Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

If psychologists should grant these inferences to be sound, it remains the duty of teachers to address themselves to improving the teaching of the multiplication table, as the weak spot in all our primary education in numbers. Something can be done, perhaps, to idealize the multiplication table, and to make instruction in it concrete, objective, rational. Can not a child be shown why or how six times seven make forty-two? If arithmetic is so abstract, arbitrary and barren of ideas that this can not be done, were it not better to cease compelling the miniature mind to repeat year after year such stale and silly truisms as, “twice two are four,” etc., under the absurd expectation that some prodigious mental outburst must result from it in some mysterious manner? Why not substitute for this endless repetition “Eiry eiry, ickery Ann, fillisy follisy, Nicholas John,” to accomplish the same result?

Some good teachers, here and there, are working on the problem of how to make arithmetic educational as well as useful. A person who has lively recollections of days and weeks and months wasted on the dead-lift of memorizing the multiplication table, as an achievement by the side of which all subsequent labors of life were easy, will find comfort in the perfect uselessness of Colburn’s wonderful genius for multiplication without effort.

But it _was_ a wonderful faculty. What if a man were born with _all_ his faculties expanded to the same degree! Shall education and inherited progress yet produce minds as nearly infinite in every power as Zerah Colburn’s was in one? Is there, _is_ there an educational method which can take the shackles off all the faculties?

If not, may there be somewhere a life in which the mind, let out of the strait earthly house of its tabernacle and freed from the sore limitations of physical nature may reach that acme in all its functions? Some of the operations of mind in a condition of suspended physical existence seem to suggest this as a probability for even common-place natures, as occasionally do such splendid exhibitions of a single faculty in so weak a nature as Zerah Colburn’s.

[B] Another expedient adopted to keep the wolf from the door was to ask subscriptions to the yet unpublished and unwritten memoir of the lad. As he had by this time been able to formulate the method by which he made his mental computations, the father advertised to impart the secret of Zerah’s mysterious power to any one who would subscribe for ten copies of the memoir at eight dollars the copy.

ASTRONOMY OF THE HEAVENS FOR FEBRUARY.

By PROF. M. B. GOFF.

THE SUN,

As is evidenced by the continually lengthening days, is making its way northward. On the first it rises at 7:10 and sets at 5:18; on the 15th, rises at 6:54 and sets at 5:34; and on the 29th, rises at 6:35 and sets at 5:51, giving from the 1st to the 29th of the month an increase of one hour and eight minutes. The sun is “slow” during the entire month; that is, it does not reach the meridian until after noon; for example, on the 1st, when the sun is on the meridian, a good time-piece says it is about fourteen minutes after noon. On the 1st, day breaks at 5:32, and evening twilight ends at 6:56.

THE MOON.

On the 4th, at 12:49 a. m., the moon enters her first quarter; on the 10th, at 11:40 p. m., is full; on the 18th, at 10:04 p. m., enters her last quarter; and on the 26th, at 1:27, is again new. On the 1st, 15th and 29th respectively, she reaches the meridian at 3:55 p. m., 3:14 a. m., and 2:41 p. m. She is nearest to the earth at 3:54 on the evening of the 4th, and most distant at twelve minutes after three on the morning of the 18th. She reaches her greatest elevation, 67° 31′ latitude 41° 30′, on the 6th.

MERCURY.

Only early risers need expect to see Mercury this month, as he is a morning star, rising as follows: On the 1st at 5:54 a. m.; on the 13th, on which day also he reaches his greatest western elongation (26° 12′), at 5:41 a. m., or about 76 minutes before sunrise, and on the 29th at 5:49 a. m. On the 26th, at 7:00 a. m., he is farthest from the sun. His diameter diminishes from 8.4″ on the 1st to 5.6″ on the 29th.

VENUS,

As intimated last month, continues to be an evening star, making every evening an increasingly handsome display in the western heavens, her diameter growing from 12.8″ on the 1st to 14.6″ on the 29th. Her motion, which is from west to east, amounts during the month to 31° 51′ 37″ of arc. Her time of setting, on the 1st, 15th and 29th, is as follows: 7:54, 8:26 and 8:57 p. m., respectively. On the 29th, at 10:07 a. m., she will be in conjunction with, and 32′ south of the moon.

MARS

Will present nothing particularly new. His retrograde motion still continuing, he will rise earlier each evening, and, of course, set earlier the following morning. Thus, on the 1st, he rises at 4:51 p. m.; on the 15th, at 3:35 p. m.; and on the 29th, at 2:23 p. m. He sets on the mornings immediately following these dates at 7:29, 6:23 and 5:15; or, on the first date about twenty minutes after, and on the latter date about one hour and twenty minutes before sunrise; during the month taking his place as an evening star. His motion amounts to 9° 7′ 11″ of arc, and as he is going farther from the earth, his diameter grows smaller, being 15″ on the first, and only 13.2″ on the last of the month. On the 10th, at 4:40 a. m., he is 9° 43′ north of the moon, and a little east of the nebula _Præsepe_ in _Cancer_.

