on his death a few months ago, it was found that he had left Mr. Gibbon a handsome legacy, and the absolute reversion of his property on the death of his wife.

M. RENAN'S sixth volume of the "Origines du Christianisme," with the title of 'L'Église,' is completely in type. The series will, however, not be concluded with this volume, as the author intended. A seventh will follow, which will contain chiefly the history of Marcus

Aurelius and of Montanism. The index to the seven volumes will be issued separately.

PROF. DIETERICI, of Berlin, having now finished collating the Arabic text of the Theology, attributed to Aristotle, contained in a Berlin MS., with another to be found in a Paris MS., will soon begin to print the work, with a German translation. The value of his edition will be much enhanced by the list of the technical terms in Arabic, Greek, and German, which he promises to supply at the end.

IN a short time will be published a new and much improved Synopsis of the Contents of the British Museum, suggested, we believe, by the present Principal Librarian and Secretary, and issued by order of the Trustees to supply a comprehensive and trustworthy guide for the general visitor to the Museum. It will indicate the most important and characteristic objects in each department, and supply much information which the old Synopsis did not include.

WE hear that the most racy of the six pieces in Mr. Browning's new volume is to be "Ned Brass," a man given to oaths and ill-conditioned generally, who has been converted by John Bunyan, and yet finds the old flesh striving hard against the new spirit, especially in the matter of swearing. Pheidippides," with his splendid couple of runs from Athens to Sparta, in the second of which he gasps out the news of victory with his dying breath, will recall the well-remembered "How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix."

PROF. SKEAT has done a good service to students of Early English and the Bible by persuading the delegates of the Clarendon Press to issue in a small stout cheap volume the Purvey, or second and more accurate text of the large quarto Wycliffite Versions of the New Testament, so faithfully edited by the late Mr. Forshall and Sir Frederic Madden. The boon is enhanced by a reprint of the admirable Glossary to the book, so far as it relates to the New Testament. The Early English Text Society had always intended to do this work-under a new editor-if the Press would not do it; and they now rejoice that they are saved the cost and labor of the undertaking. We only hope that the success of the reprint of the New Testament will soon lead to that of the Old, whose

vocabulary is necessarily the greater, and will therefore be more useful to students of Early English.

MESSRS. MACMILLAN & Co. have in preparation a work entitled The English Poets: Selections with Critical Introductions,' edited by Mr. T. H. Ward, Tutor and late Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. The design, which is similar to that of Crépet's 'Les Poëtes Fran. çais,' is to provide a really representative selection from the English poets, other than the dramatists, from Chaucer to Landor and Clough. The different poets have been undertaken by different writers, who will be responsible for the selections and will add short critical introductions. By a division of labor of this kind it is thought that it will be possible to produce a fuller and truer impression of the characteristics of English poetry than it would be in the power of any one critic to convey. The book will be in four volumes, crown octavo, and it is hoped that the first two volumes will be ready before the end of the year. The general introduction will be written by Mr. Matthew Arnold, and the following writers, among others, have promised to take part in

the work :-The Dean of St. Paul's, the Dean of Westminster, Sir Henry Taylor, the Rector of Lincoln, Mr. Stopford Brooke, Prof. Nichol, Prof. Skeat, Mr. Thomas Arnold, Mr. Pater, Mr. William Jack, Mr. Andrew Lang, Mr. Saintsbury, Mr. Edmund Gosse, and Mr. J. C. Collins.

SCIENCE AND ART.

THE LUNAR CRATER HYGINUS.-Lord Lindsay and Dr. Copeland have made some interesting and instructive observations on the varying appearance of the region near Hyginus, confirming, as they point out, the well-known fact that this region "is full of complicated shallow irregularities and strongly-marked differences of tone, which tend together to produce great apparent changes of surface configuration, with change of illumination; and, further, to show that there exist striking features in the immediate neighborhood which have hitherto escaped clear detection, but of which some traces may be found in the comparatively old map of Lohrmann." Their statements would hardly be intelligible, even to lunar students, without the drawings which accompany their paper. Let it suffice to observe, that they fully make out their case; and though their observations have no direct bearing on Dr. Klein's supposed recognition of a new crater in this region, yet indirectly they tend to increase the doubt with which the more cautious astronomers had received the announcement of the reported change. The

facts collected also show, as Lord Lindsay and Dr. Copeland say, "with what extreme caution all presumed evidence of change on the moon's surface ought to be received, and how necessary it is to accumulate observations made under various and particularly under low illumination."

