all other objects put together, while to the satiated it sinks to zero. If we make the instant feeling the criterion, we find our standard varying with every hour of the day hour of the day and every state of the body. And again, taking greater periods of life, the standard of age is different from that of youth, not merely from experience, but from change of susceptibility. Lastly, Mr. Sidgwick points out that besides the natural changes that take place independently of choice, there are great changes which a man may produce in himself. If we say the pleasures of culture or virtue are the greatest, we have to add that a man must become cultured and virtuous in order to feel them. The only way in which we can bring back all these variations to rule is by adopting some ideal type of humanity, and maintaining that all the pleasures of men are unreal and transitory, tainted with pain, or at least ending in pain, except so far as they conform to this standard. But such an ideal standard can never be empirically verified. For what would be pleasurable to this ideal character must be more or less painful to every actual human being, and the greatest possible pleasure of men, such as men actually are, would be something very different. If, therefore, we set up such a standard, we must set it up independent of the calculus of pleasure, and we can prove its reality only by showing that it is involved in the idea of man's nature as a rational or self-conscious being. If we can show this, we may then fairly conclude with Plato that every pleasure that is not in harwith this standard is incomplete and mony illusive, since it involves a contradiction of man's nature with itself. But we can reach this conclusion in no other way.

With regard to the "fundamental Paradox of Egoistic Hedonism," the paradox that we cannot attain the greatest pleasure if we directly aim at it, Mr. Sidgwick's language is somewhat hesitating. He seems to allow that the pleasures that are connected with the highest moral and religious consciousness cannot be reconciled with the calculative spirit of Egoistic Hedonism. For in that highest form of spiritual life there is involved an absolute self-sacrifice or selfdevotion or perhaps we might rather say an identification of self with the life and interests of others, that makes the calculation or even the thought of the pleasure an act will bring to the individual sensitive subject impossible. But "the pitch of exaltation and refinement necessary to attain to this is rare," and "it cannot be said that what are commonly known as the pleasures of virtue or of benevolence, or of religion, are out of the reach of the rational egoist as such." A real harmony between the objective extra-regarding impulses, which do not aim at pleasure, and self-love or the desire of pleasure, may be attained, Mr. Sidgwick thinks, by a sort of "alternating rhythm of the two impulses in Consciousness." A man, for instance, finding time burdensome to him, may occupy himself with scientific investigation, or with a benevolent enterprise, calculating that he will soon begin to take an interest in it, and that out of that interest sufficient pleasure will come to put salt into life again. In this way Rational Egoism may be self-limiting, and may attain

its end the better for not directly aiming at it.

It may be questioned whether this explanation really meets the difficulty. planation really meets the difficulty. A limitation of the application of the highest principle of action is really equivalent to its abandonment as the highest principle, unless that by which it seems to be limited can be shown to be but another form of its manifestation. To admit such an independent sphere for desire is to admit that the desires are not to be transformed by the moral principle. It is to return to the point of view of ancient ethics, and to forget the lesson taught by Stoicism and Christianity,

that man's natural life must die in order to revive again in the higher life of spirit, or, in other words, that the passions require to be not merely regulated but transformed and moralised. He who occupies himself with an object in order that he may gradually come to take an interest in it, is really illustrating on a small scale that dying to self or sacrifice of inclination through which the higher life is born. And if he follows this course with an indirect view to that pleasure, which for the moment he disregards, he is simply preparing for himself a moral struggle between the desire for pleasure, and the rival impulse, which he has called into existence. To a limited extent such stimulation of desire with a view to the pleasure of its satisfaction is possible without self-contraits satisfaction is possible without self-contradiction in the case of the animal impulses, though even in their case it has a corrupting effect. In the case of social and benevolent affections, and of the higher tendencies in general, it must end either in the victory of the interests awakened over the desire of pleasure, or, failing this, in the moral torture of a life (such as was perhaps to some extent the life of Chateaubriand and Byron) that can neither be content without higher interests, nor frankly abandon itself to them.

