thus
shot their arrows for the purpose of withdrawing the elec
tricity from the clouds, as these energetic authors would
interpret.
The Etruscans, renowned in antiquity for their knowl
edge on this subject, are said to have been able to direct the
364
lightning, but this was done by exorcisms and conjurations.

Among the Romans, Numa, instructed by the nymph
Egeria, succeeded in intoxicating Faunus and Picuswhose
names in this place probably denote only the priests of these
Etruscan divinitiesand learned from them the secret of
making, without danger, the thundering Jupiter descend
upon earth, and immediately put it into execution. From
that time Jupiter had the surname Elicius, or Jupiter who
is made to descend, and was adored in Rome.
Tullus Hostilius, it seems, was less fortunate. "It is re
lated," says Livy, " that this prince, in searching the me
moirs left by Numa, found among them some instructions
relative to the secret sacrifices offered to Jupiter Elicius.
He attempted to repeat them, but in the preparation or cele
bration he deviated from the sacred rite. Exposed to the
anger of Jupiterevoked by a defective ceremonyhe was
struck by the lightning and burned, together with his palace."
Then there is the story of a medal whereon appears the
temple of Juno, the roof of which is supplied with many
pointed stakes, that some would have us believe to be light
ning-rods. Another medal described and engraved by Pellerin, shows the god Jupiter in a cloud, with the lightning
in his hand, and below a man guiding a kite. But the
authenticity of this medal is suspected.
Artaxerxes believed that two swords, planted in the
ground, dispersed the thunder-clouds. In the time of Char
lemagne, poles were used for the same purpose, but, unfor
tunately for those that would deprive Franklin of scientific
renown, they were not supposed to have any efficacy until
bits of magical paper had been stuck upon them.
The ancients also believed that lightning never fell except
by the immediate interposition of the gods ; and whatever
thing or place it struck was ever after deemed sacredcon
secrated by the deity himself. The Greeks placed an urn
over the spot where the lightning entered the earth, and the
Romans had a similar observance. Herodotus tells us that
when Scyles, who had studied the language and sciences of
Greece, ascended the Scythian throne, it was his desire to be
365
initiated into the mysteries of Bacchus, which was against

the wish of his people ; and as he was about to take some of
the sacred utensils in his hands, his palace in the city of
Borysthenites was totally demolished by a thunderbolt.
To imitate thunder and lightning was considered a sacri
lege by all religions. We remember the exciting passage of
Virgil, wherein the poet describes the infernal regions and
the fate of Salmoneus. This prince, according to the legend,
wished to be called a god, and to receive divine honors from
his subjects. Therefore, to imitate thunder, he used to drive
his chariot over a brazen bridge ; and to counterfeit light
ning, he darted torches on every side. This impiety provoked
Jupiter. Salmoneus was struck by a thunderbolt, and placed
in the infernal regions neur his brother Sisyphus.
Tacitus, the philosophic historian of the declining glories
of Rome, addressed one of his most fearful repr6aches to the
Emperor Caligula for attempting to manufacture the light
ning and thunder of the sovereign of men and gods. Not con
tent with deafening his subjects by compelling them to listen
to his artificial thunder, this refined tyrantmore ambitious
still than Salmoneushad constructed a machine calculated
to reply to the gods, by throwing a heavy stone toward the
sky whenever the lightning happened to strike the earth.
These few references, selected from the many accounts left
us, will give an adequate idea of the superstitious respect en
tertained by the ancients for thunder and lightning. These
superstitions may appear extremely ridiculous to us, but we
should not overlook the fact that but a century ago Franklin
found numerous opponents who agreed that it was as impious
to erect rods to ward off Heaven's lightnings as for a child
to ward off the chastening rod of its father.
Pliny leaves us the following remarkable explanation of
why lightnings are attributed to Jupiter:
" Most men are ignorant of that secret, which, by close
observation of the heavens, deep scholars and principal men
of learning have found out, namely, that they are the fires
of the uppermost planets, which, falling to the earth, are
called lightning ; but those especially which are seated in the
366
middle, that is about Jupiter, perhaps because participating

in the excessive cold and moisture from the upper circle of
Saturn, and the immoderate heat from Mars, that is next
beneath, by this means he dischargeth the superfluity, and
therefore it is commonly said, ' That Jupiter shooteth and
darteth lightning.' Therefore, like as out of a burning piece
of wood a coal flies forth with a crack, even so from a star is
spit out, as it were, and voided forth this celestial fire, carry
ing with it pressages of future things ; so the heavens showeth
divine operations, even in these parcels and portions which
are rejected and cast away as superfluous. And this most
commonly happens when the air is troubled, either because
of the moisture that is gathered, moves and stirs forward
that abundance to fall ; or else that it is disquieted with the
birth, as it were, proceeding from a great bellied star, and
therefore would be discharged of such excrements."
Nothing needs to be said about the state of science which
this far from luminous exposition reflects.
The ancients were also acquainted with the torpedo, or
fish of Jupiter, which is found in the Mediterranean, and
has the faculty of accumulating, to a remarkable degree,
animal electricity, with which it can give a powerful elec
tric shock, whence the names of Narce (vdpxrjnumbness)
and Torpedo (torpeo, quasi torpor) were given to it.
Professor Thompson has called attention to the interesting
fact that the Arabian name for the torpedo, ra-ad, signifies
lightning. Aristotle was acquainted with the fact that its
benumbing power could be sent by the fish some distance
through the water. Scribonius, Largus, Galen and Dioscorides speak of the local application of a living torpedo in
headache and gout ; and, as an article of food and medicine,
the torpedo seems to have enjoyed considerable reputation
among ancient epicures.
We take this opportunity to consider for a moment the
Vestal Fire, inasmuch as Professor Schweigger has said that
he believed it was electric, and has been quoted by others
that appear to have made no research themselves. Yet to
agree with Professor Schweigger we would have to deny the
Pre-Stientific Electricity.
367
authenticity of many of the ancient writers, among them

Livy and Plutarch. The latter, in his life of Numa to
whom is ascribed the introduction of the worship of Vesta
in Romehas gone into much detail, and informs us that it
was provided that if at any time the Vestal Virgins should
allow the sacred fire to go out they were to be severely pun
ished, and the fire rekindled from the sun's rays brought to
a focus by a concave mirror made of polished metal. Neither
this nor the earlier method of obtaining the fire by means of
the friction of dry sticks appear to have anything to do
with electricity.
Lucretius, in his celebrated poem De Rerun. Natura, takes
up the subject of magnetism, and, after he has spoken of the
chain of rings already mentioned by Plato, attempts to solve
the mystery of this phenomenon. He imagines the magnet
to radiate innumerable atoms in streams that rarefy the
space between it and the attracted iron, into which space
the iron is forced by the pressure of air from behind. And,
as the metal is compact in its elements, the particles thus
streaming into the void drag with them the entire chain.
The magnet does not attract other substances, for the reason
that some are held fast by weight, as the ponderous gold ;
and some are of such attenuate consistency that they lend
its waves no hold.
However remote from being correct, this is at least an
attempt at a theory. And a century later Pliny records the
fact, that rubbing the blade of a knifewhich we suppose
was hardened steelwith the lodestone would make of it a
permanent magnet.
Amber was in such repute in Rome at this period that
Pliny sarcastically remarks that the price of a small figure
in it, however diminutive, exceeds that of a healthy slave
or warrior.
" True it is," he goes on to say, " a collar of amber beads
worn about the necks of young infants is a singular preserv
ative to them against secret poisoning, and a counter-charm
for witchcraft and sorceries." This superstition we have
inherited, although the custom as now in vogue is not as a
368
defense against witchcraft and sorceries, but as an amulet or

prophylactic.
If we stop to reflect for a moment, we will see that these
menphilosophers whose genius sounded the depths of the
microcosm, and discovered moral truths by a sublime intu
itionknew natural and physical truths more as matters of
fact and observation than as determined by law. Pliny him
self says : " Of all these things there is no certain reason tobe given, but secret they must be, hidden within the majesty
of nature, and reserved within her cabinet." Their knowl
edge could not be called a science, in the modern sense, un
less indeed an occult science. . The only attempt they appear
to have made to generate electricity was the accidental dis
covery that amber, when rubbed , would attract small par
ticles ; and here the extent of their knowledge seems to have
terminated. They have left no evidence of even au endeavor
to learn the true cause of this phenomenon, which hence re
mained one of the "awful mysteries of nature."
So we pass into and through that long and sad intellectual
darkness of the Middle Ages. The only step of importance
in electrical science which we find recorded is the use of the
mariner's compass in Europe, the earliest of which were made
by floating a magnetic needle on a chip of wood in a basin
of water.
During this long period, the human mind was undergoing
an intellectual revolution. Christianitya religion of love
had succeeded the ancient religion of superstitious fear of
gods and of nature.
In the latter part of the Middle Agesin that period
styled the " Revival of Learning "a taste for ancient
classic literature arose, and was necessarily and promptly
followed by the introduction of the "art preservative of all
arts," that of printing. Like a second awakening, we find, in
the sixteenth century, an intellectual condition that produced
works which made immortal the names of Michel Angelo,
Raphael, Titian, Albert Diirer, Holbein, Edmund Spencer,.
Shakespeare, Cervantes, Rabelais, Montaigne, Ariosto, Tassor
Copernicus, Galileo, and others.
Pi-e-Scientific Electricity.
369
At the very end of that century, in the year 1600, Dr.

William Gilbert, surgeon to Queen Elizabeth, and the most
distinguished scientist in England, found this little seed of
human knowledge in the archives where it had been buried
for fifteen hundred years. He straightway planted it in rich
loam when he published his famous book, De Magnete, in
which he made known that the attractive property of amber
when rubbed was not inherent in that substance alone, but
that it also existed in some twenty other bodies ; in which
are included the precious stones, glass, sulphur, sealing-wax
and resin. Inasmuch as all of these substances acted like
amber, Gilbert called them electrics, and called the phenom
enon itself electricity; terms which he derived from electron.
The publication of Dr. Gilbert's work marks the true com
mencement of electrical science, its immediate effect every
where having incited philosophers to efforts to extend his
list of electrics.
The propagation of that little seed, though slow at first,
has steadily advanced, until now we are reaping a rich and
golden harvest. And for the foundation of it all we are in
debted to Dr. William Gilbert, whose name should be im
mortalized as the Father of the Science of Electricity.
VOL. 124
370
Notes on the Progress of Science.
NOTES ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.

MATHEMATICS BY SOUND, SIGHT AND SMELL.
Mr. Francis Galton, in reviewing for " Nature" the " Psy
chology of Mental Arithmeticians and Blindfold Chess
Players " of M. Alfred Binet, in which a close study is made
of the mental performances of two remarkable calculators
one Inaudi, a Piedmontese, who performs his mental sums
wholly, or almost wholly, by imagined sounds, one, two, three,
etc., and the other, Diamandi, a Greek, who attains the same
end almost wholly by imagined figures, as 1, 2 and 3inci
dentally refers to some of his own experiments in the same
line of investigation, only that he uses the olfactile like tactile
imagination instead of the visual or the auditive. The experi
ments, while they are not as yet far reaching, are exceedingly
interesting and suggestive, and open up a course of inquiry
which is certain to yield important results. To use Mr. Galton's own words : " I tried to perform mental arithmetic, not
by imaginary visual symbols, or by imaginary sounds, but by
imaginary smells. As sums are set in the two former cases,
either in really visible symbols or in really audible sounds,
while the results are reached through imaginary ones, so in
my experiment the sums were set in real odors, and were
worked out through imaginary odors
My apparatus
consisted of glass tubes, each drawn to a nozzle at one end
like a short syringe. One end of a piece of India-rubber tube,
six or eight inches long, was pushed tightly over the other
end of the glass. A different odorous substance, camphor,
carbolic acid, gasoline, etc., was inserted and packed lightly
with cotton wool in the several tubes, whose ends were after
ward tied up. On grasping one of these tubes tightly, at
the moment when its nozzle was brought to the nostril a
whiff of its peculiar odor was ejected and simultaneously
sniffed up. ... I thus possessed a set of tubes that could be
871
used smellingly in the same way as the symbols 1, 2, 8, etc.

are used visually, or the words one, two, three, etc. are used
audibly. ... I progressed far enough to be able to add or
subtract small sums, so that a 1 followed by a 2, both in
smell language, associated themselves at once with the imag
inary sniff of a 3, whenever I was engaged in addition, or
with that of a 1 when I was engaged in subtraction. But
the two associations of 3 and 1 never clashed ; they were
mutually exclusive."
EXPERIMENTS MADE TO APPROACH THE ZERO OF TEMPERATURE.
Among the most interesting experiments that have ever

been conducted in the physical laboratory of the Royal
Institution of Great Britain are those of Professor Dewar,
looking to the attainment of the zero of temperature.
This may be denned as representing that degree of tem
perature at which gas particles no longer exert pressure and
have no volume, determined to be 274 C. below the freez
ing point of water (461 F.). The lowest temperatures
that have heretofore been experimentally obtained were
the results of the evaporation of liquid nitrogen in vacua,
which gave a temperature of 210 C. ; the practical work
ing limit in such experiments is, however, only 200 C.,
leaving 74 still to be obtained. It is in the direction
of discovering some substance whose critical point is con
siderably below that of nitrogen that Professor Dewar
is conducting his experiments, and he believes that only
'with the assistance of hydrogen can the desired results be
assured. But even with the use of simple hydrogen, the
one gas which has not yet been liquefied, a temperature of
at most only 240 C. can be reached, which would yet
leave many degrees to be bridged over before the actual
zero of temperature could be attained. A possibility seems,
however, to be held out in the use of a gas composed of
hydrogen mixed with 10 per cent. of nitrogen, the liquefac
tion of which would take place under a critical temperature
of 200 C. The special difficulty in these experiments is
the extremely small proportion of the liquefied material that
372
can be collected in open vessels ; for the minutest results

the liquefaction and expansion of seven cubic yards of
hydrogen gas are necessary. Incidentally, Professor Dewar
has obtained an undetermined liquid in one of his vacuum
vessels which is not improbably liquid hydrogen.
A MODERNIZED CONCEPTION OF AFRICA.
The fact is gradually beginning to dawn upon the public

that Africa is not quite so " dark " a continent as it has gen
erally been represented to be. Not much more than a quarter
of a century ago it was still, to use an Americanism, " a howl
ing wilderness," from which little good was to be expected,
and penetration into which was something of a giant's feat.
A deeply miasmatic border-land, interior primeval forests har
boring a multitude of wild animals and equally savage men,
deserts of moving and unconquerable sand, over which the
bleached remains of caravans were everywhere scattered
this was the picture of the continent the exploration of which
made famous the names of Mungo Park, Livingstone, Bur
ton, Speke, Baker, Barth, Schweinfurth, Stanley and a num
ber of greater and smaller lights among travelers. Prof.
Drummond, the learned divine, in his work on "Tropical
Africa," was the first to rudely tear off the mask from this
picture, when he ventured to assert that Africa was not
strictly a forest-covered country, that it contained great ex
panses of healthy, even if dreary, plains and meadow-land,
and that it was traversed in all directions by clearly defined
paths, which went in at one side of the continent and came out
at the other. For this the self-styled " minor traveler pos
sessing but few assets," and author of "Xatural Law in the
Spiritual World," was summarily taken to task by Stanley,
who asserts that the "description by Prof. Drummond bears
no more resemblance to tropical Africa than the tors of Devon,
or the moors of Yorkshire, or the downs of Dover represent
the smiling scenes of England, of leafy Warwickshire, the
gardens of Kent, and the glorious vales of the isle." Latterly,
Dr. James Johnston, of Jamaica, W. I., in a work entitled
" Reality versus Romance in South Central Africa," once
373
more strips the veil from the continent, and with a cool selfpossession, which is in harmony with his statement that no
" country under heaven" " has been the subject of more ro
mancing and misrepresentation than Africa," asserts that in
a traverse of upward of four thousand miles, mostly on foot,
and alone as far as a white companion was concerned, he
never once found himself prompted to fire a shot either in
anger or in self-defense. The sands of the Sahara, under the
keen eyes of a French corps of engineers and of Gerhard
Rohlfs, are no longer an obstable to railroad construction
and existence ; and now comes the glowing report of the Ad
ministrator of the British Central Africa Protectorate, Mr.
H. H. Johnston, to the Royal Geographical Society of Lon
don, from which it would appear that a considerable area,
at least, in Africa is a veritable Arcadia.
M r. Johnston, who many years ago earned his spurs as a
traveler, speaks thus of his province : " The great attrac
tion of the country lies in its beautiful. scenery, in its mag
nificent hlue lakes, its tumultuous cascades and cataracts, its
grand mountains, its golden plains and dark green forests.
A pleasant and peculiar feature also of the western portion
of the Protectorate is the rolling, grassy downs, almost
denuded of trees, covered with short turf, quite healthy and
free from the tse-tse fly ; these no doubt will in the future
become actual sites of European colonies, districts in which
Europeans can rear their children under healthful conditions.
The lofty plateau of Mlanje is a little world in itself, with
the exhilarating climate of northern Europe. The plains
and valleys are gay with blue ground-orchids, with a purple
iris, and with yellow everlasting flowers." It is indeed an
impressive commentary upon " savage Africa " to learn that
in the interior of the land "the British settlements have
now a settled and comfortable appearance, with uniformed
DMtive policemen, and trained natives from the mission
schools working as printers and even as telegraph operators
at Blantyre."
374

RECENT STUDIES OP MARS.
Astronomers have of late been unusually diligent in their

observations upon Mars, the great polar ice-caps and the
(assumed) melting waters derived from them especially
engaging their attention. Martian phenomena have a par
ticular interest to the geologist, since in this planet alone he
sees the reflex of many of the phenomena that are presented
on the earth ; hence, the effort that is being made to have a
clear understanding of the conditions that prevail on this
outer world. In a recent article published in Natura ed Arte,
Prof. Schiaparelli, whose name has been so long identified with
the canal system of Mars, critically surveys our present knowl
edge of this planet, and presents some interesting considera
tions regarding it. The great white polar spots which alter
nately appear on opposite sides of the planet he considers to
be indisputably ice, or snow-caps, identical with the snow
and ice-sheets which cover much of the Arctic and Antarctic
regions of the earth. These are found to diminish very
rapidly during the Martian summer, the contraction from
week to week being very apparent, even to those working
with common telescopes ; the southern polar cap, which in
the height of its winter of 1892 extended as far as the 70th
parallel of latitude, and measured some twelve hundred miles
in greatest diameter, was reduced by the end of summer to
less than one hundred and eighty miles. This polar cap is
situated in the midst of a huge dark spot, thought to be
an ocean,'whereas the opposite or northern cap is located in
a region of yellowish or reddish-color, which is generally
accepted to be a continent. The continental areas are assumed
to cover approximately two-thirds the entire area of the
planet. Prof. Schiaparelli concludes that the particular
color of this area as it appears to us is the actually existing
color of the rock or soil of the region.
The dark linear streaks which, many of them in straight
lines, traverse the continental areas, sometimes appearing
singly, at other times in parallel doublesthe " gemination "
producing a parallelism equal in precision to the two rails of
a railroadare the most puzzling feature of the Martian
375
surface, and have thus far baffled all attempts at a satisfactory

explanation. Prof. Schiaparelli still believes that the canal
system may have been brought about through some organic
rather than a purely physical method, but he does not venture
to assert what this method may have been. As regards its
meterology, Mars is assumed to resemble the earth; its
atmosphere is represented to be very similar to our own,
constituted like it with a moderate temperature, and contain
ing a certain quantity of aqueous vapor, from which, natur
ally, have been derived the polar ice-caps and the other white
flecks [of snow (?)] which seemingly represent mountain sum
mits. There is little or no rain-fall, and the visible vapor,
which is probably a light fog, rather than a cloud accumula
tion, is so thin as to always permit a clear view of the
planet's surface.
THE FAILURE OF ARCTIC EXPLORATION IN 1894.
The most enthusiastic advocate of Arctic exploration will

concede that the record of the past year has been an unfortu
nate one. With Mr. Peary, upon whom such promise of suc
cess was placed, baffled in the line of his own matured plans ;
with Mr. Wellman's vessel crushed in true northern fashion
by the ice of the Spitzbergen Sea ; the " Miranda," of the
Cook party, abandoned in Davis's Strait ; and the " Falcon,"
the vessel of the successful Peary Auxiliary Expedition, in
all probability at the bottom of the sea, the year closes with
comparatively little to add to its storehouse of knowledge
concerning the realms of snow and ice. Two expeditions
are yet to be heard from, those of Nansen and Jackson, and
possibly they may retrieve the fortunes of discovery ; but
for the present the one consoling fact, and this a very large
one, that can be drawn from the several enterprises is that,
despite mishap and hardship, no lives have been sacrificed
to this quest after knowledge. This is, indeed, a great
achievement in Arctic exploration, and marks an important
step in the progress of the methods that are used for the
accomplishment of this special kind of work. For one piece
of work geographers will at least be thankful to Mr. Peary
376
the survey of the inner contours of Melville Bay by one

of his associates, Mr. Eivind Astrup, the young Norwegian
who made the traverse of Northern Greenland with Mr.
Peary in 1892. No report of this exploration has yet heen
made, but doubtless it will appear before long. Incidental
to the main work of the expedition was the search, near
C.ipe York, of the so-called " Iron Mountains," from which
the natives obtained the material for the construction of
their metal saw-knives. Ever since Sir John Ross, in 1818,
first called attention to these singular weapons, fashioned
by a people who were supposed to be entirely ignorant of
the art of working metal, and who only mysteriously hinted
at the locality whence they obtained their substance, and at
the special method which they employed in its modeling,
much curiosity has existed among scientific men regarding
the region in question, and several efforts have been made
to locate the find. Mr. Peary now solves the mystery of
the " Iron Mountains " by discovering that they are a num
ber of great blocks of meteoric (telluric?) stone, probably
not very different from the famous Ovifak iron of Disko.
The largest of these has been secured by the expedition, and
is said to weigh, by approximate determination, two tons or
more.
THE PIGMIES OF EQUATORIAL AFRICA.
Whatever doubt may have existed in the minds of natural

ists as to the existence of true pigmy races in the wilds of
Central Africa, as was first authoritatively reported by Du
Chaillu, has, as is well known, been dispelled by the dis
coveries of Stanley ; indeed, years before, the explorations
of Schweinfurth had already satisfactorily demonstrated that
the tabled people of Herodotus, or others representing them,
had a full claim to recognition. Recently, the researches of
the erudite traveler and naturalist, Dybowski, in the western
equatorial forests, have put us in possession of many and
valuablefacts regarding these diminutive people, the Obongos,
which help to clear away the anecdotal from the true history
of what must, for the moment, at least, be considered among
the most interesting inhabitants of our planet. In stature
377
they are shown to be (probably) the smallest of all living

peoples; if the specimens selected for measurement by M.
Dybowski are at all representative of the many, then the
average stature of the men cannot greatly exceed four and onehalf feet. In three cases the heights obtained were respec
tively four feet six inches, four feet seven and one-quarter
inches, and four feet seven and three-quarters inchesa stat
ure far below that of the Eskimo, who is in popular (but
erroneous) estimation a true pigmy. Despite their diminu
tive frames the men are described as being very powerful
and courageous, the hunters having no fear of either wild
beast or attacking man.
A most striking feature of the people is their light tint,
the color of the skin being a light bronze, barely darker than
the brown of the mulatto ; eyebrows and eyelashes are also
both fair, and the eyes have little of that visual intensity
which distinguishes these organs among most negroes. The
greater part of the body is largely hairy, the arms and chest
being in a measure protected by a short, almost straight,
and nearly blonde, down.
HOLLOW ICE CRYSTALS.
Dr. Karl Grossmann and Mr. Joseph Lomas have contrib

uted to the Royal Society of London an interesting commu
nication on peculiarly-formed ice crystals, which are hollow
hexagonal pyramids, or more properly funnels, attached by
their apices and necessarily pointing their trumpet-like open
ings away from the side of the attachment. Some of these
*' hopper " crystals, the largest of which were found in the
famous ice-cave of Surtshellir, in Iceland, measure as much
as two inches in length, with a width of half an inch across
the hexagonal opening. The sides are described as being
built up of the most delicate steps of ice, arranged in the
manner of a stair-case. Dr. Grossmann calls attention to the
fact that the ice crystals of hoar-frost, as well as those
formed in refrigerating chambers, have a like construction,
and are brought about through a process of " crystal starva
tion," the edges of the crystal nucleus first formed growing
378
more rapidly than the center, and depriving the latter of

the necessary " food " supply contained in the atmosphere.
In their conclusions the authors state that when water
changes directly from the gaseous into the solid state it is
highly crystalline. The tendency to crystallization is so
strong that where the area of supply is limited by a wall or
other surfacein caves, cellars, etc., as opposed to the freely
exposed surface of the earthskeleton crystals, hexagonal
"hoppers," will be formed, growing away from the wall of
attachment, even under conditions of excessively slow
growth. A calm atmosphere is a sine qua non for such for
mation.
THE INTENSITY OF LIGHTNING DISCHARGES AS INFLUENCED BY
MAN'S OPERATIONS.
There seems little reason to longer doubt that the exten
sive use to which electricity has been put by man, in co
operation with the various physiographic modifications
which have followed the path of civilizationcoal burning,
deforestation, drainage, etc.,has had a marked influence
upon the frequency and the intensity of lightning discharges.
The recently-published report of the Director of the Statis
tical Bureau of Berlin shows that this is almost indisputably
the case, and confirms generally the observations that were
made years before by Professor von Bezold in Bavaria.
This investigator found that the average yearly number of
fires caused by lightning between the years 1833 and 1843
was thirty-two ; between 1844 and 1865, fifty-two ; between
1866 and 1879, one hundred and three; and between 1880
and 1882, one hundred and thirty-two. In the year 1855
one hundred and thirty-four persons were struck by light
ning, seventy-three with fatal results; thirty years later this
number was increased to one hundred and eighty-nine, and
the fatal cases to one hundred and sixty-one.
Reviews.
379
REVIEWS.
FROM THE GREEKS TO DAKWIN. By HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN, Sc.D.
(MacMillan & Co., New York and London.)
A somewhat new and very interesting field of inquiry is opened in this
work, which is devoted to demonstrating that the doctrine of evolution, far
from being a child of the middle of the nineteenth century, of sudden birth
and phenomenally rapid growth, as it is by many supposed to be, has really
been in men's minds for ages. It appears in the germ in the earliest Greek
philosophy ; in vigorous childhood in the works of Aristotle; in adolescence at
the closing period of the last century, and reaches full-grown manhood in our
own age of scientific thought and indefatigable research. The volume before
us has grown out of lectures delivered by Professor Osborn at Princeton in 1 890,
supplemented by a fuller course given at Columbia College in 1893. Those
interested in the history of the theory of evolution would find it to their
advantage to peruse it, since it shows clearly not only that evolution was born
into the world before Darwin, but that a continuity in the development of the
idea can be traced from the days of Thales and his fellow philosophers to the
present time. It is true that, before the appearance of Darwin's "Origin of
Species," the steps of progress of the evolutionary theory were slow and un
certain, and that since the appearance of that epoch-making work more books
on evolution have been published each year than in all the preceding centuries ;
yet it is equally true that much which we now consider modern is really
ancient, and that we may discover in the utterances of Greek philosophers
vital conceptions which we fondly imagine children of our own day.
" We find," says Osborn, " ancient pedigrees for all that we are apt to con
sider modern. Evolution has reached its present fullness by slow additions in
twenty-four centuries. When the truths and absurdities of Greek, medieval
and sixteenth to nineteenth century speculation and observation are brought
together, it becomes clear that they form a continuous whole ; that the influ
ences of early upon later thought are greater than has been believed ; that
Darwin owes more even to the Greeks than we have ever recognized."
The law of the " Survival of the Fittest," for instance, recently stated by
Darwin and Spencer, " has been re-told or re-discovered several times over,"
and was clearly postulated more than two thousand years ago by Aristotle
though he rejected it as the true law of the progress of life. What must be
said, however, is that until within recent years speculation far outran the
knowledge of corroborating facts. The ideas of the Greeks came to them from
a minimum of observation and a maximum of speculation, and it is only
within recent years that the necessity of facts as a basis for theory has been
demonstrated. In the domain of evolution this was first clearly perceived by
Darwin and Spencer, and it is to the solid foundation of observation on which
380
Reviews.
the " Origin of Species" is erected that the former owes his present command
ing position as the high priest of evolution. In our day this theory has been
buttressed with facts, nd is accepted by the world. In the pat,t it was shored
up with fancy, and the world passed by unseeing or unheeding.
GLACIAL GEOLOGY op GREAT BRITIAN AND IRELAND. By HENRY CABVILL LEWIS, M.A., F.G.S. (Longmans, Green & Co., London and New
York.)
This work consists of the undigested papers and notes of Professor Lewis,
left at his sudden death in 1888, and since edited, at the earnest instance of
Mrs. Lewis, by his friend, Rev. Henry \V, Crosskey, who also has since died.
It is full of fertile suggestions, valuable in themselves, and forming the ground
work of what would doubtless have been, had the author lived, an able and
original work on British glacial geology.
Professor Lewis was in his college days an ardent student of astronomy and
geology, and afterward turned his attention to mineralogy, of which branch of
science he was made professor by tbe Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila
delphia. He was a man of excellent scientific acquirements, and possessed of
an enthusiastic spirit of research, his investigations in glacial phenomena
taking him over a great extent of territory in America and Europe, while hU
close observation and his powers of generalization gave much scientific value
to the results. In the United States he traced the great terminal moraine
across the width of the State of Pennsylvania, and made a full ttudy of its
characteristic features. Going to Ireland in 1885, he began a series of exten
sive journeys through that island and Great Britian, making a study of glacial
phenomena at numerous points, and giving bis views with a freshness that
attracted wide and favorable attention from British geologists. His unfor
tunate death removed one who would certainly have made bis mark in the
world of science. The papers which he left behind him, and which are here
given to the world, are well worthy the attention of geologists, from their
many fertile suggestions in relation to the movements of glaciers in the
British islands and their various effects. One of the more interesting of these
relates to Moel Tryfan, a Welsh mountain, upon which, at a height of one
thousand three hundred and fifty feet, occurs a deposit of sea shells, which
has long been held as evidence that Great Britain was submerged to at least
that depth during the glacial epoch. Professor Lewis's observations went far
to confirm an opposite and more probable theory, which had been advanced
by others, that these shells reached their lofty elevation through tbe advance
of a glacier, which moved from Ireland across the Irish Channel, scouring
the sea bottom as it went, and leaving this and other marks of its presence on
the Welsh mountains. So the old theories die one by one, and new ones come
to take their places, as observation widens and facts accumulate.
THE CANADIAN ICE AGE, by SIR JOHN WILLIAM DAWSON, F.R.S., etc.
(The Scientific Publishing Company, New York.)
The work here named naturally falls into line with that just noticed, since
t consists of " Brief Notes on the Pleistocene Geology of Canada, with Especial
Reviews.
381
Reference to the Life of the Period and its Climatal Conditions." Those noted,
however, are fully worked out, and embrace papers which were published
from time to time in the "Canadian Geologist and Naturalist," and which
present a mass of interesting information bearing upon the history of the
northern half of North America in the Ice Age. Principal Dawson, we need
scarcely say to scientific readers, is an opponent of many of the views held by
students of glacial phenomena and of geology in general. He is one of the
most notable among the rapMly diminishing opponents of the Darwinian theory
of evolution, and is by DO means inclined to follow the hypothesis of glacial
activity to the height to which it has been carried. As regards the causes of
the phenomena ascribed to glaciers, he is disposed to seek them in geological
and geographical agencies rather than in astronomical influences, and believes
that glai ial action had by no means all to do with them. He is inclined, on
the contrary, to ascribe many of them to submergence and the action of ice
bergs and field ice borne from the Arctic seas over the sunken lands, upon
which they dropped their frozen-in earth and rocks as they slowly wasted
away. In short, he is strongly opposed to what he looks upon as the over
growth of the glacial theory and his work presents a series of arguments in
favor of the opposite point of view, *., that floating ice was an active agent
in pleistocene Canadian geology, and was the cause of much that is ordinarily
ascribed to the movement of continental glaciers.
THE CAUSE OF WARM AND FBIOID PERIODS, by C. A. M. TABER. (Geo. H.
Ellis, printer, Boston.)
While Principal Dawson takes his stand as a vigorous opponent of the pres
ent broad status of the glacial theory, the writer of the present work is disposed
to extend it considerably beyond its present boundaries, and advances what
seems a quite original hypothesis of the causes of alternate glacial and mild
epochs, and one of sufficient cogency not to be dismissed without some weigh
ing of his argument. While surely not the only cause of glacial phenomena,
as he appears to believe, it has a plausible claim to be considered by students
of glacial action. Mr. Taber, who has apparently sailed through all seas, and
studied the directions of the prevailing winds and surface currents in both
hemispheres and in the Arctic regions of the north and south alike, thinks
that these winds and currents are the principal and sufficient causes of
alternate warm and frigid conditions, and that we need go no further to seek
the origin of the age of glacial ice.
The trade winds move the waters of the tropical oceans. These heated
waters flow off north and south toward the frigid zones, in volumes and direc
tions dependent upon the shapes of the continents and the oceanic conditions,
and modify the Arctic climates by their heating effect upon the air. The
temperature of the Arctic zones depends in a considerable measure on the
depth to which they are penetrated by these tropical waters. At present, with
the existence of an unbroken circle of open seas south of America and Africa,
the oceanic current produced by the prevailing westerly winds sweeps around
the earth, and acts as a barrier to the southward movement of tropical currents
and a source of northward-flowing cold streams. As a result, frigid conditions
382
Reviews.
prevail unchecked in the south polar region, and a southern glacial age is
slowly coining en. The eflect of the gradual chilling of the southern water
by the extension of polar ice and the increasing fleet of icebergs is likely to be
double. The north-flowing Humboldt and Agulhas currents of cold waters
will increase in volume, and eventually carry icebergs northward to chill the
waters of the tropics ; and the deep under current toward the equator will
bear increased volumes of icy water into the tropical ocean depths. The result,
as Mr. Taber argues, must be to reduce the temperature of the surface waters
of the tropical seas, the heat of the solar rays being largely exhausted in over
coming these frigid conditions. As a consequence, the waters flowing north
and south from the torrid zone will be much less heated than now, and their
present eflect in checking the development of glacial conditions will be con
siderably decreased in both the polar regions.
If this process of refrigeration should continue until a new glacial age
develops, what will follow ? As it had its origin in the free sweep of westerly
winds around the circle of the southern oceans, it will end in the checking of
the cold current thus caused. The breadth of ocean between Cape Horn and
the Antarctic Continent will be gradually narrowed by the extension of land
ice north and south and the grounding of bergs in the shallow regions of the
channel. Eventually greater bergs will be anchored in the deeper regions,
and a wall of ice connect the two land masses, effectually closing off the great
Antarctic current. This done, the strong westerly winds will blow the waters
from the eastern border of South America and of the wall of ice, making a low
sea level into which the tropical waters must naturally be drawn. The frigid
seas will grow warmer, the bottom return current be less chilled, and the heat
ing eflect of the tropical solar rays increased. From all this must result a
gradual amelioration of climate, both south and north, through which the
frigid conditions will gradually disappear, and a warm period set in. In the
end the melting of the ice wall will permit the present cenditions to return,
and open the way to a new glacial cycle. Such is a bald and partial outline
of Mr. Taber"s interesting hypothesis. Its weak and questionable point is that
it requires the closing by ice of the Cape Horn channel, an hypothesis which
is not very likely to gain acceptance.
FAUNA OP THE DEEP SEA, by SYDNEY J. HICKSON, M. A. (D. Appleton
& Co., New York.)
This latest volume of the " Modern Science Series "which, under the able
editorship of Sir John Lubbock, is devoted to popular expositions of scientific
themesis likely to prove one of its most acceptable. It deals with a subject
in which the public cannot but be strongly interested, and in a lucid manner
w hich is calculated to make the work attractive. The modern thirst for explor
ation of the earth's surface, which has gone so far toward solving the mys
teries of geography and physiography within the past quarter of a century,
has been directed with almost equal energy toward the problems of the deep
peas, and the dredging work of the Challenger, the Albatross, the Blake, and
other vessels has opened a new world to our ken, and remarkably modified
our views concerning the conditions and inhabitants of the ocean depths.
Reviews.
383
The sea bottom was long a terra incognita to mankind. It is no longer so.
Within the past twenty years an extraordinary amount of information con
cerning it has been gained, particularly as regards its living inhabitants,
which are found to be more numerous, varied and strange than any zoological
dreamer had conceived. Instead of being a world of death, the deep sea is a
world of life. As to the character of this life, three questions needed to be
answered. 1st. Do deep sea animals show any striking correlation with the
physical conditions of their habitat? 2d. Whence were they derived ; did
they originate in the ocean depths, or are they the results of immigration
from the shallow frhore waters or the surface of the ocean? 3d. Are they of
ancient origin or the results of recent immigration? To these questions satis
factory answers can now be made. The animals in question are none of them,
so far as is known, of deep sea origin, but are the results of immigration from
higher levels and subsequent modification, their relationship to well-known
forms being quite evident. They are not of ancient origin ; no palaeozoic forms
have been discovered, and it is not probable that the existing deep sea fauna
began earlier than the cretacious epoch. As regards their source, some of
them may have come from the pelagic zone, but the great multitude evidently
made their way downward from the shallow water region, of whose fauna
they are specially modified types. This is also indicated by the richness of
life in the sections of the deep sea adjoining the land. The western slopes of
the Atlantic floor are exceptionally rich in living forms, and this rule gener
ally holds good. The modifications which these immigrants to the deep
waters have experienced have been numerous, and in two directions are of
particular interest. The first of these relates to their eyes. These have be
come either very large or very small. In depths over one thousand fathoms
the small-eyed and blind forms predominate, while at less depths the largeeyed are in excess. This is the case not only with fishes, but with crustaceans
and other eye-bearing classes. The second striking modification is in the
development of phosphorescent organs, many of these animals being possessed
of extraordinary light-yielding powers, and capable of, in a measure, illumi
nating depths of ocean to which no solar ray can ever penetrate. These ap
pendages are of two kinds: Eye-like organs which extend in rows down the
sides of the body; and glandular organs at the extremity of barbels, or in
broad patches behind the eyes or in other prominent places on the head and
shoulders. The latter serve as a sort of miner's lamp to light the creature
through the sunless depths of its chosen habitation. \Ve give these few hints
from the story of the deep seas from their alluring interest. There is a mul
titude more to be learned by those who care to pursue the subject further, and
Mr. Hickson's book may serve as a useful guide.
LAW AXD THEORY IN CHEMISTRY, by DOUGLAS CARNEGIE, M. A. (Long
mans, Green & Co., London and New York.)
This volume, which contains the substance of eight lectures delivered to
teachers of chemistry at Colorado College, Colorado Springs, is not offered
as an elementary or consecutive text-book, but as a " Companion Book for
Students," one of those supplementary reading books which are now becom
384
Reviews.
ing so common and so useful in our schools of every grade. It does not
seek to embrace the whole field of chemical science, but treats intelligently
aud interestingly of such subjects as alchemy and the birth of scientific chem
istry ; the phlogistic period and the beginning of chemical theory; chemical
classification, compounds, elements, etc. ; the atomic theory ; classification of
compoundsacids, bases and salts; isomerism and molecular architecture,
and chemical equilibrium. It presents an excellent popular exposition of
chemistry within the scope of the subjects mentioned, and is likely to prove
of value to advanced students.
THE UNITED STATES ; FACTS AND FIGURES ILLUSTRATING THE PHYSICAL
GEOGRAPHY OF THE COUNTRY AND ITS NATURAL RESOURCES, by J. D.
WHITNEY. (Little, Brown & Co., Boston.)
A number of years ago Mr. Whitney published a work under this title,
which was essentially an expansion of an article originally written for the
" Encyclopaedia Brittanica," and gave a great amount of interesting and useful
detail concerning the resources of the United States. To this the present
work is a " Supplement," devoted to the subjects of population, immigration
and irrigation, upon which it contains a host of facts drawn from the statistics
of the census of 1890. It is particularly devoted to the important subject of
irrigation, the consideration of which makes up the great bulk of the work ;
among its topics being the distribution of population in accordance with rain
fall ; the slow growth of population in the arid region ; the introduction and
effects of irrigation ; the problem of the artesian well in the United States and
elsewhere ; that of subterranean waters and the methods of utilizing them ; the
development of irrigation from rivers and smaller streams; the question of
mountain reservoirs and of governmental control of the streams capable of
being developed as sources of irrigation, and various other topics bearing upon
this highly important question, upon which so largely depends the future prog
ress of population and agricultural industry in the arid regions of the United
States. The information given cannot but prove of interest, and further sup
plementary volumes dealing with other census topics may be usefully produced.
THE
NEW SCIENCE REVIEW