JUPITER

Will be evening star throughout the month, and continue his retrograde motion from a point about twenty minutes west of _Præsepe_ on the 1st, to 7 hours 48 minutes 35 seconds right ascension on the 29th. He will rise on the 1st at 3:56; on the 15th at 2:53; and on the 29th at 1:52 p. m., and will set on the 2d at 6:30; on the 16th at 5:29; and on March 1st at 4:30 a. m. On the 9th, at 5:39 a. m., he will be 5° 45′ north of the moon. Of the four satellites, or moons, revolving around Jupiter, three are so near as to be eclipsed by him at each revolution. Roemer, a Danish astronomer, observed, however, that when the earth and Jupiter were on opposite sides of the sun, these eclipses occurred, as he estimated, about twenty-two minutes later than the time predicted by the tables. As the earth in this position was some one hundred and eighty-six millions of miles farther away from Jupiter than when Jupiter and the earth were on the same side of the sun, the discovery was made that the discrepancy in time was occasioned by the fact that light must have time to travel; and later and more accurate investigations afford us the truth that it takes light sixteen minutes and forty seconds to cross the earth’s orbit, or eight minutes and twenty seconds to come from the sun to the earth; and hence, that it travels about 180,000 miles per second. These eclipses occur frequently every month, and can be observed with telescopes of quite moderate power.

SATURN.

This planet will be evening star throughout the month, setting as follows: On the 2d, at 2:28 a. m.; on the 16th, at 1:33 a. m.; and on the 29th, at 12:41 a. m. Its direct motion amounts to 41′ 32.1″ of arc. On the 3d, at 9 a. m., it is stationary. On the 5th, at 7:34 a. m., 1° 18′ north of the moon. On the 22d, at noon, it is “quartile,” being 90° east of the sun. It can be found near the _Hyades_, a little north, at any time this month. Its diameter decreases from 18″ on the 1st, to 17.2″ on the 29th.

URANUS

Makes a retrograde motion of 55′ 47.1″, and retains the same diameter, namely, 3.8″. It will be morning star, rising however, early enough to be viewed in the evening. For example, on the 1st, at 9:00 p. m.; on the 15th, at 8:02 p. m.; and on the 29th, at 7:04 p. m. It will set as follows: On the 2d, at 9:10 a. m.; on the 16th, at 8:14 a. m.; and on the 29th, at 7:18 a. m. On the 13th, at 7:44 p. m., it will be 3° 18′ north of the moon. On the 29th can be found nearly on a line between _Beta_ and _Eta_ in the constellation _Virgo_, and from _Beta_ about one-third of the distance between these two stars.

NEPTUNE

Will be evening star during the month, rising on the 1st at 11:24 in the forenoon, and setting next morning at 1:14; on the 15th, rising at 10:29 a. m., and setting on the 16th at 12:19 a. m.; and on the 29th, rising at 9:35 a. m., and setting at 11:25 the same evening. Its diameter is 2.6″. Motion direct, amounting to 16′ 56″ of arc. On the 4th, at 6:33 a. m., is 11′ north of the moon; and on the 7th, at 9 a. m., is 90° east of the sun. Rises about forty-eight minutes earlier than Saturn.

* * * * *

Whoever wishes to perform something noble, if he would produce some great work, collects quietly and perseveringly the mightiest powers into the smallest space.—_Schiller._

THE SEA AS AN AQUARIUM.

A lecture delivered at the Monterey Assembly, Pacific Grove Retreat, California, 1883.

By C. C. ANDERSON, M.D.

I.

It is said of Milton that in two short lines of poetry he made four mistakes in Natural History. He said of a whale:

“At his gills takes in,
And at his trunk lets out a sea.”

Now, in the first place, the whale has no gills; second, he takes in air instead of water; third, he throws out expired air; fourth, the water “spouted” is thrown up by the force of expiration, not out of the animal’s body, but water that may lie between the “blow-hole” and the surface of the sea.

I am not so sure but Milton made more than four mistakes in these lines. For whoever starts out on a wrong premise will follow a line of mistakes continually. Nevertheless, mistakes attentively observed may be profitable. We learn by mistakes. Unsuccessful experiments are mistakes of a kind—something wrong in the formula. The first aquarium I tried to start I made more mistakes than Milton made in his two lines. I made mistakes the second trial, and the third, and a dozen more times. And when I have succeeded in some instances, it was by accident, and to-day I can not tell why I sometimes failed, or why I sometimes succeeded. I have the consolation, however, of company in this respect. One of the most successful managers of aquaria says that he would give very much if he knew how to grow some of the higher marine algæ as one grows plants in a garden. Occasionally he has succeeded, but he confesses it was not by skill, but by chance.

I propose, therefore, that for a little while we consider the sea as an aquarium—a place adapted to the growth of animals and plants. Our subject is somewhat large, I must confess, but if we can see and understand how these things live and grow in the ocean we must be able to grow them in our parks, and possibly in our houses. For what Nature does on a grand scale may also be done in a small way; and principles that govern the successful growth of plants and animals in a bottle of sea water must be the same that govern the fauna and flora of the Pacific Ocean.

