Chapter X: Appendix: Great Precedence Question 287 (9)

In the _Institutes of Menu_, which were drawn up about B.C. 900, the lowest legal interest for money is fixed at 15 per cent., the highest at 60 per cent. Nor is this to be considered a mere ancient law now fallen into disuse. So far from that, the _Institutes of Menu_ are still the basis of Indian jurisprudence; and we know, on very good authority, that in 1810, the interest paid for the use of money varied from 36 to 60 per cent.; Ward places it at 75 per cent., and this without the lender incurring any extraordinary risk.

_Origin of Insurance._

Mr. G. F. Smith, in a paper read to the Institute of Actuaries, is of opinion that the earliest direct mention of Marine Insurance is in an ordinance of the City of Barcelona, of the year 1433, in which it is ordered that no vessel should be insured for more than three-quarters of its value; that no merchandise belonging to foreigners should be insured at Barcelona, unless freighted on board a ship belonging to the King of Arragon; and that merchandise belonging to Arragonese subjects on board vessels belonging to other countries should only be insured for half its value. It appears most probable that the inventors of Marine Insurance were the Italians, who, as is well known, were the leading commercial nation in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It was in Venice that the first Bank was established, and that a funded debt, transferable from hand to hand, was first introduced. Bills of exchange, if not invented in Italy, were used extensively by the Lombard merchants and money-dealers; and book-keeping by double entry is of Italian origin; as is also the phrase, “Policy of Assurance.”

After the Great Fire, Assurance Offices were set up. One of these is described, in Phillips’s _World of Words_, under the heading “Phœnix Insurance Office, the first office that was set up in London for the insuring of houses from accidents by fire, so called from its emblem or device: the rate for ensuring 100 pounds on a brick house, is 6 shillings for 1 year, 12 shillings for 2 years, 15 shillings for 3 years, 19 shillings and sixpence for four years, 1 pound 10 shillings for seven years, and 2 pounds 1 shilling for eleven years: the number of houses so insured since Anno Dom. 1681 is ten thousand.” A second is mentioned as the “Friendly Society, one of the offices settled in London for the insuring of houses from casualties by fire: the reward or consideration-money paid for insuring to the value of 100 pounds in this office, is 1 shilling 4 pence per annum for seven years. The device of it is a sheaf of arrows, and the number of houses insured since A.D. 1684 is 12,500.”

_Stockbrokers._

Stock-jobbing or broking was contemporaneous with the creation of our National Debt, in the reign of William III., 1695, and gave rise to that class of money-dealers who have the exclusive _entrée_ to the Royal Exchange. “William,” says Mr. Francis, in his work on the Stock Exchange, “had already tried his power in the creation of a national debt: jobbing in the English funds and East India stock succeeded; and the Royal Exchange became what the Stock Exchange has been since 1700--the rendezvous of those who, having money, hoped to increase it, and of that yet more numerous and pretending class, who, having none themselves, try to gain it from those who have.”

In the course of the Session of 1771, a Bill was brought into the House of Commons, “for the more effectually preventing the infamous practice of Stock-jobbing.” It passed the committee, but was not further proceeded in.

Lord Chatham, in the previous year, 1770, had, in Parliament, denounced “the Monied Interest as a set of men in the City of London, who are known to live in riot and luxury upon the plunder of the ignorant, the innocent, the helpless. Whether they be the miserable jobbers of ’Change-alley, or the lofty Asiatic plunderers of Leadenhall-street, they are equally detestable.... By the monied interest I mean that blood-sucker, that muck-worm, which calls itself the friend of Government--that pretends to serve this or that administration, and may be purchased on the same terms by any administration--that advances money to Government, and takes special care of its own emoluments. Under this description I include the whole race of commissaries, jobbers, contractors, clothiers, and remitters.”

In the South Sea year, patriots were made or marred by jobbing: “from the Alley to the House,” said Walpole, “is like a path of ants.”

Yet, it is an established fact, that, abroad and at home, all parties having large financial operations, approach the London Stock Exchange with more confidence than any other money-market in the world.

_Tampering with Public Credit._

Thirty years ago, it was wisely said by a writer in the _Quarterly Review_: “It is physically impossible to carry on the commerce of the civilized world by the aid of a _purely_ metallic currency--no, not though our gold and silver coins were every tenth year debased to a tenth! Why, in London alone, five millions of money are daily exchanged at the clearing-house, in the course of a few hours. We should like to see the attempt to bring this infinity of transactions to a settlement in coined money. Credit money, in some shape or other, always has, and must have, performed the part of a circulating medium to a very considerable extent. And (by one of those wonderful compensatory processes which so frequently claim the admiration of every investigator of civil as well as of physical economy,) there is in the nature of credit an elasticity which causes it, _when left unshackled by law_, to adapt itself to the necessities of commerce, and the legitimate demands of the market. Well may the productive classes exclaim to those who persist in legislating on the subject, and are not content with determining who may and who may not give credit to another, what kind of monied obligations shall, or shall not, be allowed to circulate--that is, to be taken in exchange for goods at the option of the parties,--well might they exclaim, as the merchants of Paris did to the minister of Louis, when he asked what his master could do for them--“Laissez-nous faire,”--“Leave us alone, to surround ourselves with those precautions which experience will suggest, and the instinct of self-preservation put in execution.”

