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certain specific size and also colour; but if | vestment, no means have yet been discovthe light of a burning mass of metal be transmitted through its own vapours, then the band of colour it would have yielded on the spectrum is quenched as to colour, and the result is not colour, but black. An indication of the nature and meaning of spectral analysis was only aimed at in this place and at this time, and the outlines given will be sufficient to the end.

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ered for effecting the backward change of coke into diamonds. Enough for our purpose. Here, then, we have an agent, an element- that element, carbon, assuming three forms. Chemically, the element carbon is the same; physically, it is not the same. How shall the puzzled chemist describe the sameness and unsameness? He has invented the words allotropism, allotropic, allotropicity, to this end. A man who has done his best should not be blamed because the best is imperfect.

Whatever cavil the typical man of practice might raise against the utility of spectral analysis, he will not object to the case now to follow. It is surely of some use to Carbon is not the only element that can abolish a manufacture that produces horri- assume allotropic changes. Oxygen is in ble disease, mostly fatal, and at the same the same category, allotropic oxygen having time to diminish the chances of fire. Amor- the specific name ozone- a name that I am phous or allotropic phosphorous has accom- surprised to see is so much popularized. plished this, or rather might accomplish Hundreds of individuals using English, but this. What, then, is allotropic or amor- wholly void of science, talk and write phous phosphorus? Amorphous means de- about the luxury of going into the country void of form; in the present example, crys- to breathe pure ozone. Unhappy individutalline form is alone referred to. Ordinary als! they little know what they bargain for. phosphorus crystallizes, the amorphous va- A little ozone will go a long way. Pure riety does not; hence the name amor- ozone entering the lungs would be surely phous." As for the word "allotropic," it is fatal; one might as well breathe pure chloa very puzzling word to have any discourse rine. The popular use of the word ozone about. Philosophers, of whatever kind, is in the "fiery element" and "subtle fluhave long been used to employ certain id" category. Certain persons can only words to comprehend certain phenomena describe a conflagration by using the first, which they cannot explain. It was said of a lightning flash by the second. We have Cuvier, that when he got hold of a living no concern with ozone or allotropic oxygen creature he did not know how to classify now, neither with allotropic sulphur; for by any certain assemblage of analogical this also may take on a second form wholly signs, he put it in radiata. Similarly we dissimilar to ordinary brimstone. Allomay affirm of chemists, that catalysis and tropic phosphorus is what we have to do allotropism are two cupboards wherein they with, and the following particulars relate to have been wont to stow away certain facts it. undigested or unexplained. I have said something about catalysis, so let that pass; allotropism needs more attention. Literally, allotropism or allotropicity, when translated into plain English, is a very startling thing indeed; meaning little else than expression of the fact, or rather belief, that some one thing may be some other thing, and yet remain the same thing. I will give an illustration. Everybody knows that the diamond to look at is very different from a lump of charcoal to look at, and both different from a piece of black-lead. This is physically evident; yet chemistry, apply it as we may, only proves that the diamond, charcoal, and black-lead are one and all carbon. If a diamond be actually burned in oxygen gas, carbonic acid results; the very same gas we obtain by the combustion of charcoal in a stove. More evidence: by exposing diamonds to heat in a certain way, they can be changed to coke; but unfortunately for the practical man, and happily for ladies who have invested in diamonds, proud of the in

In the year 1849 a Viennese chemist, Professor Schrötter, surprised and rather amused the staid members of our British Association by announcing that in his waistcoat-pocket he had brought a sample of phosphorus simply enveloped in a fold of paper. Now the particular circumstance has to be borne in mind, that phosphorus, as everybody knew phosphorus up to the time of the Viennese professor, was an element so prone to burn, that it had to be kept under water, and, when removed from water, handled with the utmost caution, inasmuch as a degree of heat little exceeding that of the human body caused it to burst into flame. Sure enough the Viennese chemist had brought in his pocket a certain puce-coloured material, and he called it phosphorus; but no such phosphorus had ever been seen. Philosophers tried to smell it. The thing had no smell. Ordinary phosphorus smells strongly. Philosophers shook their heads and demurred; but the Viennese chemist, using means unneces

