faith in the immediate efficacy of co-operation, seeing that experience appears to have shown that successful co-operation implies higher mental and moral culture than is now possessed by the mass of the working people; but we are glad to recognize in his book an instrument which can hardly fail to help in bringing about that condition of public sentiment which will tend to secure the realization of his hopes.

The lectures were delivered on Sunday

evenings, to the usual mixed congregations, and Mr. Gladden expresses a fear lest it may be thought that the themes are too secular for the pulpit; but surely the pulpit is seldom engaged in better work than in enlightening men and women regarding their individual and reciprocal duties.

NEAR TO NATURE'S HEART. By Rev. E. P. Roe. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.

"Near to Nature's Heart" is at once the most labored and the least pleasing of Mr. Roe's novels. An attempt to mix religion, and romance, and history, in about equal proportions, would be likely to result in failure in any case, and Mr. Roe at least does not possess the literary skill requisite to the production of a really good historic-romantic-religious story. The introduction of Washington and Lafayette, and a description of the battle of Monmouth, go but a little way toward the reproduction of the Revolutionary period, while the delineation of such creatures as are represented as inhabiting the Highlands a century ago goes very far toward relegating the story to no period at all. There is a crudeness and lack of finish about the entire book which justify us in suggesting that if Mr. Roe were less solicitous about "helping his readers to do right," and more careful to perform his own self-assumed task in an artistic and workmanlike manner, neither morals nor religion would be likely to suffer. Surely it is worth while to do well whatever we undertake to do at all-even when the undertaking is a novel.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

THE Duke of Argyll is about to publish a sequel to his "Reign of Law."

DURING the year ended June last no less than seventy-six fresh newspapers and magazines appeared in Japan, of which fifty-five were started at Yedo.

PROF. SIDNEY COLVIN has in preparation a complete prose translation of the Homeric Hymns, to be published with introductions and illustrations from Greek art.

THE new volume of poems upon which M. Victor Hugo is engaged is thus far purely literary in its character, not dealing with political questions. Several of the poems are satires, in which the poet does his best to rub off old scores.

GEN. DI CESNOLA, who is now residing in London, is engaged upon a work on the History and Antiquities of Cyprus. A chapter upon the relations between Egypt and Cyprus

will be contributed by Dr. Birch.

THE important works for completing the reconstruction of the National Library in Paris are about to be resumed. The total expenditure is estimated at 2,500,000 francs, and a credit of 400,000 francs has been voted.

GEN. LEFROY, the Governor of the Bermudas, has in the press a work on the Bermudas entitled "Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas, or Somers Islands, from 1515 to 1685." Gen. Lefroy has been engaged for some time on such inquiries.

LAST year Alberto Bacchi della Lega issued his list of the editions, translations, and adaptations of the writings of Boccaccio. It was deservedly praised at the time of its appearance. Since then Signor Narducci, Librarian of the University of Rome, has prepared a supplement, which is to be published shortly, containing particulars of 150 editions not mentioned by Bacchi della Lega.

BRILL, of Leyden, proposes to publish extracts from the Talmud, embracing such parts of that voluminous work as are important or interesting even in the eyes of those who are not Israelites, relating to history, morals, archæology, etc. The original text is to be accompanied by a literal German translation, together with necessary explanations and remarks.

ACCORDING to official statistics, 5206 books were issued in Russia during the years 1873 and 1874. Of these, 679 were theological, 322 legal, 113 agricultural, 247 historical, 247 geographical and ethnographical, 195 mathemati cal, 135 military, 34 scientific, 224 medical, 438 philological, 94 artistic, while 1851 treated of lighter literature, and 447 were translations of foreign belles lettres.

WE are glad to hear that the many proofs of his admiration for Miss Austen's novels which are to be found in the letters of Lord Macaulay, have led to a renewed demand for her writings. There is some hope for English fiction if "Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” and "Mansfield Park" regain popularity.

Those who are familiar with them will not tolerate the vulgar, flashy novels of the present day.