_Over-speculation._

During the prevalence of a speculative mania there is not one person in ten among the English public that can be induced to weigh any arguments or facts that run counter to their fancies; but by the small proportion capable of giving heed, the following _résumé_ of British banking experience during the twelve years from 1846 to 1857 will be considered valuable.

In 1858 an interesting paper was published by Messrs. Waterlow and Sons, under the ominous title of _British Losses by Bank Failures_, and extending from 1820 to 1857. In the great mania for the establishment of new banks, it may not be out of place to call attention to the general facts proved in this document. Omitting, then, the years previous to 1846, which may perhaps be considered to be out of date, and taking the twelve years from 1846 to 1857 inclusive, it appears that the liabilities of the private banks which suspended payment amounted to 6,700,000_l._, and those of the joint-stock banks to 40,800,000_l._, making a grand total of 47,500,000_l._ To this, moreover, must be added another 1,500,000_l._ for some banks, the liabilities of which are not mentioned.

_Value of Horses._

As an example of the large sums produced by the sale of first-rate Horses, we may quote the following prices from the sale of the stud of the late Earl of Pembroke, at Paris, in 1862. The condition of the horses was so good that, in spite of their being aged, some of them sold for more money than Lord Pembroke paid for them years previously. Thus, a pair of bay carriage-horses, aged respectively 13 and 14, bought at Anderson’s seven years ago for 400_l._, fetched 600_l._; and another pair, which had been bought at the same place for 600_l._, fetched 1088_l._! Never was the policy of buying a good thing, and taking care of it, more practically proved than at this sale. Elis, a brown carriage-horse, more than 16 years old, sold for 100_l._; Pilot, a bay, upwards of 15 years old, fetched 220_l._; Papillon, 14 years old, 384_l._; Abeille, 13 years old, 200_l._; Grasshopper, a chestnut cob, 13 years old, 128_l._; Zouave, a grey carriage-horse, 12 years old, 304_l._; Calthorpe, a bay carriage-horse, 12 years old, 280_l._; Sebastopol, a grey carriage-horse, 11 years old, 240_l._; Pigeon, a brown phaeton-horse, 9 years old, 140_l._; Solferino, a bay carriage-horse, 16 hands high, and 7 years old, 640_l._; and Glaucus, a bay carriage-horse, 6 years old, 448_l._

_Friendly Societies._

The repeated failures of Friendly Societies to effect the object for which they were projected, prove how the best intentions may be defeated through want of proper foresight and calculation of probabilities, which so often reduce to certainty results which, to unthinking minds, appear mere chances.

In 1863, Mr. Tidd Pratt, the Registrar, reported: Sixty-five societies have been dissolved in the course of the year. The causes of such societies not being able to meet the claims of the members are to be found in incorrect tables for the contributions, small number of members, insecure investment of funds, and unnecessary expenses of management, which actually, in some instances, take 10s. out of every 1_l._ subscribed. Most of these societies still hold their meetings at public-houses, with the landlords for treasurers; and the members are required by the rules of most of the old societies to spend a monthly sum in beer “for the good of the house,” which amount is generally taken from the box, whether the members have or have not paid their contributions; and in many instances the money is not repaid to the society. In the correspondence of the year it is stated, in a letter to the Registrar respecting the affairs of a society, that it has spent nearly 1300_l._ of the funds “for the good of the house.” There is generally a strong party in favour of it. One letter states that a female friendly society will be obliged to break up unless they are allowed to have an annual feast and music; and an objector who is contending with the managers against any such application of the trust-funds writes:--“I can do nothing with them unless you assist me by sending a very saucy letter to the stewards.” Sometimes the law is evaded by paying an extravagant rent for the room, the excess being really allowed in beer.

The Registrar considers it to be proved by thirty-five years’ experience that some further provisions are necessary to secure to working men that they shall not be required to subscribe to these societies more than is necessary, and that they shall be certain of obtaining the benefits paid for. Returns which have been obtained from only 128 unions show about 1150 inmates in their workhouses who have been members of friendly societies which have been broken up or dissolved.

_Wages heightened by Improvement in Machinery._

It is stated, in a Report of the Commissioners appointed in 1832 to inquire concerning the employment of women and children in factories, that “in the cotton-mill of Messrs. Houldsworth, in Glasgow, a spinner employed on a mule of 336 spindles, and spinning cotton 120 hanks to the pound, produced in 1823, working 74½ hours a week, 46 pounds of yarn, his net weekly wages for which amounted to 27s. 7d. Ten years later, the rate of wages having in the meantime been reduced 13 per cent., and the time of working having been lessened to 69 hours, the spinner was enabled by the greater perfection of the machinery to produce on a mule of the same number of spindles, 53½ pounds of yarn of the same fineness, and his net weekly earnings were advanced from 27s. 7d. to 29s. 10d.” Similar results from similar circumstances were experienced in the Manchester factories. The cheapening of the article produced by help of machinery increases the demand for the article; and there being consequently a need for an increased number of workmen, the elevation of wages follows as a matter of course. Nor is this the only benefit which the working-man derives in the case, for he shares with the community in acquiring a greater command over the necessities which machinery is concerned in producing.--_G. R. Porter._

_Giving Employment.--Indirect Taxation._

Mr. Babbage relates the following illustrative anecdote: An Irish proprietor, whose country residence was much frequented by beggars, resolved to establish a test for discriminating between the idle and the industrious, and also to obtain some small return for the alms he was in the habit of bestowing. He accordingly added to the pump, by which the upper part of his house was supplied with water, a piece of mechanism so contrived, that at the end of a certain number of strokes of the pump-handle, a penny fell out from an aperture to repay the labourer for his work. This was so arranged, that labourers who continued at the work obtained very nearly the usual daily wages of labour in that part of the country. The idlest of the vagabonds of course refused this new labour-test; but the greater part of the beggars, whose constant tale was that “_they could not earn a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work_,” after earning a few pence, usually went away cursing the hardness of their taskmaster.

