son. An unsuccessful suitor to Emmy, he uses his position as postmaster at Dilburg, to intercept letters from her absent lover, which he contrives to lay all at once upon her table just after the marriage she has at last consented to make with the husband not yet loved, but whose sense and tact and affection at last bring happiness to her life.

When the author leaves her natural range to draw a somber background of graver crime, her resources are hardly equal to the task. She wants familiarity with the region of great temptations and tragic movements. The story of murder committed by the prosperous iron-founder Eversberg, and detected twenty years later, jars with the quieter tone of the rest of the book, besides being rather feebly dealt with in itself. Avarice and remorse are too grand passions to be thrust into a parenthesis; nor need they come into play to induce the separation between Emmy and young Eversberg, for which some of the easier, more probable devices, in which the author is so fertile, might suffice. With the notice of this single blemish, we can well understand that the critics of her own country are gracious to our author, who fairly deserves their praise for variety of incident, ingenious and natural episodes, and knowledge of the heart. Only they can judge of her fidelity to Dutch traits and Dutch family life; but all readers can appreciate her nice perception of character in general, and her unobtrusively excellent morality, and can join in the wish that this may not be the last, as it is the first, of her novels.

"Saxe Holm's Stories." *

GATHERED into a single volume, the stories of Saxe Holm impress us anew, and more strongly than ever, with their peculiar qualities. They are dis

would be hard, we think, to find in the fiction of our time, a fresher, stronger, more individual, more pathetic creation than this.

There is no better, no more original piece of art in the volume than the little poem in "Esther Wynn's Love-Letters," called "A Song of Clover." But the critic sometimes feels guilty of an impertinence when coldly discussing the "art" of a book which reveals so flagrantly that better thing-a marvelously sensitive, pure, poetic, human soul.

"Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates."*

ONE of the charms of Hans Brinker is that it seems to be written by an author who has no Ideal Child in her mind, whom she seeks to interest, and instruct: not even an ideal Real Child-that precious creature who is the bane of much of the finer sort of the juvenile literature of our day. In style it is straightforward, earnest, simple without a shadow of any kind of affectation; it has all that glow and shimmer of wit, that vivacious, genial element which is the very essence of healthy, joyous childhood, and which, when caught into literature, wins to the book all, no matter what their age in years, who have, at heart, the freshness of youth.

"Records of a Quiet Life."+

THIS is a most delightful book. It has a charm like that of Tom Hughes' Memoir of a Brother. It reveals a similar picture of the life of the cultured clergy in rural England; and it sets forth without vaunt and without obtrusive detail the ineffable beauty and the immeasurable influence of one simple, upright, loving, godly soul. Maria Hare, wife of the Rev. Augustus Hare, was for forty years the

writer in something more than the conscientiousness of their English. Lack of the highest constructive faculty may not be a thing to praise in one who constructs stories, but the genius of an author must be remarkable, when he wins for his fictitious creations the most absorbing interest and sympathy, merely by the force of characterization-simply by that surpassing art of imbuing the persons of his play with a part of his own intense individuality. The danger with such a literature is, that at every point where the reader's sympathy fails the stress is unendurable; and there is a further danger of the oppression one suffers from the too heavily scented atmosphere of certain richly odorous flowers. But the intensity is genuine. There is no straining for effect. The glow is from the center, not from the surface.

The character in these stories which, for us, has the greatest charm, is that of Draxy Miller, especially as developed in "The Elder's Wife." It

Saxe Holm's Stories. (Draxy Miller's Dowry,- The Elder's Wife,-Whose wife was she?-The One-legged Dancers,-How One Woman Kept Her Husband, Esther Wynn's Love-Letters. Scribner, Armstrong & Co., N. Y.

44

estimates can reckon. The loved and loving friend of Heber, Wordsworth, Landor, Arnold, Sterling, Maurice, her life was quiet," not by reason of obscurity; her influence was a silent one, not for lack of opportunities of self-showing and self-seeking. Her life was quiet, and her influence was silent, because they were the beautiful, perfect outgrowth of an ideal womanliness, the development of an ideal womanhood.

In these clamorous and unsexing days, we wish that this exquisite picture of a woman's true life, and most exalted sphere could be placed in every woman's hand. It is hard to believe that any woman could read its pages even hastily, without having a consciousness, like clear air from mountain heights, penetrate her soul, that godliness is the only true gain, and that a woman's kingdom, like the kingdom of God, cometh not of observation."

* Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates. A Story of Life in Holland. By Mary Mapes Dodge, author of The Irvington Stories, etc. A new edition, with additional illustrations. Scribner, Armstrong & Co., New York.

*Records of a Quiet Life-By Augustus J. C. Hare, author of Walks in Rome. Roberts Brothers, Boston.

Dr. Robinson's Sermons.*

As the brief and modest preface informs us, these Sermons are "neither occasional nor selected;" they are the successive discourses of six months' regular preaching. They afford us therefore a fair exhibition of the ordinary ministrations in the "Memorial Church." Nearly all volumes of printed Sermons are made up by a careful selection from a large number. Out of eight hundred or a thousand manuscripts twenty-five or thirty of the very best are chosen, and only these exceptional Sermons are given to the public. We see the preacher at his best and highest, and not in his common and characteristic work. But in the volume before us we are permitted to know the regular Sabbath work of Dr. Robinson. In looking through the volume one

The Memorial Pulpit, Vol. 1-Sermons Preached in the Presbyterian Memorial Church, New York, from January to July, 1873, by the Pastor, Chas. S. Robinson, D. D. New York, A. S. Barnes & Co.

is struck with the evenness and uniform excellence of the Sermons. They are sparkling with illustration, bright with allusion; often strong with substantial thought, or intense with the warmth and power of a large and loving heart. They are practical rather than doctrinal; in subject and in style they are never ambitious, but are aimed directly at the accomplishment of some specific good in and for the hearers, who are evidently always upon the mind and heart of the preacher. There is unmistakable evidence in these discourses that the preacher "skeletonizes" with unusual care before he writes. In some of them, perhaps, the bones are a little too conspicuous, and the flesh should be allowed to cover and conceal them more. Each Sermon is followed by a poetical selection. This is an innovation to which some may object. The Sermons, at any rate, are good enough to stand by themselves.

Sanitary Science.

IN a lecture delivered at Birmingham on Sanitary Science, Professor Corfield states that one of the most important conclusions the study of Sanitary Science has forced upon us lately is, that the immediate removal of refuse matters is the first necessity of the healthy existence of a community. "There are those who would have you believe that refuse matters may be rendered innocuous in one way or another, so that they may be kept with safety in or near to houses. Don't listen to them; the principle is wrong-radically wrong. Depend upon it that the true method is to get rid of such matters at once, and in the simplest possible way, and that is the cheapest plan in the end. Show me a town where refuse matters are kept,- -no matter how they are treated, and I will show you a town where the standard of vitality is low; I will show you a town with a high death-rate, especially among children."

Though Sanitary Science may be a thing of yesterday, such is not the case with the observation of sanitary facts nor of the practice of the sanitary art. In all ages there have been writers on this subject. From the times of Hippocrates, Galen, and Celsus, we have had records of the results of observations on the methods of preserving the health; from the time of Moses we have had lawgivers imposing salutary conditions of existence upon unwilling, because ignorant, populations. We may well look upon the immense engineering works undertaken and carried out by the Romans with astonishment, when we see our own towns supplied from polluted rivers, or worse still, from shallow wells dug in the soil upon which they themselves stand, and supplied in most cases with the foul water which has percolated from the surface of the ground.

Zoological Classification.

PROFESSOR Allman, in his opening address before the section of Biology, of the British Association, says: A comparison of animals with one another having resulted in establishing their affinities, we may arrange them into groups, some more nearly, others more remotely related to one another. The various degrees and directions of affinity will be expressed in every philosophical arrangement, and as these affinities extend in various directions, it becomes at once apparent that no arrangement of the animal or vegetable kingdom in a straight line, ascending like the steps of a ladder, from lower to higher forms, can give a true idea of the relations of living beings to each other. These relations, on the contrary, can only be expressed by a ramified and complex figure similar to a genealogical tree.

In another portion of the same address, the Professor remarks: In almost every group of the animal kingdom, the members which compose it admit of being arranged in a continuous series, passing down from more specialized or higher, to more generalized or lower forms; and if we have any. record of extinct members of the group, the series may be carried on through these. Now, while the descent hypothesis obliges us to regard the various terms of the series as descended from one another, the most generalized forms will be found among the extinct ones, and the further back we go the simpler

do the forms become.

Relations of Mathematics to Physics.