MESSRS. MACMILLAN & Co. will publish shortly a contribution to the history of popu lar progress, and of struggles for the free expression of opinion, in the press and elsewhere, from 1660 to 1820, with an application to later times. The nucleus of the volume is formed by the stirring events of the American War and the French Revolution, when popular opinion found expression through such channels as the writings of Junius and Wilkes, the trials and speeches of Horne Tooke, of Cobbett, and of William Hone.

THE Allgemeine Zeitung announces an interesting discovery made in one of the towers of the Stadtkirche at Weimar. In repairing a wall, an iron box was found containing eight documents, the most ancient of which was of the date 1593. These documents are in perfect preservation, and relate to the invasion of Croatia by the Turks, to the war of the bishopric of Zabern, the price of corn in the year 1620, the defeat of the Calvinists in Electoral Saxony, and to the marriage of Duke John of Saxony with the Princess Mary of

Anhalt Altenburg.

AN interesting discovery has been made by Prof. Carl Hirsche, of the University of Heidelberg. It is that of an original MS. of the De Imitatione Christi,' in the Royal Library of Brussels. The discovery was made some little time ago, and the Professor has recently published at Berlin a new edition of this ancient manual of devotion in the original language, following the stichometrical arrangement of the sentences, as plainly indi

cated in the MS. No account of Hirsche's work has yet appeared in English.

SCIENCE AND ART.

COSMIC DUST.-We mentioned, some time ago, a curious paper in which M. Tissandier described the shape of certain metallic particles of dust collected from the atmosphere. We now find in the Philosophical Magazine an account of Professor Nordenskiold's researches on the same subject. On the occasion of an extraordinary fall of snow which took place at Stockholm in December, 1871, the professor was curious to know whether the snow, so pure in appearance, did or did not contain any solid extraneous particles. He accordingly collected a large quantity of snow on a sheet, and obtained a small residue after it had melted away. This remainder consisted of a black powder resembling coal;

heated, it yielded a liquid by distillation; calcined, it was reduced to red-brown ashes. Moreover, it contained a number of metallic particles attracted by the magnet, and giving all the reactions of iron. In a large city such an experiment could not be considered conclusive, and Professor Nordenskiold, therefore, during his Polar voyage in 1872, when he was blocked up by ice as early as the beginning of August in about 80° N. latitude, before reaching Parry's Island, to the northwest of Spitzbergen, examined the snow which covered the icebergs, and which had come from still higher latitudes. He found it strewn with a multitude of minute black particles, spread over the surface or situated at the bottom of little pits, a great number of which were to be seen on the outward layer of snow. Many of such particles were also lodged in the inferior strata. This dust, which became grey on drying, contained a large proportion of metallic particles attracted by the magnet, and capable of decomposing sulphate of copper. An observation made a little later upon other icebergs proved the presence of similar dust in a layer of granular crystalline snow situated beneath a stratum of light fresh, another of hardened, snow. Upon ana

lysis this matter was composed of metallic iron, phosphorus, cobalt, and fragments of diatomacea. It bears the greatest analogy to the dust previously collected by the professor on the snows of Greenland, and described by him under the name of "kryokonite."

A NEW METAL.-The discovery of a new metal was announced to the French Academy of Sciences recently by M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran, a progressive French chemist. The new metal, which M. Lecoq calls gallium, was found by the spectroscope in zinc ores, with

which metal it has much resemblance in common, although showing sufficient distinctive chemical characteristics. This addition raises the list of elements to 66, the metals alone being represented by 52 bodies.

THE SOLAR ATMOSPHERE.-Very various estimates of the absorption due to the sun's atmosphere have been made by different observers, who, with different forms of photometer, have attempted to measure the difference of brightness between the centre and margin of the sun's disc. Thus, Arago found the light near the edge to be 97.6 per cent. of that from the centre, while Secchi made it only 22 per cent., a discordance which points to something erroneous in the mode of observation. To decide this question Mr. Langley has, by means of two reflecting prisms, arranged that the rays from any two parts of an enlarged image of the sun formed by a telescope shall fall on opposite sides of a small

