secure! of public Prudence and practical Sage- I was saying, I believe, such a complex man ness that one ray of creative Faith would have hardly shall we meet again. lit up and transfigured into Wisdom; and of genuine Imagination, with its streaming Face unifying all at one moment like that of the setting Sun when thro' one interspace of blue Sky no larger than itself it emerges from the Cloud to sink behind the mountain -but a face seen only at starts, when some Breeze from the higher air scatters for a moment the cloud of Butterfly Fancies, which flutter around him like a moving Garment of ten thousand colors (now how shall I get out of this sentence? The Tail is too big to be taken up into the Coiler's mouth) well, as I

You may depend on the Wakefields (crepitus post Tonitrua! foetor articulatus post fragrantia, murmura, et musicos odores Zephyrorum e paradiso) on Tuesday. I shall fag all to-night & to-morrow at him—& shall try my hand at a review. -Aid me, butcherly Muses! and sharpen on your steel my cleaver bright & keen. May God bless you & yours! Your obliged, S. T. COLERIDGE. P.S. My address after Tuesday will be (God permitting) Mr. Page's, Surgeon, Calne.

Boxwood, the wood of Buxus sempervirens, A CURIOUS fact in natural history is menwhich is almost exclusively used for the best tioned in the Transactions of the Royal Sokinds of wood-engraving, has been for some ciety of Mauritius. Flamingoes used to be years becoming more and more scarce. numerous in the island, but they gradually Wood of the largest diameter is the produce disappeared, and during the last hundred of the forests of the countries bordering on years, none has been seen. But a large flock the Black Sea. Large quantities are pro- had arrived and settled in marshy places along duced in the neighbourhood of Poti, from the shore. They are supposed to have miwhich port the wood is shipped direct to Eng-grated from Madagascar. Another noteland. The supply, however, from this port worthy fact is that, with a view to check the is, we learn, becoming fast exhausted; and it increasing dryness of the climate, 800,000 is said, unless the forests of Abkhassia are trees and 150,000 seed-holes have been planted opened to the trade, it must soon cease alto- on barren mountain-slopes and other waste gether. The quantity exported from Poti places. The planting still goes on; and during the year 1873 amounted to 2,897 tons, young islanders of the present day may live to of the value of 20,6217; besides this, from see tall forests on the now unproductive wilds, 5,000 to 7,000 tons of the finest quality an- and rejoice in the restoration of the blessed nually pass through Constantinople, being rain to its former fruitful quantity. brought from Southern Russia and from some of the Turkish ports of the Black Sea for shipment, chiefly to Liverpool. An inferior and smaller kind of wood supplied from the neighbourhood of Samsoon is also shipped at Constantinople to the extent of about 1,500 tons annually. With regard to the boxwood forests of Turkey, the British consul at Constantinople reports that they are nearly exhausted and that very little really good wood can now be obtained from them; in Russia, however, where some little government care has been bestowed upon forestry, a considerable quantity of choice wood still exists; but even there it can only be obtained at an ever-increasing cost, as the forests near the sea have been denuded of their best trees. The trade is now entirely in English hands, although formerly Greek merchants exclusively exported the wood. In the province of Trebizonde the wood is generally of an inferior quality; nevertheless, from 25,000 to 30,000 cwts. are annually shipped, chiefly to the United Kingdom.

Nature.

THE destruction of seals in the Arctic seas has been carried on to such an extent that fears are entertained of the annihilation of these animals. The Peterhead sealers and whalers have therefore determined to agree to a "close time," during which it shall be unlawful for any sealing-ship to kill seals, or even to leave port for the fishing-grounds; thus giving the newly-born seals time to develop into a useful size, and enabling even the parent-seals to escape. It is hoped to extend this regulation to other countries engaged in the industry; and the Board of Trade has been in correspondence with various authori ties on the subject. The papers in connection with the case have been presented to Parliament, and will shortly be printed, when the decision of the government will probably be made known.

Nature.

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BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GEN-If unto Lazarus it had been said, Some day, "Come in! eat once thy fill of bread

From The London Quarterly Review.
MODERN ASTRONOMY.*

That similar vibrations in an imponderable and almost infinitely attenuated THE unprecedented advancement of "ether" spread to the farthest bounda the natural sciences during the pastries of the universe would account for quarter of a century is mainly attribut- the phenomena of light, some powerful able to three sources: the discovery of and sagacious minds had long held. the mechanical equivalent of heat, the Meanwhile the corpuscular theory of new application of the prism to spectrum Newton was growing more and more inanalysis, and the theory of natural se- competent to cover and explain new dislection. The first of these has unfolded a coveries. "Diffraction" and "interferlaw as absolute and important as that of ence" could only be made accordant with gravitation itself; and with an applica- it by a strained and supplementary hytion equally unbounded. The investi- pothesis; which in its turn had no place gations of Mayer and Joule have demon- for the phenomena of polarization. It strated finally that whenever work is per- was therefore abandoned; and, in the formed by the agency of heat, an amount hands of Young and Fresnel, the theof heat disappears equivalent to the ory of ethereal undulations, traversing work performed; and when mechanical with intense but measurable rapidity .work is spent in producing heat, the the whole universe, was found compeheat generated is equivalent to the work tent to account for all known phenomena spent. Now the enunciation and proof of light. The discovery that energies of `of this law involved a recasting of the all kinds were capable of transmutation entire question of matter and force, and followed: which led to the profound ingave a new meaning to the known ac-duction that all the phenomena of energy tivities of the universe. It was soon sus- are the result of diverse ethereal atomic pected that all energies were interchange- vibrations. The atoms of a body vibratable at the expense of fixed equivalents. ing with intense rapidity communicate It had been demonstrated that sound their vibrations to the ether; these reach took its rise in atmospheric vibrations. the tactile nerves, and the sense of heat Without air there could be no sound.