Of these relations Professor Smith, the Chairman of the Mathematical section of the British Association, writes: So intimate is the union between Mathematics and Physics that probably by far the larger

part of the accessions to our mathematical knowledge have been obtained by the efforts of mathematicians to solve the problems set to them by experiment, and to create for each successive class of phenomena a new calculus or a new geometry, as the case might be, which might prove not wholly inadequate to the subtlety of nature. Sometimes the mathematician has been before the physicist, and it has happened that when some great and new question has occurred to the experimentalist or the observer, he has found in the armory of the mathematician the weapons which he needed ready made to his hand. But much oftener, the questions proposed by the physicist have transcended the utmost powers of the mathematics of the time, and a fresh mathematical creation has been needed to supply the logical instrument requisite to interpret the new enigma.

Electricity, for example, like astronomy of old, has placed before the mathematician an entirely new set of questions, requiring the creation of entirely new methods for their solution, while the great practical importance of telegraphy has enabled the methods of electrical measurement to be rapidly perfected to an extent which renders their accuracy comparable to that of astronomical observations, and thus makes it possible to bring the most abstract deductions of theory at every moment to the test of fact.

Contractile Movements in Plants and Animals.

Ir is well known that in higher animals the muscles and the nerves distributed to them are possessed of certain electrical currents flowing in definite directions. These currents exist only during the life of the tissues, and have been subjected to the most accurate measurement. Strange as it may seem, the plants which possess the property of irritability and contractility, such as the Venus's fly-trap and the sensitive plant, have escaped the observation of experimenters until recently. Dr. Burdon Sanderson has, by his investigations, now shown that these plants are also endowed with currents Isimilar to those found in the contractile tissues of animals, and that they are subject to the same laws.

Natural Science and Education.

ALL knowledge of natural science that is impart ed to a boy, is, or may be useful to him in the business of his after life; but the claim of natural science to a place in education cannot be rested on its practical usefulness only. The great object of education is to expand and to train the mental faculties, and it is because we believe that the study of natural science is eminently fitted to further these two objects, that we urge its introduction into school studies. Science expands the minds of the young, because it puts before them great and ennobling objects of contemplation; many of its truths are such as a child can understand, and yet such

that, while in a measure he understands them, he is made to feel something of the greatness, something of the sublime regularity, and of the impenetrable mystery of the world in which he is placed. But science also trains the growing faculties, for science proposes to itself truth as its only object, and it presents the most varied, and at the same time the most splendid examples of the different mental processes which lead to the attainment of truth, and which make up what we call reasoning. In science, error is always possible, often close at hand; and the constant necessity for being on our guard against it, is one important part of the education which science supplies. In science sophistry is impossible; science knows no love of paradox; she has no skill to make the worse appear the better reason. On the one hand she inculcates a love of truth, and on the other sobriety and watchfulness in the use of the understanding.-Prof. H. J. S. Smith.)

Relations of Marriage to Religion.

In a paper read before the British Association, Mr. Edward B. Tylor makes the following remarks: The evidence of the lower races indicates, that in the early stages of civilization marriage was a purely civil contract. Its earliest forms are shown among savage tribes in Brazil, and elsewhere. The peaceable form appears well in the customs of the marriageable youth leaving a present of fruit, game, etc., at the door of the girl's parents; this is a clear symbolic promise that he will maintain her as a wife. Another plan common in Brazil, is for the expectant bridegroom to serve for a time in the family of the bride, till he is considered to have

earned her.

The custom of buying the wife comes in at a later period of civilization, when property suited for trade existed. The hostile form of marriage by capture has also existed among low tribes in Brazil up to modern times, the man simply carrying off by force a damsel of a distant tribe. The antiquity of this "Sabine marriage" in the general history of mankind is shown by its survival in such countries as Ireland and Wales, where, within modern times, the ceremony of capturing the bride in a mock fight was still kept up.

In none of these primitive forms of marriage, as retained in savage countries, did any religious rite or idea enter. It is not till we reach the high savage and barbaric conditions that the coalescence between marriage and religion takes place; as among the Mongols, where the priest presides at the marriage feast, consecrates the bridal tent with incense, and places the couple kneeling with their faces to the east, to adore the sun, fire and earth; or among the Aztecs, where the priest ties together the garments of the bridegroom and bride in sign of union, and the wedded pair pass the time of the marriage festival in religious ceremonies and austerities.

Scuppernong.