In order then to study and understand these things it will not be entirely necessary to make a trip to the equator, to the poles, or to travel around the world.

It has been a favorite theory with Henry D. Thoreau and John Burroughs, those genial and poetical lovers and observers of nature, that we need not rove all over the earth, as is the custom of many, to see this curiosity or that, or to observe nature in her secret recesses, but that we only have to sit down in the woods or by the sea-shore, and everything of interest will come round to us. The little town of Concord was a whole world in miniature to Thoreau. Everything worth finding could be found there. And so to John Burroughs, is the juniper forest of the Hudson, a show case, with the whole world inside. “Nature,” he says, “comes home to one most when he is at home; the stranger and traveler finds her a stranger and a traveler also.”

I think we may infer from this theory of our charming philosophers rather a poetical interpretation. They would urge a careful observation and study of phenomena in and near the places where we live, rather than gadding up and down the earth in search of novelties. If we familiarize ourselves with every day common objects and events of plants, animals, and other operations in nature, we shall then always be at home when nature calls, whether on one side or the other of the world.

I have heard of a good old lady who, when nearing the end of her earthly existence, said she did not mind the dying if she could only breathe. Now this goodly person had doubtless spent all the years of her life without observing the fact that every plant or animal however small or simple in structure must have, if nothing else, the organs for breathing, and when that function is suspended or destroyed, life ceases. The respiratory organs may be reduced to a single cell, wall, or membrane. The forms of these organs, however, are exceedingly variable, elaborate, and sometimes complicated.

In the sea, plants and animals have a compensatory relation to each other. The plant exhales oxygen and the animal exhales carbon. That is to say, the carbonic acid which is mixed mechanically with the water coming in contact with the cell, wall, or membrane, covering the plant, the atom of carbon is appropriated, freeing the two atoms of oxygen, which in turn are appropriated by the animal.

Not only is this process of breathing compensatory and reciprocative—an interchange of commodities—the plant giving two atoms of oxygen for one of carbon, and the animal bringing its single but equally valuable atom of carbon for two atoms of oxygen, but without this interchange, neither could plant or animal live, and our world of life would become as dead as the moon is supposed to be.

The process of breathing is so common that we seldom think about it, unless there is an interference in some way. Each one of us sitting quietly in this room would breathe about 1000 times in an hour, requiring over 100 gallons of air to sustain the proper supply of oxygen for the blood. During this time we have taken from the air a certain amount of oxygen and have returned to it an equal amount of something else, which we call carbon oxide, or carbonic acid gas. The oxygen has burned the effete material which is cast out of the blood in the process of breathing, and it is returned to the atmosphere as a kind of coal. The fundamental principle is the same in animals that breathe water as those that breathe air, only the apparatus is different. Animals that breathe water have a fine capillary network of blood-vessels spread out on gills, branchia or projections arranged so that the water shall pass rapidly over them, and thus the carbon is carried away and the oxygen taken into the circulation.

Animals that breathe air through lungs have little air cells, so very small that a human lung is said to contain 600 millions of them; and these lie in contact with the capillary circulation of the lung which receives the oxygen and gives out the carbon. Some air-breathers have no lungs, but merely spiracles or minute holes in the body through which the air enters, coming in contact with the circulation.

In all cases, whatever the form, size, or character of the animal the object is to bring the air in contact with the circulation that oxygen may be received in exchange for the burnt material—the carbon oxide—which, when once formed, is poisonous, and must be expelled from the animal.

Now if we look over the earth we shall find immense deposits of coal. Here in the United States we have nearly 200,000 square miles of coal deposits. In other countries there is a like proportion of these carbon deposits, such as petroleum, bitumen, and paraffine. Then there are great forests and other vegetable growth. These have stored up the carbon set free by the animal, and have kept the air comparatively free from carbonic acid gas, which but for the vegetables would in a little while have rendered our atmosphere unfit for animal use. What is true of the air in this respect is also true of the sea.

Thus it comes about that by the process of breathing, principally, we have the immense coal fields, the wide spread forests, and the herbage that covers almost the entire globe. For in the air and the water there exist the germs of animal and vegetable life so profusely, so universally, that the proper conditions of heat and light will develop contemporaneously, both the organic kingdoms. If we should take ten drops of water from the middle of the Pacific Ocean, near the surface, and add them to a small tube, say two ounces, of water that had been deprived of life by boiling, and kept sealed for a number of years, and place the tube in favorable conditions, we should in a few days see a little universe spring, as it were, into existence. There might not be a great variety of forms, but who can say that there might not be enough to populate or re-populate some world just entering into the conditions of such life as our earth contains, or some other world that had suffered a reverse, or cataclysm, by which all life was destroyed.

Mr. Lloyd, Superintendent of the Birmingham Aquarium, says he kept for eight years a bottle of sea water, well corked and covered with paper, and that when he opened it the water was perfectly clear, free from smell, and of the same appearance as when taken from the sea. But when exposed for eight days to light in a window an abundance of microscopic plants and animals began to grow, and soon covered the sides of the bottle, and darted about in the fluid.