_Never sign an Accommodation Bill._

Nothing is more deceptive than imaginary wealth. “We are apt,” says Sir E. B. Lytton, “to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are. We outrun our present income, as not doubting to disburse ourselves out of the profits of some future place, project, or reversion we have in view.”

By no means is this artificial state of living more nourished than what are familiarly called “bill transactions.” This has been illustrated in novels and tales, but never more to the purpose than in the following passage in _Pisistratus Caxton_. “To sign an Accommodation Bill, and still more, to renew one when due, is opening an account with ruin. One always begins by being security for a friend. The discredit of the thing is familiarized to one’s mind by the false show of generous confidence in another. Then, what you have done for a friend, _a friend_ should do for you--a hundred or two would be useful now--you are sure to repay it in three months. To youth the future seems safe as the Bank of England, and distant as the peaks of Himalaya. You pledge your honour that in three months you will release your friend. The three months expire. To release one friend, you catch hold of another--the bill is renewed, premium and interest thrown into the next pay-day--soon the amount multiplies, and with it the honour dwindles--your _name_ circulates from hand to hand on the back of doubtful paper,--your name, which, in all money transactions, should grow higher and higher each year you live, falling down every month like the shares in a swindling speculation. You begin by what you call trusting a friend, that is, aiding him to self-destruction--buying him arsenic to clear his complexion,--you end by dragging all near you into your own abyss, as a drowning man would catch at his own brother.”

_A Year’s Wills._

The Registrar-General has drawn from a calendar of the Wills and Administrations of the year 1858, the following interesting calculations. 210,972 adults died in the twelvemonth, and 30,823 persons left personal property behind them; 21,653 had made their Wills; the other 9170 had made none, and letters of administration had to be taken out. 89 persons with more than 10,000_l._ (one worth 100,000_l._) died without making a Will. The aggregate amount of property left by all these persons is estimated at 71,860,792_l._, averaging 2331_l._ each. Distinguishing between the men and the women, we find that 102,049 adult men died in the year, and 21,454 left personal property--for one who left any, four leaving none; 108,923 adult women died, and 9369 left personal property. The average amount left by the men was 2751_l._; by the women, 1371_l._ Omitting now any estimate for the first ten days of the year, and dealing only with the actual Wills and administrations of the rest of the twelvemonth, the personal property of those who died leaving any, 29,979 in number, amounted to 69,893,380_l._, of which 57,396,350_l._ was left by the men, and 12,497,030_l._ by women. The stream of wealth flowed thus:--

Persons. Dying worth Left
22,513 Less than 1000_l._ 5,762,880_l._
6277 1000_l._ but less than 10,000_l._ 20,010,500_l._
1020 10,000_l._ but less than 50,000_l._ 21,960,000_l._
102 50,000_l._ but less than 100,000_l._ 7,100,000_l._
67 Above 100,000_l._ 15,060,000_l._
------ --------------
29,979 69,893,380_l._

Only one property was sworn as high as 900,000_l._ and under 1,000,000; 1935 were under 20_l._ The property divides nearly equally at 20,000_l._ About 35,000,000_l._ belonged to 29,392 persons, none having more than 20,000_l._, and the other 35,000,000_l._ belonged to 587 persons, fifty times fewer than the former company. Of those who left above 100,000_l._, 37 were described as esquires, a term which would include men who had made their fortunes by trade or commerce; ten were titled personages, five were bankers, four merchants, three clergymen, one cotton manufacturer, one corn merchant, one hotel-keeper; one was in the navy, one in the Indian army, one in the Indian Civil Service, one was a spinster. Three medical men left more than 50,000_l._ A person described when he made his will as a commercial clerk left above 30,000_l._; 17 “labourers and mechanics” above 1000_l._ Of 75 lawyers, 15 died without making their Wills. The foregoing statements, which must be taken as approximations rather than an absolute accuracy, relate to England alone. In the year ending March 31, 1859, legacy-duty was paid in the United Kingdom on 62,441,611_l._, but that does not include property passing from husband to wife or the converse, no legacy-duty being then payable; succession-duty on real property was paid upon 29,242,630_l._, and, estimating that to be taxed to the next successor at half its saleable value, it will amount to 58,485,260_l._ On this assumption 123,926,871_l._ passed by death to another generation of successors. It is certainly a remarkable fact, that (upon an average) on every death, including alike men, women, and children, more than 100_l._ of property paying legacy-duty, and perhaps 187_l._ of property of every kind, is left for the benefit of successors in the United Kingdom.--_Times._

The extraordinary circumstances under which Wills are sometimes made have given rise to the following suggestive remarks by an able writer in the _Saturday Review_:--

“If the matter is considered in reference to general principles,
there is no more curious power in the world than the right which
people exercise by Will of legislating after they are dead and
gone, without restraint and without appeal; and it is perhaps
even more singular that they exercise this power without being
subject to any formalities whatever except the presence of two
witnesses. To sell a house or a field is a matter which requires
care and inquiry, and the circumstances ensure a certain degree
of notoriety. But property of any amount may be disposed of in
any way that caprice may dictate by an instrument which may be
executed under any circumstances, and kept in any custody. No
one but the testator need know its contents, and he may, and
often does, prepare it with the most wanton caprice, and leave
it in the most absurd depository to take its chance of loss
or discovery as it may happen. It is well worth consideration
whether the unlimited power which the law of England confers
of making whatever Wills a testator chooses ought not to be
qualified by some special provisions as to the manner in which
such wills should be made.”

