Journal THE age we live in is remarkable for the progress that has been made in scientific discovery, and in this progress medical research has benefited equally with other branches of science. Even in the small way of household remedies, we are thankful for an apparent reform. The bitter potions of senna and rhubarb are no longer common, and now we have doses for childhood served up in the shape of elegant and toothsome comfits. In the higher walks of medical reform, scientific research has done much to alleviate human suffering; increased attention has been paid to the proper action of medicines, and this to a great extent has been due to exact physiological research. After Dr Liebreich had carefully noted the various effects produced by his new remedy upon the lower animals, he ventured to take a dose himself, which he did at different times, both subcutaneously and in a draught. By both methods he found the result to be the same-a deep dreamless sleep, lasting from six to ten hours, according to the dose taken. The announcement of Dr Liebreich's discovery was warmly received by the medical profession, who regarded it almost as a fulfilment of the prediction which was made many years ago by Sir James Y. Simpson, that a drug would yet be found which would possess all the virtues of opium without its baneful effects.' Such a drug, Liebreich's chloral seemed to be; and if Dr Liebreich must have had no cause to comsuccess were to be judged by the quantity used, plain. It is a remarkable fact that such drugs as chloral invariably become popular outside the medical profession. The reason of this is not far to seek, when we think of the number of persons who suffer from insomnia, and to whom opium possesses too many apparent horrors. One would scarcely grudge the wearied brain anything which will bring it rest, for is not sleep the sovereign balm for all ills? But, unhappily, the use of medicines that induce sleep is attended with the greatest risk of abuse, for the wearied frame drive their unhappy possessors to larger and and the conscience-stricken or troubled mind larger doses of their potent soother. Such, too, is the case with chloral. There are records of many fatal cases from its use, some of which have been accidental-that is to say, in which an ordinary dose produced death; but in the great majority of deaths, large and poisonous doses have been taken. the brain, so that when either of these organs is Chloral has a direct action upon the heart and in an abnormal condition, the dangers to be apprehended from its use are not a few. Its action differs very much from that of opium, for the victims of the latter seldom die from the immediate influence of the drug, but rather from some organic disease brought on by its use. Now, chloral accumulates in the system until such a quantity is present as will stop all organic functions; but death in these cases generally results from an interference with the heart's action, or from a sort of suspension of the nervous stimuli the nature of the death thus being not unlike that of chronic alcoholism. One example of the results which have been derived from physiological research is to be found in the discovery of the hypnotic or soporific properties of chloral by Dr Liebreich of Berlin-a discovery entirely due to a very simple conjunction of chemical and physiological facts, and a series of experiments based thereon. The simplicity of the discovery will be clearly seen when we have explained what chloral is, and some of its relations to other well-known substances. The word chloral is a combination of two words, chlorine and alcohol, formed by combining the first syllable of each. Many chloral-drinkers have been dipsomaniacs It is prepared by the action of dry chlorine at one time or other, and have drifted from gas upon alcohol; and the liquid chloral which the use of alcohol to the chloral bottle, or is the product of the action is distilled into a have moderated their consumption of alcohol large flask constructed to receive it. The pro- by the conjunction of chloral. Although chloralduct thus obtained is not used in medicine; drinking is not so apparent as dram-drinking, but when it is mixed with a certain propor- yet it has even a greater power over its tion of water, it forms a crystalline compound victims; and as its immediate effects are not so called hydrate of chloral, and is the article degrading as those of alcohol, they imagine that commonly known as 'chloral.' When hydrate of chloral is heated with an alkali, chloroform is produced; and it was the knowledge of this fact which led Dr Liebreich to suppose that if chloral were introduced into the circulation of animals, the alkaline nature of the blood would cause slow evolution of chloroform from the chloral, and consequently sleep would be pro duced. it is not so ruinous as the latter; but it is the result of an insatiable desire, and as such, it becomes an infatuating and degrading vice. The consumption of the drug has, we are glad to note, greatly decreased during the past few years, for a knowledge of the evils of its indiscriminate use has been acquired, and a proper place in therapeutics has been assigned to it. We hope we