Having occasion some ten months ago to use some sea-water, I brought to my house a demijohn full and placed it on the north side where the sun seldom shines, and where it is nearly always cool; although the temperature sometimes goes as high as 75° and 80° Fahrenheit in the afternoons. There was no particular effort to exclude light and air; the cork fitted loosely, and the wicker work was not unusually close. And yet, whenever I have examined this water it is clear and free from smell, and there are no plants or animals growing in it. But by exposure of a small quantity to the light and warmth of a window, these have rapidly developed. It is a fact, then, easily demonstrated in our own rooms and houses, that by excluding light from water and keeping it in a cool place we can arrest the growth of organisms. This is the case with springs. The microscope fails to discover germs in spring water until it has been exposed to the light for some time.

Acting on hints of this kind, Mr. Lloyd has constructed aquaria with two reservoirs—one in a dark, cool place, quite large—the other in a light and warm place, favorable to the growth of plants and animals. By means of pipes these two reservoirs are connected so that a circulation can be set up between the light and dark portions. A pump may be used to force the water from the dark reservoir into the other, using vulcanite or rubber of some kind for sea water, instead of such oxidizable metals as brass, tin, lead, etc. The most convenient temperature is about 60° Fahrenheit.

Thus, by exchanging the waters of these two reservoirs, as occasion requires, we shall be able to regulate an aquarium so as to keep many kinds of plants and animals in a healthy, growing condition.

The best aquaria are those where the water is never changed, but ever circulated in the manner I have indicated. Water that has once been made clear and good, and maintained plants and animals, is better than any water newly brought from the sea. It must be remembered that evaporation takes place from the surface of an aquarium more or less according to the heat and dryness of the air. At a temperature of 60° in an ordinary dry air, such as occurs some miles inland, the evaporation from a surface of water six inches square would be about three drops in twenty-four hours. Some very warm, dry days it would be two or three times that much. This waste must be made up by adding occasionally some distilled water.

An aquarium must be kept free of decaying matter. If once formed the sooner it is got rid of the better, for it will poison all creatures that come within its influence. The larger the dark reservoir the better. It can not be too large, but should be not less than four or five times larger than the reservoir in which the plants and animals are kept. Any dead matter then will quickly be burned at a low temperature—for oxygenation by means of the dark reservoir means no more nor less than the burning up of the effete and decaying particles thrown off by plants and animals.

It might be profitable for me to tell now how I didn’t succeed with the first aquarium I undertook.

It was a fine, large structure, capable of holding some twenty gallons. The sea water was procured, and at low tide a friend went with me to help carry an assortment of plants and animals. We had read a good deal about the compensatory properties of these two kingdoms; how the plants exhale oxygen and inhale carbon, and how the animals inhale oxygen and exhale carbon, and thus preserve the equilibrium and the purity of the water. Well, we had good luck in searching tide-pools, and the turning over of rocks; and we returned loaded with snails, crabs, sea-anemones, sea-urchins, clams, abelones, date fish, real fish, sea worms (with beautiful red branchia), and sea weeds, an extensive variety of red, green and brown, only one or two of which would grow, as I have since learned, even in the most successful aquarium yet known. There are many other things that I have forgotten. We had rock-work and sand, and pebbles of beautiful colors, and a great many _iridea_, a rainbow-colored sea weed. We intended to imitate one of the beautiful tide-pools we had seen, and astonish our friends with a little bit of the sea, snatched up and transported to our quiet room, away from the fog and wind and chill of the ocean shore. We would willingly have brought the tide and some waves, if they could have been dwarfed to the dimensions of our tank. With these and a few other things we might have succeeded, and kept our aquarium as long as Robert Warrington kept his in London, with unchanged water, during a period of eighteen years.

But in eighteen hours our animals were all dead or dying; and although the plants were in proportion—that is, we had an equilibrium—they were almost equally in as bad a condition as the animals. First the water began to turn cloudy. We looked at our books for light, but they were equally obscure. Then we perceived a smell, somewhat like canned oysters, and this smell grew till it permeated the whole house. We suspected something wrong, so we emptied the aquarium, filtered the water, threw away the decaying matter, and put the things in again. But the “muddy vesture of decay” had covered the stones and entered the crevices, and in a few hours more we had to cast the contents away. The fact is, as I have learned since, we had a large number of bruised, broken and bleeding organisms from the handling in transfer, that the whole ocean’s waters could not save or heal, much less the little tank of twenty gallons. There were no waves to carry away the dead matter, no oxygen in the water to burn it, so it had to be breathed over and over again until the blood was poisoned and the animal died, because it could breathe such water no longer. And the plants began to fade and decay because their blood was also poisoned.

