English Essayists. The volume, which has all the advantages of good printing and binding, comprises within it letters of the best English writers from the fifteenth century to the present time. The letters are selected with skill and judgment, and besides being chronologically arranged, are introduced by brief and sufficiently concise notices of their respective writers, or of any special circumstance to which the letters may refer. Most readers have spare halfhours, when it is a relief to escape for a little from methodical study; and in such interludes, there are few books that would more delightfully repay perusal than this collection of English letters. THE MONTH. SCIENCE AND ARTS. THE chief scientific event of August was the fifty-second meeting of the British Association. Many people naturally look upon this annual exposition of scientific progress as an opportunity of posting themselves in recent discoveries and new speculations of foremost minds; and we venture to imagine that on the present occasion they will not suffer disappointment. A perusal of the President's Address cannot fail to interest even those unaccustomed to pay attention to scientific matters; for Dr Siemens's remarks are so clear, and bring home to our minds such important considerations concerning our wellbeing and every-day lives, that they at once claim, as they deserve, careful attention. Dr Siemens, as is well known, is a great authority on electricity, and we owe to his ingenuity the invention of many important instruments. Hence his words regarding the present position of electrical science, and more particularly the application of this form of energy to lighting and motive-power, will be scanned with greater interest than other portions of his Address. But he had also much to say regarding the future of gas as an illuminant and as a heatgiver, which will not only be of great interest to many, but must carry dismay to the hearts of not a few. He believes electricity will be the light of the future, but maintains that gas will still be largely used as the poor man's friend. But the great future in store for gas will be in connection with it as a heat-giver. Dr Siemens points out that a gas giving vast heating power can be produced at a very cheap rate indeed. He proposes that this gas should be made in the coal-pit or at the pit-bank, and should be distributed throughout the country in place of coal. By this means the heavy railway freight would be saved, the gas Companies as they now exist would be dispensed with; each pound of gas would give us just double the heat of a pound of coal; and more important than all, we should have no smoke. It may be long before these bold speculations are realised; but that they are feasible, no reasonable being who studies Dr Siemens's facts and figures can deny. A public subscription has been opened by the Lord Mayor of London in aid of a very interesting archæological work. Until the year 1869, the exact site of the famed Temple of Diana at Ephesus was unknown. At this time, Mr J. Wood, after several years' search, found its remains far below the present level of the soil. He was for some time aided in his work by government grants, but for some reason or other, these were not renewed; and after a few specimens of the beautiful unearthed sculpture had been secured by the British Museum, the work stopped for want of funds. The present subscription list, opened at the Mansion House, London, is headed by some very influential names; and there is little doubt but that the money required for renewing these interesting excavations will be speedily collected. Not so many years ago, the man who could boast that he had sailed round the world was regarded as something approaching a hero, and if not exactly on a footing with the renowned Captain Cook, he approached very nearly to that standard of excellence. Things are different nowadays, for anybody with time and money to devote to the object can put a girdle round the earth. The steamship Ceylon, owned by the Inter-oceanic Steam-yachting Company, has just returned from such a trip, having been absent from England for just ten months. She carried sixty passengers, who had the opportunity of remaining for some time at each of the important stopping stations. Thus, the first six weeks of the voyage were consumed in visiting the chief Mediterranean ports; after which, by the Suez route, the ship made its way to our Eastern possessions, and then onwards to China and Japan. Next came the Sandwich Islands, and the principal ports on the west coast of South America; the Eastcoast ports as far as Bahia next claimed attention; and the vessel on its way home called at the Canaries and at Madeira. The distance traversed was altogether thirty-seven thousand miles, the vessel returning in good condition, and reporting a clean bill of health during the voyage. We cannot imagine a more beneficial and enjoyable way of passing a year, for those who have leisure and means, than a trip in the Ceylon. Last Another voyage, undertaken for very different reasons, has also recently terminated with the most satisfactory results. In June 1881, Mr Leigh Smith set out from Peterhead in the