LAKE TANGANYIKA. One of the puzzling problems of Lake Tanganyika would appear to be at last definitely settled. Lieutenant Cameron, we know, asserted that it was drained by the Lukuga creek flowing to the westward; but this view was afterwards combated by Mr. H. M. Stanley, who, however, admitted that the creek would probably one day form an outlet for the lake. This appears now to be the case, for Mr. E. C. Hore, the scientific member of the London Missionary Society's party recently established at Ujiji, reports that he has been informed by the Arabs there that dur. ing the last rains the waters of the lake rose so high that the grass, papyrus, reeds, &c., which choked up the course of the Luguka, were entirely swept away, and that the creek is now an overflowing river. One of these Arabs, indeed, goes even further, and asserts that he went down the river to the Kamolondo lake, which there is good reason to believe is not a lake at all, but a broad part of the upper Lualaba river.-Academy.

EXPERIMENTS WITH THE MICROPHONE.-In experiments with the microphone, the disturbing effect of local sounds is so great as in many instances to obscure the result. In a paper read some months ago at the Physical Society, Professor Hughes stated that he had spoken to forty microphones at once; and they all seemed to response with equal force. And on examining every portion of his room-wood, stone, metal, in fact all parts—and even a piece of india-rubber all were in molecular movement whenever he spoke. As yet he has found no such insulator for sound as gutta-percha is for electricity. Caoutchouc seems to be the best; but whatever the quantity made use of in the experiment, the microphone still reported all it heard. On this Professor Hughes remarks: The question of insulation has now become one of necessity, as the microphone has opened to us a world of sounds, of the existence of which we were unaware. If we can insulate the instrument so as to direct its powers on any single object, as at present I am able to do on a moving fly, it will be possible to investigate that object undisturbed by the pandemonium of sounds which at present the microphone reveals where we thought complete silence prevailed.'

Professor Palmieri of Naples has found that by connecting a microphone and telephone with a seismograph-instrument for recording

earthquake shocks-he can hear even the slightest manifestations of underground disturbance, and detect the earliest grumblings of Vesuvius.

THE INFLUENCE OF BRAIN WORK ON THE GROWTH OF THE SKULL AND BRAIN.-Messrs. Lacassagne and Cliquet communicated an interesting paper on the subject to the Société de Méd. Publique et d'hygiène professionnelle. Having the patients, doctors, attendants, and officers of the Val de Grace at their disposal, they measured the heads of 190 doctors of medicine, 133 soldiers who had received an elementary instruction, 90 soldiers who could neither read nor write, and 91 soldiers who were prisoners. The instrument used was the same which hatters employ in measuring the heads of their customers; it is called the conformator, and gives a very correct idea of the proportions and dimensions of the heads in question. The results were in favor of the doctors; their frontal diameter was also much more considerable than that of the soldiers, &c. Nor are both halves of the head symmetrically developed : in students, the left frontal region is more developed than the right; in illiterate individuals, the right occipital region is larger than the left. The authors have derived the following conclusions from their experiments. 1. The heads of students who have worked much with their brains are much more developed than those of illiterate individuals, or such as have allowed their brains to remain inactive. students, the frontal region is more developed than the occipital region, or, if there should be any difference in favor of the latter, it is very small; while, in illiterate people, the latter region is the largest.-London Medical Record.

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2. In

THE PERSONAL EQUATION" IN ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS.-Mr. Otto Struve, astronomer at the Imperial Observatory of St. Petersburg, has discovered that in all his observations of stars carried on during thirty-five years there is a systematic error. He has ascertained the amount of error by measurements of artificial stars, and can therefore make the necessary correction to his long series of observations. He supposes that the error has a physiological origin dependent on certain peculiarities of the eyes; and he suggests that all observers should test themselves rigorously with a view to accuracy in comparison of observations. For years past astronomers have been accustomed to allow for what they call the "personal equation" in reconciling discrepancies of observation.