sary to describe here, changed his puce-col- | discovered until our own days. It was first oured powder into ordinary phosphorus procured from animal fluids, next from without adding anything to it or taking bones; but ultimately, when the supply of anything away. This evidence was of course bones ran short, attention was turned to irresistible. The Viennese phosphorus had the mineral phosphate of lime of Estremaassumed some second form, just as carbon dura, from which mineral nearly all the may assume a second and third form; it phosphorus of commerce is now extracted. was allotropic phosphorus; accordingly, by A valuable essay illustrating our topic might the names allotropic or amorphous phospho- be composed on the subject of the discoverrus it has ever since been known. ies to which alchemy, or the belief in metalOrdinary phosphorus is a very deadly lic transmutation, gave rise. At different and insidious poison. If swallowed, a small epochs of human advancement the mind of portion soon kills; but swallowing is not man is ruled by different incentives; but most to be apprehended. Rats and mice one-the love of immediate gain-perindeed are fond of the phosphorus flavour, vades all epochs. Experimental science and eat phosphorus readily, to their own has now attained such development, that it destruction, when occasions permit; but to affords ample scope for intellectual exercise. human beings the smell of phosphorus is Day by day it more nearly approaches to abominable. Children have been killed the exactness of mathematical science, in through putting lucifer-matches into their the study of which numerous men of high mouths; but that sort of accident could intellectual endowments, from the time of hardly occur to grown-up people. The poi- Euclid and Archimedes down to the time son danger of phosphorus most to be appre-when we live, have found solace. It was hended does not come in this way, but not thus in respect to chemistry and other through inadvertently breathing air per- experimental sciences until lately. Even vaded with phosphorus fumes. The result going back a century, chemistry barely afis slow, but it is deadly and most horrible. forded any field for rigid intellectual study If an individual breathing phosphorus fumes at all; but now, owing to the formularizacontinuously, have an unsound tooth and tion of its known laws, much advance in the how rare is a set of teeth wholly sound! - science may be achieved by book-work absorption takes place, the jawbone decays, alone, without the need of actual experiand in the end the patient dies in excruciating ment. The question indeed arises, whether torture. Allotropic phosphorus is wholly the next great chemical discovery will not devoid of poisonous quality. It is not vola- appertain to him who, having competent tile, hence it has no vapour to be breathed; mathematical knowledge, applies himself and, if swallowed, it does no more harm to generalize the weighings and measurings than so much chalk would have done. Now already done and recorded, rather than to phosphorus is much used in the manufacture the industrious laboratory-worker. It takes of matches; and a very deadly operation long in the education of the human mind match-making was and is under the original before men come to put faith in the belief system of using common phosphorus. Al- that the unravelling of truth is valuable for lotropic phosphorus answers every need if its own sake alone; and the belief once creused in a particular way; that is, not as an ated, the number of men to whom the uningredient of the match itself, but of the ravelling of truth for its own sake is possitablet upon which the match is rubbed. ble will be comparatively few. The numThus Schrötter's discovery enables the man-ber, however, will be probably commensuufacturer not only to guard his workmen against the chance of poisoning, but to guard the public against the chance of setting their premises on fire, inasmuch as the sort of matches now under consideration will ignite when rubbed upon their own pe

culiar tablet, but not otherwise.