FOOTNOTES:

[12] It is now shown to be 91,328,600 miles.

[13] Abridged (with interpolations) from a communication to the _Illustrated London News_, 1857.

Progress of Science.

_What human Science has accomplished._

If we reflect on the extreme feebleness of the natural means by the help of which so many great problems have been attacked and solved; if we consider that to obtain and measure the greater part of the quantities now forming the basis of astronomical computation, man has had greatly to improve the most delicate of his organs, to add immensely to the power of his eye; if we remark that it was not less requisite for him to discover methods adapted to measuring very long intervals of time, up to the precision of tenths of seconds; to combat against the most microscopic effects that constant variations of temperature produce in metals, and therefore in all instruments; to guard against the innumerable illusions that a cold or hot atmosphere, dry or humid, tranquil or agitated, impresses on the medium through which the observations have inevitably to be made; the feeble being resumes all his advantage: by the side of such wonderful labours of the mind, what signifies the weakness, the fragility of our body; what signify the dimensions of the planet, our residence, the grain of sand on which it has happened to us to appear for a few moments!--_Arago._

_Changes in Social Science._

The conquests of science over the realms of matter in our day would scarcely have affected Bacon with greater surprise than the change in what we may call the social position of science. There was a time, not so very far removed from his own, when scientific truth was worshipped, if at all, with closed doors and in muffled accents. Science, like religion, had her age of persecution and her “church in the catacombs;” she, too, had heroes, and martyrs, and confessors of her own, and won her way to popularity through an ordeal of shame and suffering, the history of which remains to be written. The philosopher of the Middle Ages shunned the haunts of men; his crucible was heated in some secret or underground chamber; his knowledge was a forbidden lore, and if it showed itself in the command of new powers, was ascribed, not to inspiration from on high, but to dealings with an agent which even modern credulity so often proclaims as the source of intellectual mastery. From these fiery trials science has emerged without even a scar upon her. Militant she still is, but she is also triumphant, and vies with the learning of “letters,” which was never branded with the like infamy, in the number and dignity of her votaries. The change which has come over her social status has reacted on her doctrines. There are no longer any “mysteries” of science; “problems,” and even “apparent contradictions,” remain, but mysteries, with everything else that savours of the occult and esoteric, are exploded, and not many difficulties are admitted.--_Times._

_Discoverers not Inventors._

Although Galileo only discovered the moons of Jupiter, we often and unconsciously think of him as if he had been their creator, and had first set them to play their untiring game of hide-and-seek round the stately planet; and so also in no irreverent spirit we call the laws which Kepler divined to regulate certain movements of the heavenly bodies, “Kepler’s Laws,” although he disclaimed the title, grandly affirming that God, whose laws they were, had waited some thousand years before one man, even Kepler, had discerned them. And so again, notwithstanding our conviction that the star Neptune has been shining in the sky since what we shall be content to call “the beginning,” and that all the tiny planets which have so rapidly been added to our astronomical catalogues are probably as old as the sun, we cannot help feeling as if Adams, Leverrier, Hind, and their brethren, had just planted those lights in the sky, and that midnight should be sensibly less dark because of their addition to the heavens.

When we work as transformationalists we are like sculptors, not evolving a pre-existent statue from a concealing mass, but bestowing a statue on a block of marble. The hollow screw is Archimedes’ screw; the condensing steam-engine, Watt’s engine; the railway locomotive, Stephenson’s locomotive; the electric telegraph, Oersted’s telegraph; the Crystal Palace, Fox and Paxton’s palace. Yet as implied in what has been already said, we treat discoverers as if they were inventors, and to make amends we call inventors discoverers. And although, in strictness of speech, it is inadmissible to speak of Watt, as accomplished men are frequently found doing, as the _discoverer_ of the steam-engine, and only Sancho Panza thought of invoking blessings on the man who first _invented_ sleep, still the popular confusion between the discoverer and the inventor shows how difficult it is to assign the one higher praise than the other.--_Prof. George Wilson._

_Science of Roger Bacon._

Roger Bacon, writing about the year 1260, that is, six hundred years ago, says:--“I call that Experimental Science which neglects argumentation; for the strongest arguments prove nothing as long as the conclusions are not verified by experience. Experimental science does not receive truth at the hands of superior sciences. It is itself mistress, and other sciences are its servants. It has, in truth, the right to command all sciences, since it alone certifies and sanctions their results. Experimental science is, therefore, the queen of sciences and the limit of all speculation.” The features in Bacon’s writings that have caused his name to be handed down as a founder of physical science are very obvious. He doubts wisely and has a profound reverence for facts. The theory of a vacuum has come to him on the highest authority, but its difficulties distress him. He speaks of experimental philosophy as more perfect than all the natural sciences; “for it teaches us to test by trial the noble conclusions of all the sciences, which, in the others, are either proved by logical arguments or are examined into on the imperfect evidence of nature; and this is its prerogative.”