have said enough to show the evil of the habit of chloral-drinking, and that introduced into his work a great variety of his it is far better to try Nature's own remedies for own expressions, and it may not be out of place sleeplessness, than to resort to such dangerous to quote a few. Thus, in the English dialogues remedies as those we have been considering. we find such expressions as: This coat go to Sleep-inducing medicines are for the pain-troubled (fits) you,' 'It is a blunt man,' She do not tell patient under medical treatment, not for the man me nothing,' 'There is it two years what my or woman who is able to go about his or her father is dead,' 'It must never to laugh of the daily round of duties. unhappies.' After this there is hope for all, even the veriest tyros in literature, more especially when they are assured that the work from which the foregoing phrases are extracted, has gone through two editions! .A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL CURIOSITY. In the course of our experience we have seen many curiosities of literature, but none that could rival in uniqueness and originality one which was printed in Paris and entitled "The new Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English, by Pedro Carolino. An author of an educational work should beyond all others be thoroughly acquainted with his subject, but the wording of the title will no doubt be sufficient to give an idea of the merits of the book. The true aims and pretensions of the work can, however, only be learned from the preface, which runs as follows: A choice of familiar dialogues, clean of gallicisms, and despoiled phrases, it was missing yet to studious portuguese and brazilian Youth; and also to persons of other nations, that wish to know the Portuguese language. We sought all we may do, to correct that want, composing and divising the present little work in two parts. The first includes a greatest vocabulary proper names by alphabetical order; and the second forty-three Dialogues adapted to the usual precisions of the life. For that reason we did put, with a scrupulous exactness, a great variety own expressions to english and portuguese idioms; without to attach us selves (as make some others) almost at a literal translation; translation what only will be for to accustom the portuguese pupils, or foreign, to speak very bad any of the mentioned idioms. 'We were increasing this second edition with a phraseology, in the first part, and some familiar letters, anecdotes, idiotisms, proverbs, and to second a coin's index. 'The Works which we were confering for this labour, fond use us for nothing; but those what were publishing to Portugal, or out, they were almost all composed for some foreign, or for some national little acquainted in the spirit of both languages. It was resulting from that carelessness to rest these Works fill of imperfections, and anomalies of style: in spite of the infinite typographical faults which sometimes invert the sense of the periods. It increase not to contain any of those Works the figured pronunciation of the english words, nor the prosodical accent in the portuguese; indispensable object whom wish to speak the english and portuguese languages correctly. We expect then, who the little book (for the care what we wrote him, and for her typographical correction) that may be worth the acceptation of the studious persons, and especially of the Youth, at which we dedicate him particularly.' Notwithstanding the great care with which the author wrote the work, we are forced to the conclusion that it is not quite free from 'despoiled phrases.' The author candidly states that he has Fact, we are told, is stranger than fiction; and for the future it should always be remembered when reading humorous specimens of pigeonEnglish, that however exaggerated these may appear, they have been excelled in a seriously written work. NOVEMBER. SCARCE one brief sun-ray gilds the sombre gloom Fast wanes the Autumn! Thick the showering leaves Here and there, A lingering daisy stars the homestead field But soon shall fall, A. H. B the attention of CONTRIBUTORS to the following notice: The Conductors of CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL beg to direct 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 Pater noster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH. THE GREAT COMET OF 1882. BY PROFESSOR PIAZZI SMYTH, ASTRONOMER-ROYAL FOR SCOTLAND.. {r| JUST as the greatest geniuses are those who appear from out the mass of the people, no one knows how or why and the greatest poets, say Shakspeare and Burns, come of rustic nurture, rather than of university training-so. is it of comets. Comets indeed are now looked for, and most perseveringly as well as scientifically searched for, all over the heavens every night of the year by most able astronomers in various countries, in the southern as well as the northern hemisphere of the world, in observatories armed with the most powerful telescopes of modern times; and the learned men therein do discover by their patient labours very many comets. Not less perhaps than six or seven every year. And the exact position of these among the stars is telegraphed as soon