rate with the number of intellects strong enough to be turned advantageously in this direction. The belief is very common, that discovery and invention are only two developments of one and the same faculty, but in inferior degree. An opinion prevails that discoverers are by necessity inventors; The general history of phosphorus affords men who, looking down on human needs, a good instance of knowledge once abstract, might, if they would only condescend, turn ultimately applied to popular utility. The their discoveries to profitable use. This discovery of phosphorus is one of many opinion does not appear to be borne out by which have been evolved from labours of facts. The faculty of invention would apthe alchemist. It was discovered by Kun-pear to be different from that of discovery, kel, and by chance. But for the incentive of and few experimental discoveries could be the philosopher's stone and universal elixir, predicated to their utilitarian issues by aid phosphorus might not perhaps have been of theory alone. Of this some remarkable

instances may be cited. The theoretical | before, it happened that a Prussian chemist prediction made by Dr. Lardner, that ships had demonstrated the presence of sugar in steam propelled would never be able to white Silesian beetroot, but the discovery cross the Atlantic, has been often quoted, had been turned to no practical account. and is popularly known. Not so well The French applied themselves to the comknown is the fact that a lecture was once mercial problem, and ultimately with comdelivered at the Royal Institution to prove plete success as the large importation to that electricity could never be used for tel- this country of beetroot-sugar testifies. At egraphic purposes save for very inconsid- first, however, they were unsuccessful; and erable distances, the maximum specified here again we find an instance of the indistance being, I believe, no more than ventors -men of practice-correcting a eighteen miles. doctrinal error. A commission of French savans came to the conclusion that, although sugar did exist in beetroot, it could not be extracted at a commercial profit. The doctrinaires were wrong. Less connected with the revolutionary pressure, but associated with it to some extent, was the manufacture of soda from sea-salt. Some of us are old enough to remember the time when washing-soda was not so common and so cheap as now when pearl-ash was habitually used for washing and other domestic purposes, for which washing-soda is now universal. Well might washing-soda be dearer than it now is, seeing that the whole of this useful substance was got up by a tedious process out of the ashes either of actual sea-weeds, or from the ashes of certain plants that grow on the sea-coast. length a chemist bethought himself that the sea - the ocean - held illimitable quantities of the material of washing-soda, only it chanced to be in the form of common salt. The proposition, then, was to convert salt into washing-soda. A chemical process suitable to the occasion was soon devised; and now almost all the soda that enters into commerce comes from sea-salt either taken from the ocean or from salt-mines.

It is curious to reflect on cases in which science has frequently come to the aid of utilitarian man just when wanted-so soon, indeed, as utilitarian man has deliberately sought her aid. Some remarkable examples of this are afforded by the history of the great French Revolution. Much fighting had then to be done, as readers need not be informed; but fighting needs gunpowder, gunpowder needs saltpetre, and up to the period of the revolution almost all the saltpetre of commerce had been imported from India. True, the Italians were aware that saltpetre occasionally forms in caves and tombs; the fact is stated by the Italian writer Tartalea. This does not invalidate the fact that before the French Revolution nearly all the saltpetre of commerce was brought from India. To have recognized small home specimens as a natural product was one thing; to have mastered the conditions of its formation, and generated it at pleasures in quantities large enough to supply the needs of French revolutionary armies, was another. Very soon after the pressure of the need, the thing was done, and for many years every pound of saltpetre entering into French gunpowder was homemade.

The importance of this discovery became apparent to other continental nations. Remembering that they might be subject by fortune of war to conditions of exclusion, just as the French had been, they took measures to insure a home supply. The Government of Sweden to this day imposes a saltpetre tax, payable in kind, on every Swedish farmer. A certain specified amount of this sinew of war must be rendered periodically to the collector. The Swedish Government will accept no money equivalent the saltpetre must be paid in kind. Another chemical manufacture to spring out of the revolution under the pressure of the times was that of sugar from beetroot. The French are, and always have been, a sugareating people; but English command of the ocean was so vigilant, that during a period of the revolutionary war no sugar from the colonies could be obtained. Some years