The

THE Farmer and Gardener tells us, that in regions where the Catawba and other vines often succumb under the vicissitudes of the weather, the scuppernong not only survives, but continues to furnish an abundant annual yield of fruit. official reports of the Department of Agriculture show that the average yield of scuppernong vines in North Carolina, when in full bearing, is from 400 to 500 bushels per acre, yielding from 2,000 to 2,500 gallons of wine. This is sold in the New York market for $1.50 to $3.00 per gallon, while the net cost for a product of 1,000 gallons per acre, is about 35 to 40 cents per gallon; there is, therefore, a greater profit on this than almost any other fruit crop that can be raised in the Southern States.

Experimental Lectures.

No man has ever attained greater perfection in the art of delivering an experimental lecture than Faraday, and it is very instructive to recall the rules which he laid dawn for himself in this matter at the commencement of his career, and to which he adhered to the last. In a letter to a friend he writes:-" An experimental lecturer should attend very carefully to the choice he may make of experiments for the illustration of his subject. They should be important as they respect the science they are applied to, yet clear, and such as may easily and generally be understood. They should approach to simplicity, and explain the established principles of the subject, rather than be elaborate and apply to minute phenomena only. I speak here, (be it understood,) of those lectures which are delivered before a mixed audience, and the nature of which will not admit of their being applied to the explanation of any but the principal parts of a science. If, to a particular audience, you dwell on a particular subject, still adhere to the same principle, though, perhaps, not exactly to the same rule. Let your experiments apply to the subject you elucidate; do not introduce those which are not to the point. Though this may appear superfluous, yet I have seen it broken through in the most violent manner. A mere ale

house trick has more than once been introduced in a lecture delivered not far from Pall Mall, as an elucidation of the laws of motion."

Respiration in Plants.

FROM a paper by A. Barthélemy, in the Comptes Rendus, we extract the following: In conclusion, my experiments prove the dialysis of carbonic acid through the cuticle of leaves, just as much as the experiments of Dutrochet on membranes and aqueous solutions prove endosmose by cellules, or the experiments on absorption made by Mr. Dehérain with porous vessels, to which the Academy accorded one of its highest rewards. In a word, cuticular respiration appears to me sufficiently proved by the presence of this membrane on all the organs,

by the analogies of constitution, physical and chemical, with caoutchouc by Graham's experiments, and the measurement of the passage of gases through colloid membranes, and lastly, by the experiments of M. Boussingault, who attributed to the upper surface of leaves, destitute of stomata, a greater decomposing faculty than that of the lower surface, riddled with these minute apertures.

The Ailanthus.

THE Ailanthus Glaudulosa or Paradise tree, though possessing a foliage that presents great advantages in the formation of large groups of trees on a lawn, is very generally abused on account of the unpleasant odor emitted by the flowers of the male trees. This difficulty is readily obviated by discarding the use of the male trees, and employing none but females. These are not at all offensive, may be easily propagated by cuttings from the roots, and the pendant bunches of flat seeds that follow the flowers, add to the ornamental properties of the tree. The wood also may be utilized, being very close-grained and susceptible of taking a fine polish.

Influence of Evergreens on Pear Trees.

THE Hon. E. H. Hyde, some few years since, planted evergreens in a circle around certain peartrees to produce a desired landscape effect. The circles of evergreens having been neglected, they soon out-stripped the dwarf pear-trees, and nearly encircled them. Though it was to be expected that the pear-trees would, under these circumstances, cease to bear fruit, the contrary result was obtained, for while the pear-trees away from the evergreens were bearers of inferior fruit, those within the circles were nearly always prolific, and the fruit was of superior quality.

Gun Cotton.

FOR more than ten years Professor Abel has been experimenting on this substance at the Woolwich Arsenal. Among other important results that have been obtained in these researches, is the discovery of the fact that gun cotton is, to a certain extent, sympathetic in its action, responding in its combustion to the manner in which it is ignited. If, for example, it was ignited in the form of yarn, by a spark, it smoldered away; if set on fire by a flame, it burnt quickly; if exploded as a charge in a mine, it at once responded to the shock, and replied with equivalent energy, acting after the same manner as gunpowder; and finally, if fired by a few grains of fulminate it detonated with the same terrible effect as its instigator.

In addition, the Professor has discovered that it may even be exploded when wet, by the agency of a little fulminate of mercury. In this case the quantity of water appears to be of no importance, for compressed" cakes enclosed in a fishing-net

and thrown overboard with a dry primer and a fulminate fuse, will explode with just as much energy as when confined in a water-tight steel case.