as found from one of those comet-seeking observatories to another, so that in a few days, spite of clouds in this or that locality, sufficient observations are soon procured to allow of the mathematical computers ascertaining the shape of the orbit, or path round the sun, which each comet is performing, together with the peculiar angular position of such orbit in space, and the exact date of the wanderer therein coming to its point of perihelion, or nearest approach to the sun; and that is usually the end of it all. For nearly every one of those comets is faint and small to an almost inconceivable degree; a mere pellet of barely luminous vapour in the largest telescope; about which only a few of the learned of mankind can pretend to feel any interest, and which a very small number even of them have seen with their own eyes.. 1 But when a really great comet appears, with a brilliant head outshining every star, and a lengthy tail stretching half across the sky, alarming and exciting the nations the whole world round, it is almost always a sudden appearance, as unexpected by the learned as by the peasant, and PRICE 1d. usually first seen by one of the latter class with the naked eye, and by pure accident, long before the learned men of the observatory equatorials have brought their optic tubes to bear on the stranger. Thus there are in the heavens under the designation of one and the same short word, comets and comets indeed. Some so exceedingly faint, that only the most powerful object-glasses or reflectors will just show a something in the field on a very dark night; others so brilliant, that they may be seen by every one near the sun at noonday. Some so absolutely small, that without being very far off-amongst the planetary spaces-they subtend angles of only a few seconds, or less than the unassisted eye can appreciate; others again so large that for mere length in millions of miles they dwindle even our mighty sun into insignificance, and are seen from the earth under such enormous angles, even sixty and ninety degrees, that they render the telescope comparatively useless, and enable a better idea of the whole to be obtained by the simple unassisted eye. Now the comet of which we have to speak in this article, the same which the world has been privileged to behold during these few last months, and is still beholding, is one of the latter character: one of the largest among the large comets; one of the brightest among the bright ones; and yet there is something else about it of vastly deeper import and of rarer occurrence, than anything connected with mere size or brightness. It was first seen so far as the records go at present on the night of September 7, or the early hours of September 8, at the Cape of Good Hope, by a worthy citizen in his villa half-way up Table Mountain. He had turned out, as is not unusual in that burning climate, for a saunter in his garden before dawn under the light of the stars; and there, over the eastern horizon, was the brilliant and already full-shining stranger. On September 11, it was seen at the Observatory of Rio de Janeiro, a mighty comet, and claimed as an imperial discovery there. And again on September 17, a very respectable gentleman near London, spending his Sunday forenoon in telescoping the sun and its neighbourhood, stumbled on a comet close to the resplendent orb of day, conspicuous even through a dark-red glass; and he hoped to call it by his own name. But the chronological priorities we have described sternly forbid that, for each of these three supposed discoveries of 'a new comet' refers to one and the same body. Next begin the observations of those who had been telegraphically warned by one or other of the successive discoverers that such a comet was visible. And here we must place with all honour the observations made at noonday on September 18, both at Lord Crawford's Observatory at Dunecht near Aberdeen, and by M. Thollon, at the grand new French Observatory at Nice. At both those places the observations were chiefly spectroscopic, and agreed well in their story. Now, what that wonderful instrument of modern research, the spectroscope, can say at all, it says instantly; and in this case it at once informed the observers, by a peculiar displacement of certain lines, that the comet had passed the crucial perihelion point of its orbit, and was hastening away from us again, almost as rapidly as it had, so few days before, shot down out of dark, distant space into our sun-illumined neighbourhood. That important fact ascertained, there was leisure to consider the rest of the spectroscope's revelations as thus It is now extensively known that comets shine partly by reflecting the light of the sun, and partly by their own inherent light, whether that be produced by temperature, combustion, or electrical currents. But nineteen out of every twenty comets yet spectroscoped, have shown for the material of their own proper light, nothing but the faintest, feeblest, coldest, order of shining stuff known; namely, the blue part which may be seen at the base of any little candle-flame, waxtaper, or farthing rushlight; and which shows a mere trace of a hydro-carbon gas in weakest combustion, barely