Now let us turn and consider for a moment Nature’s aquarium—the sea. It covers two-thirds of the earth’s surface, and it has been explored to the depth of eight miles at places, without finding bottom. The average depth, however, is about 2½ miles. All this immense mass of salt water is inhabited with a fauna and flora in a state of nature. That is, the hand of man has done nothing in the way of taming or cultivating them. They are absolutely wild, whilst a large part of the earth is subject to man’s dominion, and he was commanded to subdue it. The herbs and the trees of the field “shall be for meat,” and his “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,” pronounced at creation, is, as yet, but partially accomplished. The sea and the air remain as mysteries unsolved, and as powers unconquered. The cyclone and the tidal wave are evidences of the untamableness of these elements. “He bindeth up the waters in thick clouds, and the cloud is not rent under them,” was the language of some thirty-five centuries ago, and it is equally as true and expressive to-day.

Although the sea is inhabited at all depths, according to the best knowledge we have at present much the largest part lies beyond daylight. Light only penetrates a few fathoms—all below is darkness. This is the great, deep, cool reservoir from which the upper strata is constantly renewed by a circulation about which we, as yet, know but little. How is this circulation kept up? Who has charge of “the doors of the sea?” Who has “entered into the springs of the sea,” or “walked in search of the depth?” We have some knowledge in regard to these questions. The investigations of such men as Edward Forbes, Sir William Thompson, Dr. Wm. B. Carpenter, Lieut. M. F. Maury, Darwin, Kane, and a host of other scientific explorers equally as wise and industrious, have solved many mysteries in regard to the great ocean of salt water, and that lighter ocean of air that surrounds the earth.

Many years ago Maury wrote some striking and impressive sentences in his “Physical Geography of Sea,” such as the following:

“Our planet is invested with two great oceans; one visible, the other invisible; one underfoot, the other overhead; one entirely envelops it, the other covers about two-thirds of its surface. All the water of the one weighs about four hundred times as much as all the air of the other.”

Then again in reference to the Gulf Stream he says: “There is a river in the ocean; in the severest droughts it never fails; in the mightiest floods it never overflows; its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic Seas. Its current is more rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon, and its volume more than a thousand times greater. Its waters are of an indigo blue. They are so distinctly marked that their line of junction with the common sea water may be traced by the eye. Often one-half of the vessel may be perceived floating in Gulf Stream water, while the other half is in common water of the sea, so sharp is the line and such the want of affinity between those waters, and such, too, the reluctance, so to speak, on the part of those of the Gulf Stream to mingle with the littoral waters of the sea.”

We have all read and doubtless thought a great deal about this wonderful stream; how England and the shores of the continent are warmed by this water. But there are other streams equally important, if not so distinctly marked. Every ocean and sea has its current or currents. As the waters are warmed by the rays of the sun, they expand and flow away. But these streams are not very deep, and the Gulf Stream is shallow compared with the dark, cold current that moves below it, but in an opposite direction.

[To be continued.]

SPECULATION IN BUSINESS.

By JONATHAN.

As a commercial term the word which heads this article stands for one of the marked tendencies of the times. Speculation is not a new thing. Words in the book of Proverbs suggest that the practice may have been rife twenty-five hundred years ago. “He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent,” said the wise king; and it was his testimony that, even then, there was “nothing new under the sun.” But it is safe to say that seldom in history has a spirit of speculation so potent and wide-spread appeared among a people as in our own land in recent years. We often advert to a period in France. It was when John Law deluded himself, was deluding the people with his gigantic financial schemes. The “Mississippi Bubble” arose before the eyes of men, a fascinating thing, and grew larger and larger. Then everybody seemed seized with the fever of speculation. In 1719 it reached its height. All France was in a ferment, and every one bent on getting speedily rich. From all parts of the kingdom, and from other countries, people crowded into Paris to speculate in the enterprises of Law, who was the idol of the populace, with more than regal power. The disastrous results to the French nation flowing from the popular mania of that day are a matter of history, whose lessons may be pondered. Our country has seen no epoch which could match that in France of over a century and a half ago. There has been here no equal national convulsion resulting from the same cause. But the spirit of speculation to-day is in the air all over the land. We have seen it grow and widen; we have seen communities agitated by it, and suffering from its work; we have seen operations of a speculative nature carried on by our bold and skillful men of affairs, whose magnitude would have astounded the fathers; and mischievous consequences of speculation we have seen which were felt in every part of our country. Bishop Butler’s idea that insanity is not only an affliction of individuals, but likewise at times of communities, has abundance of historical facts to stand upon. It is hardly exaggeration to say there have been times when certain of our communities were beside themselves with the mania of speculation. The time was, and not very long ago, when a millionaire in America was almost unknown; now men with a million of money are common enough, and those with their hundred millions are likely soon to be so. These great fortunes, we understand, were acquired for the most part by fortunate speculation. This new western world has presented such a field for speculation as was never known elsewhere, and of the multitudes who have entered it, some have had success.