Copyright, 1891,, by The TrantaJtlnntic Publishing Company.
VOL. I.
APRIL, 1895.
No. 4.
THE ELEMENTS.
BY WILLIAM CROOKES, F.R.S.
"What are the elements ? Those ingredients of which every
natural substance is ultimately composed, and into which it
may be resolved. Beings animate and inanimate, the earth
beneath our feet, the stars revealed to us by the telescope,
the minutest microbia which almost escape detection by our
most improved microscope, all consist of elements. They
make up all matter; they may be solid, liquid, or gaseous,
perhaps even ultra-gaseous ; they may exist in a state of
absolute purity or in a state of mixture or combination.
But we cannot destroy them, form them again, nor trans
mute one into another. They differ greatly in their proper
ties, but still they have certain features in common. We
know some seventy kinds of elements, apparently distinct ;
they all occupy space and all possess weight and inertia ; they
are the possible forms which matter, as we at present know
it, assumes, and in some directions they are the present limits
of our knowledge of nature.
The name " elements" has at different times been applied
in very different ways. The ancient philosophers of Greece
assumed the existence of four elements, viz., earth, air, water
and fire. But they used these words in a different sense
from ours. Their earth was the principle of solidity, their
VOL. 125
(385)
386
The Elements.
water that of liquidity, their air that of volubility or gaseity,

and their fire might stand for energy, not a substance but a
force.
The alchemists had three elements, sulphur, salt and mer
cury. But their sulphur was not our sulphur, but a mystical
principle of inflammability; their mercury was not our mer
cury, but a supposed principle of metallity; and their salt
meant solubility.
A little later the chemists of the eighteenth century con
jured up an element which they named phlogiston, by which
they sought to explain almost all chemical phenomena. The
modern idea of force and energy is not greatly different from
that which underlaid the term phlogiston.
The modern chemical elements have in them nothing met
aphysical and mystical. They are simply those bodies which
never diminish in weight as a consequence of any chemical
reaction. We can add to them but we can take nothing
away from them. It must not, however, be rashly inferred
that our elements are absolutely incapable of decomposition.
All that we are entitled to say is simply that hitherto we
have not been able to decompose them. To-morrow we may
possibly find a method by which they may be resolved into
something simpler. Indeed, a variety of considerations lead
us to suppose that such will ultimately be the case. To find
out these absolute elements should be the grand goal of
modern chemistry.
The elements may be regarded as common or as rare. But
we must remember that our knowledge of the composition
of the earth's body is very imperfect, superficial in the most
literal sense. Of its interior we know no more than we do
of some of the neighboring planetsin some respects even
less. Could we penetrate but ten miles downward we might
encounter startling results. Few parts even of the earth's
surface have been so fully explored that we can assert what
they may or may not contain ; this is eminently the case with
those vast regions which lie beneath the sea. Even concern
ing the accessible portions of the globe it often happens that
elements little known are found to be comparatively plentiful
The Elements.
387
if they are sought for with care. So long as auy substance

is regarded as worthless the prospector and the miner pass
it over with indifference. As instances we may mention
strontium, which is now used in refining beet sugar ; lithium
and cerium, which are used in medicine; yttrium, which is
used for lighting purposes, and vanadium, once sold at Is. Qd.
a grain, and now obtained in sufficient quantity to be used
in producing aniline blacks in the tissue printing works.
Even nickel has been obtained in much larger quantities
since its extended uses in the arts have led to its being more
carefully sought for. On the other hand, tellurium and thal
lium are at present being thrown away in quantity because
the demand is insufficient for any one tp care to incur the
expense of their collection.
An important step toward an understanding of the origin
of the elements and their mutual relations has been effected
by the periodic law of Newlands and Mendeleeff. If we
arrange the elements in the order of their atomic weights, it
has been found that many of their properties appear as a
periodic function of these weights. Here, however, much
work still remains to be done before the periodic law can stand
on the same plane of probability as the atomic theory or the
law of Avogadro. Some elements seem equally entitled to
more than one place in the classification ; some of the atomic
weights, such as those of nickel and cobalt, approach each
other too closely, whilst in other parts of the series inconve
nient gaps occur. Some of these may be filled up by the
metals of the so-called rare earths.
The periodic law seems to throw a strong light on the
probable formation of the elements. We cannot suppose that
they have existed as we now find them from all eternity, nor
yet that they have at some unknown time originated by
accident ; against such a supposition the probability is many
millions to one. Nor is it reasonable to imagine that
they were created suddenly, such as we now find them, by a
special fiat. The most probable view is that they have been
gradually evolved on a fore-ordained plan, which we are now
beginning to perceive.
388
7 he Elements.
*
The gaps in Mendeleeff 's system, and the rare earths which
seem likely to fill them, occur at about the same places. It
is also noteworthy that the minerals containing the rare
earths are very unequally distributed. Siberia, Norway aud
certain regions of the United States seem to be their chief
localities. In other countries, so far as exploration has de
termined, they appear to be absent. How is this? It may
be that when all parts of the earth have been thoroughly
explored, we shall obtain supplies of the rare earths from
Australia, from India, or Africa. It may be that the con
ditions under which the primitive universal element (or as
I have elsewhere ventured to call it after the example of
Roger Bacon, the prolyl) has been developed into such ele
ments as scandium, yttrium, ytterbium, erbium and their
associates, have been of exceedingly rare and of local occur
rence. Or it perhaps may be that these elements have been
formed not on our globe at all, but in some other portion of
space, and may then have reached us in the form of a shower
or showersof meteoric stones. According to present
appearances, the minerals containing the rare earths are con
fined to the northern hemisphere. The supposed meteoric
shower which brought them to our globe, falling at intervals
during twenty-four hours on the upper half of the northern
hemisphere, would pass over Siberia, Norway, the north
Atlantic and North America. In this connection we may
mention that pure crystalline carbon, in the form of the
diamond, which is also assumed by some geologists to have
a meteoric origin, is chiefly confined to the southern hemis
phere, as in the deposits of South Africa, Brazil and Aus
tralia.
Exception may be taken to all such hypotheses, on the
ground that the many meteoric stones which have been sub
mitted to careful analysis have not thrown much light on
this important question. In a few instances, minute dia
monds have been found in meteorites, but no analytical
scrutiny has revealed to us any of the rare earths, with the
exception of one case, where the present writer found traces
of yttria in the Alfianello meteorite, the proportion being
The Elements.
389
about one part in one hundred thousand. Yet we must re

member that meteorites falling in many extensive regions of
the earth have remained unexamined, and that a majority of
such arrivals have fallen into the sea ; and, moreover, the
period of time during which the protyl was integrating into
the rare elements might have been not only of limited dura
tion but completed long before the commencement of geo
logical epochs. If, as shown in my " Genesis of the Ele
ments," they have been formed by a series of progressive
condensations of the protyl, whilst the initial energy, analo
gous to decrease of temperature, of the original "fire-mist,"
was gradually declining, we should expect that the element*
generated in different regions of the universe would not be
identical. According to the best observations, the spectra of
those stars which give out a purely white light and are sup
posed to be the hottest, are the simplest ; their chief con
stituent being hydrogen. Others, such as our sun, of a
yellow color and a less degree of brilliance, have more com
plex spectra.
It must be remembered that we have by no means dis
covered and identified all the elementary bodies existing
.within onr reach. A remarkable feature of some of the less
known elements is the very slight difference between the
properties of the different members of the group. To almost
every known chemical test they are identical in their be
haviour, and the task of deciding whether a given substance
is a new element or a mixture of two or more recognized
bodies is one in which mistakes have been made by chemists
pf the highest eminence.
To separate such closely allied elements as are some ot
the rare earths may well tax the highest resources of chemi
cal science, but it is a slightly less difficult undertaking to
detect the presence of any given body in the presence of
other allied bodies. For purposes of detection the spectro
scope is, without doubt, the most searching instrument at
the command of scientific men. It is a key for unlocking
some of the profoundest mysteries of the earth and the celes
tial bodies ; the astronomer, the physicist, the chemist, the
390
The Elements.
biologist, all find it a sure guide. There are various means

in which it can be used with advantage. For some elements
the absorption spectra are characteristic. When a beam of
white light is examined in the spectroscope, it is fanned out
into the well known prismatic spectrum. If now a solution
of certain elementsdidymium, samarium, erbium, thulium,
holmiumis interposed in the path of the beam of light,
portions of the spectrum will be blotted out and the ordinary
series of colors will be broken up by numerous black bands
and sharp lines. As each of the above mentioned elements
has a special system of dark lines of its own, it is not diffi
cult for an experienced spectroscopist to recognize the pres
ence of either of these elements from an examination of
the absorption spectra, even when present in complicated
admixture.
Another method, more universally applicable, but vastly
more difficult than the former, is to produce what is called
the dark spectrum of the element. The spark produced
by an induction coil, intensified by the intercalation of a
Leyden jar, volatilizes and renders incandescent minute por
tions of any substance submitted to its action, whether it
be solid, liquid, or gsseous. Every element gives a special
system of bright lines, forming its characteristic "spark
spectrum." Some of these spectra are extremely compli
cated, comprising hundreds of lines, and when mixtures are
being dealt with, the accurate mapping of all the lines and
their allocation to their own special element is a matter
tedious and difficult in the highest degree.
For detecting a large group of the rare elements a third
system of spectroscopythat of the examination of their
phosphorescent spectrais preeminently the best. It would
extend the limits of this article to too great a length were
the method of inducing phosphorescence in the rare eartha
to be entered on in detail. Suffice it to say that when a
high tension electric current is passed over certain of the
rare earths, especially those of the yttria and samaria
groups, sealed in a glass tube, and the enclosed air is ex
hausted to a high degree, they shine with a bright phod
The Elements.
391
phoresceut light, and when this light is examined in the

spectroscope it is seen to consist of discontinuous bands and
lines of light. Experience extending over many years has
shown that, as in the other cases, each element of these
groups has a special series of lines and bands of its own,
and by their careful interpretation, information, not only as
to the separate elements present, but as to the more intimate
constitution of the so-called elements themselves, can be
obtained. More recently the indications of the phosphor
escent spectra have been registered by photography in a
specially devised spectograph, in which every part of the
optical trainvacuum tube, condensers, lenses, prismsis
of quartz, while the jaws of the slit are made of the edges
of accurately ground quartz prisms, and the photographic
plate is curved to the proper arc to receive the different rays
of the spectrum, each at its own focus. By this means the
eye observations are enormously extended, and the powers
of the spectroscope are correspondingly increased. 'With
yttrium, for instance, different groups and systems of lines
are seen to fade out or intensify according to the chemical
operation to which the element has been subjected, and it
has been satisfactorily shown that, between the rank of ele
ments and the original substratum of protyl, an interme
diate rank of " meta-elements " will have to be admitted.
We here recur to the question, "What is an element? How
and where are we to draw the line ? There seem to be dif
ferent grades in the elemental hierarchy. Chlorine and
bromine differ from each other much less widely than does
either of them from oxygen, potassium or iron. Nickel and
cobalt are still closer to each other, and had the compounds
of these two elements been alike in color instead of being
almost mutually complementary, their distinct character
might scarcely yet have passed beyond the sphere of con
troversy. But if we come to the elements of the " rare
earths," we no longer stand on firm ground. The dividing
line, e.g., between neodymium and praseodymium depends
on no broad principles. And how is it then with the ele
mental or rather meta-elemental bodies whose existence has
392
The Elements.
been recently made known by Kriiss and Nilson ? Here it

becomes scarcely possible to draw any definite line. The
different groups shade off so imperceptibly into each other
that we cannot find a definite boundary. Slight chemical
differences are entitled to be admitted, and also slight phy
sical differences, but we are soon confronted with the ques
tion, What is chemical and what is physical? If we find
in one solution that a nascent amorphous precipitate has a
tendency to fall down more readily than in another solu
tion, is not that a physical difference? May we not call
colored reactions depending, perhaps, on the amount of
some particular acid present, and varying according to the
solvent employed, and the concentration of the solution,
chemical differences ? Can we grant elemental rank to one
substance which differs from another by decided color reac
tions and spectroscopic behaviour, and still refuse it to an
other substance whose claim is a slight, though decided,
differencein excess or in deficiencyof basic character?
A new groupa sort of suspense groupseems to be the
most reasonable means of avoiding the difficulty, and hence
my suggestion of meta-elements, into which it appears likely
that many of the well-recognized elements are resolvable,
has been generally accepted by chemists. We are, how ever,
here dealing with some of the most difficult problems that a
man of science can have submitted to him, and much re
search will have to be gone through, and a long time must
be spent, before a really new chemistry of elements and
meta-elements can be constituted.
Autobiographical Notes.
393
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES.
Br PROF. RICHARD A. PROCTOR.
[We are fortunate in being able to give, through the courtesy of Miss
Mary Proctor, the following highly interesting details of the life history of
the late distinguished astronomer, written by himself in 1886, and left among
his posthumous papers. Miss Proctor writes as follows :
"To bring the abstruse science of astronomy within the reach of all, was
the aim and ambition of my father, the late Richard A. Proctor, and it may
prove interesting to trace the growth of his work. I have before me a few
pages of his autobiography, telling of his earlier attempts, which show clearly
enough the difficulties with which he had to contend in the earlier part of
his career. But his efforts were undoubtedly crowned with success, for by
means of his popular lectures and writings on astronomy he brought this ab
struse science within the reach of all. He revealed to those who had not time
or inclination for scientific research the wonders of the depths of space and
the possibilities of life in other worlds than ours. His popular lectures on
astronomy were of great value to many who, unable to give the time to scien
tific study, were enabled in this way to gain, at least, a general idea of modern
scientific methods and results. He wrote, in all, fifty-seven books on astron
omy, his last work, "Old and New Astronomy," being the result of twenty '
years' preparation and study. With regard to this book he wrote as follows,
in the New York Tribune: ' 1 intend to write a systematic work on astronomy,
putting into a final ibnn the results of my studies, now scattered through my
essays, lectures, and magazine articles.' This last and most important work,
to which he had given his best energies, was unfinished at his death, but as he
left considerable material for the remaining chapters, the book was completed
by his friend, Arthur Cowper Banyard."]
A few months after leaving Cambridge, in my quiet

home at Ayr, free from all anxieties about maintenance
(for I had inherited ample means), I began in a very modest
and quiet way the study of some astronomical matters, to
which my attention had been attracted by two books picked
up at a book stall in Glasgow. Those books were, Nichol's
" Architecture of the Heavens," and Mitchell's " Popular
Astronomy." I bought a telescope, which I mounted after
a fashion devised by myselfa plan pictured in my little
" Half Hours with the Stars," and subsequently in " Cham
ber's Astronomy," with all due acknowledgment. 'With
this small telescope I fed my growing zeal for astronomical
394
study, until something like that special interest in the study

which I have felt now for about a quarter of a century
began to arise in me.
In the meantime my first born was attracting an amount
of attention from me which will probably aeem absurd to
fathers whose daily vocations take them much from the
family circleat least during the hours when the little ones
are at large. As I noted his growing intelligence, and as
simultaneously my love for science increased, I became
possessed of the desire to fit myself to be his teacher in
astronomy and mathematics during those earlier years of
life, which, in my own case, had passed under the stupid
system of cramming the dry husks of knowledge then pur
sued, and I fear pursued still, at colleges and schools. But
as I studied with this chief end in view, and content to
hope that I could teach him the elements of knowledge,
there came upon me frequently a desire to communicate
to others matters of interest which I had noticed during
my studies, and waich I had found either insufficiently
described or not noticed at all in the books. Again and
again I attempted the task of exposition, but I was always
dissatisfied with what I wrote. I still possess a great heap
of papers which I wrote for my boy ; but the papers I
wrote for publication I systematically destroyed within a
few weeks of writing them, because I found on reading
them over that they were either wanting in clearness or im
perfect in style and manner. The first article I ever ven
tured to forward to an editor, as less unsatisfactory than
those I had thus far written, was an article on " The Color*
of Double Stars." It will give an idea of the difficulty
with which I then wrote on scientific matters for popular
reading, to state that I was engaged more than six weeks
over that short article of nine pages. Often I would not
complete more than four or five lines in a day with which.
I was satisfied, so that, as I canceled all else, my work went
on very slowly indeed.
395
In the meantime, however, the special reason I had for

beginning my work had passed away, and I learnedsadly,
as most of us learn such lessonsto find, in work begun
for one very dear to me, the best balm for a very deep
wound. I was losing health and strength, after the death
of my eldest son, and I was strongly advised by the doctor
to interest myself in some work which would occupy me
for at least a year, that a large part of each day's thought
and study should be devoted to that task. The task I
undertook, in response to this much-needed suggestion, was
the preparation for a treatise on " Saturn and its System."
The work went on busily, though not cheerfully, for move
than a year. The work I first undertook when my
" Saturn" had been safely launched was a " Star-atlas," and
later on the "Handbook of the Stars." The book was
ready for the preas when its publication was interrupted by
a circumstance which came near bringing my scientific
work to an abrupt conclusion.
Toward the end of May, 1866, a bank called the New
Zealand Banking Corporation, in which the bulk of my
property had been invested, collapsed suddenly and com
pletely. It was one of the banks brought to ruin by the
failure of the great discounting house of Overend, Gurney
and Company, the famous " Corner House." I was the
second largest shareholder in that unfortunate New Zealand
Banking Corporation, and the largeness of my holding
meant now no longer property, but largeness of liability.
Not to enter into the details of a disastrous business, the
full settlement of which occupied two or three years, I may
simply note, that in June, 1866, 1 left my pleasant home,
near Plymouth, to enter on the struggle of lifea struggle
almost for lifein London ; and when the balance of my
property had been disposed of, to meet, as far as the pro
ceeds would go, my share of the bank's liability, I was
left with an uncleared liability of about thirteen thousand
pounds (sixty-six thousand dollars), and no property what
ever. Thus I found myself beginning that struggle under
conditions much more trying than those which had often
396
moved my sympathies in reading the records of literary

beginnings in London. A lad of about eighteen, coming
to London, with half a crown perhaps in his pocket, and
creative powers in poetry and fiction or the like as his
literary capital, has, doubtless, an arduous task before him,
and many who have begun literary life under such condi
tions have lost heart, or have been defeated despite their
most earnest eftbrts. I was not a lad of eighteen, but had
already entered my thirtieth year. I had not half a crown
in my pocket, but less than nothing ; and I had not for
literary capital creative powers in a subject in which all
men take interest, but simply a power of generalization in
a subject regarded as abstruse, with a possible chance of
learning how, by special care in exposition, to interest a
small section of the general public in the popular study of
that subject. To add to my anxieties, I had not only my
self, but a family of five persons in all, to maintain out of
the hitherto untried resources of scientific literature. The
taste I had for scientific research, as well as scientific ex
position, was against me, for scientific research is not re
munerative. I may say. indeed, that, so far as I knew,
scientific exposition was not likely to be remunerative
either; and I had no particular taste for it, as my slow
progress with my essay on the "Double Stars" had shown.
But I may say, that the morning after I heard of the
bank's failure, and from that day onward, I did not take
one day's holiday from the work which I found essential for
my family's maintenance. I found science writing slow and
unprofitable work. I was as yet little known to the editors
of magazines and journals, and for success in popular writing
on science one must be, in some degree, known, since few
editors are sufficiently versed in scientific matters to be able
to distinguish between correct science and finely-worded
ignorance.
In the autumn of 1867, when I had at last entered defi

nitely on literary work, I passed through experiences enough
Genius: The Modelfor Educational Methods.
397
to age a man ten years in as many weeks. Sickness and

death in the family, sorrows and disappointments, which
need not here be touched on, fell upon me. But the darkest
hour comes before dawn ; and soon after this dismal time
the dawn began. Since that time, though I have had to
work hard, I have not been troubled, as I had long been
before, by the sickening blows of repeated disappointments.
Of work which tells none need complain ; nay, it is a bless
ing ; but work thrown away tries the strongest and most
enduring;.
GENIUS: THE MODEL FOR EDUCATIONAL

METHODS.
BY WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN.1

Genius has ever been looked upon as abnormal, erratic,
and beyond all ordinary humanity. It hae been considered
a marvelous power, with no more relation to ordinary man
than a fairy. It is commonly spoken of as above all law,
as even a law unto itself. Genius is not above law, it
represents but perfect, unconscious obedience to law. The
genius is simply the man in whom nature has succeeded, in
some line. Genius should be accepted as the model for
education, the incarnate revelation of nature's perfect
working in some line. The psychology of genius should
be the psychology of education, and to give the large lines
of this thought is the object of this paper. Mental Training
by analysis, law, and analogy takes genius as its aim,
its inspiration, its revelation. The philosophy of Froebel
is based on a study of the child-mind in all its phases, the
instinctive working of nature unperverted by " education."
Frcebelism is based on the study of spontaneous tendencies
and methods, the mere rudimentary dawnings of activity,
1 Author of " Mental Training : A. Kemedy for Education," in the October,
1894, number of THE NEW SCIENCE REVIEW, which outlined a, plan of train
ing the mind, based on analysis, law and analogy.
398
Genius: The Model for Educational Methods.
while Mental Training studies all these phases and ten

dencies as they are magnified, and finds supreme develop
ment in the mind of genius. These two educational
methods, studying the subject from extreme opposite views,
are essentially in harmony in idea and general method. The
kindergarten philosophy, excellent as it is, is limited in its
term ; it is cut only in children's sizes. What is needed for
true education is a training that will begin where the kin
dergarten work ends, a system that can be carried not
merely through school and college, but through all life,
and such a system is Mental Training.
The relation of genius and education upon which our
thought is based is given in these definitions. Education,
in any line, is conscious training of mind or body to act
unconsciously. When this action or obedience is true, per
fect, instant, and unconscious, it is genius in that line. A
student of music, a pianist, may be taken as an example.
Here the ability consists of two partsthe power of the
mind to read the notes and understand their values and
relations, and the power of the fingers to respond to the
findings of the mind, and to express its discovery in move
ments that appear to the ear as sounds. His musical edu
cation is this twofold trainingdiscovery of the law of
music by the mind, and obedience to this law by the fingers.
This is but analysis by the mind, and synthesis, or the ex
pression of the analysis, by the fingers. At first, progress
is slow, stiff", laborious, and uncomfortably conscious. As
the training continues, day by day, the mind feels less and
less the intenseuess of conscious obedience to the laws it
discovers, and the fingers act easier, freer, and with less
conscious effort. This is commonly expressed by the phrase
" force of habit," but force of habit is itself but the uncon
scious action resulting from conscious training. Suppose
this obedience of our pianist to the laws of mind and
fingers be true, instant, perfect and unconscious, we have
then in him this ability in its supreme form ; it shows
what is termed the " divine spark" of a Rubenstein, and
this player is a genius.
Genius: 1 he Modelfor Educational Methods.
399
Every step too, in this progress, is one step nearer genius.

It may be said that "a brilliant pianist, however carefully
he may study and think, at last reaches a point of ultimate
perfection, yet far removed from the genius of a Rubenstein."
This is true, yet the particular point varies ; it is relative ;
it represents what he considers his maximum obedience to
law. Rubenstein, by force of genius, goes beyond this, but
he does so only by obeying the law still further. It is
no wild eccentric departure from law, but simply -con
tinued and developed obedience. The point here to be made
is that genius, this " divine spark," as it is called, is but a
pimple evolution of aptness. The progressive stages in the
evolution may be roughly designated as aptness, cleverness,
talent, great talent, genius ; each being but an evolution, a
perfecting of the power preceding, each being but a more
perfect and less conscious obedience to law. So it is in all
lines of human effort. The child who first looks with
wondering eyes at a star is at one end of the line, Tycho
Brahe, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Leverrier, Newton and
other astronomers are further on, and that line melts into
the infinite and finds its end and eternal perfection in God.
But we are all on one line. All men have within them the
same elements, mental, moral and physical, and all obey the
same laws ; the difference between individuals is only in the
varying degrees of development of those elements. The
four-leaved clover may be looked at as the genius among
clovers, but under the searching eye of the microscope
every three-leaved clover reveals the germ, the rudiment of
the fourth leaf, that needs but development. So it is in the
mental world. There is no monopoly on genius. Genius is
held by no syndicate or trust of specially favored men,
singled out by their Creator for special divine favor, subject
to special laws for themselves alone. Genius in any line is
but wondrous development of elements present in all men ;
it is marvelous, developed, unconscious obedience to law
that we may discover and apply for ourselves as the basis of
all true education.
400
We have not here space to enter into a study of the

physical, physiologic, and psychic causes working in unity
with heredity and environment which make the genealogy
of factors that brings the genius to light. These we can
touch on only suggestively in passing, but when some great
genius appears before a wondering world like Venus emerg
ing from the sea, the same law has been in action, as in
every other individual. If the whole life, every thought,
every motion, every act, in mind and body of any genius in
the world were to be made visible and luminant to us, if we
could then see in the same relentless totality all the life of
all his ancestors, with the power of the full knowledge of
perfect law to interpret all and to see every trifle in its true
relation, we must see that genius as normal and regular a
product of the working of law as are we ourselves. Through
heredity, and the vitalizing by need and opportunity and
other powerful favoring conditions, that genius in his un
conscious obedience to law is the natural and necessary
outcome of the conditions. It is an obedience to law that,
in proportion to our powers, may be as a million to one., but
he has only the same elements as we, and obeys precisely
the same laws, the differences between us being only in
development. We are on the same line as he, we progress
in exactly the same manner, differing only in degree. If it
were not so, every man must then be a separate and distinct
creation of the Almighty.
Any system of education or of mental training that does
not look at genius in any line as simply the perfect and
unconscious obedience to law for that effect, must be wrong.
If every genius be an exception, if it be a special gift,
a special God-given power as we say, then too must be
every talent, every aptness ; then all minds become special,
each a law unto itself, and all basis of unity, of uniformity,
of system of training, is lost and impossible. Education
in any line of lifeart, music, oratory, drama, conversation,
any powermust look ever at genius in that line as its aim,
its ertd, its source of light, its revelation of the perfect
working of law. It is otten claimed that genius is a mar
Genius : The Modelfor Educational Methods.
401
velous power that instantly forces universal recognition.