Eira, on a voyage of Arctic discovery. The little vessel, with its crew of twenty-five, all told, was sighted during the following month by a Norwegian schooner off the coast of Nova Zembla. Months passed away, and nothing more was heard of the explorers; but they were not forgotten by friends at home. June, a Relief Expedition was organised, under the command of Sir Allen Young, and the ship Hope set sail on her errand of mercy. The crew of the Eira were rescued, and are now in their homes once more. They had lost their vessel, which was nipped in the ice, and were, when found, subsisting on the flesh of the walrus and bear. The scientific results of the expedition were lost with the ill-fated Eira; but Mr Leigh Smith's journal of the voyage is saved, and will no doubt soon be in the hands of many readers. This rescue of a ship's crew will form a pleasant episode in the history of Arctic research, a history already far too full of gloom. Another Arctic expedition has sailed from Copenhagen under the direction of Lieutenant Hovgaard. The objects of this fresh enterprise are 'To ascertain whether Franz-Josef Land really extends to the neighbouring Cape Chelyuskin; whether the conditions of the current and ice are such that a basis for further exploration can be reached here without too great a risk; and whether the eastern coast of FranzJosef Land trends to the northward at this point.' Lieutenant Hovgaard's ship is a steamer of one hundred and fifty tons, which has been specially strengthened for contact with the ice. It carries a crew of twenty-two including the officers, and takes several sledges and Newfoundland dogs. Besides provisions for twenty-seven months, the vessel is provided with coal enough to give full steam for fifty days. externally resembles a small upright clock-case; and is internally composed of a cylindrical vase, in which is a peculiar float, having attached thereto an upright rod, terminating in a delicate spring pencil or pointer. A drum, on which a suitably prepared diagram is fixed, turns by means of a clock attachment, so that as water enters the vase, a curved line is traced on the sheet, showing the height to which the water attains at any given time. This pluviometer is intended to be placed inside the observatory, and to be connected by means of a pipe with the collector outside. The registration of this instrument has the two great advantages of being constant and automatic. We have before alluded to the rapid destruction of timber in the United States, where no attempt From the Edinburgh Evening News, we learn seems to be made to replace by young trees those that the remarkable manner in which the spectrowhich have been felled by the lumbermen. Pro- scopic weather forecast communicated to a confessor Sargent, of Harvard College, has been temporary at the beginning of September has been engaged in computing the probable time which verified, deserves the attention of meteorological will elapse before certain kinds of trees become observers. The statement was to the effect that exterminated; and his results will soon be known. It is said that the white pine will be gone in twenty years, and that many other trees must follow in its wake. But there are districts as yet hardly invaded by man where, owing to the liberal rainfall, different kinds of timber grow most luxuriantly. A correspondent of the Times lately gave a very interesting account of one of these regions; and he states that the whole of the Pacific coast from the forty-second parallel to the forty-ninth, and beyond, and from the edge of the ocean for about one hundred and twenty-five miles inland, is covered with incomparable timber. In the district of Puget Sound, the principal trees are yellow fir. They grow to an enormous height, and some of them will give squared logs one hundred and twenty-four feet in length. This region gives an average yield of forty thousand feet of timber per acre; and occasionally as much as two hundred thousand feet are found upon a single acre. A curious but effective method of testing wines in order to determine the amount of astringent matter in them, has lately been devised by M. Girard. Astringent qualities are usually due to a tannic compound called anotannin, and closely related to it are several colouring-matters. There is a tendency in these matters to combine with animal tissues, and M. Girard takes advantage of this circumstance. He steeps a few lengths of 50-called catgut-the fine white strings of the violinist in the wine to be tested; and at the expiration of a day or two, the colour and astringent matter is drawn from the liquid. Comparison of cords so treated, with cords which have not been so treated, together with well-known methods of analysis, give the necessary amount of anotannin and colouring-matters present in the wine. Last month we noticed M. Schmeltz's invention for recording the duration of rainfall; and since then the particulars of an English invention of a similar kind have been made known; but in this case the pluviometer is superior to that of M. Schmeltz, in so far as it records the quantity as well as the duration of rainfall. It is the invention of Mr William