The word speculation is a broad one, and covers an immense class of transactions. It may do, for a general definition, to say that it means the risking of money with the hope of gain. The element of contingency enters into all veritable speculation. The speculator assumes a risk; he makes a venture; he takes a chance. He may be entirely confident of gaining, but there is a possibility of his losing. The man who buys a piece of real estate, or any commodity, expecting that it will rise in value and he will make money by selling at a higher figure, speculates. The man who invests money in some undeveloped enterprise, believing it will prove a “bonanza,” speculates. The man who, in our stock and produce exchanges, deals in “futures,” and “options,” and “margins,” calculating upon a contingent rise or fall in the market to return him the amount of his venture increased, speculates. The man who risks his money in “pools” at the horse race or rowing match, hoping to double it, the man who tries his luck on the gaming table, hoping to win, speculates. In making this classification, however, the writer would not, of course, be understood as making these different transactions named in a moral point of view the same. Distinctions will presently be made which it is hoped to the reader’s mind will be clear.

The great arena of operations in the line of speculation in our land is found in the Exchanges and Boards of Trade of the cities. These have become numerous, and of various kinds, and the growth of some of them has been prodigious. We now have stock exchanges and produce exchanges, cotton exchanges and oil exchanges and coffee exchanges. Thirty years ago the Chicago Board of Trade was just making a beginning, and feeble enough it was at the start. It is now by far the greatest exchange for produce in the world, and in the year 1882 not less than three billion dollars’ worth of business was here transacted. A seat in the New York Stock Exchange costs thirty thousand dollars; and it has been shown that the yearly transactions of this wonderful mart, represented in dollars and cents, are but little less than three times “the taxable valuation of all the personal property in the United States.” Our exchanges have become marts of speculation. The business now done in them, aside from that which falls properly into the speculative class, is inconsiderable. They are not, simply or chiefly, places to which producers bring their products for sale, and where men buy commodities, and sell at a fixed advance, which pays for the trouble of handling them. For the most part, those who trade here buy and sell calculating upon a rise or fall in the market which shall yield them a gain. Their gain is a contingent matter; they run the risk of a loss. This is speculation. It is a fact well understood that, in by far the greater part of the transactions in our exchanges, there is no veritable buying and selling of merchandise, the buyer paying the price demanded and receiving his purchase. The buyer neither pays for nor receives his purchase. His purchase is not a purchase. With a hundred or two dollars he buys merchandise to the value of thousands. The fact is, he pays, not for the commodity, but for a chance to make money from a rise in the price of the same; and his money goes to insure the one through whom he operates against loss from fluctuations in the market. On the other hand, the sale of the seller is not a sale. He sells what he has never seen and never bought. It is a chance he sells; and if fortune has favored him, he receives the difference between the price of the commodity at the time of buying and the time of selling. This is speculation, and something more. To one who had just come out of a Rip Van Winkle sleep and knew nothing of customs which in recent years have come into being in our land, there are things which would be decidedly puzzling. The present production of petroleum is estimated at about sixty thousand barrels a day; but in the different oil exchanges of the country nearly one hundred times this amount is daily bought and sold. Our farmers all together produce only one-fifth the number of bushels of grain per year as reported as changing hands in the Chicago Board of Trade; and the hogs of trade here are easily twice as many as the whole land affords. In the New York Stock Exchange stocks and bonds are daily bought and sold more by a million dollars’ worth than exist; and the statement has been made that “when the cotton plantations of the South yielded less than six million bales, the crop on the New York Cotton Exchange was more than thirty-two millions.” It was from expressions in the speeches of General Butler upon finance that we formed the phrase “fiat money;” and it would seem that fiat wheat, and fiat pork, and fiat cotton, and fiat stocks, and fiat oil abound in the exchanges of our cities.

It may be well, for the sake of the uninitiated, to attempt an explanation of certain terms in common use in connection with modern speculation. A man is “long on the market”—signifies that his buying has been in excess of his selling. He has oil, or grain, or whatever the article of merchandise may be, on hand—though perhaps not in fact; he has bought more than he has sold. A man “sells short”—means that he sells more than he has bought; he has an amount of merchandise to deliver in excess of what he has purchased. The trading in “options” has played an important part in the transactions of our exchanges. “Options” are of two kinds; buyers’ options and sellers’ options. In the case of the former, a man engages to take at a stipulated price merchandise to a certain amount, within a specified time; while the seller’s option binds one to deliver merchandise as aforesaid. The term “futures” in significance is not essentially different from “options.” “Puts” and “calls” are speculative terms which have become very familiar. A person thinks there is to be a decline in the market. He pays to another a sum agreed upon for the privilege of “putting” so much of an article in trade, or disposing of it to him at a price named, within a certain time—a privilege he may, or may not use, as he sees fit. Or, he believes the market will advance; and he pays for the privilege of “calling” or taking so much merchandise, as aforesaid. Buying and selling “on margins” is very common. In some exchanges the most of the business done is of this class. The method is easily understood. A man wishes to buy for speculation, a thousand barrels of oil. He pays into his broker’s hands a hundred dollars, more or less, and the broker buys the oil. The hundred dollars is a “margin.” The phrase of trade is “putting up margins.” The margin is the broker’s security. In case the market falls, and the oil remains on his hands, it secures him from loss. So much for the vocabulary and methods of speculation.