The history of all time proves this view to be false. The
world takes at least two generations of perspective to prop
erly appreciate a genius. The world thinks slowly, and
often requires decades of cerebration to reach and realize
the thoughts of one of its boldest thinkers. Men take
the greatest mind in any sphere of mental effort in any
age of the world, the supreme power at that time, and then
coolly ask: "If genius be not a special gift, a wonderful
divine spark, why have we no equal to this man?" It is
simply because they select the greatest, and he cannot be
surpassed in his line. If he were surpassed he would no
longer be greatest, the new light would be the genius, the
old one merely talent. " Genius eclipsed or surpassed
ceases to be genius." So, practically, says the world.
Philip II. of Macedon, was a great military genius, Alex
ander, his son, surpassed him, then Alexander became the
genius and Philip but a "great military leader and the
father of Alexander the Great." So did Shakespeare dwarf
all his contemporaries.
The most common and specious argument that is brought
in favor of what may be termed " the miracle conception "
of genius, is that " so many of the mighty masters of the
world came from parents who betrayed no evidence of
the power." But it is not necessary, for instance, that the
parents of an artist-genius should paint. A genius, like
all other men, is the child not only of heredity but also
of environment. He may have received through heredity
but a quick eye, and an appreciation of sunsets and the
beauty of nature's common-place. This mere seed of ability
placed in a new, warm, generating environment, through
years of development, flowered into genius. A French
scientist recently investigated the Hindoo mango trick,
in which a seed planted in the presence of the audience
grew within the space of an hour to a tree a foot
high. He found the Fakirs always used a prepared earth,
which he at length discovered was taken from ant
hills. He found this earth was charged with formic
VOL. 126
402
Genius : The Modelfor Educational Methods.
acid, which had the power of bursting the seed integument

and of wondrously quickening the growth of the germ
within. A quickening environment acts in the same way
in mental growth. An intense crucial moment in the life
of an individual may focus and reveal characteristics hith
erto unknown, unsuspected. The coward of a life-time
becomes the hero that leads armies. Accept the analogy,
and this mystery of genius becomes the revelation of the
process working in all life. The simple hearted, sensitive
gentleness, oneness of purpose, honesty and broad humanity
that in Nancy Hanks remained obscure and unnoted, illu
minated the whole world with the torch of freedom held in
the hand of Abraham Lincoln, her son.
But genius, it is claimed, is " original." They say the word
" original " in a large liberal way as if they had solved the
question"Genius is bold, original, soaring above all others,
dependent on no others." But Shakespeare, the most original
of all dramatists, was most dependentstrengthening, vivi
fying and individualizing whole acts and plays of others.
This question of originality is in reality a paradoxic one.
If a man take from one source he is a copyist; if from two,
he is less so ; if from ten, the world begins to lose count of
sources ; if from a thousand sources, we bow the head and
bend the knee and whisper " Here is an original man."
Originality is but the result of an infinity of impressions
that have percolated through an individuality, they chang
ing it as it changes them. The distinguishing characteristic
of genius is a wonderful sensitiveness of mind, a quickness
to assimilate impressions from every source and permeate
them thoroughly with his own individuality. Genius is
ever most dependent for him, the whole world is his garden,
and his individuality the hive. Develop individuality and
you develop originality ; you then make the mind expand,
and grow naturally. The schools and colleges of to-day,
our modern knowledge-factories, pervert individuality into
the petrified uniformity of pressed bricks.
Genius, say some, is but a capacity for hard work. This
is not a whole truth ; there must be work in accordance
403
with law. The miner who digs for gold on the seashore will
never find it, though he dig ever so laboriously ; but if he
study gold and the geologic strata in which it lives, he has
begun to put himself into harmony with law. Mere work,
unless properly directed, is like riding a hobby-horse, there
is energy and motion, but no progress.
There is a theory held by scientists that genius comes
from disease. Disease, insanity, depravity and other failings
often do occur as consequents due to over-concentration or
misuse of powers, but they do not create genius any more
than the vultures of the plains create the carcass upon which
they feed. The genius too, being of finer mental material,
is more likely to show a flaw, as Dresden china reveals a
mar not noticeable in a red-clay flower-pot. In support of
the disease theory, the most insignificant, common-place ail
ments of ordinary humanity, when found in genius, are
magnified and exaggerated. The weaknesses thus pointed
out are, it is worth noting, usually shown in the part of mind '
or of body where the genius was not exercised.
Let us now study for a moment the great basic elements,
the ever-present characteristics that, masquerading under a
thousand disguises, are the foundation of all genius. We
are here studying the mental anatomy of genius. Then we
may test our outline of Mental Training to see its relation
to the revelation. The great essential factor in genius is
imagination. Imagination in its simplest phase is but men
tal imagingand this imaging can be'expressed only through
one or more of the senses. Genius always implies a special
sense development. The wonderful perfecting of the sense
may come to an individual through heredity, without any
seeming effort on his part, yet it is a power that can be
developed in some degree, in every one in the world, from
the idiot to the genius. And this development does not
merely quicken the mind but it builds up the very brain
itself. The same sense development may, in different indi
viduals, be the basis of distinctly different kinds of genius.
The wondrous development of the sense of sight is shown in
a marvelous visual memory, a wonderful power of vivid
404
imaging of what may appeal to the eye. Geniuses that

seem to have nothing in common may be but different
manifestations of the perfection of this power. It may be
shown in the genius of the artist who makes his canvas
breathe with some sublime conception ; the novelist, with a
quick eye for the essentials of a summer scene ; the poet,
whose fairy wand to create new worlds before our eyes is
his pen ; the chess player, who blindfolded can play a num
ber of games simultaneously ; the memory prodigy, who
visualizes whole pages at a glance ; the orator, who holds
his audience captive by the magic of his imagery ; the
statesman, who never forgets a facethese, and a hundred
other phases of power, varying from mere cleverness to un
questioned genius, are basically manifestations of the same
sense development, expressed through different individuali
ties and quickened from a different standpoint. So a won
drous aural memory may be shown in the singer, the poet,
the musician, the orator, and in other individuals. The
same line of reasoning can be carried into the other senses.
This sense development, in its perfection, is one of nature's
methods for producing her master-pieces, and so it should be
recognized as the first duty of education to every individual.
Mental Training by analysis, law and analogy, does recog
nize it, and seeks to develop not only one of the senses, but,
to a degree, each and every one, and perfects the individual
in imaging. This power from merely imaging the concrete
can be developed to a marvelous ability to image the
abstract, to " think in phenomena."
But in genius the mere sense development in itself is not
enough. The wonderful quickening in impression brings vivid
images to memory ; there they are worked over, permeated
by the individuality, and thence expressed in some objective
form. If this threefold process be seen as a part of the pro
cesses of genius, it should be an essential of all true education.
Mental Training exercises the individual in this threefold
process, in instance after instance, example after example,
veek after week, until it becomes automatic, and each new
Impression, through the acting of unconscious cerebration,
405
is classified as naturally, easily, and spontaneously as the

blood circulates through the body.
Every genius is quick in analysis in his line, he is quick
to grasp the why, the reason, the law behind one instance,
and to project it into new fields by analogy. Of course, it
is not essential that he be conscious of process. It is but
a natural process of all minds ; in his, working in automatic
perfection ; in most minds, perverted or killed by false edu
cation. Mental Training based on these three words, analy
sis, law and analogy, brings the mind back to the normal,
exercises and develops it from conscious obedience to uncon
scious or automatic action. The genius is constantly pre
paring for instant use, analyzing, classifying, and storing
for instant readiness. For years Napoleon was living in
miniature the battles he was to fight, analyzing strategic
moves and positions, and training his mind to thus grasp
a new situation on the instant. Von Moltke studied the
military topography of all Europe, and with marvelous
foresight thought out how to win. His victory was no
triumph of mere fortune or special inspiration. It was but
the logical outcome of his trained mind, and a trained
mind ever lights the torch of its own inspiration. Leonardo
da Vinci always carried in his girdle his sketch-book, in
his walks in Florence, constantly looking for picturesque
faces. "In the silence of the night," he would counsel
himself, " recall the ideas of the things you have studied.
j)esign in your spirit the contours and outlines of the
figures you have seen during the day."
Often, in life, we see some wondrous vitalizing of latent
possibilities, some supreme manifestation of power, and we
say " That is genius, it is a power beyond him ; surely he is
inspired." . It is but the flowering of a process of years.
The century-plant for many years lays up nourishment in
its large, succulent leaves. Then, after from fifteen to seventy
years of preparation, the time for flowering comes ; all the
hidden vitalities are drawn upon ; the flower-stalk shoots
up with marvelous rapidity, and in a few weeks the count
less blossoms have opened. So genius is constantly pre
406
paring, classifying, individualizing, ready for full expres

sion when needed. This is not a wasteful, tiresome process,
it soon becomes automatic. The pure, concentrated activity,
with no wasting effort, is no drain on mental vitality. It
is worry, fear, and the ghosts of after-thoughts that weaken
the mind ; but in well-directed thinking the mind finds
strength and life. Constant preparation for instant use is,
therefore, one of the watch-words of Mental Training.
Will-power, the great unifier of all mental energies, is
the Napoleonic power of mind that brings the thousands of
memories, hopes, fears, longings, and aims into a single
mental army, drilled, united, and in perfect harmony, eager
to conquer and attain what that will-power commands. If
man's will-power be weak, he is but a chip on the great
tide of humanity ; if it be strong, man towers into the full
magnificence of his possibilities, pervaded by the very
breath of omnipotence. Concentration, clearness of think
ing, liberality of mind, system and economy of energy
these are all qualities strong in genius, and, as basic elements
of power, are part of the constant exercises in Mental Train
ing. Such an education would take less time of the indi
vidual than the ten to twenty years of servitude with hard
labor now required in the education of to-day. The list of
studies would be greatly reduced, and the quickened mind
from one study would make another easier. It does not do
BO. A student to-day does not necessarily learn his history
better because of his study in botany. If education were
what it should be, he would learn it better. One cannot
but recognize, as was suggested in my earlier paper, the
wonderful progress made by educators in the last few
decades, but a truer expression is needed of their recog
nition of their duties to the individual, in preparing him
for life.
Mental Training fully recognizes the differences in mental
capital of individuals, it considers all the variations in ten
dencies and desires and needs. It does pot seek to make
men equal. It but seeks to train the mind of the individual
to do its best in whatever be its activity or sphere of work.
407
It quickens all faculties, cuts off wasted energy, lost motion,

and makes all parts of the mind alert, constantly active and
trained to instant readiness. . It sensitizes the mind as a
photographic plate is sensitized ; then the mere " taking "
is without effort. It takes genius, as its revelation of the
perfection of mental working, in all its phases, unified in a
comprehensive educational system. The analogy between
Mental Training and physical and moral training is perfect,
and complete. Sandow might be taken as the physical
genius of the age; and, therefore, the revelation of the pro
cess foi^ proper muscular development. It is not necessary
or wise to go to the full extent that he has gone, but it is the
revelation of process. The same is true in the moral world.
Christianity puts forth Christ as the perfection of moral law,
existing in perfection only in Him. In true reverence, then,
He may be called " the genius of moral law." Though man
cannot attain this genius, every step in the obedience is one
step nearer the perfection of Christ. It may be said that
geniuses in the same line differ materially in their methods;
this is not true. Careful analysis shows they are in basis
the same ; different in individuality and manifestation.
While giving the individual the general training, in this
article but merely suggested, every study should be taught,
so far as possible, from this same point of view. In the
psychic methods of the mathematic prodigies is the revela
tion of the perfect method of studying mathematics ; the
method of scientific observation that in a Darwin finds its
crowning in his great discovery, should be the process, epi
tomized and minified, present in all our observation ; the
method of the great linguists who assimilate new languages
without effort is but nature telling us, in the success of
genius, what is the best way to study language. Before
teaching drawing, arbitrarily and perfunctorily, as mere
imitation, let us begin to develop the artist eye by quicken
ing the visual imagination. The psychic mechanism of the
man who learns words correctly without effort is the revela
tion of the hoio to teach spelling in all cases. And so for
all other studies. We really know much more about what
408
Genius: The Modelfor Educational Mt tkods.
these processes are than we have applied. Psychology is far

in advance of education.
That this is the ideal education is shown in the fact that
the great men of the world either failed in school or made
no great progress; and that infant prodigies subjected to
our education lost or weakened in their power. This train
ing does not check the individual development in any one
phase, the special turn of its ability, it but raises the average
of the whole mind, quickens all the faculties and makes all
tributary and strengthening to the part that is supreme.
Darwin, in his latter years, lost all appreciation of poetry,
and found music absolutely distasteful. But a few minutes
weekly exercise of this part of mind would have kept it
active and alert, and been a source of new mental strength,
relaxation and inspiration ; it would have been a safety-valve
to his over-concentration. It is not necessary to teach all
students all studies, or to teach them equally ; but wherever
they are taught it should be in accordance with the methods
that genius shows in their perfection.
Mental Training reveals to the individualhimself. It
shows him his weakness and inability, and how he may cor
rect them ; it shows him his powers and possibilities, and
how he may develop and realize them. Man is placed in
the world as a possibility, not as a finality. Man has two
creatorshis God and himself. He must not fall prostrate
and helpless before his heredity, nor overlook what he may
do by his own training. Mental Training will do much
more than is commonly believed to lessen the differences
between those born with strong powers through heredity,
and those in whom these powers are so faint as to seem hardly
even a germ of ability. A. R. Wallace recently pointed out
that the wonderful skill shown by the North American In
dians in following the trail, by indications of sight, scent
and hearing, imperceptible to ordinary powersa skill
developed in them through generationsis equaled and even
excelled by white trappers in a very short period of time.
So it is with every power, mental, physical or moral. We
can cooperate with nature in perfecting any of our pos
Where the Steamboat was Born.
409
sibilities by looking more closely into genius to see nature's

messages of hope, direction and revelation, and to feel that
the law that produces nature's masterpieces will be propor
tionately true with us, if we obey it.
WHERE THE STEAMBOAT WAS BORK

BY MAGGIE SYMINGTON.
In the valley of the Nith, in Dumfriesshire, there is an
old burgh town called Sanquhar, surrounded by hills, in the
midst of a neighborhood rich in the history of those famous
Covenanters who were persecuted so bitterly in the time of
Charles II.
Somewhere about two miles to the south of this old town
a country road winds up among the hills which slope down
to the edge of the stream of the Mennock, and at many parts
seem to close in so abruptly that you think an insuperable
barrier is before you. By pushing onward, however, the
path opens and the ascent becomes more and more toilsome.
So high and wild is this path of Mennock that in winter it
is frequently blocked up with snow, and the inhabitants of
the two mining villages are quite cut off from their fellows
down below, for no vehicle can get through the drifts, nor
any foot-passenger. Then, for months, the only communi
cation with the outside world for the miners is by telegraph.
In summer the scenery is as lovely as that of any Alpine
region.
A few years ago, some one who had traveled much went
up this path to Wanlockhead, and was very much struck
with its wonderful resemblance to the road which leads up
from Joppa to Jerusalem. " For miles," says a local histo
rian who knows it well, " no human dwelling has been visible,
and no sound, save that of the rushing stream, the bleating
sheep, the whirr of the grouse or black-cock as, on strong
wing, he sweeps across the glen and drops out of sight
among the deep heather which covers the mountain side.
410
Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, the village of Wanlockhead conies in sight. The existence of a village in such an
out-of-the-world region is due to the mineral wealth of the
surrounding hills which, though black and barren on the
surface, and sustaining only a few sheep, contain within their
bowels rich deposits of lead."
How, it was in this very village of Wanlockhead that the
steamboat was born. And here, in the companion village
of Leadhills, only three years ago, a monument was erected
to the memory of the inventor. " It is curious," says the
same local historian, "that it (the steamboat) should have
originated in perhaps the most inland place in all Scotland."
It was in the "Auld Manse " of Wanlockhead that two
brothers lived, one of whom planned and perfected the first
steamboat that ever plowed its way across the water. His
name was William Symington, and he was a member of
my own family, though not a direct ancestor. There ia
but one family of the name, and they are " Symingtons of
that ilk," i. e., " Symingtons of Symington " in the bordering
county of Lanark.
Think of those clever Symington boys inventing "a
eteam carriage " that was made to run across the floor of
one of the rooms behind those quiet windows, and waa
really and truly the precursor of the steamboat.
An old man, one John Black, years afterward, when the
Caledonian Railway was opened, was asked to go to Elvanfoot to see the wonderful new steam-carriage, and answered :
" I need na traval sae far for sic a purpose, for I hae seen a
steam-carriage mony a year syne (since) rinnin' in the auld
Manse o' Wanlockhead." Over the kitchen floor, so it wan
said, and it was described to be " as like an ordinary sized
kist (chest) as possible."
In the year 1785 a Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton, engaged a
young man as tutor in his family whose name was Jamen
Taylor. He came from the village of Leadhills, and had
received a liberal education in the University of Edinburgh.
Mr. Miller was a man of speculative turn of mind, and at that
time he was engaged upon a series of experiments on ship
411
ping. He had designed paddle-wheels as a motive power.

These were turned by a capstan which kept four men hard
at work, and it did not seem likely that such a laborious
method as this would ever be of much use if applied to
large vessels, or bo workable for long voyages.
At his wit's end, Mr. Miller asked his tutor to try and
think of something more suitable as a motor. James
Taylor was an old friend and schoolfellow of William
Symington, and, while he lived in the neighboring village
of Leadhills, had, there is no doubt, been frequently at the
auld Manse of Wanlockhead where the Symingtons lived.
Perhaps he too had seen that funny steam-carriage " running
over the old kitchen floor " with intense interest and
delight, for what youth is there who would not have mani
fested the keenest joy in such a production by a companion
and schoolfellow ?
Anyway, his instant suggestion to Mr. Miller was that he
should get a steam engine, to run his paddles for him.
Miller was incredulous, he did not think such a thing pos
sible ; but James Taylor persisted. Most likely he had the
best of reasons for his suggestion and also for persisting in
it ; he had actually seen the thing at work, and knew some
thing of what it could do.
It is not to be wondered at that in a short time he suc
ceeded in convincing Mr. Miller, and it was decided that a
trial should be made. It was necessary to get the services
of a practical engineer. Taylor at once turned to the
Symington brothers. Who so likely as they to see the way
out of the difficulty ? He set off at once for the auld
Manse, and the Symingtons and he laid their heads together.
The thing could be done, it was decided.
To make a long story short, a small engine was designed
and constructed. An old smith, one John Hutchinson, is
said to have contributed something toward perfecting the
engine. He was engaged to help in the work of construct
ing it. A hitch occurred with some part of the machine
that hindered its working, and perplexed the enthusiastic
inventors.
412
Where the Steamboat was Horn.
And here a little hitch occurs also in the thread of my

story, this part of it having two versions :
One states that young Symingtonhe must then have
been about twenty-one or twenty-two years of agewas
walking with old John across the Stake Moss one Sunday
morning, discussing this difficulty, when an idea flashed into
the old man's mind, and he immediately communicated it
to the younger one by making a rough drawing of it on the
road. On their return, it was worked out in a practical
way in the smithy, one saying to the other, " The better the
day, the better the deed."
The other version says that it was as old John was lying
in his bed that Sunday morning that light broke upon his
mind, and that he drew the plan first on his own hearth
stone, and afterward to Symington as they were out walking.
At any rate, some way between the two, the difficulty
was solved, and nothing now hindered the practical appli
cation of the steam-motor to Mr. Miller's paddles.
So the idea grew and was adopted.
On the 14th of October, in the year 1788, the trial
trip of the first steamboat was made on Dalswinton Loch.
On board the little craft, as she sped over the waves at the
then astonishing rate of five miles an hour, was a truly
notable company. There was Alexander Nasmy th, a famous
artist, and father of James Nasmyth the inventor of the
steam hammer; there was Henry Brougham, afterward
Lord Chancellor of England ; and Robert Burns, the peo
ple's poet, who certainly ought to have chronicled this
world-famous trip in verse. Of course Mr. Miller would be
there, and James Taylor, and Symington, who was young
enough to enjoy the triumph of his ingenuity, and to see
visions of glories to follow, which, alas, were never fulfilled
in his life-time. He was then just twenty-four years of age.
The vast significance of this event was not then suffi
ciently understood for it to be immediately followed up.
Even thirty years after this successful trial had been made,
the engineer, Rennie, wrote to James Watt of the difficulty
he had in getting the Admiralty to see the utility of this
418
invention. On the 30th of May, 18 20, he wrote again that

the Admiralty had at last decided upon having a steamboat.
So Symington lived to see his invention utilized, though
what part he had in it, if any, we do not know.
The inscription on the monument, erected to his memory,
is:
WILLIAM SYMINGTON,
THE INVESTOR OF STEAM NAVIGATION.
Born 1764, Died 1831.
Erected
By Public Subscription.
On the face of the monument is the head of Symington

in relief; on the back a figure of the first working steam
boat, with her name, The Charlotte Dundas, 1801.
It is, therefore, a proud distinction which the village of
Wanlockhead enjoys, hidden away among the Scotch
mountains, in a district where it has been truly said that
" almost every mountain, and hillock, and glen, has its own
tale to tella tale of cruelty and bloodshed," for it is the
scene of the persecution of the adherents to the Solemn
League and Covenant.
I have spoken of Wanlockhead and Leadhills as mining
villages.
The mines here have been worked from a remote period,
and belong to the Duke of Buccleuch. The miners are
a remarkably intelligent, fine-looking body of men. Their
working hours are not long, they get good wages, and due
provision is made for their mental culture in the possession
of a well-stocked library. There is no public house in either
village, so the men are not exposed to the insidious tempta
tion of drink. Their houses are built in the most delight
fully irregular fashion, and are cozy and comfortable, consist
ing of " a but and a ben ; " and many of them are furnished
with box beds. They have low roofs, which used to be
thatched with heathersimple surroundings for the birth
of a great invention.
Since that first boat steamed across the little Loch of
Dalswinton, what changes have been brought about ! Inter
national commerce has advanced by leaps and bounds,
414
The Ether and Its Functions.
America has been brought so near to us that we may almost

be said to clasp hands across the water ; while those coun
tries to which distance lent a strange halo of romanceIndia,
Australia and the South Seasare no farther away from u
now than America used to be.
Smiles says, in his " Lives of the Engineers," that " long
before Fulton, Miller of Dalwinston and Symington had
been at work on the invention of the steamboat," their
baby steamboat once born, grew and developed under the
care of many nurses and teachers ; but there can be no doubt
that the application of steam to navigation originated with
AVilliam Symington, and that the true birth-place of the
steamboat was the " Auld Manse " of Wanlockhead.
THE ETHER AND ITS FUNCTIONS.

BY PROF. GEORGS FRAZER FITZGKRALD.
" All are but parts of one stupendous whole
Whose body nature is, and God the soul."
We often speak of space as being empty. We speak of a

empty room when it is quite full of air. We speak of
empty space between the stars. From this point of view
the first line of the above couplet should run :
''All are but parts of one stupendous hole."
When we more carefully consider matters, however, we

must concede that this way of speaking does not accurately
represent even the popular view of nature. Still less does
it represent the view that must be taken by every diligent
observer and accurate thinker. In the case of an empty
room, everybody acknowledges that it is really full of air,
and that to speak of it as empty is not absolutely accurate,
though sufficiently so for ordinary purposes. It does not
deceive those whom we are speaking to. Quakers even
have not objected to use the term. It is defensible on the
same plea as stating that one is " Not at home." Neither
415
statement is verbally accurate, but neither statement de

ceives, and eacb is, in consequence, quite legitimate. It
does not appear at first sight, however, that there is any
obvious way in which it is inaccurate to speak of interstellar
space as empty. There are, no doubt, stars and comets and
nebulte and meteors, but between them surely space is
empty. And yet even popularly a place is spoken of as
"full of light." Surely the space all round the sun is "full
of light." Can we, with perfect accuracy, speak of a space
as empty which is full of light?
There have been several theories as to the nature of this
light that fills space. At one time it was supposed to be
some sort of process or feeler that was projected out of
people's eyes by which they felt objects. What the cause
of day and night can be, seems a serious difiiculty to this
hypothesis. It would, anyway, justify the suggestion as to
the uselessness of the sun which came out by day, though
it would hardly explain the usefulness of the moon. This
view is not even held by " cranks" nowadays. Light is
attributed to the sun, to lamps, to candles, and not to the
eyes of the observer. Metaphysicians may ask for the
sense in which one can speak of light being present with
out an observer, but even in this age of skepticism, these
very important metaphysical questions have not yet attracted
popular attention. We are content to assert that in some
sense or another we are justified in speaking of light being
due to the sun, or a lamp.
A more recent view was that light was due to small
particles emitted by bright bodies. . This was a hypothesis
with many things to recommend it. In this case it was
certainly inaccurate to speak of interstellar space as empty.
It must be choke full of these minute particles, hurrying
about in all direction at the almost inconceivable rate of
one hundred and ninety-two thousand miles a second. Can
a space thus actively occupied be accurately described as
empty? Even in the shadow of the earth there must be
innumerable such particles. The stars are shining there.
The earth itself must be emitting immense numbers of
416
them, for we know that it is cooling all night, and the

phenomenon of giving out heat by radiation is essentially
the same as that of giving out light by radiation. There
are, however, several very serious difficulties in the way of
believing this hypothesis. One of the most serious is that
one must suppose, upon this hypothesis, that the light travels
more quickly in water than in air, while it has been proved
by a direct experiment that light travels more slowly in
water than in air. There are, in addition, several other
difficulties in this hypothesis. Very curious and rather
inexplicable fits of easy reflection and easy transmission
have to be attributed to these light particles. In order to
explain them, Sir Isaac Newton suggested that all space
was full of a fluid which in some way caused these inex
plicable fits. Such a suggestion almost surrendered all
ground for the hypothesis that there were any light particles
at all. Once it is conceded that there is a medium filling
space, why not attribute light to the vibrations of this
medium in the same sort of way as we attribute sound to
the vibrations of the air ? This is, in fact, the hypothesis
now held, and while it explains almost every fact connected
with light, there are no known facts necessarily inconsistent
with it.
Still, there are people who do not believe in this medium.
They seem to think that the sun may act upon us here with
out any intervening medium. Such people do not appreciate
the difficulty in thus explaining what becomes of the action
during the eight minutes it takes to reach the earth
after it has left the sun. The light takes eight minutes to
pass over the intervening space. What is it during these
eight minutes ? One view was that it existed as small par
ticles traveling with an enormous velocity. This hypothe
sis is untenable because it does not explain a number of
other light effects. The other view is that it exists as some
sort of periodic change in structure of an intervening
medium which is called a wave of light in the ether. This
is consistent with all known phenomena, and no other
417
hypothesis has as yet been published which has been shown

to explain in an intelligible way the phenomena of light.
But there are other phenomena due to the air, for instance,
in addition to sound. It has chemical actions, it can blow
things about by winds, it can burst strong vessels by its
pressure. Are there no phenomena due to the ether except
light ? Surely a medium whose vibrations are so important
can hardly fail to possess other properties. Lord Salisbury,
no doubt, said in his inaugural address last year, as Presi
dent of the British Association at Oxford, that the only
function of the ether was to undulate. This was a most
extraordinary mistake for even a politico-scientist to make.
It is one of the glories of British science that by Faraday
and Clerk Maxwell a sure foundation has been laid for the
theory that electric and magnetic forces are due to the ether.
Its only function is to undulate ! One might as well say the
same of the atmosphere or of the waters of the sea. No
doubt the undulatory, electric and magnetic properties of
the ether require us to suppose a very much simpler nature
for the ether than for any known form of ordinary matter.
Ordinary matter, with which we are so familiar that we
treat its wonders with contempt, is fearfully and wonder
fully complex. We cannot hope to explain the innumerable
properties of air, for instance, which is quite a simple form
of matter compared with most other commonly occurring
forms, without attributing to it some very complicated
structure. The properties of the ether are so simple that
there is every hope that we may be able to explain its prop
erties by attributing to it a simple structure. So far as is
known we need only attribute to it the ability to produce
electric force and magnetic force in order to explain all the
phenomena which can be repeated in any properly equipped
laboratory. It is as if we had an invisible bar by means of
which we could either push or pull or twist objects at a dis
tance. These are very simple operations, and if they were
the only ones that the invisible bar could perform we might
very fairly describe it as possessed of very simple properties.
No real ordinary matter is so extraordinarily simple as that.
VOL. 127
418
A solid glass bar, for instance, would prevent our pushing

our fingers across it ; it would bend light that passed through
it ; it would reflect light from its surface ; it would absorb
heat; it could be melted if raised sufficiently in temperature ;
it could be acted upon chemically by hydrofluoric acid ; and
it would possess innumerable other important properties, so
that we could hardly fairly describe it as possessed of very
simple properties. Of course no one can prophesy that there
may not be found many other important properties of the
ether which may show it to be very complicated. The very
fact that matter is so complicated, and that ether is so
intimately connected with matter, shows that the ether may
be very complicated too. At present, however, it seems as
if these complications were due to the complex nature of
matter, while a comparatively simple ether would suflice to
explain all we know.
In the beginning of science it was difficult for people to
believe that we were living at the bottom of an ocean of air.
Winds were looked upon as subtle entities rather than as
movements of the air. The rising of water in pumps was
ascribed to an unexplained natural principle of abhorrence of
a vacuum. In a similar way we have, until within the last
few decades, been content to explain electric and magnetic
forces by a natural principle of attraction of electricity and
magnetism. As soon, however, as the existence of winds and
the rising of water in pumps, the height of the barometer,
and the flight of balloons were all explained by the varying
pressures in an ocean of gas, people gave up their former
obviously unsatisfactory and provisional explanations, and
nobody now doubts the theory that these phenomena are all
due to a medium whose vibrations constitute sound. All
these properties have been shown to be consistent properties
of a single medium, and consequently nobody doubts of the
existence of this medium. We now are persuaded that we
feel this medium when the wind blows us ; we see its action
when balloons rise ; we hear its vibrations in sound. In a
similar way electric, magnetic and light phenomena are all
consistent properties of a single medium, and consequently
419
no one should doubt of the existence of this medium. We

should feel this medium when a magnet pulls at a piece of
iron we hold ; we should see its action in a flash of light
ning; we should see its vibrations in light.
But, it may be said, nobody has been able to explain these
properties ? Well, neither has anybody been able to explain
the properties of the air. Some of the simpler properties of
the air can, no doubt, be explained by supposing it to con
sist of countless small elastic particles of different sizes and
weights jostling one another about. The elasticity of these
particles is, however, unexplained, and a great many of their
properties, notably the whole series of these chemical proper
ties, are still in that obviously provisional condition of being
described as simply properties of doing this, that and the
other. The electric, magnetic and luminous properties of the
ether are very much simpler than the innumerable proper
ties of air, and it is consequently not unreasonable to expect
that they will be explained, and it is consequently unreason
able to doubt of the existence of the ether because of its pos
sessing unexplained properties, while we have no doubt of the
existence of air though it possesses very many more unex
plained properties.
Several directions have been suggested in which we may
look for explanations of the simple properties of the etherIt has been suggested that it may consist of particles some
what like those of a gas, only very much smaller and moving
about with very much greater rapidity. It has not, however,
been fully shown how this hypothesis can explain the electric
and magnetic properties of the ether. Others have gone to the
opposite extreme, and supposed that the ether may consist of
smooth hard particles almost completely tilling space, in
stead of being very small compared with their distances
apart. These particles are supposed to slide or roll over one
another so freely that they practically offer no resistance to
matter moving among them. This seems in many ways a
rather hopeful direction in which to look for an explanation
of the properties of the ether. It has not, however, been
fully worked out, though Prof. Hertz has shown, in his
420
posthumous work, that such a supposition is not inconsistent

with what we know of electric and magnetic actions, for he
attributes all dynamical actions in nature to actions of this
kind. It was the direction in which Clerk Maxwell sought
for a dynamical material systsm that would possess the
same sort of properties as he showed that the ether must
possess.
All these theories depending on the existence of hard
bodies in space, whether like gaseous atoms they have large
distances between them, or like the second hypothesis they
have small distances between them, labor under the disad
vantage of postulating the existence of these hard bodies
without offering any explanation of the cause of their hard
ness, etc. A hypothesis like Lord Kelvin's, that material
atoms are vortex rings in a continuous incompressible medium,
only postulates the existence of this continuous incompressible
medium. From this one postulate, and the hypothesis that
its various parts are moving in a variety of ways consistent
with the postulate, it can be shown that indestructible
atoms could exist. It does not seem impossible that all the
complexities of nature may be explicable by this hypothesis.
A being living in the midst of an infinite ocean of liquid,
which was perfectly transparent and at rest, might never
discover its existence, just as mankind lived for generations
inside an ocean of air without fully realizing its existence,
even though they had plenty of motion in the winds to
help them. Such a being might be supposed some day to
meet a great whirlpool and thus become suddenly alive to
the existence of the medium around him. He would prob
ably, at first, think of the whirlpool as an independent
entity. He would, however, ultimately find that its effects
extended to all places he could reach. No doubt, at a dis
tance from the whirlpool, its effects would be very small,
while near to it its actions would be so tremendous that
maybe he could never get quite close to its central core.
With this evidence before him, would not such a being be
justified in supposing that this active thing was a kind of
movement in a medium extending throughout all the space
421
he could reach? We find a very similar state of affairs

near atoms of matter. They have a central region where
their action is so intense that we have no evidence that we
can penetrate it. Around this and extending throughout
space, diminishing in intensity the further we go from this
central core, are actions accompanying this atom. Close in
there are chemical actions. It may have electrical and
magnetic actions. It always has gravitational action at all
places, at least as far as the solar system extends. Is it
then irrational to suppose that these atoms are themselves
really only a particular kind of motion in a medium that
fills all space ? In order that an incompressible liquid should
be able to transmit actions such as gravity, electric and mag
netic force, light, etc., it must itself be full of motion.
Lord Kelvin has shown that certain kinds of disturbances
might be propagated in a manner somewhat similar to light
vibrations, by a liquid whose parts were in intense motion.
In order that the action may be propagated rapidly, the
motion of the liquid must be very intense. The average
speed of the motion of its parts must be comparable with
that of the propagation of the disturbance. In the case of
light propagation this is very great. Light goes one hun
dred and ninety-two thousand miles in a second. The parts
of the medium must consequently be moving on the average
with a velocity comparable with this. Some years ago,
Prof. DeVolson Wood proposed to calculate the average
velocity of the parts of the ether in a somewhat similar
way. There was, at that time, a very serious objection to
this. Prof. Wood was applying the theory of gases to this
case. Now, though there is some similarity between the
cases, there is an essential difference. Disturbances, such as
sound waves, are propagated by the compression and rare' faction of a gas. Light is known to be propagated by some
other kind of action, we don't know exactly what, but it
certainly is not by compressions and rarefactions in the
ether. It was, consequently, quite illegitimate to apply a
calculation which was only known to be true of this kind of
motion to quite a different kind of action. Before such a
422
proceeding would become in any way justifiable, it was neces

sary to prove that this quite different kind of action could be
propagated at all by a medium whose parts were in intense
movement, and Prof. Wood had not at that time shown
reason for believing this.
If the parts of the medium are really moving at these
tremendous speeds, every cubic foot of the medium must
have some energy in it. If the medium be at all dense, the
energy of its motion will be very large. Each cubic foot
might, for instance, be looked upon as a cubical box con
taining whirling wheels. If the wheels are massive, and
whirling with tremendous rapidity, there will be a great
deal of energy in the box. If the wheels are very light,
there will not be very much energy, even though they are
whirling very rapidly. Can we make any estimate as to
whether the medium is rare or dense? Most of the esti
mates that have been made lead to the conclusion that it is
very rare. They each depend upon some unproved assump
tion. We have no conclusive proof as to the density of the
medium. It is generally thought that, because we do not
directly perceive the medium, it must be very rare. This is
by no means the case. To return to the being immersed in
the ocean of liquid, he was unable to perceive. Whether it
were a dense liquid or no, would not make any difference
to him. If it were dense, he would, no doubt, in moving
his limbs, feel that he had to exert himself a good deal in
order to start them moving on account of all the surround
ing liquid he would have to set moving. If he was
suddenly transferred to a very rare medium, he would per
ceive the difference. Like the ancient mariner, he " felt so
light, almost," " he thought that he had died in sleep," " and
was a blessed ghost." But then this was supposed not to be
one of the experiences of this being. He was always accus
tomed to have to move all this dense medium whenever he
moved his limbs. In fact, he had never attributed this
inertia to the medium at all. He had always attributed it
to his limbs. In a similar way we, when we move a stone or
a bit of lead or platinum, attribute its inertia to the body
423
moved, while really the inertia may be due to the medium

we move along with the body. This must actually be the
case if the hypothesis already mentioned, as to the nature
of matter, be true. If matter be itself only a part of the
medium, which is possessed of some peculiarity of motion,
then the inertia of matter is merely the inertia of the me
dium itself. If this be so, it would appear as if the medium
must be at least as dense as platinum. When we move a
piece of platinum, we may not move all the medium inside
it, and in that case the density of the medium may be much
greater than that of platinum. There is nothing certainly
known to disprove such a hypothesis. If, for instance, the
medium be five times as dense as platinum, i.e., about one
hundred times as dense as water, all that it would require
would be that when we move water about we are only
moving the one-hundredth part of the medium that occupies
the space of the water, and this does not seem at all an
impossible hypothesis. If this be so, how much energy
may there be in one cubic foot of ether ? There will be
about one hundred million of million of million foot pounds
of energy. This would supply a million horse-power for
five thousand years. Such a calculation as this does not
pretend to prove that there is this energy in each cubic foot
of the ether. All it pretends to is to show that in our
present desperate condition of ignorance, we know nothing
with absolute certainty that disproves the possibility of this
energy being there.
Is this energy available? Well, it is not safe to prophesy
what is and what is not possible. Most prophesies as to
what is and what is not possible have proved untrue.
Until, however, we have discovered how to utilize the im
mense known stores of energy in each cubic foot of gross
matter, in the earth, in the water of the sea, and in the air
about us, energy whose nature is pretty well known and
whose amount we can approximately estimate, until we
have found out some way of doing this, it seems very un
likely that we shall be able to utilize the energy of the
ether, even if we are right in our hypothesis that it exists.
424
Each cubic yard of air possesses more than four foot tons of
energy, owing to the motion of its molecules, and yet we
have not found out any way of using this. If we could
only catch hold of whichever of the molecules we wished
and harness them to a car, and let these go when we had
got all the energy out of them we required and harness up
fresh molecules, it would enable us to use this energy. The
discovery of how to use the chemical energy of coal would
be absolutely nothing compared with this. It has been
suggested that some of the minuter bacteria are able to do
this. Is it impossible that larger organisms may be able to
do it ? Is it impossible that they may develop the ability
thus to sort out the molecule they require in their own
superficial cells ? If bacteria have developed this ability
in their cells, may not mankind by judicious selection or by
other means attain a similar ability ? We could easily fly
then ; we could do many other wonderful things. We may
fly before that. A surface set suddenly in motion with a
velocity greater than that of sound in air would, at least
temporarily, have a pressure of nearly fifteen pounds per
square inch on its surface, and an area of twelve square
inches would then support a heavy man. This is, however,
quite beside the matter in hand.
And what is all this fierce motion in space which we
desire to direct in accordance with our wishes ? How do
we now direct motion in accordance with our wishes ? Is
there any motion directed in accordance with our wishes ?
Certainly there is, if " in accordance with our wishes " has
any real meaning. We can often direct the motions of our
limbs in accordance with our wishes. By experience gained
in childhood, by carefully conducted education, by follow
ing the experience of others, we direct many, very many,
motions outside our bodies in accordance with our wishes.
We do this by learning what we call the law of nature, or
the rules of that great organism with which we have to
work, and accommodating ourselves to them. But what is
the "we" and what are "our wishes?" What is the "I"
of another person ? In old times people used to attribute
425
feelings and sensations and thoughts to the heart, liver,

spleen, etc. Nowadays we locate all these in the brain.
Why ? Because we find that an animal can get along very
comfortably without a liver or spleen for a short time, so
long as its nervous system, of which the brain is such an
important center, is kept in working order. So long as the
brain is in working order a person can feel and think. If
it is out of order or improperly supplied with blood the
feeling and thinking are disordered. There is every reason
to suppose that our feeling of light is concerned with one
series of brain cells, our feeling of sound with another ; that
so long as we feel light there are certain changes, i. e.,
movements going on in one set of brain cells ; while we are
conscious of beauty some kind of change is going on, maybe
not only in our brain cells but a concomitant change affecting
our whole system. Somebody has recently shown reason
to suppose that angry passions produce a poison which dis
orders the digestive system. It is quite likely, after all, that
the spleen may be concerned in these things, and the liver
too. Anyway, what is of importance at present is that the
only way in which another person's angry passions exist as
a reality for me are as very complicated movements in their
organism. We do not know what movements in the brain
cells correspond to the sensation of red light, nor what to a
shrill sound. Neither movement is probably one bit like the
vibrations of the eye molecules, nor of the ear molecules,
that excite the cell motions. A waving flag may signal to
a general information as to an enemy's manoeuvres which
leads him to rearrange his infantry, cavalry, and artillery.
But these movements of his army are not a bit like the
waving flag which started them. We can, however, trace
a connection between them. They are things of the same
kind. They are both movements of matter. Similarly,
the movements of the ear-drum and those of the brain mole
cules are things of the same kind. Every action I can per
ceive in another person is of this same kind. But the shrill
sound I perceive is not of this same kind. Ugliness and
guiltiness are not movements of matter. But then I can
426
not perceive the shrill sound that another person feels.