“As a workman in the laboratory, and with lenses, he himself
discovers the existence of explosive compounds, confirms the
tradition of history as to the effect of burning glasses, and
understands the principle of the camera. He points out the
faultiness of Cæsar’s calendar. His views of the limits of
medicine are excellent. ‘For, whereas a healthy rule of life
depends upon what is eaten and drank, on the hours of sleep and
waking, of exercise and rest, on climate and the temper of the
mind, and that all these should be observed from childhood in the
constitution they fit, scarcely any man cares to take thought of
these things, nay, not even physicians, such at least as we have
met with.’ Contrast this and his critical approval of the use of
charms to delude credulous patients into health with the science
ridiculed in the _Malade Imaginaire_, and the advantage will
not be found on the side of the seventeenth century. But, even
in physical science, Bacon’s splendid powers of generalization
prevail over the habit of analysis, and he is rather a prophet
than a teacher. He believes that the period of human life may
be prolonged many years by a sound system of dietetics; and the
averages of life in our own century confirm him. He believes that
‘engines of navigation may be made without oarsmen, so that the
greatest river and sea-ships with only one man to steer them, may
sail swifter than if they were fully manned. Moreover, chariots,’
he thinks, ‘may be made so as to be moved with incalculable
force without any beast drawing them.’ ‘And such things might be
made to infinity, as, for instance, bridges to traverse rivers
without pillars or any buttress.’ He even knows a wise man who
has determined to construct a flying machine; but Bacon’s tone
on this subject is a little less confident. That he himself
hoped for much that has since been proved impossible--for the
art of increasing gold, and for the discovery of an elixir of
life--cannot of course be questioned. Bacon summed up the science
of his times, and the analogies which guided him in his estimate
of the laws of motion could not teach him to anticipate by five
hundred years the individuality of the elements, or to understand
the texture of the human body. His error, after all, was chiefly
that he believed in Thought as a conqueror, and expected to
establish her kingdom on the ruins of the thrones of the visible
world.”--_Saturday Review._

_The One Science._

In an able summary in the Times of the contents of Sir Henry Holland’s _Essays on Scientific and other Subjects_, we find the following suggestive passages:--“The sciences are so interlacing and coalescing that it would seem as if in a year or two we should only have one huge science embracing all; or, at least, what are now regarded as separate sciences should be considerably reduced in number. This is more or less implied in the controversy on the “Correlation of Forces.” The question is,--Are there really “Forces” in nature? Or should we not rather say that there is but one force appearing under different forms? Among these forces may be mentioned light. The undulatory theory of the transmission of light is as old as Huyghens, but its universal acceptance is an incident of our own day; and it is in our own day that radiant heat has been discovered to be subject to those great physical laws which are the basis of the undulatory theory. Here, then, we find in our time, within the last few years, that the three great sciences of optics, of acoustics, and of heat, reduce their principal facts to the same formula. Or again, take this science of optics in another relation. It has within the last few years proved itself to be the most delicate instrument of chemistry. By the aid of a little starch the chemist can detect the millionth part of iodine in solution. Mr. Faraday has found that a strong ruby tint is given to a fluid by a proportion of gold not exceeding the half-millionth part in weight. These are wonderful results of ordinary chemical analysis; but what are they in comparison with the results obtained through the analysis of the spectrum? By means of it chymists have been able to detect in a compound 1-70,000,000th part of a grain of lithium, and the 1-180,000,000th part of a grain of sodium, the metal of common salt. The method of the analysis is very simple. If a little sodium, for instance, be burnt in a flame, and during the process of this burning the rays be made to pass through a prism, then in a certain defined portion of the spectrum beyond there will appear a thin yellow line, so vivid that it will show even when the sodium has been reduced to the 1-180,000,000th part of a grain. By help of the same analysis we pass on to astronomy, and discover the chemistry of the sun, the moon, and the stars. In the photosphere, or luminous atmosphere surrounding the body of the sun, there has in this way been discovered no less than six known metals.

“In these few examples we indicate roughly but sufficiently the intimate connexion of the physical sciences, and the necessity which is imposed on the student in the present day to know all if he would understand one. It has been said that he who has seen but one work of ancient art has seen none, while he who has seen all has seen but one. We may say the same of science. To know one is to know none, and to know all is to know but one.”

_Sun-force._

Daily the conviction deepens among those who have studied the matter, that with a few exceptions all the physical powers which man wields as movers or transformers of matter are modifications of Sun-force. It was bestowed upon antediluvian plants, and they locked it up for a season in the woody tissue which it enabled them to weave, and afterwards time changed that into coal; and the steam-engine which we complacently call ours, and claim patents for, burns that coal into lever-force and steam-hammer power, and is in truth a sun-engine. And the plants of our own day receive as liberally from the sun, and condense his force into the charcoal which we extract from them, and expend in smelting metallic ores. With the smelted metals we make voltaic batteries, and magnets, and telegraph wires; and call the modified, sun-force electricity and magnetism, and say it is ours, and ask if we may not do what we like with our own.