At

When Mr. Woods, an assay-master in Jamaica, discovered amongst his gold a metal that gave him much trouble, and to which the name of "platinum" is now given, he little knew that it was destined to work a revolution in the whole range of chemical manufactures. Thus indeed it was to be, and in this way: Few chemical manufactures can be efficiently carried on without the aid of oil of vitriol, directly or indirectly; and before the discovery of platinum, every drop of oil of vitriol had to be distilled from vessels of glass. The danger, the labour, the expense of this may easily be imagined. Platinum retorts have made the case easy. Oil of vitriol can now be bought at considerably less than a penny the pound. To specify a tithe of the manufacturing utilities of oil of vitriol would fill a volume. Amongst other applications, we are not to forget its use in agriculture. Most artificial manures involve the use of

oil of vitriol in one way or another. When movement that now pervades the whole of the reader is informed that mummy bones English society. Independently of the diare exported from Egypt to be half dissolved rect pleasures and material advantages of in oil of vitriol, and in this condition applied scientific culture, both very great, it may to English land, he may come to realize the possibly be that its indirect consequences as curious connection between a precious metal, a mental discipline may be very applicable the bones of some two-thousand-year-dead- to English minds. Owing to our free instiand-buried Egyptian Pharaoh, and our daily tutions, our free press, and the license acbread. Who knows but that you and I, ere corded by our Government to full political this, have breakfasted or dined on the ele- debate, it may be fairly questioned whether ments that once made up the Egyptian ruler the science of politics, if one may so dignify who ruled in Egypt when Joseph went into it, has not been carried to a point incomthe pit? patible with a purity of mind or tranquillity of thought which human beings might rise to by following other trains of contemplation to whither they tend. It may be that the proper study of mankind is man; but the time at length arrives for one to grieve over human imperfections to long for some purer field of intellect, within the realms of which the soul might expand, and reach, ideally at least, the sacred throne of truth. Science presents such a field. There we absolve ourselves from human passions; there the elements speak to us in their never-changing, never-erring language. Their teachings are the same for all, though their higher mysteries only a favoured few in each generation can understand.

What I set myself to do is done; not to give the full rationale of processes indicated, but to foreshadow some examples of the modern application of science to the wants of man. In view of these cases, and others like them, we need no longer wonder that science has taken such fast hold on the minds of men. The pure life and reverent belief of that great philosopher Faraday, who has just passed from us, is in itself a standing proof and disclaimer to all who profess to fear the influence of science on the holy mysteries of man's life present and to come. One addicted to science, be it in ever so humble a way, must fain derive pleasure from contemplating the scientific

THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE.
OH, memories of green and pleasant places,
Where happy birds their wood-notes twittered
low!

Oh, love that lit the dear familiar faces

We buried long ago!

From barren heights their sweetness we remember

And backward gaze with wistful, yearning
eyes,

As hearts regret, mid snowdrifts of December,
The summer's sunny skies.

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A COLLECTION of ladies' decorated fans will be made in the South Kensington Museum, and opened during the spring. Gentlemen's fans will doubtless be represented. The objects of this gathering will be to encourage taste and to Glad hours that seemed their rainbow tints to promote the employment of female decorators on the articles in question.

borrow

From some illumined page of fairy lore; Bright days that never lacked a bright to-mor

row,

Days that return no more.

Fair gardens with their many-blossomed alleys,
And red ripe roses breathing out perfume;
Dim violet nooks in green, sequestered valleys,
Empurpled o'er with bloom.

Sunsets that lighted up the brown-leaved beeches
Turning their dusky glooms to glimmering
gold;
Moonlight that on the river's fern-fringed reaches
Streamed, white-rayed, silvery cold.

Athenæum.

and growing civilization are curiously illustrated THE duties of a Government tending a new by a trait of Indian administration. The Government has bought 2,000 copies of a novel, and given 100l. to its author, a Government officer; but this novel in vernacular language is a novel for ladies, written for the purpose of promoting the cause of female education, and so the Government thinks it discharges a duty in encouraging "The Bride's Mirror."

From The Cornhill Magazine.
NATIONAL ANTIPATHIES.