We may both, no doubt, in a colloquial sense, hear the same
sound, but I am not conscious of the other person's feeling.
The same source causes two feelings, one in me, the other
in the other person. I feel my own feeling, I cannot feel
the other person's feeling. The only way in which the other
person's feeling exists for me is as a movement in his brain,
the only way in which my feeling exists for him is as a
movement in my brain. We know as yet no way of getting
behind this. There seems every reason to think that what
is behind this movement may be as complicated as the army
manoeuvres compared with the waving of a flag. It is hard
to see how otherwise to explain the fact that brain move
ments can correspond to such a variety of feelings as light
and sound, beauty and ugliness, goodness and guilt. It is
well to call all these " feelings," notwithstanding the boy
who defined an abstract term to be a thing like conscience
that one cannot feel. It is always necessary to recollect
that to me these feelings are the only reality ; other people's
feelings are to me an elaborate and frequently erroneous
inference.
One of the most interesting investigations of the present
day is as to the positions of atoms in molecules. The whole
system is too small to see. We can form some rough concep
tion of their arrangement from their behavior, just as we
can form an estimate as to the orbit of a double star from
the changes in its spectrum, even though the components
are far too close to be separately visible. We are gradually
learning how to read, in the spectrum, the story of what is
taking place in molecules, too. There is some prospect that
we may some time even be able to tell what movements in
the brain cells correspond to a sensation of red light, and, if
the world lasts long enough, and mankind is good enough,
we may be able to discover what movements in his system.
corresponded to Wilberforce's determination to put down
slavery.
But if the spleen is involved in angry passions, it is evi
dent that motions outside our brain and even our nervous
427
system are involved in feelings and thoughts. Where does

our brain end ? Where does movement cease to have a cor
responding thought ? Surely all movement must have a
corresponding thought. And perchance when we know the
movements corresponding to a determination to abolish
slavery we may be able to form some dim conception of the
thoughts that correspond to the movements of the earth, of
the solar system, to the development of species of animals
and plants. These thoughts will not be our thoughts, nor
our ways their ways. That they are not does not necessarily
place them beyond investigation. We already know much
about four dimensional space, and can state things true of
multi-dimensional space, though even of four dimensional
space we can form no concrete conception. In the same way
we may hope some time to make scientific statements about
the thoughts of the universe, though we may be quite unable
to reproduce them as our thoughts. Even now we deal with
the universe as with a person. How do we get others to do
what we wish ? By making them feel our wishes directly ?
No. By paying attention to the laws of their nature and
by so acting ourselves as to cause them to act as we wish.
Is not that also a description of how we act on nature ? How
do others act on us ? By speaking to us with signs. Does
not nature speak to us in the same way ? We interpret other
people's signs and judge that they have corresponding
thoughts. Are we then wrong in considering the signs of
nature as the language in which the thoughts of nature are
expressed ?
All the greatest, wisest, best have implored and exhorted
mankind to believe this. Prophets and seers, philosophers
and poets, have taught mankind this faith. We have faith
in the existence of the thoughts corresponding to other peo
ple's brain-movements. Without this faith life would be a
mockery. Is it not almost a mockery without the greater
faith ? The greatest, wisest, best have said so. It is the
almost necessary conclusion of science. Science has by itself
no proof of the existence of other people's thoughts. Science
then cannot be expected to prove the existence of these
428
Changes in Spoken English.
thoughts more complex, indeed, than other people's thoughts,

but which can, for all that, be safely called thoughts. Do
we not show our wisdom by holding fast by the teaching of
the greatest, the wisest and the best ? Is it not the most
glorious prospect for science that it may one day give a
definite form to the greatest thoughts of mankind's greatest
sons ?
CHANGES IN SPOKEN ENGLISH.

BY A. B. KINGSBURY.
The President's English differs but slightly in outward
form from the English of Cromwell and the Commonwealth,
though more than two centuries have elapsed to change it.
Apart from a few peculiarities of orthography and syntax
which have now grown obsolete, Dryden and Pope, and the
writers of half a century before them, are no more difficult
to read than Tennyson, so firmly has the printing press
stereotyped their written usage of word and phrase. Unfor
tunately, there has been no phonograph to preserve for us
the spoken English of their time, and to exhibit its exact
points of contrast with our present speech ; but an examina
tion of the grammars and word-books of that era, together
with the study of the rhymed lines of the poets, furnishes
abundant evidence of changes in pronunciation so numerous
and so radical that to the ear of an American of to-day the
spoken language of the Puritans would be an unfamiliar
tongue.
If Governor Winthrop, for example, could arrive in Boston
again in his good ship Arabella, as he did two and a half
centuries ago, and could stroll up Beacon street, his speech
would seem not less strange than his doublet and ruff, while
in the matter of conversation, at least, he would find himself
more at ease in the company of a raw immigrant from the
north of Ireland than in the society of a club man. If this
429
immigrant were an intelligent young woman he might, in

deed, fancy that he heard from her lips the speech of one of
his old servants ; for it is by women rather than by men
that purity of pronunciation is maintained through their
greater distinctness of articulation, and it is the young
country woman from Ireland who speaks the nearest approach
we have now to the language of the Pilgrim Fathers. To
paraphrase the Italian proverb, it is the Ulster dialect in
the Galway girl's mouth that, historically speaking, is our
purest English. In the isolation of country life, away from
books and newspapers and intercourse with cities, the school
master's refinements of orthoepy are slow to creep in, and the
old forms and standards linger. It is the liberal life of the
city that brings innovations. Voltaire returned to earth would
find the language of the little French villages of Canada
more familiar to his ear than the French of Paris ; and Winthrop, if he strayed into the mountains of West Virginia,
Carolina and Tennessee, would hear homely words and idioms
that were lawful coin in his own time, but are now worn too
smooth for easy currency. They survive and live on there
in lonely cabins and in remote villages along with the old
manners and customs and blood of Captain John Smith's
colonists. They survive, too, in the back districts of New
England. These survivals are not difficult to understand
when it is remembered that while Jamestown and Plymouth
were settled in 1607 and 1620 respectively, James I. estab
lished his colony in Ulster, in the north of Ireland, in 1611,
and Cromwell made his settlement in that region about forty
years later. In this manner the English language of the
early part of the seventeenth century was colonized, so to
speak, in three remote regions, at practically the same time,
and nearly two centuries of isolation served to crystallize its
pronunciation.
The most notable and important of these phonetic changes
are those that have taken place in the vowel sounds. Thus,
the diphthong ea with the value of long f. as in cheat, beat, treat.
feat, was a polite affectation in Dryden's day in the speech
of London. Not until after his death did it get firm footing
430
in popular English, and even long after Pope's time the words
were pronounced as ifspelled " chate," " bate," " trate," " fate,"
just as an Irishman would pronounce them to-day. Of this
there is abundant proof to be had from the seventeenth cen
tury poets. Both Milton and Dryden rhyme tears (the noun)
with wears. Pope rhymes speak with take, mead with shade,
tea with obey, as
Here thou, great Anna ! whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take and sometimes tea.
And Swift has :

* * * Let me now survey
<>nr madame o'er her evening tea.
This pronunciation of tea lasted in good use in England

until 1750. Dryden rhymes, sea with they, treat with state,
weak with break, while other poets rhyme steal with sail, peace
with place, sea with survey and obey ; so Cowper, much later,
in his :
I am monarch of all I survey ;
My right there is none to dispute ;
From the center all round to the sea
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
This pronunciation of ea gives point to Shakespeare's fa

miliar pun on "reasons" (raisins) and "blackberries;" bear
tear, great, yea, O'Shea, McLean, exhibit the old sound of
the diphthong. Similarly the diphthong ei was often, in the
seventeenth century, pronounced as in eight and rarely as
in conceit. Pope rhymes receives with waves, and like rhymes
are met everywhere. In some parts of Connecticut, even as
late as sixty years ago, deceit was pronounced " desate,"
conceit " consate," receipt " resate," and in Central New York,
at the present time, the phrase, " I consated (conceited*) it " is
not infrequently heard on the lips of the old. How our New
England forefathers pronounced this diphthong is shown by
the phonetic spelling of a military order preserved in the
Revolutionary Records of Massachusetts, in which, under
date of October 26th, 1775, directions are given for the
delivery of some bounty coats to Lieutenant John Patrick,
" whose Recait shall be your safety."
C hanges in Spoken English.
431
Long e in Pope's and Dryden's verse is frequently the a of

fate. Not until the eighteenth century had it gained the
full value of e in mete, and its degradation from the position
it had in the earliest English, and maintained for a thousand
years, to the sound of the Italian i is one of the most remark
able phonetic changes in the language. The Kilkenny
dialect which makes fever " faver," and decent " daycent "
preserves the old sound. The short e sometimes had the
value of short f in the seventeenth century. Dryden rhymes
devil with civil, and sense with prince, and the Irish "chist"
for chest, " iutered " for entered, " intirely " for entirely, keep
alive this old usage. The Irish pronunciation of Dennis
as " Dinnis " is the correct one, historically considered. E
followed by r has the significance of a in dark, survivals
of which are seen in the modern English pronunciation of
clerk as "dark," and derby as "darby." In New England
half a century ago mercy as " marcy," clerk as " clark," sergent as "sarjeant" were in common use, and some old-fash
ioned people cling to them still. This usage survives largely
among the Irish, and is embalmed in the personal names
Clark, Marcy, Darby and Sargent. In some districts of Ten
nessee & perch is still a "parch."
Long o of note had not become firmly fixed in Shakes
peare's time in many words in which it is now well estab
lished. Two instances of this are shown in the poet's pun
ning rhymes of choler with collar, and dolor with dollar. The
o of shore appeared in some words from which it has since
departed. Groton, in Massachusetts, is pronounced " Grawton " by many old people who do not stop to think that this
was the pronunciation in the English town from which some
of their Pilgrim forefathers came. Glorious was " glawrious "
in those days, as it is still in some Episcopal churches. Ow
was often oo, Cowper and Cowley being "Cooper" and
" Cooley " in England to this day. The settlement of the
Cowley Fathers in Boston has revived this old pronunciation
there.
/was sometimes ee, Shakespeare rhyming ship with sheep,
and Dryden rhyming mill with keel, while Pope rhymes mill
432
with feel. le had the sound of the short e of pert in pierce,

tierce, and fierce, which were pronounced " perse," " terse,"
"ferse." The name of Franklin Pierce, the President, was
universally called " Perse " in New England. Milton in
"L'Allegro"has
Married to immortal verse
Such as the meeting soul may pierce.
As late as 1820 Byron, in the sixth canto of " Don Juan,"

has reverse rhyming with fierce and pierce.
The diphthong oi was like long i, having the value that it
still possesses in choir. Pope rhymes noise with cries, join with
nine, joined with mankind, and Dryden has defile rhyming
with despoil, purloin with thine, and reclined with joined.
They called a boy a " bye " then, as the Irish do to-day. In
the back districts of New England, even now, oil, spoil, boil,
may be heard as " ile," " spile," " bile."
Among these phonetic survivals none has been more per
sistent than that of were as " ware " and year as " yare," and
few more interesting. In the same category may be put are
as " air," though this has become distinctly " vulgar," while
the others are still in the South in reputable standing. Pope's
rhyme of were with care, and Dryden's rhyme of bears with
years are still legitimate in verse, as they are common in
every-day rural speech, in some of the Southern States. The
following couplet, taken at random from the recent verse of a
Georgia poet, is one case in point of many that might be cited
of the prevalence of this pronunciation :
Suppose they were to send you as a missionary where
The Eskimo makes fire out of whale oil half the year!
_R has fallen in grace since the time when it was rolled

as the Irishman continues to roll it. The frequent use of
" alarum " for alarm shows its value in Pope's day. How
sadly this letter has deteriorated from its old value is indi
cated by the difference between an Irishman's pronunciation
of the word work as " wurruk," and a Kentuckian's pro
nunciation of the word sir, formally sirrah, as " suh ;" or a
New Yorker's pronunciation of the name of the metropolis
&
433
from which he entirely eliminates the r. In Boston the ear

can distinguish no difference between the pronunciation of
gutter and of gutta, as in ^wtt-percha, and yet the children of
Boston people, who settled in the west forty years ago, pro
nounce it distinctly. Dryden's rhyme of affords with words,
and Pope's rhyme of works with corks are impossible to-day,
but they furnish excellent evidence of the letterV loss of
strength.
Short u in the seventeenth century had in put the same
value that it had in shut. In southern Ohio put keeps its old
pronunciation. The long u of pure was just beginning to
gain vogue in Elizabeth's time. Two hundred years later it
was exceedingly popular in words like rule, rude, dupe, in
which it is now giving place to the oo of school. Nowadays
it is fast losing its value of yoo and deteriorating into oo, all
because of slovenliness of diction and that vocal laziness, so
to call it, which is the primal moving cause of phonetic
changethe indisposition to any unnecessary exertion of the
vocal cords. As it is easier to say "doop" than dupe, most
people (and it is the people and not the saving remnant of
the Purists who make the laws of language) say " doop " just
as the sailor finding Bellerophon an inconvenient mouthful,
calls it " Belly Ruffin." Another cause of this tendency,
where it shows itself among persons of usually correct wpeech,
is the influence of school-room instruction in Latin, German,
Spanish and Italian, where the u has almost always the
sound of oo. The change is so general that the dictionaries
cease to mark the sound as obligatory in many words in which
it was essential a few generations ago. So conservative an
authority as the late Prof. William Dwight Whitney says :
" There has long existed a tendency to lessen or remove
the y element in certain situations unfavorable to its pro
duction. After an r the pronunciation oo lias taken the place
of u so generally as to be alone accepted by all recent authori
ties, although some speakers still show plain traces of the
older utterance. The same has happened in less degree after
I and some of the latest authorities, even in England, pre
scribe always loo. But further, after the dental consonants
VOL. 128
434
t, d, n, s, z, the usage of the majority of good speakers tends

to reduce the y element to a lighter and less noticeable form,
while many omit it altogether, pronouncing oo."
This would give us the derided " nooz " and " noozpaper,"
as well as " dook," and doubtless, we shall have them in
good standing soon despite the protests of the Purists. These
critical brethren have long made a shibboleth of " dyuke "
ever since Thackeray held up to ridicule the cockney who
called the hero of Waterloo " the Dook," and perhaps before.
Apparently they are fighting now in their last ditch.
A final word about the dialect of the West Virginia
mountaineers, which is extremely rich in fossilized forms of
the orthoepy of three centuries ago. In " pinted," "jined,"
"suddin," " cotch," "leetle," "git," "repint" (for repent),
" ragler " (for regular), " sarpint," " varmint," " chice " (for
choice), "sarch," "pictur," "sartin," " air " (for are), and a
hundred other colloquial words they have retained the old pro
nunciation. They use fetch in its old sense of bring and carry
almost universally, and in afeared they keep in good use a
word once as legitimate as afraid.
Be not afeared ; the isle is full of noises,
says Shakespeare, in the Tempest. They use " chuck " (to
throw) as freely as in the days before it had fallen from grace,
and their " chimley " for chimney is the old dialectical varia
tion. Their "cheer," "keer," "skeer" and "sheer" for
chair, care, scare, share, show how the long a of fate weakened
into the Italian i. Both the Irish and the mountaineers
omit the final g from the participial ending ing, as good
speakers are supposed to have done in Pope's day. When
Dean Hole was criticised during his recent lecture tour of
the United States for this fault, he said, in admitting it, that
this was the general practice of cultivated speakers in Eng
land.
Electric Power Transmission.
435
ELECTRIC POWER TRANSMISSION'.

BY LIEUT. F. JARVIS PATTEN.
No industrial advance has made such rapid strides in this
century as that of power transmission by electricity, which
has now had less than a single decade of growth. We are
scarcely aware that such power transfer is an accomplished
commercial fact; yet thousands of horse-power are being
daily sent over the slender copper thread that connects one
place to another, and by so doing practically eliminates the
space that separates them.
If there is one thing, therefore, in the material progress
of the latter part of this century for which its workers may
feel an excusable pride, it is not so much the railroad and
the modern steamship, the latter a comparatively recent cre
ation, but the possibility which now stands a demonstrated
fact, of sending over an inert and motionless wire the energy
that nature has placed here, to a distant point where it is
needed, and where it can neither be found nor economically
made.
Of all engines, the dynamo, or generator of electric current,
is doubtless the simplest in construction, operation and con
trol. Some moving wire in proper relation to a magnet is
practically all there is to it. Yet this machine, discovered
by Faraday in the early part of the century, was the object
of but little scientific attention or study until the last quar
ter of the century. Professor Pacinotti, of Turin, early in
the sixties made a marked improvement in the Faraday
machine by so constructing it that it would yield a uniform
direct current like that derived from a battery, by which
device all electric apparatus up to that date had been
operated. This advance, one would think, should have given
an immediate stimulus to electric discovery and progress.
Not so, however; it was not till some years later that
Gramme, a Belgian engineer, having seen the Pacinotti
436
machine, and appreciating the marked advance for certain

uses that this new construction promised, set about build
ing larger machines on the Pacinotti plan, and, so doing,
made the first practical arc-light machines.
This beautiful result, the arc-light, the first practical outcome of the modern dynamo, must needs be given the high
est possible degree of perfection, and this result was in fact
the stimulus that gave a new and lasting incentive to the
development of the modern electric generator. The evident
demand for the new illuminant produced the new machine,
the direct current series arc-lighterin no essential feature
very different to-day from those first made by the Belgian
engineer.
It should be remembered that at the time this machine
had reached a fair degree of perfection, the incandescent or
glow lamp, accredited to Edison, had not yet been perfected,
and the new type of dynamo which it required, and which
now as a motor does the electric street-car work of the
world, was not then known ; so it came that the first attempts
at power transmission were made with the early arc-light
machines, and this by a simple accident which it is hardly
any exaggeration to say actually delayed electric power
transmission by a whole decade. This accident forms an
interesting bit of electrical history, which makes it worth
recording, and shows, by the way, how scientific advance
which of all things should be ever the result of predeter
mined calculationsometimes goes on the hit or miss plan.
At the Vienna Exposition, in 1870, a number of the
Gramme machines were used in connection with an arc-light
exhibit The Exposition was about to be formally opened,
but, as generally happens on such occasions, matters were far
from completely arranged in many exhibits. Among these
happened to be the Gramme arc-light display, where a
machine had no connection to any circuit, and numerous
cables layabout in disorder. To improve the appearance of
things somewhat, a workman took the two loose ends of a
circuit from a machine that was running and [connected
them to the idle machine. To his great astonishment the
437
machine thus connected to the driven arc-lighter started

revolving without any apparent power to drive it
This was the first instance the world had seen of one
dynamo operated by steam-power as a generator of current,
working a similar machine as a motor by the current sent
to it from the first. Of course, the distance was not great,
being only a few yards, yet all the essential features of the
transmission of power by the electric current were there in
operation.
The fact was reported to the authorities, who, of course,
knew that the second machine should be driven by the cur
rent of the first, inasmuch as the two machines are neces
sarily reversible in their operations, but, singularly enough,
one of them had ever thought to try it, and so by fortu
itous accident, the exhibit was greatly enhanced in value
by the addition of an operation hitherto unknown, and the
industrial world was given a new and fruitful idea.
Here was at least material for the engineers that con
tained great possibilities. How far could this principle be
made operative, and what, under different conditions of
distance, would be the percentages of loss ?
These were highly interesting questions for the industrial
world, as well as for the engineers and scientists, and all
were soon at work on their respective features of the prob
lem. The French, as usual, were the first to seize the
problem seriously, and within a few years of the Vienna
demonstration, the celebrated Munich experiment had
been completed under the direction of Marcel Deprez, engi
neer for a Paris syndicate, deserving the highest praise for
their enterprise and early devotion to this problem. The
Munich experiment, the first attempt at power transmis
sion to any considerable distance, was very simple, and
involved little more than the putting into operation on
a larger scale what had taken place in the exposition hall
at Vienna. Two arc dynamos were connected by a two
wire line in series relation, the distance separating them
befog about fifteen miles, and elaborate tests were made as
to the line losses and the motor losses of this system of
438
Electric Fewer Transmission,
transmitting power from one place to another. Great

disappointment was felt at the best that could be got from
this apparently elaborate and crucial test. The figure*
showed a loss of something more than fifty per cent. of the
power delivered to the line. The experiment was thus
marked a commercial failure, and electric power transmis
sion had its first serious set-back. The French went on
with more extensive and more costly experiments, without,
however, in the course of a few years making any essential
progress.
As usual in such cases the engineers could tell what the
trouble was, but were forced to the confession that the rem
edy was not so easy to suggest. The fact is, these experi
ments were made with a type of machine ill adapted to
power transmission, using, as they did, a comparatively low
voltage arc-light dynamo as generator and motor. It waa
evident that a greatly increased voltage on the line would
materially decrease the losses, but high voltages had not been
handled, and the commutators necessary in machines of this
type introduced serious difficulties and no little danger in
using a very high voltage in such a system, which should
be made sufficiently simple to admit of being handled by the
workmen necessary about such plants.
Alternating current dynamos, machines of the old Fara
day type not then developed to any great degree of perfec
tion, offered peculiar advantages for this work, because, in
the first place, they required no commutators, and dangerous
or injurious sparking would be avoided by inherent qualities
in the machine. Further, a very high line-voltage could be
used without using a dangerously high voltage in either the
dynamo or the motor, this because of the ease with which
the alternating current can be altered or transformed in
voltage by an apparatus so simple that it has no moving
part. This was all known in a general or theoretical way
at the time of the Deprez experiments, but the transforming
apparatus and its handling had not received any develop
ment. To these objections to the use of the alternating
current was added another difficulty, that appeared at the
439
time quite insurmountable ; the alternating dynamo, it was

found, would not start and run as a motor as would the
direct current arc-machine of Gramme. It was owing to
simple, but apparently insurmountable difficulties like these,
that power transmission by electricity was delayed for years.
The inventions with which the early experiments were made
were not adequate to the work, and years were to pass be
fore inventions made for other purposes should remove the
obstacles that stood in the way of the Deprez experiments.
Just as the early evidences of the possibility of power trans
mission were the outcome and the result of early apparatus
built for arc-lighting, so the later and more perfect power
system grew to a large extent out of the later incandescent
or glow lamp machinery.
Close upon the heels of the arc-light came the Edison
incandescent lamp, necessitating the use of constant poten
tial dynamos, and, strange to say, the alternating machine
of the old Faraday type, which might as well have been
perfected in the thirties, rapidly asserted its superiority for
incandescent lighting, and is now almost exclusively used
where current has to be sent to any distance.
So it happened through the growth of incandescent light
ing that alternating current systems were brought to perfec
tion. The transformer, by which voltage is raised or lowered
at will by a safe and simple apparatus, was soon perfected,
and the use of from two thousand to live thousand volts on
the line became an every-day affair. The one great obstacle
to the use of this sort of machinery for power transmission
was not, however, finally removed until 1888, by the Tesla
invention of the rotary field motor. The ordinary alternat
ing dynamo will not start as a motor, as will the direct cur
rent machine. By the use of an alternator giving a double
current, however, Tesla showed that the second machine or
motor became a self starter. Thus the last obstacle to the
use of alternating current machinery for power transmission
was removed, and from that time to the present the advance
of this industry has been almost a triumphal march. Al
though this last invention was an American one, the Ger
440
mans were the first to appreciate its high value and to give
it practical demonstration and proof.
The celebrated Lauffen-Frankfort experiment marked the
development of a new era. At about the time of the Frank
fort Exposition in 1891, one of the wealthiest manufac
turing concerns in Germany had just completed a plant for
sending a few hundred horse-power by the new alternating
system of Tesla from the falls at Lauften, on the Neckar, to
a manufacturing town not many miles distant. They con
ceived and, with some assistance, put into operation the
bold idea of sending one hundred horse-power to the
Frankfort Exhibition, one hundred and twelve miles distant.
This feat was accomplished with great success. They used
from ten thousand to thirty thousand volts on the line, and
three copper wires smaller than an ordinary lead pencil
sufficed to carry the power to Frankfort, with a loss of less
than twenty-four per cent. in line and motor at the distant
end. The motor was of the alternating triple current type,
the form now most in favor among German engineers. With
the perfection of alternate current apparatus electric power
transmission has thus found a complete and satisfactory solu
tion. Since the Frankfort demonstration many large plants
in Europe have been installed with the expected successful
results, and quite a number in the United States, where, at
Niagara Falls, we are just witnessing the completion of the
greatest electrical enterprise that the world is likely to see
for a century to come. This installation has taken about
four years to reach completion, but now bids fair to justify
the labor and capital spent upon it. Something like a mile
above the falls a closed canal, or basin, is dug on the Amer
ican side. From this basin, the water of which is at the
level of the upper river, canals run into the power house,
where they terminate in shafts some one hundred and
twelve feet in vertical depth, and which debouch into a large
tunnel, or sluice-way, which carries the waste water down
to the river below the falls, nearly a mile away. The con
struction of this tunnel and the several wheel pits, of which
there are ten now finished, each having its shaft to the pond
441
above, have been the principal items of cost. Ten dynamos

of five thousand horse-power each will be the first plant,
but ample arrangements are made for increasing this output.
At the bottom of each shaft is a turbine wheel, surprisingly
small in size for the power it gives, but under the enormous
head of one hundred and twelve feet the forty-inch wheel
will yield five thousand horse-power. The wheel spindle, a
hollow steel shaft, nicely balanced, carries on its other end,
in the power house at the top, the revolving part of a five
thousand horse-power alternating dynamo of the double
current type.
Much of the power will be used at Niagara in the mills
of the immediate vicinity. A large part of the entire
amount generated by the ten machines first installed will be
sent to Buffalo, twenty-eight miles distant, and to the neigh
boring (proposed) manufacturing town of Depew which it
is intended shall derive its lights and power from the
cataract at Niagara. The dynamos at Niagara will gener
ate seven thousand amperes at a pressure of two thousand
two hundred and fifty volts, not a very high pressure for
modern alternators, but the distance is not great. The line
wires will be underground, and near Buffalo the voltage
will be reduced by transformers to two hundredan ordinary
voltage for city lines.
The Niagara Company have already under control facili
ties for operating the Canadian side of the falls, and a some
what wild imagination may be trusted to predict what
another half century will see as a result of this beginning.
With the possibility of sending power in this way one hun
dred and fifty miles economically, there is every reason to
expect in the near future an industrial manufacturing centre
within this radius of Niagara Falls, sufficient to do a large
part, if not all, the manufacturing of the United States.
442
Hands ; as Indicative of Character, etc.
HANDS ;
AS INDICATIVE OF CHARACTER, PAST AND FUTURE EVENTS, AND
OF ALL THAT RELATES TO THE INDIVIDUAL.
BY CHEIRO.
And would we question Fate? Methinks
In life's long chain we are the little links
That stretch the endless whole; and thus I teach
As part of lifeBO are we part of each.
CHEIRO.
In examining a study of this kind from a practical and

logical standpoint, it is well to remember that all recent
discoveries in regard to the influence of the mind over the
body go far to prove that the old-world art of Cheiromancy
rested on a foundation natural, logical, and scientific.
If one will consider for a moment the claims that such a
study has for consideration, not only on account of its ex
treme antiquity, but in regard to the position which it
occupied among nations famous for their learning and
depth of thought, one will be inclined to admit that it must
have had some more sure foothold than the fanciful theories
of the ignorant and superstitious. Tracing it back from
country to .country, we find that it has a literature of its
own in the Aryan civilization, the oldest in the history of
the known world, and associated with a people whose phil
osophy even the Greek schools of learning have been found
to follow. Again, looking to a closer period in the onward
march and development of mankind, we reach the Grecian
civilization and find the study of the hand not alone in favor,
but being taught and practiced by men whose names are to
this day as stars of light in the firmament of knowledge.
Now, whether these people were more advanced and en
lightened than we are, has long been a question of dispute.
The point, however, which has been admitted, and the one
which concerns this subject most is, that as in those days the
greatest study of mankind was man, it therefore follows
that in a study like this, their conclusions are far more
443
likely to be right than are those of an age like the present,

one famous for its implements of destruction, its steam en
gines and its commerce. Again, if by teaching in our
colleges and schools the wisdom of the Greeks, we admit
that those philosophers were men of extraordinary depth of
learning, and that their works, thoughts and ideas are
worthy of the deepest respect, why then should we consider
lightly their authority in this matter, and throw aside a
study that so deeply occupied their attention?
As in the study of mankind there came to be noted a
natural position on the face for the nose, eyes, ears, etc., so
also on the hand there came to be recognized a natural posi
tion for the line of head, the line of life, and so forth. The
time and study devoted to the subject enabled these students
to give names to each mark, as the line of head, denoting
mentality ; the line of heart, the affectionate temperament ;
the line of life, longevity ; and so on with every other mark
that the hand possesses.
Among the Greeks this study numbered among its fol
lowers such men of learning as Anaxagoras, Pliny, Aris
totle, Cardamis and others. Hispanus, in sending a work on
cheiromancy to Alexander the Great, described it as "a
study worthy the attention of an elevated and inquiring
mind."
It was the Church alone which, it is saidjealous of the
power of this old-world scienceranked it with sorcery,
witchcraft, "and all such abominations of the devil," and,
by the fierceness of its persecution, forced it into the hands
of outlaws, gypsies and vagrants. Such an action on the
part of the Church is not surprising, when even in our own
day it constitutes itself in all matters, both spiritual and
temporal, the chosen oracle of God. Without being either
antagonistic or intolerant, one cannot help but remark that
the history of any dominant religion is the history of oppo
sition to knowledge, unless that knowledge proceeds from its
teachings.
This strange study, the child of pagans and heathens,
was therefore not even given a trial. The strictest laws
444
were made against it, and as early as 315 A.D. we find the
ecclesiastical court making a decree which has been the
basis of all the Continental edicts on the subject, and which
is almost word for word with a similar law made in Eng
land during the reign of Henry VIII., and also with the
Act of George IV., in which it states that " any person
practicing palmistry is hereby deemed a rogue and a vaga
bond, to be sentenced to a year's imprisonment, and to stand
in the pillory."
In view of the opposition of the Church, it is interesting
to notice the many important phrases in the Bible in which
there is a significant mention of the hand. The verse,
however, which has been most largely quoted as bearing on
the subject, is the seventh of the thirty-seventh chapter of
Job. In the original Hebrew, it appears to have a very
different meaning from that given to it by the English
version. One translation of it runs, " God placed signs or
seals in the hands of men, that all men may know their
works." This verse, in about the middle of the sixteenth
century, caused one of the most interesting discussions
among theologians and commentators. Many of them ad
vocated the cheiromantic aspect that the lines of the hand
are " the markings of God, that all men may know their
works." Among the many learned men who openly sup
ported this view were Franciscus Valesius, Schultens, Lyrannus, Thomassin, and Debrio, but the translation of the
Bible into English at a time when the opposition to palmis
try, sorcery, and witchcraft was at its height, is presumed
to be the cause of the wording of the verse as it now stands.
Let us now see what modern science has done for the
acceptance of such a study, and if there be any foundation
for its claims beyond those of mere hypothesis and specula
tion.
In the first place the concensus of scientific research has
placed the hand as the immediate servant of the brain,
under the direct influence of the mind, and the still more
mysterious influence and subtlety of thought. Sir Charle?
Bell, the greatest authority of the present age on the nerve
445
connection between the brain and the hand, commenced his

famous Bridgewater treatise in 1833 by writing :
" We ought to define the hand as belonging exclusively
to man, corresponding, in its sensibility and motion, to the en
dowment of his mind." The same scientist, later in his work,
demonstrates that as there are more nerves from the brain
to the hand than in any other portion of the system ; and
that, as the action of the mind affects the entire body, it
therefore follows that every thought of the brain more
immediately affects the hand, and consequently its formation.
The most prejudiced skeptic will readily admit the enor
mous difference that exists between the hands of persons
of different temperaments. Nature does nothing without
a purpose; there must therefore be a meaning to such differ
ences, as is the case with differences in animals. To the
judge of horses, the slightest variation in the contour of the
limb contains, to his practiced observation, a language in a
line. Why not, then, in the observation of the hand ? It
stands to reason that if we can so easily prove that varia
tion of shape contains a meaning, so must every other varia
tion in connection with it, whether it be of nerves, skin,
lines, or nails. Looking at the study, then, from this stand
point alone, it holds good that there is a meaning in differ
ence of formation, and, if a little through casual observa
tion, why not a great deal if a sufficient amount of study
be devoted to the subject ?
We will now turn our attention to the lines, and examine
the arguments, both for and against.
The chief argument against the study is generally brought
by people who, from ignorance or want of examination of
facts, rashly jump to the conclusion that the lines of the
palm must be made by folding and constant use. The
direct opposite is, however, the case, as in medical work it
is a well-known fact that in certain cases of paralysis, long
before the attack takes place, the lines completely disappear,
although the hand continues to fold as before.
Again, if the lines were made by use, the woman working
with her hands for daily bread would, according to all the
446
Hands; as Indicative of Character, etc.
laws of logic, with such constant folding, have some thou

sands of lines and cross lines in her hands by the time she
reached forty, while the woman of luxury would have
scarcely any. But once more the direct opposite is the case,
as will be proved by the most casual observation.
If, therefore, the lines are not made by the action of the
hands, who will prove that they are not caused by the action
of the mind ?
Meissner, in 1853, proved the existence in the hand of the
tactile corpuscles, " running in straight rows in the red
lines of the palm." He afterward demonstrated that these
corpuscles contained the ends of the important nerve fibres,
and that during the life of the body they gave forth vibra
tions and crepitations, distinct and different in every person,
which changed under the influence of every change in the
system, and which ceased the moment life became extinct.
It is impossible, in the space at my disposal, to enter into
the wealth of scientific evidence which goes far to prove the
general belief in a nervous fluid, essence or principle that
conveys every change of the active or passive brain directly
to the hand. But enough has been written to prove that,
as the hands are the servants of the system, so all things
that affect the system affect them.
And now the future: one will readily ask the question,
How is it possible to believe that coming deeds and actions
can be marked in advance ?
In answer to this, I draw attention to the fact that it has
been demonstrated by scientists that every portion of the
brain may grow, diminish or change, and correspond in such
changes to those of habit, temperament or talent developed
by the individual in the every-day actions of life. As the
brain evolves from childhood to manhood, it follows that
there must be an advance growth before it can reach the point
of power or action. The slightest change, it will thus be
seen, must affect the body in advance of the action. Is it, then,
illogical to assume that the hand, to the student of such
things, denotes the change going on in the brain, even year*
447
before the actions of the individual become the result of

such a change ?
The most casual observer cannot fail to notice the enormous
difference that can be seen between the shapes and positions
of the line of head alone, on the hand of the congenital
idiot, as compared with that of the man who has a clear
brain and a superior mentality. Therefore, if proved in one
instance that certain marks on the line of head denote this
or that peculiarity mentally, the same course of observation,
it is not illogical to assume, will, if persisted in, be also
accurate in its findings as regards health, illness and death,
and also in regard to prosperity or the reverse.
In the investigation of such a subject, it must not be for
gotten that in various parts of the world this study has been
cultivated for centuries in succession, and the most careful
annals and records kept in regard to almost every mark that
can be found on the hand. During my stay in India I was
permitted to examine and use a large book on such markings,
'which was jealously guarded in one of the Brahmin temples,
as a thing almost sacred. This strange volume was made of
human skin, wonderfully pieced and put together, and written
in a red liquid that age had failed to destroy or fade. It
contained some hundreds of hauds, and was illustrated with
records of how, when and where this or that line was proved
correct. In compiling my recent work on hands,1 I have
taken advantage of this, and have set forth in many instances
what I copied from the ancient volume, and which I after
ward proved by experience to be almost infallible.
Whether the influence that marks the hand be the " subtle
essence of the brain," or a still deeper and a more hidden
power that " shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will,"
it matters little. Such agency or influence may forever re
main a mystery, but because it does, that does not qualify
us for refusing to believe in it, simply because we do not
know. One might as well say : " I refuse to live, because I
1 Cheiro's " Language of the Hand." Price, $2.00. The Transatlantic
Publishing Co., New York.
448
Railroad Facts and Figures.
do not know all that constitutes life," or" I refuse to think,

because I do not know the processes of thought."
"As is the mind, so is the form." This is the foundation
on which this strange science depends, and whether it be ex
amined from the materialistic or the most mystical stand
point, one cannot help but admit that " progressive special
ization of structure " produces suitability of shape, which
by study can be classed under various heads dealing with
those characteristics common to occupation, surroundings
and temperament.
RAILROAD FACTS AND FIGURES.