raised above phosphorescence or Will-o'-the-wisp glimmer over marshy ground. But the present great comet when similarly tested, not only showed salt, or the metalloid 'sodium' lines burning brilliantly, but iron lines doing the same-spectroscopic lines that can only exist where iron is so intensely hot that it rises as a gas, vividly incandescent in a more fervid heat than any of our furnaces can produce. No wonder, therefore, that when to the astronomers in the Royal Observatory, at the Cape of Good Hope on September 17, the comet was for a time projected to their point of view on part of the sun's disc, it was no black body, like that of the inferior planets Venus or Mercury at their transits across the sun, but was just as bright intrinsically as any part of the solar surface itself. All these particulars are, however, merely optical details, physical features, modern outcomes of chemistry rather than astronomy. But if even they show this comet to be something so remarkable amongst comets, what says proper, gravitational, mathematical, astronomy about it, both its history in the past, and prospects in the future? The first result obtained in that way, wasthat this comet of burning iron, moving at the terrific rate of three hundred and seventy miles per second (compare that with the speed of a cannon-ball moving at the rate of only sixteen hundred feet in the same small portion of time), must, at the perihelion point of its orbit, have grazed the very surface of the sun. Next that the direction of its motion was retrograde, or contrary to that of all the planets, and to the sun's own rotation; but that the shape of its path, and its position in space coincided remarkably with a similarly abnormally moving then in an orbit of thirty-seven years. comet seen in 1880, and thought to be revolving But that comet again had been identified as being the same that appeared in 1843; though on that occasion it was moving in an orbit of one hundred and seventy-five years' period, and was considered to be the same body that had appeared in 1668. Usually, generally, almost universally, the whether planet or comet, around the sun, is period of revolution of any species of body, something of exceeding fixedness, or of the slowest possible alteration. In There is, indeed, such a thing as ether, or a most attenuated form of gas spread throughout otherwise empty space, and which, theoretically, ought, in course of time, if extended to millions of billions of trillions of years inconceivable, to reduce the velocities and decrease the size of the orbits of every planet and every comet revolving round the sun, until one after the other they fall into that burning mass; if, that is to say, its light and heat should have been able to keep up for any such most extraordinary duration of time. the case of our earth's revolution, or length of its year, not the smallest portion of any such effect has been discovered by the best astronomical ob servations from the earliest times; but there is a certain comet, one of the smallest, faintest, lightest of them all, a mere feather in space, whose movements after twenty revolutions of it round the sun have been observed-suggest the probability of a very small amount of shortening of its orbit. But with this grand comet of 1882, 1880, 1843, 1668, we have a galloping reduction of its period, in whole years, in place of tenths or hundredths of a second, the like of which has never been approached before in all astronomical experience, and which must inevitably bring it back to the sun in a few months only, or some time next year. Evidently, then, this comet has experienced something much more resisting than mere ether; and the idea first arrived at and published by one of the best American astronomers, Professor Lewis Boss, of the Dudley Observatory, New York (the first savant also to identify this comet with the former appearances in 1880, 1843, and 1668) is, that it must have struck some part of the sun; has gone off wounded, as it were, crippled, weakened in its velocity, altered in its orbit, and doomed to fall a victim to greater force at the next perihelion passage. And what consequences will result from that? No one can say positively; for such an event as a comet of any kind, but much less one of the greatest of comets, falling into the sun, has never occurred before in the range of human observation. But the possibility of such an occurrence taking place sooner or later, did not escape the prescient genius of Sir Isaac Newton; and his remarks, as gathered from him in his ripe and perfected old age by his nephew, are still most worthy to be read for advice and instruction for the presently impending occasion. Shortly, we may state, that some increase of solar heat must take place, even if it were to depend alone on the conversion of the dynamical energy of the comet's movement, without allowing anything for the combustion of its material, though hydro-carbons, sodium, and iron, brought into sufficiently high temperature are very powerful burners; but we know neither what weight of these or any other matters the comet carries, nor how it will fall into the sun. If the whole nucleus, or governing head, of the