But there is an aspect of this large question which must not be passed by. What is to be said of speculation regarded from a moral point of view? Unquestionably there is such a thing as legitimate speculation—speculation which is not to be condemned as morally wrong. The man who invests money in some commodity, paying for and receiving it, with the hope that he will be the gainer from its rise in value, it is right to call a speculator, but not right to call an immoral one. But there is another kind of speculation. A careful consideration of some of the practices set forth in this article should convince the candid that, though there are many good men engaged in them, they can hardly be justified in the light of the moral law. With regard to the character of gambling there is no controversy. Every one admits its immorality. And gambling is a broad genus; its species are many. This excellent definition has been given of it: “The art or practice of playing a game of hazard, or one depending partly on skill and partly on hazard, with a view, more or less exclusive, to a pecuniary gain.” The old Romans prohibited gambling, not on account of its immoral character and influence, but because its tendency was to render the people too effeminate; and for the same cause at first, laws against gambling were enacted in Great Britain. But in our own land the law forbids gambling of various forms because it is felt to be a vice, wrong and demoralizing. We have laws against lotteries and against betting. These, and other practices, are generally recognized as species of this vice. But our courts have decided that other things come under the same head, as to whose character there is not the same general consent. By judicial decision the person who takes a chance in a “grab-bag” at a church fair gambles; and in a most unequivocal manner, in the courts of different states, the opinion has been given that certain popular forms of speculation are gambling. Our judges have repeatedly said that those who speculate on “margins,” or trade in “options,” and have to do with “puts” and “calls,” gamble; and it is difficult to see how the decision can be gainsaid. Some people may be able easily to see that buying and selling “on margins” is not playing a game of chance for money; that taking an “option” is not like buying a ticket in a lottery; and that the method known as “puts and calls” is not very much the same as betting; but there are many thinking people who have not the ability.

Just an allusion may be made to a practice of modern speculation, of which some one has forcibly and truthfully spoken as “exaggerated gambling.” It is what is known as “cornering the market.” Speculators by forming a combination gain a control of the market, and force it up and down to serve their own interests. In this way immense fortunes have been made. The writer’s limits do not allow of his entering into a discussion of the methods employed. Heartless, cruel, wicked, are mild terms to apply to this “exaggerated gambling.” It is true that, by this cornering of the market, men are “squeezed” and fleeced and ruined who are not themselves scrupulous as to their methods; but the effects of the pernicious practice often do not stop with these men. Great corners in grain markets, by raising the price of bread-stuffs, have resulted in untold suffering among the poor, and affected in a most unhappy way the whole country. In 1879 there were two famous corners which will not soon be forgotten, a corner in wheat, and the “Armour pork corner.” As a result of these, the price of pork was more than doubled, flour advanced two dollars a barrel, and there was a general decided rise in value of the necessaries of life. Millions of money were made, but the loss to the country was immense, and the suffering occasioned incalculable. It was estimated, in a report made to a state legislature, that the syndicate which manipulated the wheat corner was the occasion of a loss to the public in different ways of not less than three hundred millions. As yet there is no punishment by the law of the enormity of which these cases are illustrations.

A final word can hardly be omitted with regard to the effects of speculation in general upon those engaged in it, and upon communities where the spirit is rife. Even those who are so hardened that they are unable to see that certain peculiar forms of it are immoral and wrong, as is claimed, will hardly deny that speculation is a pursuit which is to be censured on other grounds. The excitement of it is neither physically, mentally, nor morally healthful. It has a fascination which is dangerous; to break away from it comes to be like the Ethiopian’s changing his skin, or the leopard’s his spots. The cases are sadly frequent where it unfits one for the enjoyment of home, the pleasures of society, the duties of the citizen and the Christian. And in a multitude of cases it has brought those absorbed in it to the mad-house and to an untimely grave. The judgment of the candid and reflective must be that “making haste to be rich,” even by ways confessedly proper, is not best. Moreover, terms too strong can hardly be used in speaking of the harmful effects upon a community of a spirit of speculation filling the air. There is seen a feverish condition of things which is not well. Regular business is neglected; duties are passed by; the action of others is blindly and rashly followed. And it is always the case that, sooner or later, to by far the greater number who give way to the spirit and embark in the glittering speculative schemes, there comes disaster. Communities could easily be pointed out in whose condition of prosperity strikingly reversed one might read: “The demon of speculation hath done this.”

WINE AND WATER.

By BENJAMIN W. RICHARDSON, M.D.

What has science said and what is she saying in more modern times on the question of fact in relation to strong drink and its effect on the world of life? Let us take some of her more salient teachings first.

In the year 1725 she spoke to the government of this country, stating that “the fatal effect of the frequent use of several sorts of distilled spirituous liquors upon great numbers of both sexes is to render them diseased, not fit for business, poor, a burthen to themselves and neighbors, and too often the cause of weak, feeble, and distempered children, who must be, instead of an advantage and strength, a charge to their country.” Twenty-nine years later, she spoke again through the mouth of one of her most approved servants, the first inventor of ventilators, Dr. Stephen Hales. Through this illustrious philosopher she explained that strong liquors, though called spirituous, are so far from refreshing and recruiting the spirits, that, on the contrary, they do, in reality, depress and sink them, and extinguish the natural warmth of the blood.