BY MELVILLE PHILIPS.
Here is a fact to astound oneeven the reader who may
be old enough to vouch for its authenticity : In 1845 (but
a half century ago), when only two or three thousand miles
of railroad line had been opened in our mother-country, a
slender pamphlet of thirty-four pages, bearing, even at that
time, the now familiar name of " Bradshaw," was more
than sufficient to contain the time-tables of all the trains
of Great Britain. In 1842 Queen Victoria refused to travel
by railway, and it is recorded of Prince Albert that, in
going to Windsor, he was wont to say, " Not quite so fast,
next time, Mr. Conductor, if you please." In our own
country, many are still living who have watched the de
velopment of the greatest railway system in the world,
who have seen the steady and amazing advance from Peter
Cooper's locomotive, weighing less than a ton, which, with
difficulty, outstripped in speed a gray horse, to locomotives
weighing more than seventy-five tons, which easily run
sixty, and can exceed seventy, miles an hour. Moreover,
in the life of the present generation, the railroads in the
United States have been quadrupled in mileage ; they have
attained to the enormous proportions of two hundred thou
sand miles ; they have cost close upon ten billion dollars ;
they employ more than a million men, and they run more
than a million cars, which is to say that stretched out in
449
a straight line, with locomotives and tenders, they would

form a train more than seven thousand miles long.
Such figures convey but an inadequate idea alike of the
extent and the advance of railroad interests in the United
States. The study, indeed, of the growth of a single great
corporation is far more instructive ; and so we propose for
ourselves, in this paper, a brief consideration of the Penn
sylvania Railroad Company, the greatest corporation in the
world, the one with which we are most familiar, and the
one which lends itself most readily to our purpose of point
ing out the several stages of railroad evolution during the
past half century. For this company was chartered just
about fifty years ago (April 18th, 1846), and from next to
nothing it has grown to represent about one-tenth of the
aggregate value of the railroad systems of the country ; it
has more than one hundred thousand employes, and more
than eight thousand miles of line laid in so many as four
teen States of the Union. Hence no apology need be made
for accepting it as the representative American railroad
company.
We have before us an advertisement of the " Pioneer
Fast Line," dated April, 1837, which holds out to tourists
the alluring prospect of rapid transit from Philadelphia to
Pittsburg (" in large and splendid eight-wheel cars," and
canal packets), in "three and one-half days." In another
advertisement, so late as 1849, the Philadelphia, Wilming
ton and Baltimore line plumes itself on running twice a
day to Baltimore, "through in six hours." This was
twenty years after Peter Cooper had built the first locomo
tive in this country, the boiler of his wonderful engine
being the size of a flour barrel, and its flue made of gunbarrels. In a half century there have been very many
modifications in the design of locomotives. The modern
standard express trains and the heavy freight trains, the
light trains on elevated roads and the trains for suburban
traffic, require different kinds of locomotives. In size
and weight these locomotives have steadily grown, until
now the "decapod" class weigh, in working order, one
Vox.. 1-29
450
hundred and forty-eight thousand pounds. The following

table, for which we are indebted to an interesting article
on " American Locomotives and Cars," written by Mr. M.
N. Forney, explains itself:
DIMENSIONS, WEIGHT, AND APPROXIMATE PRICES OP LOCOMOTIVES.
TYPB.
Cylinders.
Weight of
Diam engine in
eter of working
driving- order,
wheel. exclusive
of tender.
Diam. Stroke. Inches. Pounds.

18
24 62 to 68 92,000
19
24 50 to 56 %,000
19
24 50 to 56 100,000
"Consolidation" Freight..... 20
24
SO
120,000
26
" Decapod" Freight ..... ..... 22
150000
46
Four-wheel Tank Switching.. 15
24
50
58,000
Six-wheel Switching, with
18
24
50
84.000
"Forney " N. T. Klevated... 11
16
42
42,000
"American '' Paswnger.
" Mogul " ITraight
.........
Street-car Motor LocomotiTe.
10
14
to
22,000
Weight of
engine
and tender Approxi
mate
without
price.
water or
fuel.
Pounds.
110000
4-16,000
iis'ooo
132.000
165 000
47,000
18,750
9,500
9,750
10,500
13,250
5,500
Price
V"
pound.
Centa.
7.95
8.19
826
7.95
803
11.70
8,500
8.89
4,500
13.23
(3,500 to ) 19.44
ac
18,000< 14,000.
cording f ">
to tender. j 22.22
98,000
84,000
The speed of locomotives has not increased with their

weight and size. There is a natural law which stands in
the way of this, and it is succinctly stated by the excellent
authority quoted above. " If," says Mr. Forney, " we
double the weight on the driving-wheels, the adhesion and
consequent capacity for drawing loads is also doubled.
Reasoning in an analogous way, it might be said that if we
double the circumference of the wheels the distance that
they will travel in one revolution, and consequently the
speed of the engine, will be in like proportion. But if this
be done, it will require twice as much power to turn the
large wheels as was needed for the small ones ; and we then
encounter the natural law that the resistance increases as
the square of the speed, and probably at even a greater
ratio at very high velocities." At sixty miles an hour the
resistance of a train is four times as great as it is at thirty
miles. That is, the pull on the draw-bar of the engine must
be four times as great in the one case as it is in the other.
But at sixty miles an hour this pull must be exerted for a
given distance in half the time that it is at thirty miles, so
451
that the amount of power exerted and steam generated in a

given period of time must be eight times as great in the one
case as in the other. This means that the capacity of the
boiler, cylinders and the other parts, must be greater with
a corresponding addition to the weight of the machine.
Obviously, if the weight per wheel is limited, we soon reach
a point at which the size of the driving-wheels and other
parts cannot be enlarged ; which means that there is a
certain proportion of wheels, cylinders, and boilers which
will give a maximum speed.
Again, the great improvements in the processes of manu
facturing steel, which have resulted in its general use for
rails and tires, have made it possible nearly to double the
weight which was carried on each wheel when constructed
of iron. The weight of rails has also been very much in
creased since they were first made of steel. A quarter of a century ago iron rails, weighing fifty-six pounds per yard, were
about the heaviest that were laid in this country. Now
steel rails weighing seventy-two pounds are commonly used,
and some weighing eighty-five pounds have been laid on
roads in this country, and others weighing one hundred
pounds have been laid on the continent of Europe.
One of the most interesting exhibits at the World's Fair
was the series of statistical models which illustrated the
immensity of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company's busi
ness. One large globe, representative of the traffic of the
system, showed that its locomotive mileage and passenger
and freight movement is equivalent to:One ton hauled
around the world in sixty-three seconds; one passenger
conveyed around the world in seven and three-quarters min
utes ; the locomotive mileage being one hundred and seven
million of miles per year, so that one locomotive may be
said to travel around the globe every two hours. Another
model illustrated the capital invested in the company, and
the companies merged into or associated in interest with it.
It would require two lines of silver dollars laid, with peri
pheries touching, along the entire length of its eight thou
sand miles of road, to aggregate this colossal capital of seven
452
hundred and fifty million dollars. If each rail in the fifteen

thousand miles of track comprised in the system were
welded end to end in one long rail, it would reach around
the globe and overlap from New York to a point in the
Pacific Ocean within about one thousand miles of Honolulu,
Hawaii. The amount of stone ballast in the tracks of the
system was represented by a model, which, while occupying
an equal area, was fourteen times as high as the Pyramid of
Cheops; the consumption of coal by the company's lines
was shown to be ten tons per minute ; the consumption of
water, over one million gallons per hour ; the daily con
sumption of oil, three hundred and seventy-five barrels ;
and, finally, a model illustrating the amount of wages paid
to employes from 1857 to 1892 exhibited these robust
figures:
YEAR.
1857
1865
1870
1875
1880
1885
1892
ANNUAL PAYMENT. '
$1,692,508
8,614,976
17,284,105
23,901,294
27,860,369
36,525,347
67,520,340
NUMBER OF EMPLOYES.
3,469
17,149
33,249
46,512
53,303
66,430
104,021
Now all of these facts and figures, though perhaps of suffi

cient interest in themselves, are set down here because their
impressive exhibit at the World's Fair was under the direc
tion of Mr. Theo. N. Ely, Chief of Motive Power, to whom
we are indebted for the particular information which con
stitutes the raison d'etre of this paper. That is to say, we
propose to give the views of Mr. Ely, as one of the first
authorities, on the radical improvements which have been
accomplished in railroading during the present generation.
These improvements, he tells us, may be classed under three
general heads : roadway, equipment. and signals.
Some twenty-five years ago the Pennsylvania Railroad
adopted broken stone as best meeting the conditions of a
good track foundation ; at the same time the dimensions and
number of ties were fixed, and finally the rails and turnouts
453
were laid according to carefully considered rules. The

weight of rails has been increased, with a corresponding
improvement in fastenings ; the old turnouts have given
place to those of more modern design ; but the foundation
is much the same as that first adopted. Closely related to
the roadway are crossings at grade. These have, from
time to time, been abolished as detrimental to the safe
passage of trains.
In equipment, the locomotive has been thoroughly re
designed and made stronger in all its parts. The air-brake,
applied to its driving truck and tender wheels, has made it
possible not only to stop itself quickly, but assist in retard
ing the train as well. The strength of passenger cars has
been increased until they have reached a weight of twentyseven tons, and the couplings and platforms have been
greatly improved. Sleeping-car construction has likewise
advanced, until the more modern cars have reached nearly
fifty tons. The air-brake has been indispensable as a condi
tion of safety in fast moving trains.
In the early days of railways there was nothing that
could be properly dignified by the name of signals. By
alow degrees, as in usual matters involving questions of
safety, a high state of development has at last been reached.
The best systems of signaling and interlocking are mar
vels of mechanical skill and ingenuity, and command the
respect due to their wonderful efficiency.
It may be interesting to note, in passing, a few instances
of train movements which have come under Mr. Ely's
observation. Nearly nineteen years ago, or to be exact, in
June, 1876, a Pennsylvania Railroad standard locomotive,
drawing a train of two sleeping-cars and a dining-car,
covered the distance between Jersey City and Pittsburg,
four hundred and thirty-eight and five-tenths miles, with
out a stop, in six hundred and five minutes, or an average
rate of forty-three and one-half miles an hour. This
journey is noteworthy as the longest known continuous
run ; and one which involved thorough transportation
arrangements for its movement, and great endurance on
454
the part of the locomotive. The special train was en route

to San Francisco, which city was reached in eighty-four
hours and seventeen minutes after leaving New York.
The train which conveyed President Garfield from Wash
ington to Elberon, September 7th, 1881, was run under condi
tions of great excitement and anxiety. His life hung upon
a thread, and any detention of the train would have resulted
disastrously. The excitement was intense, and prostration
was imminent. The physicians had fixed upon thirty miles
an hour as the speed which would give the least discomfort
to the patient. After the train was well under way, and
without warning, an increase of speed was determined upon,
which reached sixty-five miles an hour before the journey
was completed. The order for the transportation of this
train was contained in one message, and so skilfully was it
worded that, despite the changed conditions, there was not
the slightest detention from any cause.
A most noteworthy accomplishment was that of the
Pennsylvania locomotive which drew the special train of
the Delegates to the International American Conference on
their way to the principal cities east of the Rocky Moun
tains. This engine traversed the rails of twenty distinct
lines of railroad, and covered ten thousand miles in its
course, without accident of any kind or unreasonable delay.
Another example of endurance may be mentionedthe
one hundred and twenty-six thousand miles made by one
locomotive between Philadelphia and Washington in the
year 1891equal to five complete journeys around the
world.
Mr. Ely's views are of particular interest when he con
siders what factor will control the limit of speed in the
passenger-trains of the future.
In the road-bed, he tells us, we shall have to demand that
the alignment be almost free from curvature, and the width
between the tracks be increased ; that the foundation shall
be stable and well-protected from rain and frost ; that land
slides and other accidental obstructions shall be provided
for ; that the ties shall be firmly imbedded ; that the rails
455
shall be heavyone hundred pounds, or more, if necessary

and securely fastened ; that all frogs and switches shall be
proof against accident, misplacement, or rupture ; that all
draw-bridges shall be made secure beyond question ; and,
finally, that all crossings at grade be abolished. It is
further insisted that a thorough system of supervision and
inspection be provided.
With fulfilment of these conditions which, professionally
speaking, are entirely practicable, trains, so far as the road
bed is concerned, may be run in safety as fast as any locomo
tive can be made to haul them. Of the locomotive, it may
be said that only with the improvements in road-bed re
ferred to can its highest attainable speed be utilized.
The measure of the speed and capacity of the locomotive
rests in the fire-box, the length and breadth of which cannot
exceed certain dimensions. It therefore follows that when
this furnace is arranged to burn the maximum quantity of
fuel the steam-producing limit will be reached, and with it
the limit of speed. But this steam must be used to the
very best advantage, as relating to the proportions of the
locomotive, as well as to its type ; the first of these are
already well known, and it will probably be found that some
form of compounding will suggest the type. With these
limitations, the speed of locomotives with passenger trains
will not fall far short of one hundred miles an hour; by
which is meant a sustained speed at that rate, as, for
instance, a trip between New York and Philadelphia in
about one hour, or between New York and Chicago in ten
or eleven hours.
As to car equipments, it is probable that, with some
change in size and proportions of wheels, journals and other
parts of the trucks, the best class of cars in present use
would be suitable for the highest speed. They should be
made to run as noiselessly as possible, that the occupants
may be relieved from any feeling of insecurity or nervous
strain. The air-brake should be applied in its best form to
both locomotive and cars, so that every pound of braking
weight shall become instantly available.
456
The above conditions have been cited in detail to show

that they all must be fulfilled in order to make possible our
future traveling at the rate of one hundred miles an hour.
Make possiblebut only upon the fulfilment of one other
condition, namely, a clear track ahead ; and this brings us
to the real measure of speed, which is the question of trans
portation in its strict sense. The limit will vary with the
number of trains on the line and with the facilities ot
handling them. First of all it is necessary to know how
soon after receiving warning of danger a train, running a
mile in thirty-six seconds, can be stopped. It is estimated
that if running at sixty miles per hour, with the full brak
ing weight of the train utilized, and the rails in the most
favorable condition, the train could be brought to a full stop
in nine hundred feet ; at eighty miles per hour, in one thou
sand six hundred feet ; at ninety miles per hour, in two
thousand and twenty-five feet, and, finally, at one hundred
miles per hour, in two thousand five hundred feet. These
figures at once establish the fact that under the best possible
conditions the track must be kept clear of all obstruction
for at least two thousand five hundred feet in advance of a
train running at the highest limit ; but we must estimate the
clearance for the worst conditions, such as slippery rails,
foggy weather and unfavorable grades ; the personal equation
of the engineman must also be considered in a train covering
one hundred and forty-five feet per second.
The Operation of the Vibratory Circuit.
457
THE OPERATION OF THE VIBRATORY CIRCUIT.

(By Polar and Depolar Sympathetic Interchange,
as Associated vrith the Transmitter.)
BY JOHN W. KEELY.
PART I.
I have long held an opinion almost amounting to a conviction that the
Tarious forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest have one
common origin ; or, in other words, are so directly related and mutually de
pendent that they are convertible, as it were, into one another, and possess
equivalents of power in their action.
FARADAY.
The working part of this device consists, first, of an

outside ring carrying on its inside face nine piecesequi
distant from each othercalled polar accelerators; which
constitute the polar field or polar circuit. Second, another
ring of less diameter, situated inside of the larger ring, and
carrying on its face eight disks, with a triple grouping in
each, representing the depolar field, or field of high polar
interference.
In the centre is placed a resonating intensifier, through
which the sympathetic currents pass. By a spiro-vibrophonic arrangement these currents are diverted toward the
neutral centre of the earth. This device is the sympathetic
multiplying agent for the polar field, and the negatizing
agent for the anti-polar field. When under action it is
entirely subservient to the transmitter, both in regard to
high intensification and thorough neutralization of polar
and depolar interchange.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ITS ACTION.
The circles containing the sensitized disksboth polar

and depolarare in sympathetic relation to the polar nega
tive circuits of the earth, and in a condition to be brought
into action by the negative transmitter. The sympathetic
conditions of the polar and depolar field of the circuits
remain latent until the transmitter is associated and the
introductory impulse given. Then conditions assert them
selves which demonstrate the wonderful power of sympa
458
thetic action in abeyance to the laws by which they are

governed.
The introductory impulse represents the sympathetic
chord of unity to polar attraction. When this is given,
the polar outreach is immediately established in the polar
circuit, which seeks to assimilate itself to the anti-polar,
or triple groupings ; but as the alternation of the two
circuits represents a condition of sympathetic antagonism
(as 8 is to 9), an intensified differentiated wave motion is
induced between the two, thus developing eight alterna
tions, or waves, to one revolution of the device.
Consequently, an equation cannot be established on ac
count of this negative interference, which represents the
power exerted to bring about sympathetic equation between
the neutral centre of terrestrial gravity and sympathetic out
reach,1 the power that induces planetary suspension.
Every revolution of the circuits represents eight distinct
polar and depolar waves. When the maximum (five hun
dred revolutions per minute) is reached, there are four
thousand polar and depolar interchanges. In sympathetic
philosophy the polar circuit represents the brain power of
the instrument, or the medium of impregnation from celes
tial radiating outflow ; the depolar circuit represents the
organism, which is actuated to do the sympathetic work as
dictated by the same power, or element,2 that virtually oper
1 The sympathetic outreach of the moon toward the earth has a power
strong enough to extend nearly a quarter of a million of miles, lifting the
oceans out of their beds. The action of the magnet may be compared to a
sympathetic outreach of a very limited range of motion. It is quite foreign
to induction in principle, and may be expressed as " seeking for concordance
to establish an equation on the sympathetic disturbance of equilibrium."
1 The substance of the brain is molecular. The mind which permeates the
brain is inter-etheric in substance; it is the element by which the brain is
impregnated. This element, when excited into action, controls all physical
motion as long as the necessary sympathetic conditions are maintained. These
conditions are no more immaterial in their character than are light and heat.
Electricity, magnetism, gravity, and heat are latent in all aggregations of
matter. They are not obtained from terrestrial influences. Celestial radia
tion is the true impregnating medium in all these forces. The brain is the
high resonating receptacle where the sympathetic celestial acts, and where
molecular and atonic motion are induced, as according to the intensification
brought to bear upon it by radiation.
459
ates our physical organisms; the work done representing

the power expended to equate the power transmitted,
although the movements in the physical organism are much
more complicated.
The polar flow, as induced by the transmitter, is inten
sified or diminished by an oscillating bar which governs the
revolutions to any number without variation.
The aerial propeller has a sympathetic polar accumulator
and disperser in one instrument, which is entirely distinct
from any of the devices intended for terrestrial use ; also
other mechanical adjuncts not needed on land nor water.
All forms of non-sympathetic machinery have, associated
with them, conditions of centrifugal force on the ratio of
the velocity induced ; the diverging power from the centre
of induction being governed specifically by its gravital
weight according to the diameter it occupies in its circle of
rotation.
In a sympathetic negative circuit this order of conditions
is reversed ; for the power of neutral attraction draws the
molecules of any mass, no matter what the weight, toward
the centre of rotation (instead of toward its periphery)
according to the intensity of the negative vibration that is
induced upon that particular circle.
Our earth, in its routine of revolution, is governed by the
same law in every particular ; its mass tending toward its
centre of neutrality with a force that is equivalent to the
character and velocity of its rotation.1 If its rotation were
increased, the tendency of everything associated with it
would be increased toward its centre of neutrality on the
same ratio. That is, a pound in weight would, under cer
tain conditions of increased velocity, become two pounds in
weight. The laws governing the sympathetic rotation of
vibratory machinery are the same laws that govern plane
tary suspension. To those who have not witnessed the
operation of my devices, my theories must indeed seem
wild ; but the laws of nature are the same yesterday to
day and forever. They know no change ; and sympathetic
1 Vide Dr. Robert Hooke's theory, advanced by him in 1674.
460
physics, demonstrated mechanically, must triumph over all

ridicule and opposition in the end. To contradict the laws
governing sympathetic rotation is to contradict the laws
governing planetary suspension, as I am prepared to
demonstrate.
If the earth were rotated on a shaft by mechanical force,
the present condition of its rotations would be reversed ;
everything on its surface would fly oft* at a tangent, on the
ratio of the velocity induced. The equilibrium of all
things would also be changed.
The gyroscope reveals astounding facts in relation to this
philosophy, even when operated mechanically. No other
known device is so nearly associated with sympathetic
vibratory physics.
The vitalization of the disks for the polar and depolar
field is established on the ratio of thirds, sixths, and
ninths; the ninths being the circuit occupied by the polar
field, must represent, in the scale of vitalized focalized in
tensity, 100 in my system: sixths in the depolar field, or
66 ; and in the neutral field, or thirds, 33J. The triplets
must represent one true chord of equation. The sympa
thetic transmitter transfers any degree of intensity desired
from zero up to disintegration ; all the transfers being made
above the line of the first inaudible, as associated with my
resonating system of transfer. On the sixths and ninths,
in the progressive triple subdivision of the elements1 of
water, the nearest sympathetic approach is made to the
high luminous, which is the main sympathetic link to the
earth's polar negative envelope, and the one whereby co
ordination is effected for commercial work. In short, this
progressive condition establishes the necessary association
1 The only indivisible " element" is the luminous, the one from which all
compound elements are formed, or aggregated ; hydrogen being one of these
compound substances. If hydrogen were a simple it would assimilate with
the high luminous. No molecular structure known to man can hold even
the low order of the luminous as chemically liberated. Sympathetic physics
classifies hydrogen as a compound triple element, with a metallic base. It
conies under the order of the second atomic, both in vibration and in sympa
thetic outreach.
461
between celestial radiation and terrestrial outreach, in re

gard to controlling the polar negative attractive force in
mechanics ; whether for aerial navigation or for terrestrial
commercial work, in all its multiplied forms.
The atmospheric envelope of our earth owes its activity
and its volume entirely to celestial radiating forces.1 Re
ception and dispersion are kept up by atomic and inter
atomic conflict between the dominant and enharmonic
currents of the triune polar stream. The harmonic and
enharmonic current with the dominant (in the electric
stream) by their sympathetic association evolve the energy
of matter.
The mechanical proof of the correctness of my theories,
in sympathetic or spiritual physics, is so overwhelming in
its simplicity that it needs but to be witnessed to convince
the most learned or the most simple mind that this system
will place both science and commerce on a platform which
will elevate each to a level far higher than those they now
occupy.
PART II.
THE NEUTRALIZATION OF MAGNETS.
Thus, either present elements are the true elements, or else there is the
probability before us of obtaining some more high and general power of
nature, even than electricity, and which at the same time might reveal to us
an entirely new grade of matter, now hidden from our virw and almost from
our suspicion.
FABADAT.
Question. How can a magnet be robbed almost instanta

neously of its magnetic power ?
Answer. The peculiarity of the sympathetic conditions
which conserve a magnet to polar and anti-polar currents
of the earth, prove perfect sympathetic equation between
reception and distribution in that part of the electrical
field which is classified, in my system, as inter-atomic vibra
tory oscillation.
This oscillation represents, in its corpuscular field ot
action, an alternating wave-motion of one hundred and
1 " There is more in the great realm of electricity than mechanical force."
Wm. Hemetreet.
462
twenty-eight thousand four hundred vibratory exchanges

per second, between polar reception and depolar distribu
tion, thus establishing its perfect sympathetic concordance
to that third of the electric triple stream which represents
the sixths in vibratory sympathetic physics. The sympa
thetic action of the magnet, when electrically sensitized,
becomes subservient to polar attraction as a medium through
which a portion of its flow is diverted ; no longer latent, but
highly active as long as its magnetic sympathy (as elec
trically induced) continues, and it will then associate itself
with every medium in nature in which this element exists
in its latent state, from steel to oxygen at a low temperature.
We have now reached a starting-point from which to
obtain a conception of the manner in which a magnet can
be neutralized, that is, robbed of its coincident unity, or
subservience to polar negative attraction.
The vibration of the polar magnetic flow represents one
hundred and twenty-eight thousand four hundred oscilla
tions per second, or one-third of the triplet of electrical
induction, consequently the magnet must be in pure con
cordant sympathetic union with this rate of vibration, in
its polar field, to become a medium of receptiveness as well
as a medium of distribution of polar negative sympathy.
In other words, the polar sympathetic flow is tapped at
this point to allow of a letting out of the focalization
that is diverted toward it by electrical vitalization1 which
represents positive negative concordance.
If a condition of antagonistic vibration is brought to
bear upon this focal centrethe magnetits concordant
sympathy to the polar sympathetic volume is broken up,
inducing sympathetic dissociation; which means positive
neutralization, as far as its latent energy can be disturbed
or diverted from receptiveness and distribution.
The magnet can be compared to a dark room without
one aperture to admit a ray of light. The one hundred
1 " Electricity is a beneficial fairy. With infinite tenderness she offers to
yield up to you her treasures from unexplored portions of her domain."M.
Alfred Picard's speech before the Syndicate of Electricians, in Paris.
463
and twenty-eight thousand four hundred vibrations repre

sent an aperture, illuminating the room with a constant
flow of sunlight. The negative vibrations represent a con
dition whereby the closing of this aperture is effected,
cutting off the flow of light :the sunlight representing polar
energy.
All vibrations that are negative in their character as
toward destroying the harmonic relations that exist be
tween the magnetic current and its coincident polar, to
carry out the simile, close up the aperture whereby illu
mination (or transfer) is continuously conducted.
The thirds, on the subdivision of the one hundred and
twenty-eight thousand four hundred vibrations, represent
the negative antagonism, whereby this peculiar condition
is brought about, viz., forty-two thousand eight hundred
on the positive ; the same on the negative and on the neu
tral, as associated with the sympathetic negative transmitter.
The keeper is first placed on the magnet, which has an
attachment whereby a transmitter can be centrally asso
ciated with it ; the other terminal having three connections
that can be attached to this medium. The impulse is given
simultaneously to the three leads after setting the instru
ment to represent forty-two thousand eight hundred vibra
tions on the harmonic, the same on the enharmonic and on
the diatonic.
If this impulse is given properly, the neutralization will
take place within fifteen seconds.
The original instrument whereby this condition was first
brought about is not used in my completed system. Thor
ough sensitization as well as complete neutralization are
now effected by the improved polar negative transmitter
without attaching the magnet. The combination, of devices
which make up the propeller of the air-ship, includes every
feature of this system relating to the varied governing
conditions of celestial and terrestrial sympathy.
The series of experiments, daily for one week, that I am
now preparing to give before an expert committee, for the
purpose of enabling this committee to make a public an
464
nouncement of the scientific and commercial value of mj

system of sympathetic vibratory physics, comprises :
First.Operation of the polar circuit. drawing power from
space, and showing control of various degrees of velocity.
Second.Sensitization of a polar disk, after having had
its complete neutrality to magnetism tested.
Ihird.After associating it with the polar test-medium,
heavily weighting it to demonstrate its attractive power ;
the weight remaining suspended to it by this power.1
Fourth.Transmitter connected to the test-medium, while
the disk is carrying the weight. Negative vibration trans
ferred ; effecting complete dissociation ; the disk and weights
dropping to the floor.
Fifth.Rotation of compass-needle, on a set of resonators,
subservient to any one of the resonators, in defiance of its
attraction to the north. Variations given; changing its
subservience to different resonators, as the introductory
impulse is changed.'
Sixth. Mediums, representing the chords of different
masses of metal, made to float in a tall jar of water, with
extraordinary changes of position.
Seventh.Operations of a sensitized globe, by sound.

Eighth.Operations of the globe under the influence of
the improved polar sympathetic transmitter.
Ninth.Disintegration of water by triple vibration,*
1 It was a modification of this experiment witnessed by Professor Rowland
which led him to proclaim that he had detected Keely as using a tube
instead of a wire. I have retained a piece of the wire cut by Prof. Rowland
on that occasion.C. J. M.
* It was this control of the compass-needle and raising without contact
weights of eight pounds, in insulated glass jars, which caused the late Pro
fessor Joseph Leidy and Dr. James Willcoz of Philadelphia, with other men
of science, to say in 1889 that Keely was then on the road to the solving of
the problem of aerial navigation. C. J. M.
8 This is the experiment which Lord Kelvin and Lord Rayleigh were
invited to witness in 1884, but were prevented (after Mr. Keely had taken apart
his instrument to show them its interior construction) from representations that
were made to them by Philadelphia men that Keely was believed to be a char
latan.C. J. M.
The Veil Withdrawn.
465
showing progressive degrees of energy (from molecular to

inter-atonic, etc., etc.) on different rates of transfer.
The full operation of the aerial propeller, in a variety of
features of action, will be shown if the connection has been
effected between it and the sympathetic harness.
A concave steel shield for the reception of the corpus
cular inflow toward the neutral centre of the propeller is
the medium whereby great velocity through space will be
attained. Forty-two thousand vibrations per second is
equivalent to a ten thousand pound push. This force can
be regulated from three hundred pounds to five tons, which
is the maximum speed. The minimum at eight thousand
vibrations is three hundred.
THE VEIL WITHDRAWN.