comet should in one grand bullet form, followed in a straight line by all the sixty millions of miles long of tail (composed, as now seems probable, of such meteoric stones as form the shooting-stars of November nights), all go into the sun at one place, and at one time, some result therefrom can hardly fail to be visible from our earth, even though it be at the enormous distance of ninetytwo millions of miles. But though the spectroscope has told us so positively that the comet carries iron, sodium, hydro-carbons (coals, if you will), it gives us no right to assume them in any quantity bearing any appreciable proportion to the vast mass of the sun already existing. And when meteoric stones fall from space upon the earth, somewhat in comet fashion, they more frequently than not break-up and separate on striking the upper regions of the earth's atmosphere, first into visible fragments, and then into invisible dust, whose particles fall so slowly, and spread so widely, that it is not known when or where they all finally reach the earth's surface.* Similarly then we may fairly expect that this errant comet, which is already reported by two or three late observers to show symptoms of separating into two or more parts, will go on breaking-up, widely scattering its materials before it makes its next solar approach; will then be absorbed into the sun, and cease thenceforward to be an independent existence, no longer revolving as now in a distinct orbit of its own around that mighty mass of matter, force, power, light, and heat, concentrated from before all terrestrial time in our grand and beneficent sun. P.S.-Writing in Nature on October 23, Major Herschel, R.E. (youngest son of the late great astronomer, Sir John Herschel), now in the south of England, describes the results of his numerous observations of the comet thus tersely, and rather quaintly: As a whole, the comet seems to have changed wonderfully little during the last three weeks since I first saw it. Its change of place, also, is so moderate that, at this rate, there seems no reason why we should not see it for months yet. What if it should not vanish at all!' These rather crude speculations are indeed now rendered needless by what we have already stated of the accurate orbit in space which the comet is really moving in. But for those who would like to be eye-observers themselves of the more apparent phenomena of the starry heavens, we may state that through the month of November the comet has been moving further and further away from the sun's place, and therefore rising earlier and earlier every night; or three-and-ahalf hours before the sun at the beginning of the month, to seven-and-a-half hours at the end of it. That is so far as its distance from east and west alone is concerned; but then it is at the same time moving southward, and from being five-and-a-half degrees south of the sun's place at the beginning of the month, it will be seven degrees south of it at the end, the sun itself also moving southward at the same time. This will make observations of the comet very sensibly more difficult for all inhabitants of our high northern latitudes; but will not much interfere with the view of our countrymen in India, while it will greatly favour those who in Australia and New Zealand are far away in the southern hemisphere. Their view indeed will be limited by little but the growing faintness of the comet's light, as it recedes further and further from the heating, electrifying, illuminating sun, one hundred and twenty-seven millions of miles distant at the beginning, to one hundred and eighty-one millions of miles distant at the end of November. The comet's distance from the earth is also increasing, but not at so high a rate, by reason of the part of its own orbit in which the earth is moving at this season of the year; so that while the comet was distant from us one hundred and thirty-six millions of miles at the beginning of November, it will have increased its distance only to one hundred and forty millions at the end of the month. VALENTINE STRANGE. A STORY OF THE PRIMROSE WAY. CHAPTER XLVI.-'HIRAM,' SHE SAID DEJECTEDLY, 'AREN'T YOU GOING TO KISS ME?' THAT a girl with five thousand pounds to her fortune, should be a lady's maid any longer, was of course downright ridiculous even in fancy. Even if Constance had lived, Mary's position would have been anomalous, and to seek a new post now was out of the question. So, with her five thousand pounds at the banker's in London, she provided herself with store of raiment, and took lodgings with a highly-respectable old lady at Brierham, and waited with patience for Hiram to come and marry her. But a cheque-book is hardly what Hibernicus calls the height of good company, and she felt as lonely and as unprotected, and almost as exposed to the ills of life, as in her days of poverty. She waited with patience, and no Hiram came; she waited with impatience, and no Hiram came; she took to tears, and still he stayed away. And so, one day in the close of August, with much trembling and fear, she took a car, and was driven to the gates of Lumby Hall. She waited there, and sent the driver with instructions to ask for Mr Search, and to |