Intuitionalism, the second of Mr. Sidgwick's three classes of systems, appears, according to him, under three different forms according as the intuitions are regarded as individual ("this act is right or wrong"), as particular ("this class of acts is right or wrong"), or universal. Popular intuitionalism seems to fluctuate between the first and second forms of doctrine, philosophical intuitionalism between the second and third. The first form is dismissed by Mr. Sidgwick with the remark that it would reduce all ethical science into a process of generalising the individual judgments of moral sense, and would make it for practical purposes superfluous. But we see that the individual judgments of common sense are usually defended on the ground of their conformity to general rules. Mr. Sidgwick subjects a number of the axiomatic media of common sense relating to the principal virtues, such as justice, benevolence, truth, &c., to a careful examination, and shows that they cannot be made precise and definite, so as to satisfy the requirements of science without losing that popular assent which gives them their authority. He shows that before a close inspection they often reduce themselves to tautology, or else involve consequences that are absurd, and that at best they are vague and indefinite, and incapable of being used to

solve any difficult problem of ethics. Perhaps, however, he does not attach sufficient importance to his own remark that the popular morality of rules does not supply us with a principle whereby the rules may be co-ordinated with each other, and whereby also they may be made specific. Now it is obvious at once that in the absence of such a principle popular morality must at once have the opposite sins of too great generality and too great specification. It must be too specific in so far as it states as absolute commands what at best are rules of limited application. For there cannot be two absolutes in morality, and if there are more commands than one, contradiction must arise, unless the differences can be brought back to a unity of principle. On the other hand, such a morality of rules must be too general and vague without a principle to guide in their interpretation, and it leaves room for great arbitrariness in the subsumption of acts under them. This defect the Casuists attempted to remedy by indefinitely extending the code: but as their additions were guided by no one principle, they rather increased the difficulty than removed it.

The impossibility of getting a system of Ethics out of the ordinary rules recognised by common sense brings us with Mr. Sidgwick to philosophical intuitionalism, which seeks to discover a unity of principle to which all morality may be reduced, and from which its special laws may be derived. Mr. Sidgwick thinks that, with a little interpretation, he can find in Clarke and Kant such

com

a principle, or rather two plementary principles, one negative and limitative, the other positive, which form the basis of all morals. The first, the principle of Equity, is that I, as an individual, can only judge to be right for myself what I judge to be right for all persons in similar circumstances. The second, the principle of Benevolence, is that whatever I judge to be intrinsically desirable, and which therefore it would be reasonable for me as an individual to seek for myself, I must judge it right or reasonable to seek for all men. Further, Mr. Sidgwick holds it intuitively evident that the ultimate object of desire, that which is "intrinsically desirable," must in all cases be pleasure, and therefore maintains there is no real opposition between Intuitionalism and Utilitarianism. It is only by intuition that the first principle of Utilitarianism can be established, and on the other hand, the final end to which Intuition points is only the greatest possible pleasure. In short, the pleasure which each one as a natural being seeks for himself, he is taught by Intuition of Reason to seek equally for all mankind. On this view I shall only make two remarks.

In the first place it seems to me that the principle of Equity as Mr. Sidgwick states it, is on his own showing superfluous and even tautological. To say that I must judge that only to be right for myself which I have judged to be right for all others, has no meaning unless I have first given a definition of right apart from its universality. And if right be, as Kant says, “to act so that the maxim of one's act is fit for law universal;" then we cannot begin by supposing something to be right before we

have determined it to be "fit for law universal." Now Mr. Sidgwick has not at this point reached any other determination of right than its " objectivity," or, what is the same thing, its universality. Kant avoids this tautology (though only to fall into another) by supposing that you cannot universalise a wrong action without contradiction; but, as Mr. Sidgwick rightly remarks, he is here committing much the same error as those who "suppose formal logic to be a complete criterion of truth." Universal stealing is not contradictory except on the supposition of the validity of the rights of property.

The second principle, the principle of Benevolence, presupposes that something is intrinsically desirable to the individual; and, as this something is found to be pleasure, it presupposes also the solution of the problem of Egoistic Hedonism. Reason only teaches us in this principle to desire the same end as natural egoism, not from the point of view of the individual, but from the point of view of humanity. Reason is thus conceived as suggesting no motive, and not even as altering the content of the motives of desire, but simply as universalising them. It is not seen that the determination of the desires, first by the idea of self, and then by the idea of a self that is social, that finds itself in losing itself in the life of others, must, entirely change the character of these desires. But if there is any significance in the Kantian thought which Mr. Sidgwick seems to accept, that

a moral life is one in which reason is its own motive, the beginning of such a life must involve the negation and sacrifice of the impulses and desires in the imperfectly rational form in which they appear in us at first. In other words, the absolute Stoic negation of passion is the first word of morality. The mere universalising of desire, leaving desire what it is in the natural man, would not produce any higher ideal than Carlyle's universal "Paradise of Pigswash." And if the last word of morality be the reconciliation of desire and duty, yet this reconciliation can only be reached through the reconstitution of desire in conformity with the spiritual nature of man and as its manifestation.