COMPILED BY MRS. BLOOMFIELD MOORE.
We shall yet seek to raise the veil and to penetrate into the secrete of things.
H. T. BUCKLE, 1836.
Such insight as this system ventures to give is generally regarded as unat
tainable. The tidings which it brings, it will be said, are too good to be true.
Meantime, so far as we have gone, it represents nature. And thus the winter
carries the spring in its bosom, and in the ruins of old systems new ones are
provided for.
MACYICAB, 1860
True philosophy, when reached, said Professor George

Bush, will conduct us into the realm of the spiritual as the
true region of causes, and will disclose new and unthought
of relations between the world of matter and of mind.
It is these unthought of relations which Keely's system of
sympathetic physics brings to light ; opening out a field for
research which lies beyond the boundaries of our present
knowledge. As yet he has been unable to satisfy his own
penetrating mind in regard to all the hypothesis which his
various discoveries have led him into formulating. He has
himself, in his search for truth, pursued the wrong path too
often, and made too many errors, not to welcome refutation
of them, and acknowledge his mistakes when brought before
him.
VOL. 130
466
The Veil Withdrawn.
The title which he has given to the latent current of the

triune polar flow that he discovered in 1872, "polar negative
attraction," undoubtedly conveys the idea that this flow ia
an agent closely allied to magnetism ; but such is not the
case.
This latent element exists in the interstitial conditions of
all nature's triple streams of force ; in electricity, in magne
tism, in gravity ; and is the dominant current in each of these,
maintaining a sympathetic relation to the high or compound
luminous, which manifests itself when the proper mechanical
requirements are used. It is entirely foreign in character to
the elements now in commercial use. Researchers will always
find before them a limitless beyond, comprehended only by
the Infinite One.
What modern cosmologists would have us believe was
evolved by blind chance out of the inherent potentialities of
primordial chaos, this glorious system of spiritual physics
demonstrates as dependent upon the relationship between
mind and matter ; showing whence the initial impulse
comes which sets in motion machinery of unimagined com
plexity, on given lines, toward a prescribed end. Chance,
as has been said, is in no sense a force, but merely the sway
of a balance of forces already in action. Sir Isaac Newton
taught that there is such consistency in nature that what
lies wholly beneath the region of visibility may be safely
inferred to be similar to that which is gross enough to be
palpable to sense; and Keely, reasoning on this line, has
copied nature in his mechanical work. " I call this inde
finable, latent element," he writes, "the soul of the sympa
thetic elements in which it manifests itself; and which until
now has been locked up in their interstitial embrace. It is
the leader of all triple streams, associated with the polar
negative envelope of our planet and the one most sympa
thetically concordant to celestial radiation. In our indi
vidual organisms, the latent soul-forces, existing in the
cerebral domain, are sympathetically subservient to the celes
tial radiating force whereby they are stimulated into action
in controlling the movements of our bodies. Take away this
The Veil Withdrawn.
467
latent element from the brain and the physical organism hecomes an inert, dead mass ; on the same order as a mechanical
device without an energy to operate it.
"The polar negative machine is a mechanical brain, with
all the adjuncts associated with it to sympathetically receive
and distribute the polar negative force. Its sympathetic
transmitter" (corresponding to our sun in our planetary
system, transmitting all energy from the central sun of the
universe) "is the medium whereby sympathetic concordance
is established between it and polar sympathy. The requi
sites for polarizing and depolarizing keep up the action of
the machine as long as it is associated with the transmitter.
The force which operates the mechanical is the same as that
which operates the physical brain ; purely mental, emanating
from celestial outreach. There is nothing in the range of
philosophy which so satisfies the intellect as the comprehen
sion of this wondrous system of sympathetic association,
planned by the Creator of the celestial and terrestrial uni
verse, for the government of all forms of matter.
" Mature cannot rebel against herself. The flowers of spring
cannot resist the sympathetic force which calls them into
bloom, any more than the latent force in intermolecular
spaces can rebel and remain in neutral depths when sympa
thetic vibration calls it forth.
"What is the soul but life in latent suspension? The
motion exhibited in matter shows that its soul is ever
present ; and yet there are men of great learning, as taught
in the schools, who, after spending their lives in researching
all forms of matter, deny that all living things depend on
one everlasting Creator and Ruler, in whom they live and
move and have their being through all time, as much as when
He first breathed into them the breath of celestial radiation ;
and to whom they are as closely allied, still, by the workings
of the great cosmical law of sympathetic association, as when
the evolutionary work of creation commenced.
"The ancients were far better schooled in spiritual phi
losophy than are we of the present age. Their mythological
records, in their symbolical meaning, prove this fact. They
468
The Veil Withdrawn.
recognized this latent element as the very breath of the Al

mighty; the sympathetic outflow of the trinity offeree, the
triple spiritual essence of God Himself. Their conceptions
of Deity were greater and truer than our own. From them
we learn that when God said ' Let there be light,' He liber
ated the latent celestial element that illuminates the world:
that when He breathed into man the breath of life, He im
pregnated him with that latent soul- element that made him
a living and moving being."
Thus we see that true science has at lastas the resul t of
Keely's half century of researcha sure basis for knowl
edge, in the resolving of the numerous so-called laws of
nature into one universal law, explaining the grandest and
most prevailing phenomena of the material universephe
nomena which have hitherto set at defiance all attempts to
conceive a mechanism to account for them, and which Abercrombie declared, in his " Inquiries Concerning the Intel
lectual Powers," to be beyond the reach of the human intel
lect to explain.
By the knowledge thus revealedfor, as Moreau has said,
"Knowledge does not come to us by detail, but in flashes of
light from heaven,"we realize the truth of Sir John Lubbock's words that " the great lesson which science teaches is
how little we yet know ; " but we learn also that there are no
boundaries to the life of the soul ; that the soul is the prin
ciple of life itself, the latent element which connects us with
the Infinite and Eternal One from whom all things proceed ;
and that in God's life we live and move and have our being.
Vibratory physics, in the great cosmical law of sympa
thetic association, explains all phenomena of nature, and de
molishes the barrier that skepticism and materialismwork
ing together toward a reign of anarchyhad erected between
matter and spirit, in proclaiming that the soul dies with the
body, that nature rows and steers her own canoe ; denying
that there has ever been such a thing as revelation, or that
there is any proof of design in the works of creation ; and
teaching that efficient causes are beyond our reach, that we
must be satisfied with the knowledge of the facts and their
The Veil Withdrawn.
469
actual connectionas we observe themwithout trying to

trace the events on which the connection depends.
Lord Salisbury recently said of the cloud of impenetrable
mystery with which science covers phenomena that she can
not explain : " If we strain our eyes to pierce it, with the fore
gone conclusion that some solution is and must be attainable,
we shall only mistake for discoveries the figments of our
own imagination ;" but as long as we have men able to guide
an intelligent public inquiry, who "have no prejudices except
in favor of men who do honest and self-sacrificing work in
new fields," ' there is still hope that Keely's discoveries will
command that interest which will save them for science to
this age; even though not available to commerce in this
century, as is now anticipated.
Surely with this new revelation of " unthought of relations
between mind and matter," the universe lies before us as a
legitimate field of knowledge; where researchers will be able
to occupy themselves with facts and observations tending to
explain and demonstrate the manifestations of the spiritual
principle, life itself, without having these investigations con
founded with those of mere metaphysicians, who dwell in
the region of abstract ideas, and endeavor to reduce them to
the clearness of mathematical axioms.
Next to being on the right road, the most fortunate thing
that can happen to the searcher after truth is to find out that
he is on the wrong road. Leaving the central basis and facts
of humanity as too vast and unmanageable, science has been
working in "the huge, vicious circle" of Comtian philosophy ;
until, arriving at its farthest limit from the center, it has
reached, says Carpenter, " the outermost shell, as it were, of
the great Mancosmos; and now, to their great surprise, it
finds that this shell is not entirely osseous." Savants are
forced to acknowledge that, if deprived of one of the crutches
which science has been leaning on, natural selection, they
have no resource but to fall back on the mediate or immediate
agency of a principle of design.
Stanley Jevons, in "Principles of Science," expresses his
1Mr. Arthur Walter of The Times.
470
The Veil Withdrawn.
strong conviction that, "before a rigorous, logical scrutiny,

the certainty of our scientific inferences will prove, to a great
xtent, a delusion."
If, at this juncture, a physicist could be found bold enough
to turn, in the face of dogmatic science, to Keely's system of
sympathetic vibratory physics, he would touch the solution
of hitherto unsolved problems set down in a language as in
comprehensible, to him, as was the language of Dr. Gilbert
(the rediscoverer of electric force) to his compeers ; and even
more so than that of Faraday, of whom the same complaints
were made, in his writings, wherein he differed in opinion
from his colleagues.
Says Lord Kelvin, there is a still greater mystery than any
which is to be found in connection with any physical science,
and that is the mystery of the human will.
Celestial radiation unveils this mystery. The cosmical law
of sympathetic association gives to science an atom that will
suit the requirements of both chemist and physicist. The
ether hypothesis of vibratory physics answers as well for the
vehicle of gravitation as for the vehicle of light; and is
equally available for gravity, electricity, and magnetism.
If men of science fail to comprehend the terms which Keely
has had to coin, the language in which he has done his best to
convey to them his meaning, the great book of nature lies be
fore themavailable to allfrom which he has gained his
knowledge of the divisibility of the atom, of latent force in
all interstitial spaces, and of the governing law of sympathetic
association. He has put together, in regular method or order,
full and connected hypotheses of the operations of these laws
of nature in the system which, if incomprehensible and un
worthy the attention of "The Lights of Science," will not be
BO at the end of this century of progress ; should its crowning
achievement be that of solving the problem of aerial naviga
tion.
Some individuals, says Colquhoun, may be more, while
others are less, capable of deciphering the characters in which
the book of nature is written, and of comprehending and duly
appreciating the truths it reveals. But, if we would peruse
The Veil Withdrawn.
471
it with advantage, we must shake off all prejudices and

not cling to preconceived notions. The skepticism of science
repels, with too much contempt, the investigation of phe
nomena which it deems impossible or inconsistent with its
cherished systems. There are no barriers so detrimental to
the progress of real and useful knowledge as the prejudices
of self-satisfied and exclusive men of science.
Buffon, treating of the sympathies that exist between the
different parts of the living organism, censured medical men
for not examining their correspondences in the human body?
upon which depend a great part of the play of the animal
machine. "The true springs of our organization," he said,
"are not these muscles, these arteries, these nerves, which
anatomy describes with so much care and exactness : there
are internal forces which do not follow the laws of that
gross mechanical system which we have invented, and to which
we would reduce everything. Instead of attempting to attain
a knowledge of these forces from their effects, men have en
deavored to banish even the idea of them, and to exclude
them from philosophy.
" The ancients, whose genius was less limited and whose
philosophy was more extended, wondered less than we do at
facts which they could not explain ; they had a better view
of nature, such as she is: 1A Sympathy,' a singular corre
spondence, was to them only a phenomenon, while to us it is
a paradox, when we cannot refer it to our pretended laws of
motion. Let us, with the ancients, call this singular corre
spondence of the different parts of the body 1A Sympathy,' or,
with the moderns, consider it an unknown relation in the
action of the nervous system ; this sympathy, or this rela
tion, exists throughout the whole animal economy, and we
cannot too carefully observe its effects, if we wish to perfect
the theory of medicine. Much might be discovered, if the
most eminent physicians would turn their attention to the
study of this relationship, more useful, perhaps, than the
nomenclature of anatomy.
" The medical student applies himself to the indispensable
study of the mere animal mechanism, and to the uses and tune
472
The Veil Withdrawn.
tions of the material structure, which is essentially neces

sary :also he studies chemistry, materia medico, and pa
thology; but the success of professional practice depends
upon the skilful application of a profound knowledge of
the various sympathies and susceptibilities of the human
frame :its capability of being affected in various ways, by
those imperceptible physical and moral influences whose
existence is constantly manifested in the living body ; but
which we should in vain attempt to detect or trace in the
inanimate subject. Yet men of science betray an obstinate
skepticism with regard to the result of all such inquiries,
and a propensity to call those physicians " quacks " who are
engaged in them. Until their researches are extended, in
this direction, medicine can never become a science ; it must
remain an art. Van Helmont was fully aware of the power^
ful influence of the mind on the body ; but since his day
few eminent men have studied the sympathies existing be
tween the different and distant parts of the animal economy,
through the mediation of the nervous system ; -and those
who have, like Dr. Alison and Dr. Monro, arrived at dif
ferent conclusions regarding the possible source of this sym
pathy. If the nerves have cavities, as has been surmised,1
these mutual sympathies are easily explained on the ground
that they secrete and transmit some substance.
" Whether the nervous system be intended to serve other
purposes in the animal economy, it is certain that it is in
tended to serve the grand and essential purpose of maintain
ing the connection between mind and body. Whether these
sympathetic actions originate from a connection between the
different nerves, which are the sole instruments of all sensa
tions; or whether they are determined by mental sensations;
these are questions to be decided by scientific physiologists
and physicians."
By combining physical physiology with mental, a path is
opened in Keely's discoveries for the solution of all problems
1"Is there something within molecules independent of them that is the home
of life, mind, and soul ? We find the most complete telegraphic system in the
body ; does it contain no resident nerve fluid to fit it ? "
HEMSTREBT.
The Veil Withdrawn.
473
in this field of investigation. The late Professor Zerfi held,

with Dr. Bertrand, that the plexus solans performs the same
functions in relation to the internal life that are ascribed to
the brain as the organ of the intellectual faculties (in the
waking state) in relation to the external life.
The ancients called the solar plexus the cerebrum abdomina.lt ; believing that the soul derives from it the materials
necessary for the formation of its intuitive judgments.
" We have yet much to learn before we are able to com
prehend the wonderful operation of the imperceptible agents
of nature, and of all the instruments we can employ," says
de La Place (the disciple of Newton) " the nerves are the
most sensible; especially when their sensibility is exalted by
particular causes. It is by means of them that we have dis
covered the slight electricity which is developed by two
heterogeneous metals. The singular phenomena which re
sult from the extreme sensibility of the nerves, in some indi
viduals, have given birth to various opinions relative to the
existence of a new agent, which has been denominated ani
mal magnetism, also to the action of terrestrial magnetism ;
to the influence of the sun and moon in some nervous affec
tions ; and to the impressions which may be experienced by
the proximity of a metal, or of running water. It is natural
to suppose that the action of these causes is very feeble, and
that it may be easily disturbed by accidental circumstances ;
but, because in some cases it has not been manifested at all,
we are not entitled to conclude that it has no existence.
We are so far from being acquainted with all the agents of
nature, and their different modes of action, that it would be
quite unphilosophical to deny the existence of the phenomena,
merely because they are inexplicable in the present state of our
knowledge."
The lines of research pursued by the eminent physicists,
William Crookes and Oliver Lodge, have brought them to
the same conclusion that Camille Flammarion has arrived at
in his studies, viz., that certain natural forces exist of which
humanity is ignorant ; which makes it the more remarkable
that they have not been able to find time to examine into
474
The Veil Withdrawn.
Keely's demonstrations of the power of will force in ma

chinery, under given conditions.
Raoul Pictet, the learned Swiss physicist whose researches
in low temperatures (in the very domain of sympathetic vi
bratory physics) have brought him out of the " impenetrable
cloud," in which materialistic science has wrapped the mys
teries of nature, into the light of religious science, after
listening to a " wholesale " condemnation of scientific research
from a Roman Catholic Bishop, said to him: "Have you
ever seen God?" "Of course not," the Bishop answered.
" Then I have this advantage as a researcher of truth over
theologians," replied Professor Pictet," for the longer I study
the phenomena of nature the more distinctly I see God in all
of nature's operations."
When Edison was asked : " Do you believe in a personal
God ? " " Certainly," he answered, " the existence of God can,
to my mind, almost be proved from chemistry."
" The reason of skepticism and unbelief is not to be won
dered at," writes Thornton, " when men interested in scien
tific research find no evidence, from their experiments, of
the presence of God in the Universe. How could this be
otherwise ? God has to man but a subjective existence, which
could never be reached by any known mode of experiment \
therefore man must get outside of himself, which means that
he must ' die,' to know God and the reality of things.
" In the creative power of intuition we must look for a.
knowledge of what is called the supernatural ; and in this
alone we have the evidence of infinity ; to which inventive
genius can testify, as intuition creates those things which
have no material existence. The infinite power of God cre
ates a thing, without previous existence, by command ; and
man brings into existence, through material, that which his
intuition creates. Intuition is the only possible source that
could furnish us with the ability to formulate mentally an
absolutely unconditioned ego. In fact, absolute knowledge
can never be obtained outside the sphere of intuition, for
which we are indebted to the gestation of thought. Rela
tive knowledge belongs to experience as well as intuition.
The Veil Withdrawn.
475
The law of heredity teaches that mental and morphological

impressions are transmitted to the offspring from the sexes.
In the same way intuitions arise from the gestation of thought,
the continuity of which is transmitted by the same means,
and for which we are indebted not only to our parents, but
to all our progenitors. He who possesses genius can emit
coruscations from the gestation of thought which are the
evolutionary flashings of a spiritual essence." " Origin, Pur
pose and Destiny of Man," by Wm. Thornton.
As a subject which does not admit of verification by the
prescribed canons of mechanical physics is held to be un
worthy of attention, as untenable, it is fortunate for the cause
of humanity that modern science has reached its ultima thule,
where the tide of materialism must set back and carry with it
' the drift-wood of skepticism which has been accumulating
during this century.
To quote the words of a physicist (at the Forest Gate Phy
sical and Chemical Laboratories), "The door, between us
and the spirit-world, which it has been declared is shut and
bolted is even now ajar and a few gleams of light are
struggling over the threshold from Keely's discoveries."
The artificial beacon, fed with the oil of learning, so proudly
held aloft by modern science, is flickering ; and many great
minds are rebelling against the darkness in which it has
plunged the mysteries it sought in vain to unravel. The
Popery of scientific authority must have its downfall now
that researchers after knowledge are making a stand and con
tending their right to think for themselves, instead of allow
ing dogmatic science to decide for them.
There is a light which sympathetic physics teaches us
will never fail :the inner light, or intuition, if we seek its
guiding rays. The Spirit of Truth will lead us into all truth
is the promise given by One who spake as never man spake
before; and, with the foundation stones of pseudo-science
crumbling away, there is nothing left to fall back upon but
the fortress of Revelation.
"In the beginning was the Word (Logos in Greek; the
divine principle of Truth, of thought, intelligence, knowl
476
The Veil Withdrawn.
edge) and the Word was God. In Him was life, and the life
was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness
and the darkness comprehendeth it not."
Carlyle defined genius as "the clearer presence of God
Most High in a man." If we admit that
"God sends His teachers unto every age,
With revelations fitted to their growth,"
instead of rejecting what seems to advance thought to be " a

fuller revelation of revelation " (suited to the needs of our
age) because of the obscurity of the language used by Keely,
would it not be more rational to accept Professor Pierson's
views ? viz., " the very fact that there is, about the product
of another's genius, what you and I cannot understand, a
proof of a superior order of faculties." No one who has ever
conversed with Keely, in an unprejudiced spirit, has denied
that he is a man of genius ; and, unintelligible as his writ
ings may be, in the present state of our knowledge, the time
will come when they will be as well understood as are the
writings of Gilbert and Faraday now ; for commerce will be
able to accomplish what science refuses to do ; and journalism
is already extending " a helping hand," since it has been an
nounced that Professor Lascelles-Scott thinks aerial naviga
tion will be the fait accompli of the Victorian era, as the result
of Keely's discovery of the force foreshadowed by Faraday,
by Newton, and by Kepler in their writings, as "a force of
nature, still unknown, more general and more powerful even
than electricity."
This force may be in more senses than one " the force of the
future ; " for, until the current now harnessed has been con
nected with some patentable device, commerce will not come
to the rescue ; and unless a more general public interest is
awakened, than has yet been manifested, Keely 's system of
vibratory physics may have to await a more enlightened in
quiry from influential quarters.
A distinguished physicist, who is himself an independent
researcher, writes ; " I am afraid that making things known
to the public does not advance truth much. They will soon
enough- run after what pays them. I should have thought
The Veil Withdrawn.
477
that, at the present stage, 'They also serve who stand and
wait,' was a safer motto than ' Cry aloud from the house-tops.'
If Mr. Keely be perfecting his machine, having, as I under
stand, practically completed his experimenting, surely it is a
time for waiting patiently for the results of his labors. How
ever, it is presumptuous and absurd of me to be writing of
these things. I know much too little of the circumstances to
do more than make suggestions in order to get information."
As no authoritative announcement of what has already been
accomplished can be made until certain arrangements are
effected, every effort has been put forth to induce men of
science to investigate Keely's system, and his demonstrations,
in order to aid in the protection of his discoveries for science ;
and to " hold the reins," in that domain, until his devices, or
machines, are in readiness to hand over to commerce what
legitimately belongs to the realm of commerce.1
The extreme simplicity of this system, its conformity to
nature, and its capability of affording an adequate and satis
factory explanation of the most important phenomena of the
universe, upon one common principle, entitles it to receive
the attention of all independent thinkers who feel an interest
in the discovery and dissemination of scientific truth ; and
who, dissatisfied with the complicated structures which
modern science has reared upon a variety of gratuitous as
sumptions, seek to withdraw that veil (hitherto deemed im
penetrable) which has long shrouded some of the most im
portant secrets of nature, and concealed from our knowledge
the operations of the most god-like element in man, the
human will.
1 Happily, since this paper was written, the current of force has been con
nected with the operation of machinery, other than the wheel which har
nessed it as it were ; and Keely is now preparing to demonstrate the result to
a committee of expert engineers, who will soon report upon the commercial
value of this costless power. What science has rejected, commerce will now
be eager to accept, when Keely has demonstrated "a sympathetic force of
outreach representing, in the full circuit, an accumulation of gravital or polar
sympathy of more than twenty-three tons per minute." "This is no fairy
tale," Keely writes, " but an accomplished fact, capable of being fully demon
strated," to the committee.
478
Are Physical and Spiritual Energy Identical.
ARE PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL ENERGY

IDENTICAL.
BY MRS. MART PARMELE.
Whether science turns its glass out into the immensities
of space, or in toward the equally fathomless abysses of the
minute, there seems no bounds to the possibilities of dis
covery regarding the processes of nature. Yet each and
every pathway leads at least to impenetrable mystery.
What use to know of the ultimate molecule and atom, if we
are never to learn what endows it with life. What is life ?
What is death ? What is pain? What is color? Perfume?
What is there in a minor chord to make one weep ? Thou
sands of hungry eyes are peering into the dark in search of
clues to these encircling mysteries. But a little rift has
appeared in the veil, through which some think they can see
a great and illuminating truth. This truth is called sym
pathetic vibration.
A new era dawned, we passed under a new scientific dis
pensation when heat and light were pronounced simply modes
of motion, and when the hitherto solid earth was found to
be only seemingly so, while in reality it is a congeries of
whirling atoms. Under this new dispensation the door
hiding those two baffling mysteries, matter and force, be
gins to yield. The former has surrendered its secrets down
to the ultimate atom, and now we are told that energy, that
inscrutable thing which makes matter its slave and play
thing, is simply a mode of motion in the atom.
The initial impulse is still as remote as ever. We have
not yet discovered on what our tortoise stands. What im
parted the first movement to the atom, may be an ever
receding mystery ; but an enormous advance has been made
upon the outlying territory. Science has gone one genera
tion farther back in the pedigree of energy ; for the law ot
sympathetic vibration must be the Law of Laws.
479
We are told that what we have known as sound, heat

and light are simply ascending stages of increasing rates of
velocity, in atmospheric or etheric atoms. Between sixteen
a second and thirty-eight thousand a second these vibrations
are appreciable by the human ear, and we call them sound.
As the rate of velocity increases these are lost in silence)
and finally reappear to the sense as heat. Then, after they are
further accelerated, the optic nerve begins to tremble at their
approach, and we call them light. Nor can we suppose this
to be a final limit, but must believe that, accelerated to still
higher velocity, they may reach us in some new form, which
to man's perception, at least, is not sound, nor heat, nor yet
light, and which, perhaps, we call electricity.
But this protean thing, it will be observed, is one and the
eame throughout. It is energy, evolved into higher and
higher forms, under the action of the law of vibration.
Nor can we stop here. What right have we to suppose that
the stage bounded by our perception is final? Much more
easy is it to believe that the process goes on, and forces are
developed as far beyond electricity as electricity is beyond
our starting point, sixteen vibrations a second; and so we are
inevitably led to a conception of potential energies lying all
around us, sufficient to hold the stars in their courses, or to
tear them from their orbits.
Thus far we are standing on solid scientific ground. He
who doubts this ascending ladder of energy, arrays himself
against so high an authority as Prof. Tyndall. But we are
going to venture soon upon a region where the footing is not
eo secure ; and perhaps may be properly rebuked for the
folly of attempting to map out the highways and byways
in cloudland.
There is an unwritten law that science is for the scientific.
This article is a protest against this law. The writer is
speaking for the unlearned, " of whom she is chief," and she
maintains that there can be no exclusive ownership in estab
lished scientific truths ; which may, and should, be used as
stepping stones by any one, where they seem to lead to higher
inclusive truths.
480
The average man of science is intent upon his own par

ticular rung, and his soul is little vexed with wondering
where the ladder leads. Scientific imagination is not always
the companion of the microscope nor of the crucible. But
Wewton's discovery would have been a small affair without
the genius to see its cosmical application. So there is a
stage in the unfolding of natural truth when the poet, with
his wings, can do more than the delver with his pick-axe.
He does not discover, he divines. Shakspeare knew nothing
of "vibratory physics," nor of "ultra-musical silence;" but
two hundred and fifty years ago he said :
" There's not the smallest orb, which thou beholdest,
Bat in its motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.
Such harmony is in immortal suuls.
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it."
We sometimes wonder at the admirable docility with

which the unlearned accept mystifying explanations. After
being told that things act so and so because they have an
" afiinity" for each other, they feel that there is no more to
be said. The question is answered. One mystery has been
explained by another. But now we are on the track of this
inscrutable " affinity."
Every atom behaves as it does because of its essential
nature. It is not helplessly drifting in space, waiting for
stray streams of energy to gather it up and determine its
fate. It has an attribute which compels it to find its own
place in creation. It has inherently a certain rate of vibra
tion, and an impulse to join others constituted with a like
rate of velocity or one numerically allied to it. This tendency,
this sympathetic hunger, is "afiinity." Oh, the depth of
meaning in those words, "sympathy" and " affinity !" They
are the world-builders, the creative agents which brought
order out of chaos.
For an uncomprehended reason, atoms have arranged
themselves according to their numerical affinities. Those
with like velocities of a certain kind were drawn into close
481
union and became rocks. Others singing a different rhythm

came together in less stable combination, and are gases.
And so down to the minutest classification of matter, all has
been arranged by the compelling law of sympathetic vibra
tion.
It is a well-known fact that when a musical note is sounded
over a piano, all the strings attuned to the same, or to a
numerically related number of vibrations, will sing in re
sponse. This is " sympathetic vibration."
The re.osou the string gives audible response is because its
molecular condition has been sympathetically stimulated to
activity. This activity is of course a manifestation of
energy, and according to Mr. Lascelles-Scott (Physicist at
the Government Laboratories, at Forest-Gate near London,)
and other competent observers, this energy is often sufficient
to tear the atoms apart ; as illustrated by the breaking of a
glass tankard by singing near it its " response note," which
was in this instance the bass note D flat, which is not far
from the lowest audible form of musical energy.
Now if in some of ite lowest appreciable forms energy thus
sympathetically evolved will break a glass tankard, or
"fiddle a bridge down," what must be the force which
might be sympathetically awakened in its higher rates of
velocity ?
Professor Tyndall says" With a few vibrations a second
sound is generated. When more numerous, you may have
light, heat and electricity. Again multiplying these by the
square of millions, who can say what might, or might not,
be the result ? " Now we are compelled to believe that
every step of acceleration from sixteen vibrations a second
to the velocities attained when " multiplied by the square of
millions " (as Professor Tyndall says), that every step of this
steeply ascending increase is capable of being acted upon
sympathetically, if the response note could be found.
Is there any limit to the energies thus slumbering in the
apparent void ? Whether Mr. Keely has captured them or
not, these streams of potential energy are a reality, and
might be liberated by just the means he is using.
VOL. 131
482
But of one thing there can be no slightest doubt. As

man has risen to higher stages of development he has appropriated
progressively higher stages of energy. There was a period
when stored sunshine (light) was sufficient for his material
uses. Then heat was harnessed and drove his engines, his
wheels and spindles. Then he reached higher and captured
electricity, which was found to be no less obedient and
vastly more effective. Who dare say this is the end? It was
after drawing upon the resources of the invisible, that such
enormous impulse came into the life of humanity ; and the
farther we have gone into that supersensible creation, the
swifter has been the advance !
It will be seen that as we pass through these ascending
grades of energy, its manifestations become more subtle.
Increase of power means a corresponding increase of subtlety.
The waves of light and heat must be like the heavy beatings
of the surf, and the motions of electricity gross and sluggish,
compared with the rhythm of those ethereal vibrations which
could only be wielded by Omnipotence! And is it not obvi
ous that the agent which sympathetically reaches these, must
become correspondingly fine? Is thought such an agent?
If a single tone of the human voice be the initial stage of
an energy so inconceivable, what, on the other hand, does
that voice become when attenuated " by the square of mil
lions ?" Does this measure the distance between an audible
human cry and the thought which produces it ? Is " the
heart's sincere desire," the note attuned to those energies
whose subtlety, as well as velocity, has been " multiplied by
the square of millions?"
The mind cannot go back or stop on such a journey. It
is compelled to go on and on until it reaches something with
sufficient potency to tear the stars from their orbits, and yet
so attenuated that it trembles responsively to something as
light as thought. If this be not " spiritual energy," it bears
a strange resemblance to it !
Have we by inevitable steps reached the verge of that
kingdom we have been accustomed to regard as separate and
distinct? If so, matter is lifted from its long abasement. The
483
pulsations in the heart of granite are the throbbings of the

Divine, as truly as when it makes the soul of man tremble
with new life. And what wonder that music thrills, if it
be a manifestation different in degree, but identical in kind,
with the spiritual energy which nourishes the universe?
If the phenomena of matter and of spirit are controlled by
the same force, only in different degrees of development, then
reasonable cause and effect take the place of magic and of
mystery.
If it be true that spiritual atoms, no less than material
ones, are arranging themselves according to their velocities,
then every relation, human and divine, is comprehensible.
If this law underlies both worlds, then those spiritual atoms
numerically and rhythmically allied have an " affinity" for
each other; they rush together in irresistible embrace ; and
there is a scientific basis for human affections, for conduct,
and for prayer !
Race affinities exist because of a general rhythmic iden
tity. Individual temperament is determined by the rate at
which the spiritual atoms of the man movemaking, as it
were, a musical-key to which his being is set. Observe that
when you sing a C note over the piano, not alone the C
strings, but E, G and B vibrate responsively, because harmo
niously related. So two beings who love each other may
make a richer harmony for not having identically the same
rhythm in their souls. But on the other hand, union with
one outside this harmonious group is impossible. Discord
is a violation of nature. Two notes inharmoniously related
can never combine. They may be simultaneously sounded
but they do not blend. Discord is in its essence a destruc
tive force. Unhappy marriages, in fact one-half the tragedies
of human life, find their solution in the laws which govern
music; and the language of metaphor is profoundly and
scientifically true.
The unfolding soul invites to itself vibrations constructive
and destructive, and grows by what it feeds upon toward
heaven or hell ; harmonious vibrations making for the one, and
discordant ones for the other. If, as is probable, these veloci
484
ties have a tendency to be accelerated in multiples of the

same rate, we can see how the wretched being is sometimes
lost in the vortex of a terrible rhythm, only to be rescued
by that one flawless rhythm left by Christ upon earth.
Does this sound fantastic? Will it be worse than fantas
tic, prosaic, to say that every human impulse is in its last
analysis a mathematical fact ? That love, hate and all their
diverse manifestations might be expressed by mathematical
formula? A mathematical basis for spiritual phenomena
sounds uninteresting. But to the soul that comprehends it,
it is sublime. Mathematical conceptions are the only ones
which do not vanish in the analysis of an illusive, elusive,
creation. The multiplication table would survive the wreck
of worlds and of matter !
The magnitudes of time and spacewhat are they ? Noth
ing but modes of thought depending upon a point of view.
They exist only relatively to your perception. The " solid
ity " of matter is a fiction. Were you created on a differ
ent scale you might gaze through the intermolecular spaces
of granite, and see its whirling atoms as constellations in
your heaven of ether !
We look out upon the world through a refracting, twist
ing, distorting medium, so that nothing is what it seems,
and were it not for mathematical relations, we should be in a
universe of dissolving dreams. But they are everlastingly
true. They are the rock-ribbed realities which hold together
the shifting, vanishing phenomena of existence. Change
your point of view as you may, they are undisturbed.
A truth which has for its mission the upholding of all
other truths, has need to be well buttressed and strengthened ;
and the rocks which bear the Andes on their bosom are not
more immovable than the mathematics upon which rests
the law of sympathetic vibration.
If there be such scientific basis for human phenomena,
then metaphysics and psychology, with their intricacies
and complexities expressed in an involved terminology,
are artificially contrived systems, and what wonder that
they are bewildering, and the despair of ordinary minds ?
485
The human mind is perfectly capable of mastering an

artificial system expressed through arbitrary symbols. It
has been doing it for ages. (Alas !) But with what re
sult? A few of the initiated know the system, and its
terminologies ; but neither they, nor any one else, has a vital
grip upon the subject. But can a subject be made compre
hensible, when its most essential truth is veiled ? And what
wonder there is confusion existing in men's minds regard
ing the most vital things? The following definitions of
Religion are quoted in Kidd's " Social Evolution." "We
select them at random. Comte, " The worship of humanity."
Hegel, " The knowledge acquired by the finite spirit of its
essence as an absolute spirit." Huxley, " Reverence and
love for the ethical ideal." Matthew Arnold, " Morality
touched by emotion."
These definitions are by men who are masters of thought
and of expression, and offer, presumably, the best the world
has to say on the subject. Are they convincing ?satisfy
ing ? Would any one know that any two of them were in
tended to define the same thing ?
Hear now the definition of religion if sympathetic vi
bration be a fundamental law. Religion is an expression of
a universal impulse, which draws the human heart into rythmic
unity with the Divine heart.
How simplehow true. It is the unconscious utterance
of the unlettered in all ages ; and of poets, from King David
to Tennyson ; and at the same time a precise scientific state
ment, which isto Ommiscience at leastcapable of math
ematical demonstration.
But how can there be a satisfying definition if the fact
underlying all other facts be not considered?i.e., that there
are precise definite atomic changes in spiritual experiences no
less real, for having vanished into a region infinitely subtle,
than if transposed to the lower key of sound, heat and light,
or to the still lower condition of the visible and ponderable.
Men have discovered a great progressive movement in all
organic things which the}- have called " Evolution." We
see it as an imposing mysterious thing moving with awful
486
sincerity on grand lines. But if the source of energy lies

in the atom, its beginnings are infinitely small. It is the
aggregate of a minute atomic hunger for unity with the Di
vine. That is the sublime consummation toward which all
creation moves ; and evolution is a religious impulse ! Nature
is thinking of the atomnot the mass. All earthly systems
which sacrifice the atom are foredoomed, because the great
mother knows no great and no small, but only a stern neces
sity for an adaptation, precise and true, to the Eternal rhythm,
which, in the evolutionary process, means an infinite progres
sion, while its absence means disintegration and elimination.
Science might have looked forever in vain through the
telescope. Not till it turned its vision in toward the invisi
blethe supersensibledid any true comprehension come of
creaitve and cosmic realities. And the deeper it penetrates
into this region, the stronger does it feel the throbbing of
the Divine heart. Its own path is leading it, whether it
will or no, where it must some day find itself face to face
with Deity.
Two lines started in certain directions from given points
in the earth's orbit, must meet at a certain point millions of
miles away. You have never been there to see it. But you
know it. It is a necessity of thought to believe it. And so,
certain truths compel the existence of certain other truths.
The mind cannot escape them.
Just such compelling power is in the law of sympathetic
vibration. Once started on its ascending ladder, it is impos
sible to stop, until we find ourselves confronted with energies
inconceivably great and inconceivably fine. Surely it is not
venturesome to leap the little chasm of uncertainly and call
these " spiritual energies," nor to believe that they by their
sympathetic action may be the basis of all the phenomena of
the life of the soul.
There is something new and strange in the air. A new
element in the spiritual as well as the material atmosphere.
Men are vaguely conscious of an impending crisis in the life
of humanity. Is this because we have reached the confines
of the old, and are entering upon a new dispensation of force,.
The Continuity of Life.
487
one which will enter into the processes of life in a manner

more vital even than electricity has done?
However this may be, if the trend of progress is to be in
the future the same as it has been in the past, it is man's
inevitable destiny to grasp and appropriate higher and
higher conditions of an energy which at each remove becomes
more spiritualized in its expression. Whether this in fact
merges at last into the "spiritual energy " which is the life
of the soul, is a question this article is intended to asknot
to answer.
THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE.