disc of paper as if they came from two lights, one on each side of the disc. On the disc is a small grease-spot which is seen bright or dark according as the stronger light is behind or in front of the paper, becoming undistinguishable when the illumination is the same on the two sides, a condition which can be secured by sliding the disc so as to bring it nearer to the fainter light. Mr. Langley has also used Rumford's photometer, in which the two shadows of a small rod cast by the two lights are compared. In this way he found a marked difference in color, the shadow illuminated by the light from the edge being chocolate-red, while the other is bluish, and he hence concludes that the sun would become more blue if its atmosphere were removed, while an increase in the depth of the latter would make the sun appear at the same time redder and darker. From numerous observations Mr. Langley concludes that the sun's atmosphere absorbs one half of his light and heat, and granting that four-fifths of the temperature of the earth's surface above absolute zero (500° Fahrenheit) is due to the presence of the sun, he infers that an increase in the absorption of the solar atmosphere of 25 per cent would diminish the temperature of our globe by 100° Fahr., reducing it far below that of the glacial epochs. Such a change as P. Secchi has supposed to have taken place between 1852 and 1873 in the sun's atmosphere, in order to account for the difference between his measures of the heat at different parts of the disc, and those made by Mr. Langley, would, therefore, according to the latter, be accompanied by a change of temperature, which is not supported by observation.

ELASTIC GLASS.-The process for the preparation of this remarkable substance, discovered by Bastie, and still in some measure secret, is said to be very simple, cheap, and unattended with danger. All vapors injurious to the health are avoided. The inventor estimates that the whole operation can be completed in a few hours, and that the expense will not reach 40 to 50 per cent of the value of ordinary kinds of glass. Repeated experiments indicate that its resistance to blows is fifty times that of ordinary glass, and that it is unaffected either by sudden cooling as in cold water, or by heating it in a stove. A plate thrown upon the floor rebounded with a metallic ring, and when forcibly broken separated into very small crystals, instead of into larger and smaller pieces, thus showing a peculiar change in molecular constitution. Samples of it have been made in the form of looking-glasses, large plates, lamp-chimneys, cups and saucers, cooking utensils, tubes, watch-glasses, etc.

THE EYE OF MAN IN THE FUTURE.-Science, says the Medical Press and Circular, gives us interesting details about what the human eye has been and what it may become. The Vedas of India, which are the most ancient written documents, attest that in times the most remote, but still recorded in history, only two colors were known, black and red. A very long time elapsed before the eye arrived at the perception of the color yellow, and a still longer time before green was distinguished; and it is remarkable that in the most ancient languages the terms which designated yellow insensibly passed to the signification of green. The Greeks had, according to the received opinion now, the perception of color very well developed; and yet authors of a more recent date assure us that in the time of Alexander, Greek painters had for fundamental colors only white, black, red, and yellow. The words to designate blue and violet were wanting to the Greeks in the most ancient times of their history; they called these colors grey and black. It is thus that the colors of the rainbow were only distinguished gradually, and the great Aristotle only knew four of them. It is a well-known fact that when the colors of the prism are photographed there remains outside the limits of the blue and violet in the spectrum a distinct impression, which our eyes do not re. cognize as a color. According to physiologists, a time will come when the human eye will be perfected, so as to discern this color as well as the others.

DOMESTIC MEASUREMENT OF MEDICINES.The time-honored custom of measuring doses of medicine by tablespoonfuls, teaspoonfuls, and drops has received a rude shake in the British Medical Journal by Dr. R. Farquharson, and by Mr. Proctor in the Pharmaceutical Journal. It is found that modern table and tea spoons are much larger than they were formerly, and that a tablespoon of the present day contains considerably more than half an ounce. So, also, the teaspoon is no longer equivalent to a drachm. The size of a drop has not, of course, altered, but a drop is seldom, if ever, exactly equivalent to a minim, although it is assumed to be so. Much depends on the fluid, and not a little on the shape of the bottle from which it is dropped. As a rule the minim is considerably more bulky than a drop, and thus, when medicine is dropped instead of being measured in a minim glass, the patient's doses are smaller than they should be. It would, without doubt, be much better if domestic dispensers of medicines would use graduated measures instead of spoons or drops for measuring the doses of their patients, but, as

there is little chance of their doing so universally, the next best thing is to ascertain what the actual contents of "spoonfuls" really are. The average contents of tablespoons now in use equal from five to six drachms; the dessert-spoon holds nearly half an ounce; and the teaspoon from eighty to eighty-five minims. Another useful measure for domestic purposes is the wine-glass, but this varies in its contents from two ounces and a half to three ounces and a quarter. These measures are, perhaps, sufficiently exact when ordinary medicine only is used, but when powerful and dangerous drugs are administered the only safe plan to adopt is to measure carefully into a graduated glass.