It must not, however, be supposed that Mr. Sidgwick is unaware of these difficulties of a consistent Utilitarianism. For example, he points out that it is impossible to construct an absolute code of Utilitarian morality, "unless we can show that there is some final perfect form of society towards which the progress of human history is tending." The Utilitarian has always two questions to consider: on the one hand, what will produce the greatest happiness to men, such as men are now; and, on the other hand, what changes of character will make men fit for a greater happiness; and it is not clear to which of these ends he should most devote his efforts, or in what proportion he should divide his efforts between them. In relation to the last of the two ends indeed his course must be very tentative and uncertain, unless guided by an ideal of a "perfect form of society," and such an ideal would require for its determination, according to Mr. Sidgwick, a

"science of sociology" which has yet to be constructed. It is difficult, we may add, to conceive how this science can be constructed, unless there be found in the rational nature of man some more positive principle of determination than Mr. Sidgwick has admitted, a principle which must gradually transform the natural impulse into harmony with itself. For such a principle of permanence through change, turning that change into progress, will scarcely be found where Mr. Sidgwick seeks it in pleasure and pain as mere "transient states of the single subject," seeing that such transient states are in themselves utterly indeterminate, and, to use Kant's expression, "for us as thinking beings as good as nothing."

Space will not permit us to follow Mr. Sidgwick further in his discussion of Utilitarianism. But I cannot end a criticism inevitably directed so much to points of difference without expressing admiration for the Socratic spirit of free discussion, and readiness to admit and search into every diffi. culty, which pervades his book.

EDWARD CAIRD.

SCIENCE NOTES.

PHYSIOLOGY.

Mechanism of Rumination.-The structural peculiarities of the stomach in ruminant animals are thoroughly well known, and the process of rumination itself has been repeatedly studied. The act of regurgitation, however the most essential and characteristic of the entire series of phenomena-has never been adequately explained. Flourens believed that a portion of the softened contents of the rumen was introduced between the lips of the oesophageal groove, moulded into a bolus, and propelled into the gullet by the force of muscular contraction; the reversed peristalsis of the oesophageal walls conveying it up into the mouth for mastication. This view was shown to be incorrect by Colin, who found that closure of the lips of the oesophageal groove by sutures did deed, takes place so suddenly, and depends on so not prevent regurgitation. The phenomenon, incomplex a series of co-ordinated movements, that mere inspection could never have sufficed for its complete elucidation. By applying the graphic method to its study, however, Toussaint, working in the laboratory of Professor Chauveau, has succeeded in fully explaining it (Archives de Physiologie, Mars-Avril, 1875). He finds the efficient of the air in the thoracic cavity, brought about by cause of regurgitation to be a sudden rarefaction a contraction of the diaphragm coincident with closure of the rima glottidis. A certain quantity of the semi-fluid contents of the rumen is thus sucked up into the funnel-shaped orifice of the gullet, whose subsequent contractions convey it up into the mouth. No bolus, strictly speaking, is formed. The only indispensable condition for the satisfactory accomplishment of the act is that the food contained in that part of the rumen which adjoins the oesophageal opening should be in a pulpy state owing to sufficient admixture of water. When a small orifice had previously been made in the trachea, the diaphragmatic contraction no longer sufficed of itself to produce a vacuum; it was assisted by a simultaneous outward and upward movement of the ribs. Finally, the author proves that the thoracic vacuum is the sole force concerned in the act of regurgitation; during its accomplishment. the rumen and reticulum remaining passive

Influence of certain Compounds on the Germination of Seeds.-Nearly eighty years ago it was asserted by Smith and Barton that camphor had power to hasten germination; a similar property

was subsequently attributed by Goeppert to chlorine, bromine and iodine. These statements have been put to the test of experiment by Heckel (Comptes Rendus, 3 Mai, 1875) and found to be correct. The seeds of Raphanus sativus, exposed to the action of pure water, began to germinate after an average interval of eight days; similar seeds, kept moist with iodine water, germinated in five days; with bromine water in three, with chlorine water in two days. The monobromide of camphor was found to exhibit even greater energy than either of its constituents taken separately, or than a simple mixture of bromine and camphor; germination occurring after a mean interval of thirty-six hours. No explanation of this singular property is suggested. The alkaline borates and silicates were found to retard germination, even in relatively small proportions; stronger solutions checking the process for an indefinite period. Arsenious acid and the soluble arseniates prevented germination altogether by destroying the embryo.