BY"ORMOND."
The oldest person living cannot remember the time when
leading thinkers of the world were not speculating on the
probable future for man. It might, perhaps, be still more
proper to say, that since the first appearance of man on the
earth the leading thought of his life has been the uncer
tainty as to his future state or condition. Even to-day,
with the pulsating vigor of a progressive civilization on
every hand, there is no really settled belief in the minds of
the great mass of the human family on this question.
What is the reason for this absence of belief in a great
fact which is by inheritance the birthright of every person
now living or who ever lived ?
The philosophers of old, in attempting to account for
man's first appearance, were finally compelled to adopt the
belief that he must have descended from the gods, because
they found that he was possessed of both a material and a
mental or spiritual nature, and therefore must have had a
spiritual origin. The thought of a great army of gods was
nesessarily abandoned, because it was soon discovered that
such a mighty, matchless and wonderful world as this is,
must have been designed and created by one supreme power
or intelligence, and that it would be unreasonable to suppose
that the Creator of the material world was not also the
Creator of man. Such a statement should not be made in a
488
paper of this kind without defining the term " Creation " as
meaning the forming of what exists from what previously
existed ; in other words, it is not my belief that this world
(with its countless millions of representatives of animate and
inanimate life) was made out of nothing.
Creation is a fact ; but the great difficulty in the way of
good thinkers has been to give such an explanation of this
term as would prove satisfactory to the people. The mode
or process of creation is not known, and in the nature of the
case never can be ; but it is plain that the definition given
by some commentators of this term, " the making of some
thing out of nothing," is illogical, unreasonable and untrue ;
therefore, such a thought should be replaced with a better
one. It would be impossible for the human mind to adopt
the thought of creation, if it were not for the fact that science
demonstrates the impossibility of this earth having sup
ported the life of man but, comparatively speaking, a few
thousand years, while the earth itself has undoubtedly
existed many millions of years. Back of any formulated
globe or planet, on which man now has an abiding place,
the probability is that the elements of nature were in a
chaotic mass, and it is reasonable to suppose that creation
consisted in bringing these elements together in such rela
tion as to form a world and everything that exists of a
material nature.
It should be admitted by all good students that the ele
ments of nature have always existed ; hence there has always
been something out of which to form whatever exists that
is of the same nature as these elements.
It will be as well to leave this thought for later considera
tion, and direct our attention to some collateral facts in the
organization of man that do not appear in any other created
being or thing ; otherwise we should be unable to account
for him, though we might accept the above or some similar
theory as to the general creation.
Man, as has been stated, is a being having two natures,
or, as commonly stated, is a dual creature, and it would^
therefore, be impossible to account for anything but his
489
material body as having been formed out of the elements of

nature, which are also material.
It is, of course, true, that the operations of the law of
evolution, or progression, have resulted in the present com
parative perfection of everything that exists, including man ;
but everything that exists must have originally possessed
all the inherent powers and faculties it now has, and this is
equivalent to saying that the law of evolution never did,
nor can, add a single faculty to the organization of man.
Perhaps it will not be considered modest by a certain class
of thinkers that such an emphatic statement should be made,
but it is absolutely necessary that the thought of the Middle
Ages, modified and changed as it has been from time to time,
regarding the function and power of the very simple law of
evolution, should be abandoned.
Law is an enactment of God or man and has no power in
itself ; therefore, the law of evolution is simply a mode or
process by which everything reaches the perfection of its
inherent life. In other words, the law of evolution could
not act, unless it had something to act upon, and in the case
of man this something was the man in embryo as he came
from the Creator. It would be impossible to say in just what
form the original man was created, but if our reasoning is
correct man has always been man, rather than at some time
in his existence a fish, fowl, or monkey. The mistake of
supposing that any scientist has or can demonstrate the evo
lution of any distinct species from any other known species,
has resulted in more dissatisfaction as to our condition in
this world, and prospects of a brighter and better condition
in the future, than any other theory that has met with the
least degree of favor by good thinkers.
If the eminent naturalist, Mr. Charles Darwin, could by
any possibility return from his present home or condition,
he would undoubtedly caution his admirers not to believe
anything more regarding the "Evolution of the Species"
than he was able to demonstrate in a life-time of patient
study, and that was, a distinct difference, as well as simi
larity, in many species.
490
It was not the intention to include in this article any dis

cussion of this question, but it seems necessary to take issue
with the thought that evolution has ever resulted in the
change of any species of life, and to assert that the law of
evolution, like the laws of gravitation, repulsion and attrac
tion, are simply laws in the control of the Creator, and used
for the purposes for which they were designed or enacted ;
therefore, the credit for what has been accomplished belongs
to the intelligence back of these laws, rather than to the
laws which have no intelligence within themselves.
Let us, if you please, pass this thought now, and barely
mention a few things that should be believed without any
argument.
The life of man is continuous from his birth until his
physical death, that is to say, during his three-score years
and ten, or as long as he continues to breathe he is alive.
The problem which we have undertaken to solve is the
bridging of this fearful chasm of death, and, by the eye of
faith, reason, and logic, follow the human family into a con
dition of life which is simply a continuation of their present
life, freed only from their physical bodies. Can it be done ?
In order that every person may feel at perfect liberty to
take issue with me on the mooted questions here discussed,
I desire frankly to admit that I am but a modest layman,
and do not pretend to speak with authority, but my convic
tions are as here stated, and, if unreasonable, they will not
and should not be accepted.
The mind of man is the real man, and it would seem,
therefore, that no argument would be necessary to prove
the continuous life of every person, because it would be
impossible to think of anything having the nature of mind
passing through the chamber of death ; that is to say, the
change that comes to every one at death is simply the laying
off of, and departing from, the physical body.
This thought may, perhaps, be stated differently, and be
more satisfactory to some readers. If the corporeal body
was in a true sense the real man or person, there would be
no occasion for postulating any opinion as to future condi
491
tion, because the evidences of the material man's returning

to the elements through the process of disintegration and
decay are observable every day.
When we consider man as a dual creature, we are com
pelled to recognize this fact, that the mental or spiritual
nature is not subject to death, but must continue to exist
and perform its life and function of thought precisely as
before the loss of the material body.
This -thought must be elaborated a little, because, strange
as it may appear, some people have an idea that mind is
simply a manifestation of matter, when the real fact is that
organized matter is a manifestation of mind, as I have tried
to show in the few thoughts about creation. Professors of
Theology would not claim that this science could demon
strate any fact in connection with the future condition of
man, because science can only deal with material substances,
and the mind, or future man, is spiritual. It must be true
that every person has a spiritual body as well as a natural
or material body, otherwise there would be no recognition
of friends in the next world, but this spiritual body is of
the same nature as of the mind, and therefore is not affected
by the death of the material body.
Having digressed sufficiently to mention a few facts that
seem necessary for a proper understanding of what follows,
we will now proceed with the argument, and give a reason
for our faith in the continuous conscious existence of every
person.
When we consider the nature of man, we are compelled
to believe that while his physical body is the work of crea
tion (without attempting to define the way or process), we
are equally sure that the mind or real man is a gift from
God and not a creation.
It may be well to digress again for a moment at this
point, and explain fully the meaning of our last paragraph.
When this world was created we do not know, but in due
time it was fitted for the habitation of man, and the only
account we have of his appearing is found in the first book
of our Bibles. This account is not as precise and elaborate
492
as we wish it was, but we learn that " God made man out
of the dust of the earth," which statement is equivalent to
saying that man was made out of the elements of nature, be
cause the earth contains all of these elements.
After the physical man was created, the account goes on
to say that " God breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life." My thought is, that this " breath of life " was the
mind which God gave to man, and which relates him to
the spiritual world.
Words at our command are sometimes inadequate to ex
press our real belief, and this is frequently the case when
considering a metaphysical subject which in itself covers so
much ground, but which must be stated in comparatively
few sentences, in a paper prepared for a work of this kind.
To my thought there is no difficulty in constructing an
absolutely flawless bridge between the material and spiritual
conditions of life, because, as a matter of fact, it is purely a
mental conception of what already exists in the very nature
of man. Hind is not a manifestation of matter, but is the
part of man said to be in the " Image of God," which is
equivalent to saying, that, as God is spirit, so man is a
spiritnot that man is in any sense equal with God, but is
of the same nature. The early philosophers caught this
idea, and proclaimed the divinity of all men, but the better
thought is that we are all children of God, and destined to
a life and condition after the death of our material body
that will favor our march of progression through the end
less ages of Eternity.
Scientific Irritability.
493
SCIENTIFIC IRRITABILITY.
BY EVELYN J. HARDY.
Poets have long been known as an irritable race, musicians
and artists are often jealous of their brethren and impatient
of criticism, while the proverbial animosities of men of let
ters are rather suspended than abolished by combinations
for purposes of log-rolling. Men of science, however, have
been accustomed to claim exemption from professional envy
and uncharitableness. Engaged in the search for truth and
brought into continual contact with reality, they claim and
are usually supposed to possess a serener temper and a larger
outlook than more emotional beings can hope to enjoy. It
is, therefore, not a little remarkable to find that the scientific
world of Great Britain is at present agitated by a controversy
of peculiar bitterness, carried on with the aid of personalities
from which an excitable poet might shrink. We might call
it the Argon controversy, because the advent of that myste
rious substance seems to have accentuated previously exist
ing disputes while creating new and peculiarly acute dis
agreements of its own. But though the whole imbroglio
can be conveniently treated from the Argon point of view, it
must not be forgotten for a moment that long before Argon
was heard of there was profound uneasiness in chemical and
physical circles, and indeed more or less through the entire
range of British science.
To begin with, the Royal Society has for two years past
been in a very uncomfortable and irritable condition. It is
a very dignified and respectable body, but like other such
bodies it has gradually acquired the habit of thinking iteelf
beyond criticism ; although, as a matter of fact, it has become
to a great extent fossilized, and is gradually but surely losing
the position it ought to occupy. The Times criticized, no
doubt, with some sharpness, but in the most friendly spirit,
the faults of management and organization which are thus
sapping its authority. But instead of taking the criticisms in
494
good part and profiting by them, the officials of the Royal So

ciety, together with " the following," which officials can always
command, became extremely indignant. Like other angry
people in similar circumstances they made up their minds
that an enemy had done this thing, and going behind The
Times they saw fit to fasten the responsibility upon Professor
Dewar. So far did they carry this unjustifiable identifica
tion that when a particularly annoying revelation was made
concerning the non-payment for several years of money which
ought to accompany the Rumford Medal, the Treasurer of
the Royal Society had the imprudence openly to charge Pro
fessor Dewar in public meeting with the authorship of the
criticism. He had scarcely made the charge when he was
compelled to withdraw it, but the ridiculous position in which
he thus placed himself and the Royal Society naturally did
not tend to soothe angry feelings.
A law suit turning upon the legal construction of a pat
ent might seem at first sight to be a thing which men of
science might contrive to view without undue excitement,
yet this also has played a considerable part in setting them
by the ears. The British Government manufactures cordite
for military and naval purposes, under a process patented on
its behalf by Sir Frederick Abel and Professor Dewar. The
Nobel Dynamite Company brought an action to have it
declared that this process is an infringement of their patents.
Judgment went against them and they appealed. The Court
of Appeal confirmed the judgment, and they then carried the
matter to the House of Lords, which unanimously upheld
the conclusions arrived at by the Courts below. But, while
the original trial was pending, every effort was made to ob
scure the legal questions at issue by the most reckless at
tacks upon the personal character of the two chemists who
worked out the Government process. Day after day they
were loaded with vituperation in the press ; although they
did not stand to lose or gain a cent, and were fighting the
battle of the taxpayer. It is, of course, impossible to iden
tify the professional sources of such technical knowledge as
these attacks required, but there is no doubt whatever that
495
means were found to enlist the sympathy of a large number

of professional men upon the side of the company which
sought to extract from half a million to a million sterling
from the treasury. To all these people, their partisans and
their satellites, the total failure of the enterprise with which
they identified themselves is, of course, a bitter disappoint
ment. They are, consequently, eager upon every occasion
to make common cause with the furious wire-pullers of the
Royal Society in wreaking their vengeance upon the men
to whom both sets rightly or wrongly ascribe their dis
comfiture.
It was while all these angry passions were seething in
the breasts of men of science that Lord Rayleigh announced,
at the meeting of the British Association, the discovery of a
gas in the atmosphere which had until then escaped obser
vation. Next to nothing was told about it, for the excel
lent reason, as afterward appeared, that next to nothing was
known. The gas had been procured in very small quantities
and by methods which certainly did not exclude the possi
bility that it was a manufactured product. It was stated to
exist in the atmosphere to the amount of one per cent. and
a relatively high density was assigned to it. Accepting
these data, Professor Dewar pointed out in letters to The
Times that the new gas ought to have been noticeable and
even conspicuous in the experiments he had carried on at
low temperatures, in which large quantities of air, to the
extent of five hundred grammes, were liquified. This refer
ence to a difficulty which exists and cannot be shirked, was
not received quite in the scientific spirit. Indeed, it is not
too much to say that it was resented as a personal affront,
although it was not explicitly put forward in that light
until a later period. As the year drew to its close it became
evident that the discoverers of the new gas were at the same
time unwilling to make known the results of their further
researches, and very much disposed to resent inquiry. The
announcement to the British Association, though followed
up by a very explicit affirmation of the importance of the
discovery at the anniversary meeting of the Royal Society
496
on November 30th, was declared not to be publication in the

sense of throwing open the subject to scientific discussion.
Nevertheless, it was apparently held to be publication in the
sense of stopping others from trespassing upon the domain
of Lord Rayleigh and Professor Ramsay. Chemists natu
rally found some difficulty in understanding the position
assumed by the discoverers, though it was not wholly unin
telligible from a business point of view. The Smithsonian
Institution had offered a prize of ten thousand dollars for
any discovery of value or novelty connected with the atmos
phere, and the competitors for that sum were required to
lodge their papers by the end of December. It was evi
dently feared that technical publication before that date
might endanger the success of the application for the prize ;
and it was only after the Secretary of the Smithsonian In
stitution had publicly announced in January the removal of
all restriction upon publication, that the discoverers of the
new gas condescended to take British chemists into their
confidence. This conduct would, of course, have been quite
intelligible if they had not at the same time shown them
selves so anxious to secure the incompatible advantages of a
claim to priority over other possible discoverers by means of
publication to the British Association.
In the meantime they had been busy supplementing the
very scanty information concerning the new element which
was at their disposal when they made their first announce
ment. As they could not find that it possesses any chemi
cal activity whatever, there was nothing to be done but to
fall back upon its physical properties. In the investigation
of these properties low temperatures become highly import
ant, and as Lord Rayleigh is a professor at the Royal Insti
tution it would have seemed natural to carry out the re
quired experiments by the aid of its powerful apparatus.
Its resources were, of course, entirely at Lord Rayleigh's
disposal, and he was, indeed, pressed to use them. But he
had handed over the low temperature work to the exclusive
care of his colleague, Professor Ramsay, who could scarcely
expect the professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution
497
to vacate the laboratory for his benefit. Seeing that they

could not use the Royal Institution exactly as they desired,
the joint discoverers of the new gas decided to hand over
the whole determination of its physical constants to Profes
sor Olszewski, of Cracow, by whom, as a matter of fact,
every bit of accurate information concerning its physical
properties seems to have been obtained. It has been spectroscopically investigated by Mr. Crookes, and when we
deduct his and Professor Olszewski's determinations it is
difficult to find anything remaining to the credit of the dis
coverers, except the bare announcement that the new gas
exists.
When at length all was ready for the momentous and long
delayed publication, advantage was taken of a new departure
on the part of the Royal Society to invest the proceedings
with unwonted eclat. Whether as a result of the criticisms
already referred to, or of the too palpable advance of other
scientific bodies to a position of equality and independence,
the Royal Society has resorted to public discussions upon
single papers instead of adhering to the old routine. The
first discussion of this kind was devoted to Argon, and
everything was done to secure a popular success. The pub
lic were freely admitted, probably for the first time since
the Royal Society was founded, without any formality what
ever; and a compact body of students, installed in a com.
manding position in the center of the hall, cheered at appro
priate moments with the precision and vigor of a practiced
theatrical claque. Nevertheless, it could hardly be affirmed
by the most partial observer that the Royal Society's first
discussion was a great success. Indeed, what discussion
there was found its place in the paper read by Professor
Ramsay, rather than in the subsequent conversation, which
consisted merely of complimentary and uncritical observa
tions. The discoverers, even with the help of the Polish
professor, seemed very much at a loss to classify their new
gas. They had arguments to show that it is monatomic, and
other arguments to prove the contrary. They canvassed the
question whether it is simple or compound, in the sense of
VOL. 132
498
being a mixture of simple substances. They tried it in dif

ferent positions in Mendeleeff's scheme of the elements, and
did not quite like the look of it in any of them. In short,
they discussed so many pros and co?is, and were so far from
taking up a definite and intelligible position of any kind,
that they offered nothing for other people to discuss. There
were almost pathetic appeals for somebody to say something,
or even to ask a question, but nobody responded, and when
the compliments were all paid the discussion fizzled out*
The situation was not, however, quite without its consola- '
tions. Professor Ramsay had the pleasure of taking a fling
at the Fullerian professor at the Royal Institution, by refer
ring to Professor Olszewski as " the authority on low temper
atures," and making a significant pause at the end of the
phrase, which was punctually filled up by the claque. The
manoeuvre was very nicely planned and was perfectly suc
cessful. We may hope that it brought balm to souls tor
tured by the poison of professional jealousy. But it is
another question whether the Royal Society will either re
trieve the blunders repeatedly made by its official apologists,
or improve its position in the world of science, by thus
stooping to the artifices of the political platform. It must
of course, be admitted that it was annoying for the discov- '
erers to find themselves, after many months, in the ezact
position described by Professor Dewar in the letter to The
Times, which so unaccountably stirred their bile on its
appearance. It was in August that he pointed out the
anomalous character of a substance presumed to be present
in air to the extent of from half to one per cent., and having
a density nearly one and a half times as great as that of
nitrogen ; yet failing to reveal its presence when such quan
tities as five hundred grammes of air are liquefied, either by
separating in the solid form or by remaining behind when
the far more volatile oxygen and nitrogen are distilled off.
It was in January, and after consulting " the authority on
low temperatures," that Professor Ramsay had to indulge
in all sorts of ingenious speculations in order to conceal the
fact that light had been thrown upon the problem, and
499
nothing had been done to explain peculiarities without

parallel in chemical experience. But provoking as it was
for Professor Ramsay to find himself just where his critic
had placed him five good months before, he ought to have
controlled his feelings by reflecting that after all it was not
Professor Dewar, but the stubborn facts of the case with
which he had to deal. Scientific training does a man very
little good if it does not teach him to meet troubles of this
kind with patience and good humor.
Professor Olszewski's English friends made a very poor
return for the eminent services he rendered them, when
they encouraged him to mix himself up with their private
animosities, and used him as cover in a new and unusually
rancorous attack. In Nature, of January 10th, appeared a
letter from him complaining in a somewhat querulous tone
that although at one time Professor Dewar had been accus
tomed to mention his name in connection with low tem
perature experiments, yet that more recently he had by
omitting that formality fostered an erroneous conception of
the value and originality of his own work. Xow the
grievances to which the Polish professor more particularly
referred were four or five years old. It is incredible that a
gentleman so thin-skinned as his letter showed him to be,
should have allowed a claim for priority to lie dormant for
such a length of time, and it is at least a curious coincidence
that his sudden awakening to the iniquity of the treatment
accorded to him should have so exactly coincided with his
entry into close relations with the leading spirits of the
Argon controversy. When his letter appeared it was the
opinion of good judges that the intimation did not come
from Professor Olszewski, but from people nearer home,
who saw their way to make him a cat's-paw. Nor was it
long before ample confirmation of this opinion presented
itself. A short but adequate reply to the novel claim for
priority appeared along with it in Nature, merely referring
to the notorious fact that the honor of first liquefying the
permanent gases had long been officially and universally
recognized as belonging to neither Professor Olszewski nor
500
to Professor Dewar, and adding references to the proceed

ings of the Royal Institution which completely disposed of
the insinuation that the English investigator had borrowed
his ideas and his apparatus from Cracow.
There, as far as Professor Olszewski is concerned, the
matter came to an end. But five weeks later, on February
14th, a letter appeared in Nature, signed by Mr. Pattison
Muir, who labored through three columns to convert the
original dispute about priority into a charge of deliberate
fraud against Professor Dewar. This Mr. Pattison Muir, it
may be well to observe, is a college lecturer on chemistry at
Cambridge, and a fairly industrious compiler of chemical
text-books. His most conspicuous peculiarity is complete
inability to understand why he, with these admirable
tutorial qualifications, has never been assigned a place among
original workers in chemistry and physics. The difficulty
has not presented itself to other minds, nor are his preten
sions received with anything but a tolerant smile even in
the circles most appreciative of his merits. But he has
never reconciled himself to the verdict of the scientific
world, and in particular has chafed for many years under
the invidious distinction which an unjust public insists upon
making between himself and Professor Dewar. There is
some reason to fear that he has not yet succeeded in making
the distinction less broad or less obvious. His three col
umns of splenetic depreciation had no relevancy whatever
to the peculiarly offensive charge which he saw fit to engraft
upon Professor Olszewski's claim to priority ; and the vigor
ous reply from Professor Dewar showed him to be reckless
in his treatment, and not too scrupulous in his choice of the
facts upon which he relied to prove his slander. Mr. Patti
son Muir saw fit to drop the line of attack followed in his
first letter, and in Nature of February 21st fell back upon
the vulgar dialectical trick of a rejoinder to his opponent's
reply in which the essential questions were elaborately
shirked. Extracting four " claims " from Professor Dewar's
reply he failed to upset a single one, though he made their
discussion the occasion for venting the animosity which has
501
just been explained. His second letter like his first wound
up with a Pecksniffian expression of concern for the good
name of the scientific men of the country, and a demand,
extremely amusing as coming from Mr. Pattisou Muir, for
" instant and serious consideration " of the skimble-skamble
stuff which to his jaundiced vision appears good enough to
support a charge of wilful dishonesty. A week later he
was made to look, if possible, more foolish than before by
Professor Dewar's reply, which forced him to take shelter in
the trick of trying to shuffle the onus probandi upon the man
he wantonly assailed. In other words, having undertaken
to prove Professor Dewar a rogue and having failed, 'this
spiteful little pedagogue turns round and complains that the
object of his abuse has not proved himself to Mr. Muir's
satisfaction an honest man. How far this gentleman repre
sents others, and how far he is merely seizing an opportunity
to pour forth his long-digested venom, is a question not easy
to answer. Bat in any case his letters form a fitting climax
to the manifestations of jealousy and ill temper which for
some time past have disfigured the annals of British science.
This interesting study of scientific irritability cannot be
carried any further at present. But the history so far would
be incomplete without a reference to the unpleasant fact that
even the impartiality of scientific journalism seems to be
imperilled by the angry passions of men of science. The
editor of Nature set at defiance all accepted rules of jour
nalistic courtesy and fair play by excising portions of Pro
fessor Dewar's first reply, marking the omissions with a line
of dots, and adding a foot-note to say that they consisted of
personalities. Considering that Mr. Pattisou Muir's attack
was one gigantic personality of the grossest and most offen
sive kind, this tender regard for the proprieties is at least as
singular as the mode of showing it is unprecedented. Pro
fessor Dewar's second letter was mutilated by the excision
of passages which could in no sense be described as person
alities, though they were probably too incisive to suit the
taste of the other party to the controversy. Mr. Pattison
Muir is known to have been for many years a contributor to
502
The Unity of Matter.
Nature, and his studiously offensive letter, dealing with a

quarrel which was none of his, was so far beyond the lines
usually observed by editorial discretion as to suggest that
several points were strained in his favor when it was inserted.
What has subsequently occurred would almost justify the
suspicion that he was allowed to edit his opponent's replies
in a controversy of his own raising. The matter is not of
much consequence, because there fortunately exist in Eng
land great lay journals conducted with an abiding love of
fair play. Such occurrences only serve to strengthen the
disposition of scientific workers to appeal through such
journals to a larger public and a more equitable tribunal than
can always be found within scientific confines.
THE UNITY OF MATTER.

Vast as are the domains which science seeks to conquer,
marvelous as her work has been during the present century,
she cannot reach even the borders of the infinite realms
that lie beyond her present domains until she has penetrated
the mysteries which surround the path she has chosen, and,
in doing so, discovers that the problems which she has pro
nounced to be unsolvable are within her reach, provided she
takes the high road of knowledge that leads to their solution.
The history of all scientific progress shows us that the
paths of learning are not always those of knowledge. Again
and again, what has been considered as an immovable foun
dation of well-arranged facts, on which the edifice of phil
osophy was to be built, has had to be destroyed in order to
replace it with a better foundation. Only yesterday was it
announced by two Englishmen of science, Lord Rayleigh
and Professor Ramsay, that atmospheric air, which was
supposed to be composed of two gases only (as we have
blindly believed for a century on the word of Lavoisier)
has a third gas, which they, as its discoverers, have named
" argon," but which is, however, of too inert a character to
create any alarm to those who breathe it.
503
Mr. Strindberg, a Swede, now announces that he has dis

covered sulphur to be a compound instead of a simple body,
as hitherto regarded.
The physical and chemical properties of sulphur are of
exceptional peculiarity. Solid under ordinary temperature,
it melts at 115 and boils at 440. Insoluble in water, it
dissolves in alcohol, benzine, sulphuret of carbon, and in
essential oils. A bad conductor of heat and electricity,
it presents itself under apparently contradictory conditions.
Thus it is at times amorphous, and at times crystallized,
either in prisms or in octahidra ; its density varying with
the form it takes. If melted at 115 it is fluid and trans
parent ; but at a higher temperature it becomes black and
viscous. If thrown suddenly into water it then takes a
soft and elastic consistency, like India-rubber. At 200,
when in contact with air, it becomes phosphorescent; at
250 it ignites and burns with its characteristic blue flame,
throwing off sulphurous acid, and acting as oxygen does in
the presence of certain metals, such as iron filings, with
which it is capable of uniting even when cold. In short,
it is a sort of Proteus, as hard to discipline as it is to define.
There is no doubt that in past times many a French
savant suspected this capricious being of deception in pass
ing itself off for a simple body, but their suspicions were
only presentments; or, at most, a mere unsubstantiated
hypothesis. It was left for Strindberg, known as a man of
literature, to search for experimental proof of the truth of
their conjectures. He now announces that he has dissociated
sulphur, and that it is a resinous product of oxygen, hydro
gen and carbon.1
Poets sometimes have inspirations, or genial illumina
tions, which seem out of harmony with their special acquire
ments ; but which, if pursued, may as well lead to progress
1On this subject Professor Crookes says :
" I am quite prepared to hear that sulphur, like many other of our chem
ical elements, is really a compound body, but it will not turn out to be a
mixture of oxygen, hydrogen and carbon. Neither will its compound char
acter be proved by such very elementary experiments as are described."
504
in the arts as the researches of men who are not of idealistic

temperament. It was such illuminations that led Charles
Cros, of Languedoc, to invent the precursor of the phono
graph, and to forecast the photophone and the radiometer,
and to make known, long before Iremy and Moissau, the
artificial synthesis of precious stones.
Strindberg, also an idealist, with the same instructive
intuition, refused to recognize the fallacious simplicity of
sulphur and vowed to himself that he would not rest until
he had proved it to be a compound. In melting sulphur at
120, he found it giving out a strong smell of camphor; it
lost so much of its oxygen that it appeared to be changed
into camphor. At 160 to 200 it took the color and con
sistency of India-rubber, having lost still more of its oxygen
and of its hydrogen. Heated in contact with linseed oil, the
latter was transformed into a resinous glue. Boiled with
essence of cloves it formed crystals of camphor, in needlelike formations.
/ , . , , /j"*
The de*hiy of amorphous sulphur is 1.97, while that ot
7
ordinary sulphur is 2.07. What can explain this anomaly
but the fact that the amorphous sulphur, the return of which
to its crystalline state is attended with dispersion of heat, is
deprived of its oxygen and thereby diminished in weight ?
That oxygen is one of its constituents is also proved by the
resinous glue into which linseed oil is transformed when the
two are heated together. But if sulphur is a resinous sub
stance it must also contain carbon ; and that carbon is one of
its constituents, Mr. Strindberg thinks he has proved beyond
doubt. After burning amorphous sulphur in a crucible he
obtained as its residue a black powder; which, in combustion,
yields oxide of carbon and carbonic acid.
With the fine audacity of faith, Mr. Strindberg is now pre
paring for a series of experiments, to be made before distin
guished Parisian chemists, including Mr. Berthelot, under the
most rigorous conditions of exactitude. If he succeeds in
despoiling sulphur of the individuality it has usurped, the
announcement will be made that it has been relegated to the
ranks of the " ternary radicles." It will then be the turn of
505
phosphoruswhose ways are no less whimsical and suspicious

to contribute her testimony to the unity of matter, which
amounts to saying that the so-called simple substances are,
in reality, only different conditions of one fundamental ele
ment, the woof and stratum of all that is:protyl, according
to Crookes ; hydrogen, according to Norman Lockyer ; car
bon, according to Haeckel ; and the luminiferous ether
according to Keely. On that day the seekers after the
philosopher's stone and the transmutation of metals, says
Emile Gautier (in closing his paper on Strindberg's dis
covery), will have made a great step in advance.
NOTES ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE.

BY PROF. ANGBLO HEILPRIN,
THE AGE OF THE EARTH.
To those who have fondly held to the notion that the

doctrine of evolution was disproved, or at least rendered
doubtful by a mathematical demonstration of the com
parative newness of our planet, and the inefficiency of its
life-period to bring about that wonderful divergence of
plant and animal forms which we everywhere see about us,
the redetermination of the age of the earth by Prof. Perry,
with the aid of the formulae used by Sir William Thomson
(Lord Kelvin), will come as a rude shock. It is now
upward of a quarter of a century since Sir William
Thomson published the results of his calculations, based
upon the study of loss of heat of the planet, tending to
show that the period of solidification of the earth could
not have been less than twenty million years ago, nor more
than fipur hundred million years, and in general it was
assumed that one hundred million years most nearly repre
sented the actual period. This determination has been
very generally accepted on the part of physicists, and has
even crept into many of the standard works of geology,
506
despite the feeling on the part of most geologists that

the facts in their possession, derived from a study of the
slow processes of denudation and sedimentation, argued
strongly against this short period. Prof. Perry, who is
himself a pupil of Lord Kelvin, now comes to the assist
ance of the geologist by asserting that if we assume a
higher conductivity of the rocks of the interior of the
earth than for those of the surface, which is rendered
extremely probable through the conditions of high temper
atures which there prevail, the time period of cooling can
be very materially increased ; and, indeed, the rather start
ling conclusion is reached that " even for a perfectly solid
earth an age one thousand three hundred times the age
given by Lord Kelvin " is not incompatible with the facts
that are now accessible. Lord Kelvin, in a personal letter
addressed to Prof. Perry, and bearing date of December
18th, 1894, with a true scientific spirit, admits the force of
Prof. Perry's criticism, and states: "I thought my range
from twenty millions to four hundred millions was probably
wide enough, but it is quite possible that I should have put
the superior limit a good deal higher, perhaps four thou
sand instead of four hundred."
THE MISSING LINK.
It would seem that an animal form intermediate in struc

ture between man and the man-like apes, and properly
entitled to the designation of " missing link," has finally
been discovered. The find in question is brought to the
notice of scientists by Dr. Eugene Dubois, of the Dutch
East Indian army, who, in an elaborate memoir, describes
the remains of a preeminently hominine anthropoid which
were recently obtained from the post-pliocene, or, possibly,
even pliocene deposits of the island of Java. These re
mains consist of the roof of the skull, the femur, and a
molar tooth of a mammalian, which was of approximately
the size of a man, but whose simian affinities were clearly
indicated in the general cranial conformation, and in cer
tain peculiarities of structure of the thigh-bone. Dr. Du
507
bo is calls special attention to the marked development of

the cranial arch, which is represented to be about half-way
intermediate between what is found iu man and in the
chimpanzee, and to the cranial volume, which is double that
of the gorilla, and actually approaches the " physiological
minimum " in man. The thigh-bone is in form and dimen
sions the absolute analogue of that of man; and, in the
opinion of the author, gives unmistakable evidence of hav
ing supported an habitually erect body. If the facts
pertaining to this remarkable fossil have been correctly in.
terpreted, and there would appear to be no special reasons
for doubting that they have, then they must be considered to
mark one of the most important discoveriesand perhaps
the most significantthat have hitherto been made in the
domain of evolutionary science. It is unfortunate that the
remains come in single pieced, and it may be that they are
merely a physiological abnormality (which there is no
special reason to assume), but such as they are they must be
given full weight, and for the moment they add considerably
to the significance of the hotly-contested Neanderthal and
Spy finds. Dr. Dubois unhesitatingly places the extinct
Javan ape or, more properly, " manlike transition form "
(menschenahnliche Uebergangsfonri), upon which he imposes
the not inappropriate name of Pithecanthropus erectus, as the
intermediate form between man and the true anthropoid
apes, and the order of development (evolution) which he
assumes to have been most likely is : Prothylobates, Anthropopithecus Sivalensis, Pithecanthropus, and man. The near
est ally to Pithecanthropus is seemingly a large chimpanzoid
(Anthropopithecus Sivalensis) from the deposits of the Siwalik
Hills of India, which, indeed, may be ancestral to both the
newly-discovered form and to the African chimpanzee as
well. The region in which the remains were found is one
in which a more progressive ape (or ape-like form) than any
with which we are now acquainted, might very well have
lived, and it would be a little strange if forms somewhat
like the gibbon or the orang should not be discovered in
the younger deposits of this anthrozoal tract.
508

THB RICHNESS OF THE AFRICAN GOLD-FIELDS.
The richness of the African gold-fields, as it is portrayed

by Dr. Karl Futterer in his recent publication, " Afrika in
seiner Bedeutuug fur die Goldproduktion in Vergangenheit,
Gegenwart and Zukunft," will come as a surprise even to
those who have looked most optimistically upon the " dark
continent" as the most hopeful source of supply of the
standard medium of exchange for the future. At the
present time the gold-mining activity is nearly all concen
trated in the region of the Transvaal, whence in 1893 there
was obtained a product the valuation of which was placed
at upward of twenty-nine million dollars, or very nearly a
full tenth of the total African yield, counting from the days
of the Egyptian kings. According to Diodorus, these early
potentates mined gold to the extent of some thirty million
dollars. So far as it has been possible to trace the mining
operations of the past, it would seem that northeast Africa
has yielded gold to an amount of approximately eighty
million dollars, northwest Africa one hundred and fifty
million dollars, and the equatorial and southern regions
sixty million dollars. Dr. Futterer holds firmly to the
opinion that for many years yet to come the gold output
will be largely on the increase, and he estimates that from
the Witwatersrand gold-fields alone the yield in twentyfive years will be not less than one billion dollars. It is
conjectured that at the end of this time the mining opera
tions will be conducted at a depth of half a mile, but with
the improved methods of shafting, cooling and ventilation,
no serious obstacle to operating at even much greater depths
need be anticipated.
HIGH ATMOSPHERIC NAVIGATION.
A recent number of the Journal of Aeronautics contains

an account of the very remarkable voyage of Dr. A. Berson
in the balloon ship "Phoenix," which started from the
town of Stassfurt, Germany, on the fourth of December
last. The balloon was charged with two thousand cubic
metres of hydrogen gas, and amply supplied with instru
509
ments for registering wind velocities, temperature, and

barometric pressures. In a quarter of an hour after the
start the balloon had risen to two thousand metres (sixtyfive hundred feet), and in an hour to five thousand metres
or sixteen thousand feet, the thermometer registering 18
C. below zero (0 F.). In less than two hours the bold
aeronaut was carried to twenty-six thousand feet, or to
an elevation exceeding all mountain summits, with the
exception of the loftiest of the Himalayas. The ther
mometer at this point marked 89 C. (38 F.), or very
nearly the lowest that had been recorded on any moun
tain top (the winter temperature of the summit of Mount
Ararat, as reported by General Venukof). Neither the
rarefied atmosphere nor the cold seems to have materially
interfered with the intellectual processes of the aeronaut,
who, however, was forced to a close communion with the
oxygen bags. When ceasing for a few seconds to breathe
from these bags, Dr. Berson felt dizzy and dangerously weak,
but only once did his eyes close against himself. Tn two
and a half hours after the start the adventurous scientist
reached the highest point of his journey, nine thousand one
hundred and fifty metres (thirty thousand and twelve feet),
an elevation almost exactly one thousand feet above the
summit of Mount Everest. At this prodigious height,
where the barometer registered an atmospheric pressure
of only two hundred and thirty-one millimetres, or nine
and nine one-hundredths inches, careful readings of the
instruments were still made, and the condition of the
observer was such that seemingly he might have ascended
considerably further. The temperature in this greatly at
tenuated atmosphere was 47.9 C. (54 F.) For a full
hour after the "highest" was reached, two of Dr. Berson's
fingers remained frozen, but beyond this comparatively
little discomfort was experienced. The descent was made
in slow calculated curves, with final arrival on a stubblefield at Schoenwohld, near Kiel. Among the interesting
results of this atmospheric exploration were the determina
tion of humidity in the highest zones, the snow-flake struc
510
ture of cirrus clouds, a tremendous increase of wind-velocity

with the ascent, and the great lowering of winter tempera
tures between five thousand and thirty thousand feet.
THE GREAT IRON-STONE OF NORTHERN GREENLAND.
One of the results of the past year's exploration of Green

land by Lieut. Peary has been the location of the famous
iron-stones or " iron mountains " of Cape York, to which Sir
John Ross first directed attention in the early part of the
century. They were known, through the accounts of the
natives, to furnish the Eskimos of that region, the so-called
"Arctic Highlanders," with the metallic material for the
manufacture of rude implements of various kinds, mainly
serrated knives, but no traveler had hitherto succeeded in
finding the locality of their occurrence, and only conjecturally, or as vaguely related by the Eskimos, was it assumed
that the masses belonged to the immediate region of Cape
York. Mr. Peary has now definitely located the spot,
which is some twenty-five miles northeast of Cape York.
Here, at an elevation of one hundred and thirteen feet
above sea-level, and four hundred and fifty yards from the
shore-line, lies the famous iron-stone, with a circumference
of eleven feet, a maximum length of four feet and three
inches, and a maximum width of three feet and three
inches. The highest part of the stone above ground is
fifteen inches, and the average thickness is perhaps one or
one and a half feet. Mr. Peary estimates the weight at
probably not less than five thousand five hundred Ibs., and
it may be double that. No analysis has as yet been made
of the rock-mass, but seemingly it is of a constitution anal
ogous to the well-known Ovifak irons, whether meteoric or
telluric.
The Open Court.
511
THE OPEN COURT.