Gadd, Civil and Consulting Engineer, Manchester, and is manufactured by Messrs W. H. Bailey & Co., Albion Works, Salford. Mr Gadd's pluviometer at the beginning of a certain week the spectroscope showed a remarkable absence of watery vapour lines in the spectrum of skylight; that a directly contrary state of things in the previous week was followed by heavy rains and floods; and that a spell of dry weather might now inferentially be counted on with some little confidence. Fortunately for the farmers, that expectation was realised. Several times since the statement appeared, the sky became overcast, but the clouds invariably cleared away without rain, leaving an expanse of glorious blue such as we too seldom see. It is not for the unscientific to form any positive conclusions as to the value of such a fulfilment of a scientific forecast, but the circumstances are clearly encouraging, and it seems not extravagant to hope that the spectroscope may do for practical meteorology what the methods of observation hitherto followed have as yet failed to do. In the observation recorded, certain solar lines in the spectrum stood out clearly, which had throughout August been almost lost in a 'thicket of terrestrial watervapour lines.' It is further interesting to notice that the suggested probability of 'rather cold sharp weather' has tallied pretty closely with the facts. M. Regnard has been making some curious and apparently successful experiments in feeding lambs that have either been left orphans or which have been deserted by their mothers. To most people, milk would seem to be the food best fitted for the purpose; but M. Regnard has brought up his little family of lambs on a very different diet. Blood obtained from the slaughter-houses was dried, pressed, and powdered in a coffee-mill; and mixed with other food, was given in doses of ten to eighty grammes daily. The animals surpassed in weight and size even those lambs which had been nourished by their mothers; and competent judges pronounced them to be the finest specimens they had ever seen. Calves are now being reared on the same plan; and sickly children are said to receive great benefit from the strange food. Another Frenchman, whose position at the head of a Parisian hospital for infants should give weight to his remarks, advocates most strongly the use of asses' milk for infants deprived of their natural food. He says that he has seen this milk bring about the veritable resuscitation of little ] ones; and he maintains that all institutions for the maintenance of new-born children should be provided with arrangements for keeping asses, and also goats. The milk of the goat is not much inferior to that of the ass, provided that the animal has sufficient space to roam about in, and to find its favourite food. A strange contrast is afforded by the perusal of two papers relating to Agriculture which have lately been published. One is the summary of the Agricultural returns of Great Britain for 1882; and the other paper is the Report of the Canadian Minister of Agriculture. Seven years of bad seasons make the British returns into a very gloomy history; while the Canadian Report breathes nothing but prosperity in the present, and brilliant prospects for the future. The Canadian Minister points to the attention which is being given to the importation from Britain of pedigreed animals; and we see by the statistics given how the old country is being drained of its finest stock to give vigour to the new. It is said that from the late Show at Reading three shiploads of the finest animals went to America; and from all parts of the country come stories of foreigners buying up stock at a price with which home-buyers cannot compete. It may well be said that high prices and increased competition are affecting our agricultural progress. An interesting relic from Pompeii has just been added to the Naples Museum. It consists of a fresco representing the Judgment of Solomon, and is unique in being the sole picture of a sacred character yet found in the buried city. Mr E. N. Rolfe, who sends to the Times a detailed description of the work, tells us that the drawing is poor, but that the colours are bright and in good preservation. The bodies are dwarfed, and out of proportion to the heads. Some think, from this circumstance, that the composition is intended as a caricature; but Mr Rolfe is of opinion that the heads have been exaggerated so as to allow for better facial expression. Beyond this distortion, there is apparently no caricature, the various expressions, from the agony of the real mother to the triumph of the false one, being well delineated. A new process for treating China-grass and other fibre-producing plants-the invention of M. Favier-was lately shown in London in operation before a number of gentlemen interested in the production or use of fibre. Most of the plants in question are cultivated at long distances from the places where the fibre is prepared for market; and the new process is intended for treating the vegetable matter at the place of its growth. The advantages claimed for this procedure are principally two. In the first place, only fifteen per cent. of the raw material