Localisation of the Vasomotor Centre.-It was proved by Pflüger, some twenty years ago, that the vasomotor nerves run in the anterior roots of

the spinal nerves, and that electrical stimulation of the spinal cord, after its separation from the brain and medulla oblongata, causes visible contraction of the arteries in the mesentery of the frog. This phenomenon is ascribed by most physiologists to irritation of vasomotor fibres contained in the cord, but originally derived from a centre situated in the medulla oblongata. This localisation of the vasomotor centre rests chiefly on the ascertained fact that in warm-blooded animals the systemic blood-pressure rises as high spinal axis is divided above the medulla, as in after irritation of sensory nerves when the cerebroanimals whose nervous centres are intact; while

if the cord be cut below the medulla oblongata, such irritation no longer causes any increase of 6, 7) finds that in frogs, after complete removal arterial tension. Nussbaum (Pflüger's Archiv, X. chemical, and electrical stimulation of afferent of the brain and medulla oblongata, mechanical, spinal nerves invariably determines reflex con

traction of the arterioles in the web and mesentery, and that this result no longer follows if the cord has been previously destroyed. He concludes, accordingly, that the spinal cord possesses an independent authority over the systemic arterioles, and that the medulla oblongata, far from being the exclusive seat of vasomotor government, contains only the upper end of the governing centre.

Influence of Season on the Skin of Foetal Animals. Dönhoff (Reichert und Dubois-Reymond's Archiv, i. 1875) calls attention to the fact that the obvious difference between the fur of animals in summer and in winter is associated with an equally striking difference in the texture and thickness of their skin. Thus, for example, the average weight of an ox-hide in winter is seventy pounds; in summer, fifty-five pounds; the hair in winter weighs about two pounds, in summer about one pound; leaving fourteen pounds to be accounted for by the proper substance of the skin. These differences are quite as decided in foetal animals as in adults. Calves born in winter have a longer and thicker coat than those born in summer; moreover, there is a difference of more than a pound in the weight of their skins after the hair has been removed. Similar facts may be observed in the case of goats and lambs. That these differences are not to be ascribed to any corresponding change in the diet and regimen of the parent animals, is proved by the fact that they are equally manifest in the young of individuals kept under cover and on the same food all the year round.

Influence of Curare on the Quantity of the Lymph and the Emigration of Colourless BloodCorpuscles.--If the blood of a frog poisoned by curare be examined on the second or third day of immobility, it is found to contain no

the

leucocytes; these, however, reappear as power of voluntary movement is restored, and gradually resume their customary proportion to the red corpuscles. This observation was made by Drozdoff, who attributes the phenomenon to a specific poisonous action of the drug on the colourless corpuscles; he found that the addition of a minute proportion of curare to a drop of blood, after its removal from the body, speedily arrested the amoeboid movements of the leucocytes, and rendered their protoplasm granular. Tarchanoff, working under Ranvier's direction (Archives de Physiologie, Janvier-Février, 1875), repeated Drozdoff's experiments, the results of which he partially confirms, while explaining them in a very different way. The gradual disappearance of leucocytes from the blood of the curarised frog is an undoubted fact; but the phenomenon cannot be ascribed to any specific action of curare upon protoplasm. The addition of curare to drops of blood in the moist chamber yielded results which were by no means constant; some samples of the drug speedily destroying the colourless corpuscles, while others appeared in no way to influence their vitality. What then is the cause of their disappearance (which is never really absolute) from the circulating fluid? They migrate into the perivascular spaces, and accumulate in the lymphatic sacs and serous cavities. This emigration is associated with a considerable transudation of the fluid constituents of the plasma, so that, pari passu with its increasing poverty in leucocytes, the blood is observed to contain an abnormally large proportion of red disks. Both processes may be accounted for by the paralysing effect of the drug upon the vasomotor nerves; the arterioles are everywhere dilated, the intravascular tension lowered, and the blood-current uniformly retarded. Exactly similar phenomena may be produced by destroying the cerebro-spinal axis, and so paralysing the vasomotor nerves. But why does the lymph, after its escape from the vessels, accumulate in the serous and lymphatic cavities? Why does it not make its way back into the current of the circulation? For this there are two reasons: first, the paralysis of the voluntary muscles, whose contractions are largely instrumental in the onward propulsion of the lymph; secondly, the arrest of the lymphatic hearts. As the effects of the poison pass off, these causes cease to operate, and the exuded constituents of the blood return to their normal home within the vessels.