Ir any one should ask what is the quality
which most powerfully attracts our affec-
tions to our neighbours, it would not, per-
haps, be a gross misrepresentation to say
that it is success.
Without any thought of
flattery, or still less of private advantage,
we have an instinctive love of prosperity.
So long as thou doest well unto thyself, we
are told on high authority, men will speak
good of thee. Make a fortune in business,
rise to be a chancellor or an archbishop,
become a popular novelist or poet, and it is
surprising how much benevolence will natu-
rally be developed in the hearts of your
neighbours. On the other hand, it is no less
true that our bitterest dislikes are generally
owing to jealousy. The man who made the
successful speech when we broke down, or
the lady who had the splendid offer which
we for good reasons did not decline, must be
found guilty of some glaring defects in or-
der at all to reconcile us to ourselves. It
depends upon other circumstances whether
our sympathy or our jealousy prevails in
any given case. Each successful man, for
example, may live surrounded by a small
circle of irritated rivals; but those who are
at a little greater distance take as much
pleasure in the discomfiture of his competi-
tors as in his own success. The mass of
mankind are sufficiently unselfish to admire
great virtues and talents in people far re-
moved from them, however much they may
dislike those qualities in their immediate
neighbours. Ten-pound householders like
a great statesman, when second-rate officials
exhaust themselves in picking holes in his
character; but they might not be so fond
of one of their own neighbours who had
isen from a ten-pound to a fifty-pound

physical inquiries, and some suspicion of his growing practical abilities. An American is, of course, a bad imitation of a Briton, but he certainly inhabits a large country, and though we sneer at his amazing statistics, they do convey some unpleasantly significant facts. The dislike or the admiration comes uppermost at different times. We generally regard the chief nations of the earth as our rivals and dislike them accordingly-especially if we fancy that we are passing them in the race. It is pleasant to be able to point to our next-door neighbours as illustrations of the failings from which we are exempt. Our grandfathers used to contemplate the miserable French slaves to an arbitrary monarchy as living illustrations of the evils produced by the want of a British Constitution. If they had been perfectly certain of their own indisputable superiority, their antipathy would have been swallowed up in their conceit. Nobody dislikes a chimpanzee or a negro in Africa. But once admit the possibility that the chimpanzee may claim the right of suffrage, or the negro propose to stand for a presidency, and we shall come to counting over every shortcoming they may exhibit with a feeling strongly approaching to hatred. We should make pointed remarks as to the shape of the chimpanzee's skull, and challenge him very frequently to stand upright on his hind-legs. Imagine, however, that the chimpanzee makes a further step in advance; that he learns to dress and live cleanly like a gentleman, gets into our pulpits and preaches brilliant sermons, rises at the bar, and is permitted to grace his ugly countenance with a judge's wig, and we should begin to see things in a different light. We should begin to remark his singular activity in spite of some external awkwardness; we should admire the strength Some such conflict of sentiments seems of his jaws and recognize the obvious marks often to govern our feeling towards rival of intelligence in his face; and that, not benations. Every true Englishman at the cause we should expect to get anything by bottom of his soul hates a foreigner, or, flattering him, but simply as a part of the if that expression be a trifle too strong, homage spontaneously paid to success. At has a keen perception of the notorious in- least, it is only in this way that I can account feriority of all other races. The feeling, for the curious changes of opinion which we however, fluctuates strangely in intensity. have lately witnessed. What high moral Probably, if the truth were known, our nor-ground we took in condemning Prussian mal state of feeling is one of contempt towards every one who does not speak English and, moreover, the English of England-tempered by uncomfortable doubts as to the perfect security of our position. We don't think a Frenchman our equal, but we rather shrink from comparing Paris to London. We treat a German with affable contempt, but we have a vague awe for his supposed authority on philological or meta

tenement.

ambition until the battle of Sadowa! How speedily we changed our view of the American contest after the surrender of Richmond! Neither of those events made any difference to the rights of the cause, but they converted people more rapidly than cartloads of tracts. Providence, we all hold, is on the side of the strongest battalions; I know not if that be an orthodox sentiment, but perhaps it may be explained

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