THE VENOM OF SERPENTS.-The poison of serpents has generally been regarded as a sort of poisonous saliva, acting after the fashion of soluble ferments. M. Lacerda, of Rio de Janeiro, has made some observations upon the

venom of a rattlesnake, which led him to believe that this fluid contains formed ferments analogous to the Bacteria. Placing a drop of the poison upon a glass slide previously washed with alcohol, and slightly warmed, he examined it under the microscope, and saw a sort of protoplasmic filamentous matter, formed by a cellular aggregation, arranged in an arborescent form, like that of certain Lycopodiacea." He observed the 'formation of spores within a thickened filament, which finally broke up and disappeared setting free the spores, which then affected a linear arrangement. He describes the modes of multiplication of these spores, namely, by scission and by interior nuclei.

The phenomena observed in the blood of animals killed by the bite of the snake were as follows:-The red globules presented small bright points on the surface of the disc; these sometimes formed projections, and became more and more numerous. Finally, the globule was completely destroyed, and replaced by a number of very brilliant ovoid corpuscles, endowed with spontaneous oscillatory movements; these ovoid corpuscles did not separate from the mass of the globules, but remained within it, and the globules became fused together to form a very different amorphous paste. Alcohol swallowed, or injected beneath the skin, was found to be the best antidote.

INTRA - MERCURIAL PLANETS.-M. Camille Flammarion, the well-known French astronomer, has been examining in La Nature the evidence in favor of intra-mercurial planets, and particularly that furnished by Messrs. Watson and Swift. On the latter M. Flammarion says: "While it is possible that the American observers saw an intra-mercurial planet, or even two, we cannot, in view of the special difficulties of the situation, the confusion of figures, and the negative observations of the other observers, concede it to be an absolute and incontestable fact that they saw even so much as one. The fact is not yet certain." After reviewing the whole testimony thus far available on this interesting point, the French writer sums up as follows: "The hypothesis of a single body comparable to Mercury, gravitating in close proximity to the sun, and on a plane probably inclined to the solar equator, seems to us to be so open to objections as to be untenable. Still, the mathematical theory of universal attraction proves that there is a cause for the retardation observed in the motion of Mercury, and that this cause cannot be found by augmenting the mass of Venus-a quantity now determined with great exactitude-but must be sought for in some disturbing mass between Mercury and the sun. But this mass may not be a planet worthy of the name of planet : it may consist of a great number of asteroids like

the minute fragments which gravitate between Mars and Jupiter-asteroids so small that oftentimes they escape the notice of observers of the sun and of eclipses, though some of them may be large enough to be seen under certain rare conditions. This latter theory is the one which we adopt."

"COSMIC DUST."-Something further concerning the fall of metallic particles, "meteoric matter" or cosmic dust," from the atmosphere has been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Certain observers are of opinion that "it is continually falling in quantities which, in the lapse of ages, must accumulate so as materially to contribute to the matter of the earth's crust." Mr. Ranyard, Secretary of the Society, remarks: "There can be little doubt that the air up to a great height above the earth's surface is impregnated with dust." And he suggests that "the blue color of the sky may be caused by dust derived from the fragments of meteors, the smaller particles of which may possibly occupy months or even years in falling to the earth." There is reason to believe that a portion of this floating dust comes from regions of space beyond the solar system. The planets therefore, on their travel through space with the sun, are more exposed to the falling dust on their northern than on their southern hemispheres, which may account for the preponderance of land in the north, and "for the fact which has been so frequently pointed out by physical geographers, that the great terrestrial peninsulas all taper towards the southern pole.” When meteoric masses break up, much ocIcluded gas is thrown out, and the quantity will vary accordingly as the region through which the earth passes is rich or poor in meteors. In the latter case, our atmosphere would decrease in height, and we should have a temperature at the sea-level corresponding to the present temperature of our mountain-tops. In the language of geologists, a glacial epoch would be the result. If, on the other hand, the earth pass through a region rich in meteors containing occluded carbonic acid gas, the atmosphere would increase in depth, and a period like the carboniferous period might ensue, in which a semi-tropical vegetation might again flourish on the coasts of Greenland." In these speculations thoughtful minds will perhaps find more than a passing entertainment.