Comments on Articles in Previous Numbers of the Review.
WHAT ELECTRICITY Is.A brief review of the articles in the
January number that refer to the original article under the above
title in the October number,by its author, F. Jarvis Patten.
Of the first article on the subject by Mrs. Moore, the writer
can have but little to say, because he is forced to state that he
cannot understand many of its terms. Being nothing more than
a student of pure science, he looks for simple facts and cannot
yet grasp or conceive any connection between pure science and
" revelation," as the polite author of this criticism evidently
does.
The writer would have these remarks apply in a general way but
not in a precise degree to the third article in the January number,
that by Henry Clay. If we must look to the book of Genesis for
help in getting at knowledge not known or used by man for a fw
thousand years after the book of Genesis was compiled, and which
makes no mention whatever of the later discoveriesthen the
writer begs to be excused from attempting further definitions,
much less from attemping serious criticism of the Holy Writ and
its meaning, of which he seriously professes no knowledge. The
second article, that by Mr. Reed, seems to be written in a more
serious vein. It is, atleast, understandable by the author of the
original article, and calls attention to some points that would ap
pear to upset the original writer's definition as given. Upon close
reflection, however, it would seem different. He says, " There is
nothing new in the original author's definition." The author did
not assert that there was anything new in it, or that anything par
ticularly new as a discovery was intended. Nothing further, in fact,
'was attempted than to give for the layman or the scientific student
a plain and understandable definition, or answer to the oft re
peated question, " What is electricity ? " and so far the writer
has seen no good evidence that this was not accomplished. The
incidents cited by Mr. Reed where the definition fails are in
error, and the author feels certain that a little study will show
them such; but space is too limited to take them up and
analyze each in turn. Of course we may look at any form of
energy as a condition of strain in the hypothetical ether, but this
would hardly make electricity matter, because nobody says that
the ether is matter, or has even a proven existence, but the same
objections apply to any definition that we can give to any form
of energy, and it would seem that we only invite confusion by
resort to terms that few, if any, can understand.
512
The Open Court.
EDITOR NEW SCIENCE REVIEW.The interesting article by Mr.

Morris in the January number, on the " Railroad in Asia,"
suggests to me in its reference to China, the thought that few
who have not lived in that country understand, or at least ap
preciate, the influence of a class known as the " literati," exerted
in opposition to all efforts by foreigners to introduce Western
improvements.
My experience in the country dates at a period just before the
attempts to introduce the first railroad, and my observation
was chiefly confined to one of the smaller ports on the southein
part of the coast line, but I think they would closely resemble
those of residents in all other parts of the country.
The formidability of the influence of this so-called literary
class was largely due to its subtle and irresponsible character.
The vacillating conduct of the officials in diplomatic intercourse
showed evidence of its effect on the one hand, and on the other
the fiendish acts of violence committed by the lower orders were
directly traceable to it.
Chinese customs and traditions, together with the weakness
and chaotic state of the " central government," were unquestion
able barriers to progressive enlightenment, but these could have
been removed without serious difficulty, but for the baneful in
fluence of the "literati."
The commercial class was truly progressive, and there was
something to admire in their industry and adaptability. It is
customary to dignify Chinese backwardness with the term " con
servatism," whereas it is due rather to the implacable hatred of
foreigners by the "literati."
Mr. Morris's reference to the present war suggests the only, or,
at least, the most efficacious remedy. It will be remembered
that the American Commodore entered Japan by first making a
breach in the wall with his shot. That is the way I would over
come Chinese "exclusiveness."
C. B. W.
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS.
EDITOR NEW SCIENCE REVIEW.* * * I am very enthu
siastic about Mr. Jordan's system of mental training ; so also
are all the friends to whom I have shown the article. In fact,
it appears to me that the great truisms about the mind therein
made known must be appreciated by every one who reads it.
Of course, having only read an outline, I necessarily know but a
little about the system, but in the light of the truths apparent
to me in this article, I am confident that a better understanding
of the system would establish as a firm conviction my present
opinion that Mr. Jordan is a benefactor of the race.
I have always believed that a better condition, mentally and
morally, was possible, and it gives me pleasure to know a man
whom I consider advances a system of mental culture, which not
only makes this possible but inevitable, inevitable because these
The Open Court.
513
ideas of mental training must, sooner or later, like all great truths
that are advanced, become universally recognized and adopted.
Hoping to be able soon to read further articles on this educa
tional reformation,! am,
Very truly yours,
B. J. B.
ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA.
* * * I must confess that " Mental Training : A Remedy
for Education," by William George Jordan, is a remarkable
revelation, and clearly indicates how much energy is wasted in
the old-fashioned method of education, and how poor the re
sults. * * *
T. M. Q.
Jordan's antidote to education," Mental Training by Analysis,
Law and Analogy," is a peach. Edgar W. Nye (Bill Nye).
BALTIMORE, Md.
EDITOR NEW SCIENTIFIC REVIEW. Dear Sir:Maj-Gen. Drayton's article on examinations is irritatingly unsatisfying and
incomplete. Examinations to-day are weak and inadequate, not
only in themselves but because they are the product of a wrong
basis of educating, as was so ably shown in an earlier number of
the REVIEW. They must be treated as a symptom but not as a
disease. Improving them will do little lasting good ; the cor
recting must go further back and strike at the errors of the system
itself. These annual or semi-annual inventories, stock-taking,
do not attempt to determine the amount of growth from the
months of study, but merely to see what percentage of the
mental food has evaporated. True examinations must consider
the facts as of slight importance if the mind has grown strong,
quick and active by feeding on those facts, and to really recog
nize this in practice would require not only better examinations
but new methods of teaching.
EDUCATION.
" A Remarkable Book and its Teachings," By Prof. LascellesScott, in No. 2, is one of the best written articles, and is cer
tainly the most interesting of all. It reviews in a vigorous and
conspicuously lucid manner Mrs. Moore's book, " Eeely and his
Discoveries," and it should be read by every scientist and lay
man who takes an interest in such questions. No such compre
hensive and impartial exposition of the American inventor's
claims has yet appeared.
A. A. T.
A prominent English scientist writes of the January number,
" Each article is suggestive. I believe it will have a largely
increased sale in England. It seems quite clear of the dogma
tic ' follow my leader ' style, now so commonly adopted by Eng
lish editors. Many great minds are rebelling against the popery
of scientific authorities and are thinking for themselves."
To Oliver J. Lodge, Professor of Physics in the Liverpool
University, we are indebted for the following pertinent remarks
VOL. 133
514
The Open Court.
on the " Mission of Science." The business of a scientific man

is the pursuit of natural knowledge, and the imparting of such
portion of it as has by long trial now become recognized and
orthodoxi. e., such portion as people are willing to receive.
For I need hardly remark that at one time the science of nature
or " physics " itself was very far from being orthodox, and that
in past days promulgators of new truths had to pass not through
the fire of a little friendly badinage and ridicule, but through
fire of a much fiercer and more searching character; unless, in
deed, they recanted their " errors." Instruction in orthodox
branches of science is now permitted to youth ; an unorthodox
department of knowledge may have to wait many years before
instruction in it can be willingly received even by adult and
experienced minds. Let it wait ! The instinct of an investiga
tor and teacher is to set forth as best he may such natural truth
as he is able to perceivesuch truth as the interworking of his
era and his opportunities have revealed to himand there he
must leave it. For its reception by the human race he is not
responsible. When the time is ripe it will be both known and
understood ; till the time is ripe it had better, perhaps, not be
known.
The universe is not so simple a matter as men in this century
have been apt to think, and complete familiarity with the methods
of commerce and of contemporary politics may be insufficient
to solve it. All we ask for on the part of our contemporaries is
an attitude of mind willing to give to new truth a chance of life.
If it be of God they cannot, indeed, ultimately overthrow it ;
but they may by determined blindness seriously delay its coming,
and entirely prevent its reception in their own age.
Reviews.
515
REVIEWS.
THB SOURCE AND MODE OF SOLAR ENERGY THROUGHOUT THB UNI
VERSE, BY I. W. HEYSINGER, M.A., M.D. (J. B. Lippincott Co.,
Philadelphia.)
The work here named is one that apparently has a double mission to
perform, that of giving an exposition, in popular language, of astronomy
as at present understood, and that of stating and seeking to demonstrate
the author's special hypothesis of the cause of solar light and heat. The
latter purpose might, perhaps, have been as well performed in a work of
much less extent, since much is stated that has no immediate bearing
upon the hypothesis ; while, on the other hand, the former purpose is
only partly completed. Yet those who may take no interest in the
author's hypothetical -views will find themselves well repaid for reading
this book by the rich store of astronomical information which it contains,
and the easy and comprehensible language in which this is expressed.
As regards the hypothesis which is the raison <f lire of the book's ex
istence, it must be acknowledged that it is one of much interest in itself,
and is yery thoroughly worked out, while, if accepted as presented, it
would save the universe from the fate that is predicted for it,that of
dying out like a fire destitute of fuel,since according to the views here
advanced an unendingsnpply of fuel, orits equivalent, exists. Yet, despite
this desirable end, and the simple method by which it is to be produced,
the hypothesis does not appeal to us as a quite satisfactory solution of the
difficulty, since it is based on conditions which are not known to exist,
and on spheral relations which, if they exist, must themselves bring the
present state of the universe to an end.
The hypothesis, simply stated, is the following : The sun and its planets
are related to each other as great electrical machines, the sun the nega
tive pole, the planets the positive poles of the celestial battery, while the
(possible) matter of space serves as an intermedium of high conducting
powers. This conduction is principally accomplished by aqueous vapor,
which is claimed to be an universal constituent of spatial matter. The
result is similar to that which we perceive in minor galvanic batteries,
the giving off of free hydrogen at the negative pole, of free oxygen at the
positive pole, and the eventual conversion of the electrical force into heat.
It is well known that free hydrogen exists in abundance in the solar
atmosphere, while there is no indication of free oxygen. The opposite
condition exists upon the earth, whose atmosphere contains free oxygen,
but no free hydrogen. The aqueous vapor of our atmosphere, and the
water of the earth are, according to the author, due to the inflow of the
516
Reviews.
aqueous vapor of space. The final result of the process is that the elec
trical current, on reaching the free hydrogen of the solar atmosphere,
meets with resistance, and is converted into heat, by which the hydrogen
is raised to a state of incandescence, and the solar heat and light pro
duced. If it be asked, What is the necessarily continuous source of this
electric current ? the author's reply is that it is due to the friction of the
terrestrial atmosphere with the matter of space ; the earth, in its rapid
axial revolution, and its still more rapid movement through space, acting
as a great electrical machine, and developing currents of electricity of an
exceedingly high potential.
This hypothesis is worked out by the author with great elaboration
and much skill, and is shown to be in consonance with the phenomena
of the aurora, magnetic storms, the repulsion of the tails of comets, and
various other phenomena both of solar and of stellar space. Its weak
point is that it begs the question in several particulars. While aqueous
vapor may exist in stellar space, and in its rarified condition may freely
conduct electricity, we have no actual evidence of its existence or of its
conductive powers. Again, the incessant production of free oxygen in
the earth's atmosphere should evidenceitself in an increasing percentage
of oxygen in the atmosphere. There is no evidence of such an increase.
Finally, there is to be considered the friction between the earth and the
assumed matter of space which the hypothesis requires. Such a friction
must check both the diurnal and the annual revolution of the earth, and
in time end the operation, by bringing all the planets into the sun. So far
as evidence goes no such retardation exists. The author must prove its
existence before he can hope to sustain his hypothesis.
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS, AND OTHER ESSAYS,
BY WILLIAM NORTH RICE, PH.D., Ll.D. (Thomas Y. Crowell &Co.,
New York.)
The twenty-five years of scientific progress here allnded to are now
thirty, since it is five years since Professor Rice delivered the essay now
printed before the American Society of Naturalists. In that thirty years
the progress of science seems, in many respects, marvelous, and though
it doubtless looms up particularly from our nearness of view, yet the sum
of advancement, as epitomized in this address, is certainly very consider
able. This will be seen if we mention the most important of these steps
of progress. First of all, the theory of evolution, born just before, has
had nearly its whole progress, from general denial to general acceptance,
within this period. To-day the scientist who is net an evolutionist is almost
a lusus natures. Then the opposite state of things prevailed. During the
period named the science of bacteriology has had its birth and growth,
and the time-honored medical science of the past has been revolutionized
by the germ theory of disease. There has been remarkable progress in
our knowledge of the minute structure of plant and animal tissue, in our
acquaintance with deep sea life, and in the details of zoological classifica
tion, in which the simplified systems of Cuvier and Agassiz have vanished
Reviews.
517
from sight, and a much greater diversity is shown to exist. As regards

geology, the progress in filling the gaps in the animal series has been
immense; birds hare been shown to be near relatives of reptiles, the
serial development of horse ancestry and of other animals has been dis
covered, and man himself has been traced back to an antiquity that no
one previously dreamed of. The science of lithology, or petrography,
has immensely added to our knowledge of rock structure ; the theory of
the winds has been born and developed ; atmospheric gases have been
reduced to the liquid and solid states ; numerous organic substances have
been produced chemically ; photographic plates of extraordinary sensitive
ness have been developed ; the practical applications of electricity have
been most remarkable ; astronomical discoveries of the highest import
ance have been made ; and, in short, a degree of progress achieved
which it is doubtful if any previous period of the same length could equal.
In addition to this very interesting address, Professor Rice writes of
"Evolution," "The Degree of Probability of Scientific Belief," and
"Genesis and Geology," all in the same pleasant and attractive strain,
the little work which he presents to the public being, in its concise state
ment of facts, a very full one.
LESSONS IN THE NEW GEOGRAPHY, BY SPENCER TROTTER, M. D. (D.
C. Heath & Co., Boston.)
In this work Dr. Trotter, who is Professor of Biology in Swarthmore
College, Penna., has taken a new departure, and produced a book for the
use of scholar and teacher alike, which cannot fail to be of the utmost
advantage. It is neither political geography nor physical geography,
though some attention has been paid to the latter, but may perhaps be
oest designated as biological and commercial geographyor geography
in its relations to manand in this field the work is remarkably com
pact and full of useful information, occupying a place in the school-book
domain which has hitherto been unfilled.
"The geography of our childhood," says the author, "is remembered
by most of us for its dry-as-dust details and its interesting pictures," in
which animals were jumbled together in a way in which they are never
seen in real life, not even in menageries. " We learn, too, that the land
was divided into continents, islands, peninsulas, seaports, capes, and so
forth ; that Canton was noted for tea and china, Yokohama for Japanese,
Philadelphia for Independence Hall, Rome and Greece for antiquity, and
Buenos Ayres for hides and tallow. But we never knew why they were
noted for these things, or what part their geographical position played in
their history and exports."
It is the why of things of this kind that Dr. Trotter undertakes to give,
dealing with such subjects as Past and Present Aspects of the Earth ;
Climate ; Plants and Animals which have Affected Man ; Races of Men and
their Geographical Distribution ; Commerce and its Products, and various
analogous subjectsall of these being considered in their geographical
relations and their connection with the physical features and climatic
518
Revieivs.
conditions of the earth. As a new departure the book seems to us a

marked success, compact in treatment, diverse in subject, and logical in
arrangement. It is a capital addition to the school-books now in use, and
alike as an aid to teachers, a supplementary reading-book for scholars,
and a text-book for advanced classes, it fills a vacant place and fills it
well.
WHAT ORMOND THINKS, BY "ORMOND." (The Blakely Printing Co.,
Chicago.)
"Ormond" thinks that man is a dual being, material and spiritual,
and that when the material returns to the state of unorganized matter
the spiritual will continue to exist as organized spirit. There is nothing
particularly new in this. Great numbers to-day think, and in past times
have thought, the same thing. And as regards demonstration of the state
ment, it must be said that this work leaves it precisely where it found it,
as something insusceptible of scientific evidence. " If any reader," the
author says, "is unfortunately so constituted mentally that they must
have proof for everything they believe, it would be well for them to stndy
all metaphysical subjects until they find it easy to believe without proof,
save their own powers of reasoning." The logic of this sentence is about
as obscure as its grammar. The author has set out to demonstrate a po
sition, and ends by telling his readers that those who are not ready to
believe without .proof need mental overhauling. Perhaps so, but as it
stands Onnond acknowledges a failure in his argument which renders
the book itself the reverse of a necessity.
THE SUPREMACY OF THH SPIRITUAL, BY EDWARD RANDALL KNOWLES,
LL.D. (Arena Publishing Co., Boston.)
As the preceding work asserted that man is dual in constitution, the
present one asserts that he is single, and that this singleness is a spiritual,
not a material, one. He goes further, and propounds the hypothesis that
the ' ' ether " of space is the spiritual substratum from which all seemingly
material things arise. " This single universal medium," hesays, " is not
only omnipresent, but immaterial, and hence not of the material existence
and its conditions and laws, but spiritual." "And right here," he con
tinues, "we recall the fact that already many scientific men have sup
posed the so-called 'ether' to be homogeneous with the immaterial,
simple substance, the sonl."
It is no difficult matter to suppose. The difficulty always is to prove.
The suppositions of these scientific menwho, by the way, are not on
recordare of no more value than any unscientific suppositions, and do
not yield us a speck of evidence that the ether is immaterial, or spiritual.
It is only through its material operations that we know of the existence
of the ether at all, and unless matter itself is immaterial ether certainly
is not. As for the author's arguments, they take very much the shape ot
assertions.
Volume I.
Number 4.
' 'All that has been predicted of atoms, their attractions and repulsions according to the
primary laws of their being, only becomes intelligible when we assume the presence of
mind."SIR J. F. W. HERSCHBL.
THE
NEW SCIENCE
REVIEW
Conducted by J. M. STODDART.
APRIL, 1895.
Contents :
THE ELEMENTS,
WILLIAM CROOKBS, P. R. S.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES (POSTHUMOUS),
- PROF. RICHAKD A. PROCTOR .
GBNIUS; THE MODEL FOR EDUCATIONAL METHODS,
- WILLIAM GEORGE JORDAN.
WHERE THE STEAMBOAT WAS BORN,
MAGGIB SYMINGTON.
THE ETHER AND ITS FUNCTIONS, ....
GBO. FRASBR FITZGERALD, F. R. S.
Trinity College, Dublin.
CHANGES IN SPOKEN ENGLISH,

A. B. KINGSBURY.
ELECTRIC POWER TRANSMISSION,
LIEUT. F. JARVIS PATTEN.
HANDS; AS INDICATIVE OF CHARACTER,
CHKIRO.
RAILROAD FACTS AND FIGURES,
MELViLLK PHILIPS.
OPERATION OF THE VIBRATORY CIRCUIT (by Polar and Depolar
Sympathetic Interchange; as Associated with tke Transmitter), JOHN W. KEELY.
THE VEIL WITHDRAWN,
Compiled by MRS. BLOOMFIELD MOORE.
ARE PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL ENERGY IDENTICAL,
- MRS. MARY PARUBLB.
THE CONTINUITY OF LIFE,
"ORMOND."
SCIENTIFIC IRRITABILITY,
EVELYN J. HARDY.
THE UNITY OF MATTER,
*
NOTES ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE, ----PROF. ANGELO HEILPRIN,

**
THE OPEN COURT,

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Founded by FLORENT CUNIER, and continued by WARLOMONT.
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BV
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de Mdecinedel'Universit de Genve.
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Daring the many succeeding years of its success under the direction of Warlomont, the slnnales attained to a still
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From the London REVIEW OF REVIEWS.

Paul Janet, In writing of the origin of the philosophy of
Comte, said, of the different and contrary conceptions found
in various so-called systems, that they arise, he thinks, from
the fact that no true system of philosophy lias yet been pro
pounded, and that only when a " veritable systeme" has had
birth will all these diversities and contradictions disappear
from the teachings of the schools.
However willing thoughtful men and women may be to
admit that science has done a great work in cleaning away
" the kitchen middens of superstition," they see that " her
methods are at fault and that the results are disappointing
failures." Edward Carpenter, in a criticism on modern
science, says: "Science has failed because she has attempted
to carry out the investigations of nature from the intellectual
side alone, neglecting the other constituents necessarily In
volved ; she has failed because she has attempted an impos
sible task, for the discovery of a permanently valid and purely
Intellectual representation of the universe is simply impos
sible, and it must be confessed that science now finds herself,
in almost every direction, in utterly hopeless quandaries.
The views of science are like the views of a mountain ; each
is only possible as long as you limit yourself to a certain
standpoint ; move your position and the view is changed, and
just where she is most ignorant she is most definite and dog
matic."
If, as Carpenter asserts, science has landed herself in pure
absurdities in every direction, while the unknown thing re
mains unknown, the independent existence around the cor
ner still escapes us, the time has come in which it may be
well to look into a philosophy that for the first time gives us
a system which teaches "a vast organ izution, absolutely per
fect and intimately knit, from its center to its utmost circum
ference, existing embryonic In every individual man, animal,
plant, or otheA organism, the object of all life, experience,
suffering and toilthe ground ofallscnsation, and the hidden,
yet proper, theme of all thought and study."
This is the philosophy which Keely's system discloses, as
made known in Mrs. Bloomrield Moore's book, " Keely and
His Discoveries." It is asserted thut Mr. Keely has demon
strated his ability to "hook on his machinery to the ma
chinery of nature," drawing therelroni a harmless propelling
and controlling power, which, it is claimed by him, is the
force that controls the universe, uml the only one safe and
suitable for navigating the highways of the air.
The book is dedicated to Professor James Dcwar, M.A.,
LL.D-, F R.S., M.R.I., "in admiration of bis distinguished
services for science and in grateful acknowledgment of his
prolonged and steadfast interest in Keely's work of evolution ."
In the words of the Rev. John Andrew, who has written
tne preface, " the aim of liis volume is to show the course of
events in relation to Keely's researches, and to open the mys
tery of how it came about that he should have been so much
misunderstood and hindered," as he has been, as well as to
bes|ieak for him the sympathy and patience which he needs,
and will continue to need, until his system is completed to
that degree of perfection which will enable him to patent his
air-ship. Another step taken toward that conquering of the
material world which must precede the advent of the reigii
of the spirit, Renan asserts in his "Avenir de la Science."
After Mrs. Bloomfield Moore's book was completed and in
print, she received from Mr. Grant Allen the following prefa
tory note, intended for its pages, and which cannot fall to
create an interest in the publication :
"In this volume Mrs. Bloomfleld Moore endeavors to give
some account of the physical philosophy of Mr. Keely, who
claims to be the discoverer of an unknown energy. There
can be no doubt at all that Mrs. Moore is thoroughly compe
tent for the task she has setlherself, for ."no other person has
been so Intimately associated with Mr. Keely's work during
the last ten years, and no other has followed it throughout
with such disinterested and single-hearted enthusiasm. It is
impossible not to sympathize with so rare a determination to
assist struggling genius. In Mrs. Moore's opinion, Keely has
made great discoveries, and she has generously devoted no
little time and trouble to aid the inventor in gaining public
recognition. Now, I am a heretic in physics myself, though
my heresies are not the same as Mr. Keely's, and, therefore,
I am interested in the general principle that all heresies
should meet, at least, with a fair and open trial at the bar of
scientific opinion. That fair and open trial is now demanded
for the views promulgated ;in the present volume. All it*
author asks is an impartial judgment, and Mrs. Moore is her
self so conspicuously honest and eandld that she deserves no
less at the hands of specialist critics.
"The work, as 1 regard it, is rather concerned with Mr.
Keely's theories, and with Mr. Keely's philosophy, thanjwith
his actual performance. Xow, what the world most wants is
rather proof positive and material of the existence and reality
of the unknown power. As soon as it can be made to ' do
work' (if I may borrow the very unsatisfactory phrase of the
modern physicist), practical men, I take it, will be only too
glad to employ the latest known form of energy. It appears,
however, that grave] difficulties are supposed by many to
stand in the way of the practical utilization of the alleged
motor. Till those difficulties have been overcome it is but
natural that an incredulous world should stand by and sus
pend its judgment, if. indeed, it docs not refuse to so much as
suspend it. But Mr. Keely is fortunate in having found a
supporter whose faith rises to the full height of so painful a
situation. If success should ever crown his life-long etlbrts,
it will be largely to Mrs. Moore's unfaltering encouragement
for the last ten years that the world will owe its new motor.
"With regard to the theoretical part of the present work
and it is mainly theoreticalI should l,e inclined to say that
a great many of the principles for which Mrs. Moore contends
have now been reckoned among the probabilities, or even the
certainties, of science. Such are the principles of the unity
and uniformity of energy, the reductibility of all energies toa
single ultimate kind, and the underlying antagonism between
forces and energies. But others, more novel, are couched in
a new terminology of Mr. Keely's Invention, and are ditlicult
for the physicist to correlate with the ordinary principles
known to science. To say this is not, of course, equivalent to
condemning them, for every new science has had to begin by
inventing its own terminology, and electricitv, in particular,
passed at first through a stage of very curious nomenclature,
proved by later research to be in large pan erroneous, lint
the language in which Mr. Kee'y clothes his ideas is so peculiar to himself that it cannot readily be followed by physical
investigators. Much of It, I must confess, conveys little mean
ing to me. Nevertheless, I have honestly done iny best to
grapple with the reasoning involved, and I shall watch
henceforth, with the greatest interest, the final developments
of Mr. Keely's mechanism.
(Mre next page )
"GRANT ALt.EN "
KEELY AND HIS DISCOVERIES.

AERIAL NAVIGATION.
BY
MRS. BLOOMFIELD MOORE.

The Universe is ONE. There is no supernatural : all is related.
Nothing exists but substance and its modes of motion,SPINOZA.
/ vibratory physics spirit is substance. C. J. M.
DEDICATED TO
JAMES DEWAR, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., M.R.I.,

Fullerian Professor of Chemistry, R.I. ; Jackson Professor University
of Cambridge,
In admiration of his distinguished services for Science, and in grateful
acknowledgment of his prolonged and steadfast interest in
Keely's work of evolution.
CONTENTS:
PREFACE.By the REV. JOHN ANDREW.

INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER
I. Introductory. 1872-1882.
II. Ether the True Protoplasm, 1882-1886.
III. The Nature of Keely's Problems, 1885-1887.
IV. Sympathetic Vibratory Force, 1887.
V. The Key Force.
"
VI. The Fountain Head of Force.
VII. Keely's Secrets.
VIII. Helpers and Hindrances, 1888.
"
IX. Aerial Navigation.
X. The Keely Motor Bubble. 1881-1891.
"
XI. Keely's Contributions to Science.
XII. True Science.
"
XIII. " More Science."
XIV. Vibratory Physics.The Connecting Link between Mind
and Matter.
XV. Keely, the Founder ot a System.
"
XVI. An Appeal in behalf of the Continuance of Keely's Re
searches, 1891.
XVII. Keely's TheoriesHis Traducers Exposed.
XVIII. A Pioneer in an Unknown Realm, 1892.
XIX. Latent Force in Interstitial Spaces.
XX. Keely's Present Position, 1892.
XXI. Faith by Science, 1892.
CONCLUSION.Keely's Physical Philosophy. Br PBOF. D. G. BRrNTON, of the
University of Pennsylvania.
LONDON :
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO.,

1893Copies at $2.5O may be had of

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10
ELECTRICITY AS A BEAUTIFIED.
Electrical Baths at the Woodbury Dermatological Institute
that work wonders without removal of clothing.
*
THE LARGEST STATIC ELECTRIC MACHINE IN THE WORLD.
Enormous strides have been made

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Dermatologist John H. Woodbury
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pert physicians to use themhere is
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A short account of the cures affected

"by this machine would read like a
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tricity generated by this machine, feel
like new beings, and its effects in ton
ing, stimulating and permanently
strengthening the whole system seems
like a realization- of the " Magic
Kiss."
Electricity is intimately associated
with all the vital processes of life
in the nerves, muscles and blood, cur
rents of electricity are constantly
circulating.
When there is a lack of natural
electricity in the body its outward
application becomes a most natural
remedy for restoring the deficiency.
The action of electricity upon the
bodj' varies according to the applica
tion of the current.
When the current runs from the
positive to the negative pole the cir
culation of the blood becomes more
rapid and with it increased nutrition

and vitality, frequent direct applica
tions of the current running positive
to negative, to any fleshy part of the
body will stimulate, nourish and de
velop that part ; in this way thin
cheeks and deficient busts may be
developed and rounded outwhile,
by changing the current, flabby fat
parts may be reduced to a more be
coming contour.
The stimulating action of the elec
tricity on the blood immediately affects
the skin, and here is where the Der
matologist gets in his fine work ; at
the John H. Woodbury Dermatological Institute are dozens of devices,
some to be used only by the expert
physicians at the Institute and others
that can be used at home by any
one.
Electricity may be applied locally
to the face for strengthening the mus
cles, nourishing and clearing the skin,
banishing wrinkles and rounding out
hollow cheeks.
With it the doctors can remove
many disfiguring blemishes so easily
and effectually that no trace is left
behinda good doctor can prescribe
something that will cure pimples but
they won't stay cured unless the cause
is removed. John H. Woodbury can
go right to the cause with his wonder
ful electric motive-power by promoting
circulation, secretion, excretion, and
inducing chemical changes during
the processes of digestion, nutrition,
and assimilation, maintain the balance
of waste and reparationincrease nu
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storing the patient to that healthy
11
vigor that knows no pimples. Right

here we might add that the greatest,
surest aid to the acquisiton of beauty
is health.
It's a comparatively simple matter
for the modern dermatologist to re
move the outward visible blemishes
that mar the skin and spoil beauty.
The papers and magazines are full
of remedies that it is claimed will
remove this, that or the other blemish
some even go so far as to claim all
virtue for a single remedy, but to get
right back to the causes, restore the
system to healthy, natural activity,
and thus prevent the return of the
blemishes, has always been the aim*
of the physicians at the John H. Woodbury Dermatological Institute, 127
W. 42d Street, New York. That they
have succeeded is best evidenced by
the remarkable growth of the business
and the high reputation they enjoy
with the patients they have treated,
for though John H. Woodbury spends
thousands of dollars a month in ad
vertising, the best results are derived
from patients recommending their
friends to go to him for the permanent
removal of every blemish and disease
that affects the skin, scalp, nerves,
blood, as well as irregularities of the
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For the convenience of those un
able to visit the Main Office, at 127
W. 42d Street, New York, Branch
Offices, in charge of expert physicians
have been established in Boston, at
ii Winter Street ; Philadelphia. 1218
Walnut Street; Chicago, Champlain
Building, and in St. Louis, Union
Trust Building.
12
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LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.

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AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES (POSTHUMOUS), PROF. RICH
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GENIUS; THE MODEL FOR EDUCATIONAL METHODS,
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THE VEIL WITHDRAWN, Compiled by MRS. BLOOMFIELD
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THE UNITY OF MATTER,
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NOTES ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE, PROF. ANGELO
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THE OPEN COURT,
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REVIEWS,
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This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized

by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the

The Transatlantic Publishing Company,

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COPYRIGHT. 1894 AND 1895,

Africa, A Modernized Conception of (Science Notes) . Hcilprin ........

Diamonds and Gold, ( Anglo-Saxon Supremacy in

Electricity,What Electricity is .................... Reed ........... 326

Open Court, The

Paine, Thomas, and the Republic of the World

Pigmies of Equatorial Africa, The, (Science Notes) . .Heilprin

ANDREW, REV. JOHN

119, 248, 370,

PARMELE, MRS. MARY

NEW SCIENCE REVIEW

THE MYSTERY OF THE ICE AGE AND ITS

The Mystery of the Ice Age and Its Solution.

The Mystery of the Ice Age and Its Solution.

obliquity, or extent of the Arctic circles, could not vary

The Mystery of the Ice Age and Its Solution.

enthralling interest to me, and you may now like to know

The Mystery of the Ice Age and Its Solution.

on the wires of the transit instrument for a considerable

The Mystery of the Ice Age and Its Solution.

about 13,500 B. C. the Arctic circles extended 12 more than

The Mystery of the Ice Age and Its Solution.

Then came one of the most remarkable expressions of

The Mystery of the Ice Age and Its Solution.

Those persons who have studied the movements of a rap

The Mystery of the Ice Age and Its Solution.

Ecliptic (see chap. 17, "Untrodden Ground"), and an uniform

The Mystery of the Ice Age and Its Solution.

at once indicates that this person is unacquainted with even

Diamonds and Gold.

DIAMONDS AND GOLD.

Diamonds and Gold.

even reigned amongst the Spaniards and Portuguese in the

Diamonds and Gold.

fluence" is gold and diamonds; the "whom" is Cecil John

Diamonds and Gold.

Diamonds and Gold.

of cathartics. Here they are dosed and placed on an ele

Diamonds and Gold.

The whole of the mines, large and small, of the Kimberley

Diamonds and Gold.

vaal and Orange Free State,together with the native black

Diamonds and Gold.

Then, in July, 1893, came the rupture of friendly relations

Diamonds and Gold.

regarded as hardly workable under the conditions of trans

Diamonds and Gold.

particles of "color" (?'. e., gold), showed themselves on the

Diamonds and Gold.

Diamonds and Gold.

gentleman. In Dr. Leyds, as a young law-student in Hol

Diamonds and Gold.

not far distant when the power of wealth, prosperity, and

Thomas Paine, and the Republic of the World.

THOMAS PAINE, AND THE REPUBLIC OF THE

Thomas Pame, and the Republic of the World.

ishing before the liberal principle which regards all denomi

Thomas Paine, and the Republic of the World.

Lord Fitz -William, the Marquis of Rockingham, Sir Joseph

Thomas Paine, and the Republic of the World.