You will see from these evidences, which could be largely multiplied, that long ago science spoke strongly by her best speakers on matters of fact relating to the use of strong drinks. You will note, moreover, that her utterances in that respect are very urgent against strong drinks. At the same time you will with fairness reply, “All that is true; but the argument is so far against excessive use.” We all admit that argument; doctors admit that universally; statesmen admit it; statisticians prove that; clergymen who are not abstainers express that; nay, the very sellers of strong drinks, the gentlemen who sell wholesale, and the publicans who dispense for the gentlemen, they, too, admit the solemn, unanswerable truth, that strong drink kills. We therefore need no sphinx to inform us of what is universally admitted. This, however, we do want to know. We desire to be informed what is to be said by science on the moderate use of these agents. Let abuse of them go to the wall; let use stand forth alone, and let us hear what place this strong drink holds in relation to man and animals—what place it holds in nature—what good it is for man—what bad, when it is used in moderation. Let us have the for and against.

The request is justice itself. There can be no objection whatever to put the answer of science to the “for” as well as the “against.”

Let us begin by looking at the interpretations of science in her latest teachings as to the nature of strong drinks. On this point all are now agreed who speak scientifically. For many ages wine was looked upon as a distinct drink, as a something apart altogether from water. Strong wine will take fire; water will quench fire. Wine has a color and sparkles in the glass; water is colorless and clear as crystal. Wine has taste and flavor and odor; water is tasteless and odorless. Wine is the blood of the grape, and in some respects seems akin to the blood of man; water is of all things least like blood. Wine when drunken makes the face flush, the eyes sparkle, the heart leap, the pulses sharp, the veins full; water when drunken does none of these acts, and seems to do nothing but respond to the natural wish for drink. Wine makes the lips and tongue parched and dry, the drinker athirst; water keeps the lips and tongue and stomach moist, and quenches the thirst of the drinker. Wine when it is taken, sets all the passions aglow and dulls the reason; bids men enjoy and reason not; water creates no stir of passion, and leaves the reason free. Wine makes for itself a first and second and third and fourth claim on the drinker, so that the more of it he takes the more of it he desires; it is overwhelming in the warmth of its friendship; water sates the drinker after one draught; makes no further claim on him than is just consistent with its duty; leads him never to take more and more; and has no seeming warmth in its friendship. Wine multiplies itself into many forms, which appear to be distinct; it is new, it is old; it is sweet, it is sour; it is sharp, it is soft; it is sparkling, it is still; water is ever the same. Wine must be petted and cherished, stored up in special skins and special caves, styled by particular names, praised under special titles, and heartily liked or disliked, like a child of passion; water, pshaw! it is everywhere; it has one name, no more; it has one quality; it hurries away out of the earth by brooks and rivulets and rivers into the all-absorbing sea, where it is undrinkable; or it pours down from the clouds as if the gods were tired of it; it is no child of passion! Let the cattle, and the dogs, and the wild beasts alone drink water. Let the man have the overpowering drink, the blood of the grape—wine!

Alas! for this poetic dream. Science, poetic, too, in her way, but passionless, destroys in those crucibles of hers, which men call laboratories, this flimsy dream. There she tells that, when one or two disguises are removed, even blood is water; as to wine, that is mere dirty water—sixteen bottles or cups or any other equal measures of water, pure and simple, from the clouds and earth, to one poor bottle or cup of a burning, fiery fluid which has been called ardent spirit, or spirit of wine, or alcohol, with some little coloring matter, in certain cases a little acid, in other cases a little sugar, and in still other cases a little cinder stuff.

It is a pitiful fall, but it is such, and science not only declares it, but proves it so to be. A pitiful let-down, that men throughout all ages who have called themselves wine-drinkers have been water-drinkers after all; that men who have called themselves wine merchants have been water merchants; that men who have bought, and still buy, wines at fabulous prices have been buying, and still are buying, water. A dozen of champagne, bought at a cost of five pounds ten shillings, very choice—I am speaking by the book—consisted, when it was all measured out, of three hundred ounces, or fifteen pints of fluid, of which fluid thirteen pints and a half were pure water, the rest ardent spirit, with a little carbonic acid, some coloring matter like burnt sugar, a light flavoring ether in almost infinitesimal proportion, or a trace of cinder stuff. Science, looking on dispassionately, records merely the facts. If she thinks that five pounds ten shillings was a heavy sum to pay for thirteen pints and a half of water and one pint and a half of spirit, she says nothing; she leaves that to the men and women of sentiment and passionate feeling, buyers and sellers and drinkers all round.

EIGHT CENTURIES WITH WALTER SCOTT.

By WALLACE BRUCE.

Twenty-eight years have passed since the battle of Bosworth, where the bitter struggle between the Houses of York and Lancaster ceased with the defeat and death of Richard the Third. We now come to the three best-known poems of Sir Walter, viz.: “Marmion,” “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” and the “Lady of the Lake,” all grouped together in their relation to history between the years 1513 and 1560.