And again, the plants we cultivate concentrate Sun-force in grass, hay, oats, wheat, and other fibres and grains, which seem only suitable to feed cattle and beasts of burden with. But by and by a Spanish bull-fighter is transfixed by this force, through the horns of a bull, and dies unaware of his classical fate, pierced to the heart by an arrow from Apollo the Sun-god’s bow. On English commons prizes are run for, by steeds which are truly coursers of the sun, for his force is swelling in their muscles and throbbing in their veins, and horse-power is but another name for sun-power. Nor is it otherwise with their riders; for they too have been fed upon light, and made strong with fruits and flesh which have been nourished by the sun. His heat warms their blood, his light shines in their eyes; they cannot deal a blow which is not a _coup-de-soleil_, a veritable sun-stroke; nor express a thought without help from him.

In grave earnestness, let me remind you, that as force cannot be annihilated any more than matter, but can only be changed in its mode of manifestation, so it appears beyond doubt that the force generated by the sun, and conveyed by his rays in the guise of heat, light, and chemical power, to the earth, is not extinguished there, but only changes its form. It apparently disappears when it falls upon plants, which never grow without it; but we cannot doubt that it is working in a new shape in their organs and tissues, and reappears in the heat and light which they give out when they are burned. This heat, which is sun-heat _at second hand_, we again seem to lose when we use plants as fuel in our boiler-furnaces; but it has only disguised itself, without loss of power, in the elasticity of the steam, and will again seem lost, when it is translated into the momentum of the heavy piston, and the whirling power of a million of wheels.

The second-hand heat of the sun appears equally lost when vegetable fuel is expended in reducing metals; but oxidize these metals in a galvanic battery, and it will reappear as chemical force, as electricity, as magnetism, as heat the most intense; and, in the electro-carbon light, will return almost to the condition of sunshine again.--_Prof. George Wilson._

“_The Seeds of Invention._”

Sir William Armstrong maintains, as a half-truth, that Invention is the fruit of the circumstances that call for it almost more than of the mind from which it springs. In a sense it is true, as Sir William Armstrong says, that “the seeds of invention exist, as it were, in the air, ready to germinate whenever suitable conditions arise;” but it depends not the less on the genius of individual inventors to determine whether the germination shall happen in one century or the next. The history of the locomotive is itself the strongest argument against relying too much on these floating seeds of invention and favouring circumstances, and taking too little account of inventors. If the Killingworth brakesman had died in his youth, it is scarcely too much to say that we should probably not yet be travelling by steam. We owe it to George Stephenson’s keen insight and resolute temper that the locomotive was forced upon an unbelieving world, no one can say how long before circumstances would otherwise have called it into existence. The seed had been floating, it is true, and had been in a manner detected centuries before; but it remained without life, not because the occasion had not called it forth, but because the right man had not arisen.

_The Object of Patents._

The recklessness with which Patents are issued, and the dishonesty on the part of the State in selling the same article to two or more persons, and then coolly leaving them to litigation for the possession of it, cannot be too strongly reprehended. The common sense of the question is summed up by Dr. Percy, in these words: “I cordially subscribe,” says the Doctor, “to the opinions expressed by Mr. Grove, Q.C.--namely, that the real object of Patent Law was ‘to reward not trivial inventions, which stop the way to greater improvements, but substantial boons to the public; not changes such as any experimentalist makes a score a day in his laboratory, but substantial practical discoveries, developed into an available form.’”

The law with respect to Patents has been greatly simplified and
improved by the statute 15 and 16 Vict. c. 83: the fees payable
for a Patent have been reduced, and the payment of spread over
several years. One Patent now suffices for the United Kingdom,
and is no longer void, as formerly, for trifling inaccuracies in
the Specification, as these may be now disclaimed.

Before quitting the subject of Patents it may, perhaps, be serviceable to call attention to the admirable Abridgments of Specifications now publishing by the Patent Commissioners. In a few minutes one can get exact information there which cannot otherwise be obtained in as many hours. These Abridgments are in the form of small 8vo volumes.

Hereafter we hope to see provided out of the revenues of the
Patent-office, a public library and museum, to constitute a
historical and educational institution for the benefit and
instruction of the skilled workman of the kingdom. Exact models
of machinery are to be exhibited in the subjects, showing the
progressive steps of improvement.

_Theory and Practice.--Watt and Telford._

James Watt was a highly accomplished theorist, on every point on which he worked; yet his name has been frequently cited, as a proof that theory could be dispensed with. And his career, when compared with that of Telford, will illustrate _theory applied to practice_, as distinguished from practice alone, however acute. It is impossible to contemplate the career of Telford without a feeling of high interest, created by the comparison of his apparently inadequate education with his startling successes. Looking at the individual himself, there is everything for his age to admire; and as long as his structures last, each of them is the _monumentum_, but not _ære perennius_. The time will come when his name shall be like that of the builder of the old London bridge, who was, no doubt, the Telford of the day,--a stimulus to his contemporaries, useful and honoured, but not the remembered of succeeding ages. On the other hand, the discoveries of Watt, though equally startling in what is called the practical point of view, have the mind of the discoverer impressed upon them, and have been, and must be, the guide of his successors, not merely to repetitions of what he did himself, but to the enlargement of ideas, and the conversion of principles into forms useful in art. Take away the honourable qualities which enabled the two men to outstrip their contemporaries, each in his line; qualities which are the properties of the individual minds, and consider what is left, namely their modes of proceeding: consider the effect of these two modes on men in general, and there is nothing in that of Telford which would raise a workman above a workman; while in that of Watt there is the vital principle to which we owe all the mechanical triumphs of civilization, and all the theoretical successes of philosophy.--_Penny Cyclopædia._