EXPERIMENTS ON THE PERIODIC WAVES OF

VARIETIES.

THE TERRORS OF DEATH.-In comparing the grounds for fearing death in ancient and in modern times, it may be said roughly that the physical terrors of death are constant, while the moral terrors are variable. Not, indeed, that the mere physical terrors have been, strictly speaking, unchanged. For it is probable that the ancients, being used to hardship and suffering, were less sensitive to the sting of death than we are. On the other hand, it is certain that the progress of medicine, including the use of anesthetics, has done something towards extracting that sting, and will in time do much more. No doubt, our medical improvements often increase the immediate fear of death which is felt by the dying; if the dying suffered more, their minds would be distracted, and they would shrink less from the final relief. But, at any rate, those medical improvements tend to mitigate the apprehension which the mere pain of dying excites in the world at large. And it is enough for my purpose that this pain of dying can hardly be worse with us than it was with our forefathers; the balance, if balance there is, is probably in our favor. Yet, strange to say, the entire terrors of death seem to be greater in our time than in that of the great classical writers. To prove this assertion would not be easy; but scholars will hardly dispute it. It is remarkable that Bacon, when maintaining the paradox that the fear of death is the weakest of emotions, chooses all his examples from among pagans. He mentions, among other instances, the dying jest of Vespasian: "Ut puto, Deus fio." It would be unfair to judge of the ancient indifference to death from this exceptional utterance; just as, on the other hand, it would be unfair to judge of the modern alarm at death from the case of Johnson, who, when the surgeon made slight scarifications in his swollen leg, exclaimed, " Deeper! deeper! I want length of life; and you are afraid of giving me pain, which I do not value." Yet it is hard not to think that these opposite

THE SWISS LAKES.-At a recent meeting of the Physical Society of London, Prof. Forel, of Morges, Switzerland, gave, in French, an account of some interesting experiments which he has recently made on the periodic waves which take place on the Swiss lakes, and are there called Seiches." It was long since observed that the waters of most of these lakes are subject to a more or less regular rise and fall, which at times have been found to be as much as one or two mètres. M. Forel has studied this phenomenon in nine different lakes, and finds that it varies with the length and depth of the lake, and that the waves are in every way analogous to those already studied by Prof. Guthrie in artificial troughs, and follow the laws which he has deduced from his experiments. Most of the experiments in Switzerland were made on the Lake of Geneva, but that of Neuchatel was found to be best fitted for the study of the subject, possessing, as it does, an extremely regular geometric form. The apparatus he employed was very sensitive to the motion of the water, being capable of registering the waves caused by a steamboat half an hour after it had passed and five minutes before its arrival; and was so constructed as to elimi

nate the effect of common waves, and to register the motion, side by side, with a record of the state of the barometer, on paper kept in continuous motion. While he found the du

ration of waves to be ten minutes at Morges, it was seventy minutes at Geneva, and this is explained by the narrowness of the neck of the lake at the latter place. This period he proved to be independent of the amplitude, and to be least in the shortest lakes. For shallow lakes the period is lengthened; and his observations show that the period is a function of the length and depth, and that longitudinal and transverse waves may co-exist, just as Prof. Guthrie has shown to be the case in troughs.

frames of mind exhibit the ancient and modern tendencies in regard to death, though they exhibit them "writ large." The best of

the ancients knew, as we do not know, how to obey the maxim of the great poet of stoicism, and to take a negative view of death as the mere end of life, the goal in the course of nature; if infirm or suffering, they could even go the length of Dryden's rendering of that maxim

And count it nature's privilege to die. Hence they managed to take death easily, through thinking of it as a matter of course, and thinking but little of it even thus; while

with us, on the other hand, death is just what Byron called it-" the doom we dread, yet dwell upon;" and it is life which now dwindles into being the accident of our existence -l'antichambre de la mort, or rather, de l'éternité. In truth, the ancients (or, more properly, the Greek and Roman free citizens), in seeking fortem animum, mortis terrore carentem, acted by anticipation on my friend's rule, not to regret the inevitable; and to this unregretfulness, this dislike of breaking their wings against the bars of their cage, they owed much of that light-hearted joyousness which formed a real side of their character, though a less important side than we are apt to think.Fortnightly Review.