is ultimately utilised in the production of fibre, and therefore the carriage of much useless matter is saved; and in the second place, the fresh material is far more easily treated than that which has dried up during transport. The apparatus is simple in the extreme. It consists of a closed wooden box with a false bottom, under which runs a steam-pipe connected with a boiler. On the occasion referred to, this box was filled with a number of specimens of fibrous plants, obtained from the Botanical Gardens at Kew and Paris. After being sub mitted to the action of the steam for twenty minutes, the specimens were found to be ready for further treatment, the epidermis and fibre readily stripping from the wood. The cost of thus rendering the material fit for the mill is only two pounds per ton. The invention will be of great importance not only to the fibre-trade but to many of our colonies, and may still further cheapen the price of paper. The old idea of making Manchester a port by means of a ship-canal from Liverpool, "has been once more revived, and the Manchester Tidal Navigation Committee' are now holding an inquiry into the whole subject. The scheme has been considered by many to be visionary; but the same was thought of the Suez Canal and many other projects of an extensive character which have proved successful. The Canal would utilise the channels of the Mersey and the Irwell, and would be about thirty-seven miles in length. It would terminate at Manchester in an immense basin. There is no great engineering difficulty in the way of its accomplishment, the principal question being whether the enormous outlay entailed will bring back a sufficient return to the shareholders. It has long been known that the Davy Safetylamp is only safe under certain conditions. If the air in a mine be moving at a rate greater than seven feet per second, the wire-gauze surrounding the wick is no longer impervious; and the outer atmosphere, if of an inflammable nature, is certain to take fire. A Blue-book recently issued on the Causes of the Explosion in the Trimdon Grange Colliery, which took place last February, convicts the Davy Lamp as the offender; and its use will now no doubt be prohibited in all fiery mines. An accident at the West Stanley Colliery two months later has also been traced to the faulty nature of the lamps in use, although in this case the Davy Lamp was not employed. In short, a really safe mining-lamp seems just now to be a thing wanted. Whether electricity will answer all the requirements of a miner's work, we are hardly prepared to say; but it is very certain that a long time must elapse before the electric light, even if it be suited to the purpose, can be installed at all our collieries. The lamp required must give a good light, must be portable, and more than all, to meet with universal attention, it must be cheap and simple. A very useful Act of Parliament has just come into force. Its object is 'to make better provision for inquiries with regard to boiler explosions.' That such a measure was really needed may be judged from a consideration of the many disasters which occur annually from boiler explosionseight hundred and sixty-five explosions are recorded for the past seven years-killing and wounding more than double that number of persons. One-third of these fatalities are attri buted to negligence or mismanagement; and we may feel certain that quite as large a proportion may be set down to corrosion and other forms of dilapidation which were allowed to go on unremedied in the boiler. The new Act is most stringent in its provisions, and we trust that it will have a salutary effect upon those owners of steam-power who are not too careful of the lives of their workmen. A British patent has been secured by Messrs Journal Brin of Paris for the production of red and white wine from beetroot, and the product is said to resemble and to possess all the qualities of the juice of the grape. The root is cooked and pressed, and the juice is fermented in reservoirs furnished with steam-coils, so that the process can be regulated; after which water, tannin, and lastly alcohol to bring the mixture to any desired strength, are added. For white wine, the white beetroot is employed, the operations being exactly similar to those adopted in making the red wine. The colour of the latter is so brilliant, and it contains so much saccharine matter, that it is valuable for enriching grape wines which are deficient in those respects. Whether the new product is to become a help to the adulterator, or a new beverage, remains to be seen. The railway returns for 1882 show that there are now eighteen thousand one hundred and eighty miles of railway open in the United Kingdom, involving a total paid-up capital of seven hundred and forty-five millions five hundred and nineteen thousand pounds-a sum within a few thousand pounds of being as great as the amount of the National Debt itself! This affords a striking illustration of the enormous wealth of this country-of the amazing extent of its financial resources. This year's meeting of the Social Science Congress at Nottingham forms the twenty-fifth anniversary of its formation as a society. It