_Practical Science.--Mechanical Arts._

It seems impossible to exclude from a review, however slight, of contemporary progress in the exact Sciences, the advantages which have accrued to them, both directly, and as it were reflexively, by the astonishing progress of the Mechanical Arts. The causes, indeed, which called them forth are somewhat different from those which are active in more abstract, though scarcely more difficult, studies. Increasing national wealth, numbers, and enterprise, are stimulants unlike the laurels, or even the gold medals, of academies, and the quiet applause of a few studious men. But the result is not less real, and the advance of knowledge scarcely more indirect. The masterpieces of civil engineering--the steam-engine, the locomotive-engine, and the tubular bridge--are only experiments on the powers of nature on a gigantic scale, and are not to be compassed without inductive skill, as remarkable and as truly philosophic as any effort which the man of science exerts, save only the origination of great theories, of which one or two in a hundred years may be considered as a liberal allowance. Whilst, then, we claim for Watt a place amongst the eminent contributors to the progress of science in the eighteenth century, we must reserve a similar claim for the Stephensons and the Brunels of the present; and whilst we are proud of the changes wrought by the increase of knowledge during the last twenty-five years on the face of society, we must recollect that these very changes, and the inventions which have occasioned them, have stamped perhaps the most characteristic feature--its intense practicalness--on the science itself of the same period.

It has long been the fashion of one party to lament “the Decline of Science” in England; whilst another section has gravely declared that Science in this country is but the growth of yesterday, having been imported from Germany, and tenderly nurtured by the magnates of the realm. In the House of Commons, in the Session of 1863, a member stood up, and, with exultation, announced that Science had at length found its way into that democratic assembly through the individual exertions and influence of one now no more. From the language which this scion of a great house employed it might be inferred that Science had been previously almost unknown in England. The member, no doubt, spoke according to his knowledge; but it possibly escaped his memory that a man named Isaac Newton once existed. Without justly exposing ourselves to the charge of presumption, we might also boast of a few other names of distinction among the dead as well as the living.

There is another point upon which the public appear to be much misinformed--namely, that Science is in the receipt of large sums from the State. The annual amount voted out of the taxes for Science and Art is unquestionably large; but it should be borne in mind that, comparatively, only a small portion is really devoted to Science, while Art takes the lion’s share. Let it be so by all means. True Science to be worth anything must never become the creature of State bounty. We want no Institute with its salaried members and its eternal jobbing. We need no patronizing Mecænas, whether from the high-born or the self-exalted. What Science earnestly desires is to be let alone, that she may follow her destined course quietly, modestly, and without molestation. She especially loathes the Pythonic embrace of meddlesome persons who, knowing nothing of her, yet profess an intimate acquaintance with her and a tender regard for her welfare, solely with the object of puffing themselves into notoriety. She disdains them utterly.--_Times journal._

We hear much, too, of “Science and Art” now-a-days coupled together, as if the strongest affinity existed between them; although no two things can be more unlike each other. The Arctic Circle and the Torrid Zone cannot be wider apart or in stronger contrast; for Science is frigidly logical, and Art hotly emotional.

_Force of Running Water._

It has been proved by experiment, that the rapidity at the bottom of a stream is everywhere less than in any part above it, and is greatest at the surface. Also, that in the middle of the stream the particles at the top move swifter than those at the sides. This slowness of the lowest and side currents is produced by friction, and when the rapidity is sufficiently great, the soil composing the sides and bottom gives way. If the water flows at the rate of three inches per second, it will tear up fine clay; six inches per second, fine sand; twelve inches per second, fine gravel; and three feet per second, stones of the size of an egg.--_Lyell’s Geology._

_Correlation of Physical Forces._

Of late years experimental philosophers have been occupied with the investigation of a profound problem. Formerly, the most brilliant phenomena of nature were attributed to the existence of imponderable fluids. But the Correlation of heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and chemical affinity, as varying manifestations of force, attributable to modifications of motion in matter, now employs our subtlest thinkers--Faraday and Grove, Wheatstone and De la Rive. These researches extend even to the confines of the moral phenomena. The chemistry of nature differs from that of the laboratory, and the difference has been attributed, not simply to organization, but to the vital force--a power found only in living organisms. Yet, at length, the laboratory of Hoffman imitates the processes of nature, especially in plants, and produces some of the most delicate of the perfumes of flowers and fruits, and even seems on the very verge of the manufacture of some of its greatest treasures--such as quinine. Some are staggered by the steady march of scientific research into the most sacred sanctuaries of life, and recoil from investigations which trace the growth of the cell in the ovary into the perfect man; as though mystery were essential to faith; or, if it were so, as though there is the slightest risk that in ages to come man will have so stolen the sacred fruit that no mystery will remain to be solved.--_Sir James Kay Shuttleworth on Public Education._

_The Effect of Oil in stilling Waves._

It was thought that this old idea had been completely disproved by experiment; but, according to the _Saturday Review_, the very contrary has been the result of recent experiments, in course of which, at all events, waves on a pond, generated by the wind, were completely stilled to a “glassy smoothness” by means of a film of oil scarcely more than the 7,000,000th part of an inch in thickness, and exhibiting the most brilliant zones of iridescent colours from its extreme thinness. The _modus operandi_ is believed to consist simply in the wind ceasing to have a hold upon the water by the intervention of the oil, which slips along the surface _with_ the wind, so that the oil must be applied to windward, and it moves to leeward, smoothing the surface as it goes!