PIDGIN-ENGLISH.-Pidgin-English is that dialect of our language which is extensively used in the seaport towns of China as a means of communication between English or Americans and the natives. It is owing to the ease with which Chinese learn this dialect, and the willingness of foreigners to meet them half way in it, that it has spread to such an extent, thereby leading the way towards making English the language of the Pacific. And as Chinese learn a Latin tongue more easily than pure English, it is probable that had it not been for the Pidgin jargon, a corrupt Portuguese would have formed the popular medium of communication between foreigners and natives of China. The number of Portuguese words which now exist in PidginEnglish seem to prove this. As it is, our language in this rude form has spread, and is spreading to such an extent as to suggest several important problems. The coolie who speaks Pidgin has half his apprehension as to getting on in a foreign country removed, and the anticipated immigration of "millions of the Mongolian race" is beginning to cause serious reflection in America. Therefore Mr. Simpson looks forward to a time when it will be necessary to issue the Scriptures in Pidgin, and Captain Richard Burton gravely remarks in his "Ultima Thule," that "if English, as appears likely, is to become the cosmopolitan language of commerce, it will have to borrow from Chinese as much monosyllable, and as little inflection as possible. The Japanese," he adds, "have already commenced the systematic process of 'pidgeoning,' which for centuries has been used on the West African coast, in fact throughout tropical England, Hindostan alone excepted." -Pidgin-English Sing-Song, by Charles G. Leland. (London: Trübner and Co.)

SERVIA. Servia is about one fifth smaller than Scotland, and sparsely inhabited by

1,352,000 inhabitants. Like Scotland, it is a land of mountains. On the south-west the mountains consist of offshoots of the Dinaric Alps, and elsewhere the branches of the Balkan chain. One of these, gathered into a knotty group in the centre of the country, forms the Rudrik Mountains. Another, running northwards, meets a range of the Carpathians, and with it forms the "Iron Gates" of the Danube. Nothing can exceed the wildness and stern sublimity of this celebrated portal, through which the great river flows. Generally speaking, Servia is traversed from south to north by extensive mountain ridges. These form valleys, which nowhere expand into plains. In its physical features the country is not unlike Bosnia and the Herzegovina, but with its green and well-wooded hills it is in striking contrast to the bare and sterile region of Montenegro. As Montenegro was the unconquered remnant of the old Servian Empire, therefore the little principality in the Black Mountain may, in that sense, be held as its truest representative. Modern Servia, however, on account alike of name, resources, and geographical position, claimis continuity of national life with the Servia of the fourteenth century. The motto of the princes of the present house of Obrenovitch is "time and my right." Their arms represent a white cross on a red field, and on the cross are inscribed two dates, 1389 -1815; between them lies a drawn sword. The first date commemorates the fatal fight of Kossova, when the Servians, overthrown by the Ottoman arms, became a subject people; the second marks the year when Milosch Obrenovitch went from his dwelling among the mountains of the interior to the church of Takovo to raise anew the standard of revolt. The drawn sword between the dates may be taken to indicate that the attitude of the sub-, ject Serbs on the Danube during four long centuries of Turkish rule was not one of servile submission, but of a nourished antagonism. What gives importance to the revolt of 1815 is that it resulted in the permanent acknowledgment of Servia by the Porte as a self-governing though still tributary power, under native rulers. Servia, restored to the Serbs, brought back with it the hope at some future time of entire independence, and of an extension of territory co-extensive with the old Servian kingdom. Nor do the free and warlike inhabitants of the Black Mountain entertain any jealousy of the national aspirations of their brethren on the Danube. The two Serb Powers are in close alliance, and between the families of the respective princes there exists a cordial friendship.—Leisure Hour.