4. Saturn and its System. By R. A. PROCTOR, B.A. Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green. 1855.

ensues. But a certain measure of heat will produce an unvarying equivalent of electricity. That is, the atomic vibration's change their form. Thus, if a ball of copper be rapidly rotated between the poles of a powerful electro-magnet, the rotation can be instantly arrested by exciting the magnet; and if it be now forcibly rotated, the molecular disturbance is SO great that an easily fusible metal inside the ball will melt, and may be poured

of heat.

energy.

It is thus with every known

5. Other Worlds than Ours: the Plurality of out. Clearly the molecular vibrations Worlds Studied under the Light of Recent Scientific have been altered; the vibrations of Researches. By R. A. PROCTOR, B.A. Third Edi- electricity have been changed into those tion. Longmans, Green and Co. 1872. 6. Descriptive Astronomy. By GEORGE F. CHAMBERS, F.R.A.S. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. 1867. 7. Spectrum Analysis in its Application to Terrestrial Substances and the Physical Constitution of the Heavenly Bodies, Familiarly Explained. By Dr. H. SCHELLEN. Translated from the Second Enlarged and Revised German Edition by JANE and CAROLINE LASSELL. Edited with Notes by W. HUGLondon: Longmans, GINS, LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S. Green and Co.

8. Spectrum Analysis. Six Lectures delivered in

1868 before the Society of Apothecaries of London. By H. E. Roscoe, B.A., Ph.D., F.R.S. Third Edition. London: Macmillan and Co. 1873.

Ultimately, then, the material universe consists of atoms and ether: these manifest ever-varying phenomena by the diversities of their interaction -" modes of motion."

Motion is the direct consequence of the exertion of power; and by this, what do we mean? Our idea of power is derived from our consciousness of its possession. The notion of power

-

such a doctrine as this, disclosing the
absolute relations between matter and
what some physicists persist in calling
force,"
," must open a new universe to
eager seekers; and the results of re-
search have been one series of triumphs.

66

The modern application of the prism to physical investigation we shall shortly consider somewhat at large; but, in the history of experimental science, no discovery has so rapidly opened the secrets of nature, or so plainly disclosed the glories of the cosmos.

does not come to us from without, but from within. We are conscious of the power to produce a certain result: that result is accomplished without us without any visible cause-nevertheless we can only think of it as the result of power. Power, in fact, in its ultimate condition, is only known to us as a property of living beings. The selective tendencies of animal life involve its possession. In another fashion it is equally manifest in the vegetable world; but to what extent, or whether at all, this is associated with consciousness, we canThe third source of scientific progresnot affirm. But descend to inorganic sion the theory of natural selection nature. Throw a pellet of cork into is of another order. It is the influence of water: nothing but mechanical results a theory simply a stimulant to research ensue. Into the same water throw a-and of a theory in which the greater piece of sodium. Note the result. Oxy-proportion of "facts" from which its ingen and hydrogen had been at rest as ductions are made are hypothetical. But water, all their affinities were satisfied. its effect upon practical biological science But in an instant, on the introduction of has been incalculable. The doctrine is the metal, the intense propensity of oxy- being formed slowly but surely, under gen for sodium causes it to leave the the untiring inquiry it has stimulated; hydrogen and unite with the metal; and it has proved an hypothesis, which, like the fervid heat of union sets the liberated the assumed quantity of the mathemahydrogen in a flame. What is this but tician, may lead to approximate results tendency? What is tendency but power? of splendid value. Certainly its direct It is something of which we have an ab-issue has been an accumulation of facts solute knowledge. Yet in this case it is and a wealth of knowledge which have the operation of that which is dead; we opened out a new universe to the stuonly know power as the attribute of life; dents of organic forms. -will. It follows then that the opera- If then the results of these three great tions of the physical universe - the se- sources of scientific impulse be taken lective activities of dead matter are the side by side with the consequences of result of the action of an unlimited and unvarying industry in the old paths, it intelligent Will. Hence the modes of may be anticipated that the last twenty molecular and ethereal motion, which years of labour will have expanded our display to us the phenomena of the uni-knowledge of the nature of phenomena verse, are the direct result of the will-beyond the most sanguine anticipations. force of the Omnipotent. It is mind The relations between matter and momanifesting itself in matter. The consequence is, the absolute indestructibility of matter and motion. Molecular motions may be changed from one mode to another, but the quantity of motion in the universe cannot alter. It cannot be increased or diminished. And this is a corollary from the fact that motion is the direct result of the power of an infinite mind. The relation between the matter and the motion must be once, and forever, perfect, and therefore absolute.

tion, the physical and chemical constitution of the universe even to its most distant parts, and the laws and conditions which sustain and render life possible, are all questions which have received a rare accession of the most impressive and important contributions.

With every material expansion of our knowledge, especially of the stellar universe, a question of overwhelming

It must be clear that motion is energy, the mode by

It is manifest that the enunciation of which force-power does work.