_Spontaneous Generation._

Of all errors upon the formation of beings, the most absurd is Spontaneous Generation. Yet it is one of the most popular. If this theory is admissible for inferior beings, such as intestinal worms, infusoria, or polypi, why not for superior beings? The difficulty becomes an impossibility in both cases. Can it be imagined that an _organized_ body, of which all the parts are intimately connected, with an admirably contrived correlation, so full of profound wisdom, is produced by a blind assemblage of physical elements? The organized body must have derived its existence from elements of which it was destitute! Then motion might proceed from inertia, sensibility from insensibility, life from death!

_Guano._

In Mr. Ross’ translation of Dr. Tschudi’s _Travels in Peru_, 1847, we are informed that the correct orthography is _Huanu_, and not Guano. He states that it is a term in the _Quichua_ dialect, meaning “animal dung.” As the word is now generally used it is an abbreviation of _Pishu Huanu_, bird dung. “The Spaniards,” he says, “have converted the final syllable _nu_ into _no_ The European orthography _Guano_, followed also in Spanish America, is quite erroneous, for the Quichua language is deficient in the letter G, as it is in several other consonants. The H, in the common formation of the word, is strongly aspirated, whence the error of the orthography of the Spaniards, who have sadly corrupted the language of the Autochthones of Peru.”

_What is Perspective?_

Perspective is the science which furnishes us with the laws by which we can give the apparent, as geometry those by which we can give the real, forms of objects. These laws are obvious without rules to thoughtful, artistic common-sense--but, to many, books on the subject will always be useful, if not indispensable. The science was called perspective, or _seeing through_, from an impression that the correct foreshortening of objects could be gained by viewing and tracing them through a pane of glass. This plan only ensures correctness when the plane of the eye is parallel to that of the medium upon which the drawing is made. A picture in perspective is simply a plane parallel to the plane of the eye intersecting the rays that come from the surface of the objects represented. The points of these rays at the places of their several intersections combine to form the true perspective representation. This was the art that Mantegna made so much of at Padua; and that with which Bellini, the painter of the National Gallery “Doge,” delighted the Venetians. Without much semi-scientific pedantry, the whole science may be understood by balancing a half-crown on the top of the forefinger of your right hand. Hold it up so that its broad plane is parallel to the eye’s plane; put it nearer or further, and it seems to increase or diminish in size. Turn it obliquely, and it appears an oval; put the edge on a line with the eye, and it appears a mere thin straight line. A sphere is the only geometric form that undergoes no perspective changes. The eye is able to take in any given space set at an angle of under sixty degrees. When both eyes view a scene, instead of the circle one eye sees, we have an ellipse formed by the continuation of the two circles of vision,--the point of sight being opposite the centre of the space between the two eyes. Perspective is of great use in Art; but the books upon it are too abstruse, and imply a knowledge of mathematics. [This common-sense explanation is from the pen of Professor Wallace, M.A., in the first number of a journal edited by him and entitled _The Public Instructor_.]

_The Stereoscope._

Till the discovery of the Stereoscope, naturalists were puzzled to account for _a single image resulting from double vision_; and Gall and Spurzheim endeavoured to explain it by the supposition that one eye only was active at a time, the other only admitting light, and that Nature had given us two merely to provide against the accidental loss of one.--_Leslie’s Handbook._

_Burning Lenses._

The danger from Lenses, when the heat of the sun is powerful, is well known. As an illustration, we may relate an instance which occurred on the premises of Messrs. Negretti and Zambra, philosophical instrument makers, in Hatton Garden. There was a smell of fire, but it could nowhere be detected, until a person entered the shop from the street with the startling information that the window was on fire, and such was really the fact: a large reading-lens hanging in the window exposed to the sun, its focus happening to be just within range of the woodwork of the window fittings, set fire to them, and no doubt in a very few seconds some serious damage would have been caused. Is it not possible that in tropical climates, when vessels are becalmed, they may be set on fire by the eye-deck lights everywhere observable on ships’ decks; or, nearer home, in warehouses, &c., where such means of lighting is resorted to? The matter merits serious consideration and should serve as a caution.

_How to wear Spectacles._

In the proper use of Spectacles there is no circumstance of more importance than their position on the head. They should be worn so that the glasses may come as close to the eye as possible without touching the eyelashes; they must also be placed so that the glasses may be parallel to the paper when held in an easy position. To accomplish this, let the sides of the spectacles bear upon the swell of the head, about midway between the top of it and the ear; the eyes will then look _directly_ through the glasses to the paper, and make the most advantageous use of them, instead of looking _obliquely_ through them to the paper, as in numerous cases, where persons place the sides of their spectacles in contact with, or very near, their ears--in which position they produce a distorted image on the retina. The sides of the spectacles should also be placed at an equal height upon the head; and the hands being applied to the _points_ of the sides, will generally direct their equal height, as well as allow of their opening to the full extent without injury.--_Adams on the Human Eye._

_Vicissitudes of Mining._