Memoranda.

PROFESSOR ROOD has obtained very large secondary spectra by using for one element the spectrum furnished by oil of cassia, bisulphide of carbon, or even flint glass; the other being the normal spectrum obtained by the use of a diffraction grating.

In a recent paper on the Aurora Borealis by M. Donati, the learned author explains these phenomena on the hypothesis of electro-magnetic currents passing from the sun to the planets, and having for their vehicle the ether, which fills all space.

M. E. de Laval recommends the use of sulphide of carbon in the culture of the vine to destroy phylloxera.

M. Bergeret believes that he has proved that goitre is produced by the use of waters containing an excess of sulphate of lime. His deductions are drawn from experiments made during an epidemic of goitre in a regiment of soldiers.

The value of perfume farms may be estimated from the fact that one acre of jasmine has produced over one thousand dollars, and one acre of violets eight hundred dollars.

At a meeting of the Lyceum of Natural History, Mr. Collingwood related several instances in which wood exposed for a long time to a slight degree of heat, in connection with peculiar atmospheric conditions, became so combustible as to ignite at temperatures lower than 212° F.

In Prussia the coal measures are said to be 20,000

feet thick, containing 117 seams; in all, 294 feet of

coal. In another field there are 164 seams over six inches thick; in all, 338 feet; of workable seams there are 77. Some of the seams are 10, 12, and 14 feet thick; and it is extraordinary that the lowest known seams are bituminous or caking coals, and the higher they range in the series the more dry or anthracite do they become. (MacFarlane Statistics of Coal.)

Dr. Brunton supposes that if a poison could be found having an action similar to that of cholera, an antidote to the former might prove a remedy for the latter. Parkes and Johnson having attributed cholera collapse to a contraction of the vessels in the lungs, and Brunton having found that muscarin (an alkaloid derived from a poisonous mushroom,) produced the same condition, the symptoms of which are relieved by atropia, concludes that atropia might be useful in cholera. It is said to have been so used in the Southern States in large doses with

success.

The investigations of Drs. Endeman and Am Ende appear to show that the epizootic disease, that destroyed so many horses in the winter of 1872,

may have originated from fungoid growths on the grasses or hay with which they were fed. The spores of these fungi were found in all the discharges, on the mucous membranes, and even in the blood and other fluids of the body.

Professor Williamson says:-" If we find a coal seam we look upon it as wasteful not to work it and make the most of it. To leave the clear heads of our countrymen untilled is more wasteful, as they are infinitely more valuable than any coal seam that ever was discovered."

It is said that old seeds placed in a solution of oxalic acid or of ammonia will germinate in one or two days. In 1834 wheat was exhibited before a German scientific association, that was raised from seed found in an Egyptian tomb, where it had lain for some 2,500 years. This was soaked in a fatty oil before planting.

Mathieu and Urban assert that when blood is submitted to the exhausting action of a mercury pump, its albumen no longer coagulates on the apThe same is the case with egg plication of heat. albumen. They, therefore, conclude that the presence of carbonic acid is necessary for the coagulation of albumen by heat, and that albumen deprived of its volatile salts is transformed into globulin.

The Gardener's Chronicle recommends the planting of the Japanese privet, Ligustrum Japonicum, in our shrubberies. It is an evergreen, having a very pretty foliage, and produces a good effect in shrubbery borders.

Iron states that at the last meeting of the Society of Civil Engineers, Mr. Asselim recommended the use of glycerine to prevent incrustations forming in steam boilers. One pound of glycerine should be placed in the boiler for every four hundred pounds of

coal burned.

It is suggested that the invisible inks might be used in carrying on correspondence by postal cards. Among such inks some, like the chloride of cobalt, give a writing which is illegible until it is warmed before the fire, while others are rendered legible by the application of a suitable chemical—a weak solution of sulphate of iron, developing a clear black writing when moistened with a solution of galls.

Mr. Colin Campbell finds that the process for making parchment paper is improved by passing the paper through a solution of alum, and drying it before it is immersed in the sulphuric acid.

The Signal Service has established a station on the summit of Pike's Peak, about 11,000 feet above the sea. Reports of the weather are to be sent thence to Washington by telegraph three times each day.

Dr. Bessel has collected phanerogamic, or flowering plants, as high as latitude 82° N., which is the most northern position from which such plants have hitherto been procured.