A POWERFUL SPECTROSCOPE.-In the young science of spectroscopy, as in others, an important element of progress is the improvement of instruments for dealing with the phenomena presented, and many minds are engaged on this. A new spectroscope of remarkable power has just been brought to the notice of the French Academy by M. Thollon. Its chief feature is

the use of sulphide of carbon prisms, which are closed laterally not by plates with parallel faces, but by prisms of the form of Amici's-i.e. having curved sides meeting at an angle (which, however, is much smaller than Amici's prism). The refringent angles of these prisms are in an opposite direction to that of the sulphide prism. Two of these compound prisms are substituted by M. Thollon for the simple prisms in a spectroscope, which he formerly described to the Academy. Without going into further details we may simply state that an enormous dispersion is obtained; with a magnifying power of 15 to 20 times, the spectrum has a length of 15 mètres. The angular distance of the D lines of sodium is about 12', whereas that produced by M. Gassiot was only 3'6". This instrument should throw considerable light on the structure of the spectrum, and M. Thollon has already noticed some interesting facts. The lines of sodium and magnesium present a dark nucleus passing into a nebulosity, which becomes gradually merged in the continuous spectrum. Many lines have been split up, and all that have been thus resolved have been found to belong to two different substances. One of the hydrogen lines presents a nebulosity without a nucleus. M. Thollon remarks on the magnificence of the spectrum of carbon from the electric arc, observed with the new instrument. The spectra of iron, copper, and magnesium in the same arc were also seen with admirable clearness and brilliancy. These new spectroscopes have been constructed for M. Thollon by the able optician M. Laurent.

VARIETIES.

HOME "COMFORTS" AND THEIR EFFECT ON HEALTH. It is not clear, but it may be suspected, that there is some element at work, in the present state of civilisation, which renders the more gently nurtured, or more highly cultured, members of society specially unfitted to resist malarious influences. Connected with this must be borne in mind the manner in which the external atmosphere is more and more kept out from our houses. Doors and windows close better, draughts are more carefully excluded, than of old. Appliances are introduced for artificially warming the passages and vestibules, the natural function of which places is to afford a graduated transition from the warm atmosphere of a chamber to the external temperature. Clothing is much more complex than was formerly the case. In the time of our grandfathers a man was called a puppy if he wore an overcoat. What would

those hardy gentlemen have said to the " Ulsters" of the present day? or the sealskin jackets and coats? Human habit is so much modified by circumstances, that the adoption of all these safeguards against an occasional chill may have a direct tendency to lower the resisting power of the constitution. And there are well-known facts that square with this view. Such is the influence on the constitution of the prolonged heat of tropical or sub-tropical countries. The inference is not unnatural that the greater comfort, as we regard it, at all events the more sustained heat, which we are steadily giving to our abodes, is really tending to lower our constitutional power of resistance, not only to the great tonic, cold, but to those influences against which that tonic has the prime function of strengthening the frame.-Builder.

WHY SO DEPRESSING ?—Unwonted depression and uneasiness, accompanied with loss of appetite and inability to sleep, are the prevalent causes of complaint just now among the "tolerably well" section of the community; and, with a large measure of accuracy, the condition, modified as it is by individual peculiarities of state and idiosyncracies, is attributed to the weather. The relations which subsist between such mental depression as constitutes melancholia and the defective discharge of its functions by the skin may help to explain the phenomenon. The connection of cause and effect may not be clearly made out, and the part which the nerve-centres play in the production of the result may be as obscure as that which they exercise in the control of occasional pigmentary deposits; but the broad fact remains. When the skin does not act freely, when its functions are seriously impeded or arrested, melancholy broods over the mind, just as in the case of a subject of melancholia, as a formulated disease, the skin becomes dense and inactive. It is not a random conjecture, therefore, that the intense and prolonged, albeit unaccustomed and unexpected, cold and damp work their depressing influences mainly through the skin. This is a trite remark, but it is one that may with advantage be made just now, because, in the interests of health-preservation, especial pains need to be taken to secure the freest possible action of the great surface system of excretory glands and the transuding apparatus generally. Warmer clothing, especially at night, frequent ablutions, with sufficient friction, and the promotion of skin activity by every legitimate form of exercise, are obvious measures of health which everybody ought to understand and all should practice.-Lancet.