was founded on July 29, 1857, at a private meeting held at the residence in Grafton Street, London, of the late Lord Brougham, who presided on the occasion. By way of signalising its successful career hitherto, the Secretary of the Association has issued a little Manual, giving a narrative of past labours and results, which will be found useful and interesting to those who watch the progress of Social Science. It is published at the office of the Association, 1 Adam Street, Adelphi, London, and thirty-eight candles were obtained, or seventeen lamps of eight candles each. As pointed out, these and the other numerous examples given by him do not include the energy that would be lost in driving the engine and dynamo, but simply the equivalent in horse-power of electrical energy expended directly on the lamps.-From a perusal which we have made of the syllabus of the Glasgow College of Science and Arts (38 Bath Street), we observe that every advantage in the way of lectures and laboratory-work is being offered to young men desirous of becoming electrical engineers and electricians. The Times newspaper, in discussing the relative destructiveness of common shell and shrapnel, states that the idea that the superiority of the latter is established for all cases and under all conditions, is not quite correct. 'Exhaustive trials,' it says, 'have been made in England and in other countries, with the result that, in order to insure perfect efficiency, field-artillery should carry both of these two projectiles. The common shell is made in different forms, but the principle of its action is always the same. It contains as much powder as can be placed within its iron or steel envelope, and is intended to act by explosion, breaking down defences, setting fire to houses, and generally smashing everything which it comes across, in addition to killing a limited number of men. Common shell, also, used with a percussion fuse, so as to burst only on striking an obstacle, is very effective on firm ground, and is also extremely demoralising. The intention and effect of shrapnel are entirely different. The shrapnel shell consists of the thinnest envelope which can be found without breaking up, and this is filled almost entirely with hardened bullets. A very small charge of powder, only just enough to open the envelope, serves to liberate the bullets at the moment intended, and they then scatter like shot from a fowling-piece. Thus it will be seen that if In papers recently read before the Royal Society a good many guns are firing shrapnel at the of Edinburgh, as well as the Society of Telegraph same time, and the fuses are timed so as to burst Engineers and Electricians, on Tests of Incandes- a few feet above the ground, the whole of the cent Electric Lamps, &c., Principal Jamieson, troops attacked are covered with a shower of of the College of Science and Arts, Glasgow, bullets. Shrapnel shells have been called the has given us a valuable contribution to the sub-man-killing projectile. Their effect against troops ject of electric lighting. Mr Jamieson extended in the open is very great, and would be greater the tests he had previously taken at Queen but for the difficulty of timing the fuse so that Street Station and in Sir William Thomson's the projectile should burst exactly at the right laboratory, and by the aid of the electricalengineering students studying at the College of Science and Arts, he produced a number of large diagrams and curves, giving the relative candlepowers and efficiency of Swan, Edison, Maxim, and Lane-Fox lamps, from which we take the following examples, but would refer those more particularly interested to volume eleven, number forty-two, of The Journal of the Society of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians. lamps when giving an average light of 216 candles, had a mean resistance of thirty-two ohms, and for every horse-power of electrical ABOUT a year ago, a new organisation was energy expended on them, produced light equal formed in England, called the Society of Chemical to two hundred and twenty-five standard sperm Industry, and at one of the recent meetings of candles; or in round numbers, ten lamps, giving W.C. Swan moment and in the right place. Another function has lately been assigned to common shell. Incendiary stars are carried with each battery, and can be placed, when required, within the common shell. When the shell bursts, whether in the air or on the mark which it hits, the stars are scattered, and create great light and heat.' OCCASIONAL NOTES. twenty-two candles each, can be produced from the members, an interesting experiment, involving one horse-power. Edison eight-candle lamps a new theory of combustion, was submitted by had a resistance of sixty-one ohms when incan- Mr Thomas Fletcher of Warrington, whose many descent; and for every horse-power, one hundred ingenious inventions and discoveries we have before had occasion to notice. an apparent decrease in the estimate of 1880 of about twenty-two millions; while the recent censuses of all the great countries show an increase of over thirty millions. This is, however, partly explained by a readjustment of the population of