A LETTER OF MARTIN LUTHER'S.-You have of course all of you heard of Martin Lu

ther, and of the grand work he did more than three centuries ago. Many of you will probably have read the story of his life, and will know what a busy and troubled one it was. But Luther was a very loving father, and in the midst of all his cares and anxieties found time to write long letters to his children. Here is a very beautiful one sent by him to his eldest boy, during the Diet of Augsburg, in 1530:

"Grace and peace be with thee, my dear little boy! I rejoice to find that you are attentive to your lessons and your prayers. Continue to be so, my child, and when I come home I will bring you some beautiful things. I know of a smiling garden, full of children in golden dresses, who run about under the trees, cating apples, pears, cherries, nuts, and plums. They jump and sing, and are full of glee, and they have pretty little ponies with golden bridles and silver saddles. As I went by this garden, I asked the owner of it who those children were, and he told me they were the good childen, who loved to say their prayers, and to learn their lessons, and who fear God. Then I said to him, 'Dear sir, I also have a boy, little John Luther; may not he too come to this garden to eat those beautiful apples and pears, to ride those pretty little ponies, and to play with the other children?' And the man said, 'If he is very good, if he says his prayers, and learns his lessons willingly and cheer fully, he may come, and he may bring with him little Philip and little James. Here they will find fifes and drums and other nice instruments to play upon, and they shall dance, and shoot with little crossbows.' Then the man showed me in the midst of the garden a beautiful meadow where the children danced. But all this happened in the morning before the children had dined; so I could not 'stay till the beginning of the dance, but I said to the man, I will go and write to my dear little John, and teach him to be good, to say his prayers, and learn his lessons, that he may come to this garden. But he has an Aunt Magdalene, whom he loves very much; may he bring her with him?' The man replied, Yes; tell him that they may come together.' Be good, therefore, my dear little boy, and tell Philip and James to be good also, that you may all come and play in the beautiful garden. I commit you to the care of God. Give my love to your Aunt Magdalene, and kiss her for me. "From your papa, who loves you,

"MARTIN LUTHER."

The story of the beautiful garden is, of course, an allegory, as I dare say you will have imagined, and by its means Luther endeavored to impress uopn his little son the desirability of doing good, not only for the sake of the happiness which is the result of a good life on

earth, but also to obtain the after reward of heaven.-Little Folks' Magazine.

THe Fall of EmpireS.-Of all the empires

whose rise and fall have been recorded in history, there is not one that has owed its ruin or decay to checking the lust of unmeasured territorial acquisition. The wisest of the Roman emperors was also the one who even recalled the boundaries of his dominions from beyond the Danube. Every one can discern and denounce the private folly of the farmer who covets more and more land, when he has neither capital nor skill to turn to account what he has already got; though he does not commonly proceed by covenants taken in the dark lest his landlord should come to know what sort of deed he is signing. But it requires a steady eye and a firm resolution to maintain the good tradition of all our bygone statesmen at a juncture when all tradition is discarded for newfangled or, as Mr. Roebuck calls them, “original" devices, and the mind of folly finds utter. ance through the voice of authority. England, which has grown so great, may easily become little; through the effeminate selfishness of luxurious living; through neglecting realities at home to amuse herself everywhere else in stalking phantoms; through putting again on her resources a strain like that of the great French war, which brought her people to misery and her throne to peril; through that denial of equal rights to others, which taught us so severe a lesson at the epoch of the Armed Neurality. But she will never lose by the modesty in thought and language, which most of all beseems the greatest of mankind; never by forwardness to allow, and to assert, the equal rights of all states and nations; never by refusing to be made the tool of foreign cunning for ends alien to her principles and feelings; never by keeping her engagements in due relation to her means, or by husbanding those means for the day of need, and for the noble duty of defending, as occasion offers, the cause of public right, and of rational freedom, over the broad expanse of Christendom.-The Right Hon. W. L. Gladstone, in the “Nineteenth Century,"

CONSOLATION.

WHEN the pale wreath is laid upon the tomb, Love's last fond homage offered to the dead, And the bereft, with tears and drooping head, Bid mute farewell on sadly turning home, Sister and brother, widowed love and friend, Review, as in a solemn vision then,

Their dear one's life, its bliss and bitter pain, Its restless hopes now ever at an end. The common thought lifts them above despair, One brief thanksgiving is on every tongue : That faithful heart shall never more be wrung With cold unkindness or with aching care; That generous mind no stern rebuffs shall vex; That busy brain no problems dire perplex.

M. BETHAM-EDWARDS.