China, which, formerly given at 434,626,500, has now been carefully revised, and estimated at 371,200,000. After this change of figures for China, Asia is set down as possessing a population of 795,591,000; this includes the two hundred and fifty-two millions for British India, and the fourteen and a half millions of the territory of Russia in Asia. The results of recent censuses in Europe show an increase in the population, which is now stated at 327,743,400, as compared with 315,929,000 in 1880-an increase of about twelve millions. Africa is set down as having a population of 205,823,260; America, 100,415,400; and Australia and Polynesia, 4,232,000. Before some of these vast numbers, the total population of the United Kingdom at last census (thirty-five millions) does not bulk largely; but this is more than counterbalanced by the vast power and influence wielded by our country in every portion of the habitable globe. The belief has has recently appeared, we find the total popuoften been stated that if it were possible to pro-lation of the globe estimated at 1,433,887,500, duce combustion without flame, the temperature attained by the consumption of any fuel could be enormously increased; and it seems that Mr Fletcher has now proved that this is possible. Directing an ordinary blowpipe gas-flame upon a ball of iron wire weighing some three pounds, Mr Fletcher after a few moments blew the flame out, leaving the gas on, however, as before. The temperature immediately rose, and was steadily maintained until the iron was fused like wax. The room was darkened, but the closest examination did not show a trace of flame, although the fact that the gas was operating was proved by repeatedly relighting and extinguishing it. This flameless heat was then directed into a fireclay chamber containing a 'refractory' clay crucible, which was partially fused and worked into a ball like soft putty, while the walls of fireclay were at the same time fused by what is called latent heat. The gas supply used was given by a quarter-inch pipe; and from Mr Fletcher's experiments it appears that the presence of flame is not really a sign of perfect but of imperfect combustion. It is not improbable that this demonstration of the possibility of absolutely flameless combustion may lead to important changes in the present modes of heating, many of which involve great consumption of material. USEFUL REFORM IN POLICE INSTRUCTION. A most useful and much desiderated branch of police education has just been introduced into the Metropolitan Force. This consists in giving the police officers a kind of surgical training sufficient to enable them to deal readily with many of the ordinary accidents to which people are liable. The society under which this training is carried out is called the St John Ambulance Association. Certificates of efficiency were a few weeks ago presented to seventy-nine London policemen; and Dr Sieveking, Physician Extraordinary to the Queen, addressing the force on that occasion, spoke of the sympathy felt by the medical profession with the objects of the Association, and of the special value to the police of the instruction imparted. He advised them to keep up their knowledge, and encouraged them to do so by referring to a case which had come under his notice, where valuable assistance was rendered to an injured lady by a policeman. Colonel Duncan, Director of the Association, also spoke, and, referring to the case of an officer who was shot in the femoral artery, and of a man who was that day reported to have bled to death in consequence of a wound from a scythe, said that any one of the men who were receiving certificates that day would probably have been able to save those lives if he had been near at the time. The objects of this Association seem to us to recommend themselves very strongly to police authorities all over the country. THE POPULATION OF THE EARTH. As an authority concerning the population of the different countries of the world, the publication called Die Bevölkerung der Erde, published by Justus Perthes of Gotha, occupies a high position. From the seventh issue of this work, which PRITHEE MADA M. And constant, night and morning, Beauty lures, but love must bind, And beauty's long unkindness, Though love, it seems, less pleases you Much that is cold and friendless, With these I neither sigh nor weep, J. B. SELKIRK. The Conductors of CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL beg to direct the attention of CONTRIBUTORS to the following notice: 1st. All communications should be addressed to the 'Editor, 339 High Street, Edinburgh.' 2d. To insure return in case of ineligibility, postagestamps should accompany every manuscript. 3d. MANUSCRIPTS should bear the author's full Christian name, surname, and address, legibly written; and should be written on white (not blue) paper, and on one side of the leaf only. 4th. Poetical offerings should invariably be accompanied by a stamped and directed envelope. Unless Contributors comply with the above rules, the Editor cannot undertake to return ineligible papers. Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. 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