MICROSCOPICAL NOTES.

IN the Public Health Report (No. 11, New Series), Mr. Simon stated that Dr. Klein has discovered the microphyte concerned in producing enteric fever, and we understand the researches will be published in the course of this summer, accompanied with illustrative drawings. For some years past the extent to which certain medical authorities have pushed the doctrine of specific diseases has been a stumbling-block to naturalists acquainted with the variability of species, and the various forms assumed by microfungi. It is, therefore, satisfactory to find Mr. Simon observing in the above-named report

"as among the most hopeful advances of modern preventive medicine, that some diseases, which in the sense of being able to continue their species from man to man, are apparently specific,' seem now beginning to confess in detail a birthplace exterior to man, a birthplace amid controllable conditions in the physical nature which is around us, a birthplace amid the common putrefactive changes of dead organic matter." He adds, that in the common septic ferment, or in one not separate and distinguishable from it, "there reside powers of disease-production as positive, though not hitherto as exactly defined, as those which reside in the variolous and syphilitic contagion."

The students of the minute organisms suspected of causing disease have much to hope from the continuous improvement of their optical apparatus.

agent.

AMONG the "Proceedings" of various societies reported in the Monthly Microscopical Journal we notice that Dr. J. Gibbons Hunt has exhibited to the Academy of Sciences, Philadelphia, an amplifier consisting of a "concavo-convex lens with its concave side turned towards the eye," and placed at some distance from its objective, at the end of a sliding adjustible tube. By moving the tube, he said, a want of complete correction in the objective could be compensated. This is Dr. Pigott's "Aplanatic Searcher" made with a single lens instead of the two which he employs. Dr. Hunt admitted that working up a four-tenth's with his amplifier to 800 x did not give as good results in histological investigations as could be obtained by using Powell and Lealand's immersion one-sixteenth, and A eyepiece. He said he had not been successful with Dr. Pigott's apparatus.

SOME years ago Dr. Wallich presented to the Royal Microscopical Society a cabinet of slides, and a folio volume of drawings, made during many years of important study. To render this collection really useful it is necessary that Dr. Wallich himself should furnish some notes and references, and we are glad to learn that he is likely to do so in a series of papers for the Society, which will appear in the Monthly Microscopical Journal. A considerable number of these slides throw light upon questions which the Challenger Expedition will bring into prominence, and especially upon the curious and not yet explained connexion between cocospheres and foraminifera, such as Textularia and Globigerina, many of which are covered with cocoliths in various stages of growth. A recent examination of some of these objects was much facilitated by the unusual penetration given by Zeiss of Jena to his F dry objective, equivalent to one-fourteenth.

MR. WENHAM's reflex illuminator for high powers is likely to come into more extensive use, now Mr. Slack, in a paper read on June 2 before the Royal Microscopical Society, has pointed out that most of the difficulties experienced in trying to employ it with covered and balsamed objects may be eliminated by using small angled objectives, or cutting down the angles of larger ones by moveable stops. The false light that obstructs clear vision when the cover or the balsam gets illuminated as well as the object, is for the most part extremely oblique, and can be shut out by diminishing the angle of the objective. Powell and Lealand's immersion one-eighth, with a stop reducing the aperture to about 90°, gives admirable results.

MR. STEPHENSON, treasurer of the Royal Microscopical Society, exhibited at the last meeting of that body (June 2) a very convenient scale of measurement for angular apertures, ruled on white paper. Two circular spaces are marked as the positions of two of Child's night-lights, or other convenient objects, and the objective to be tested is moved on a vertical line until both flames, or other test objects, are brought into view. The inspection of the degree marked at the point angle of aperture is then read off by simple reached by the front lens of the objective. The objective should be mounted on a little carriage, and the image of the lights can be conveniently viewed by holding a pocket lens behind the back combinations.

MR. CHARLES STODDER exhibited some time ago to the Boston Natural History Society a slide, showing the nature of the contents of a mastodon's stomach, which had been received by J. G. Hunt from Wayland, New York. Dr. Hunt detected confervoid filaments, numerous small black bodies which he supposed to be spores of mosses, a fragment which apparently belonged to a rush, pieces of woody tissue and bark of herbaceous plants, and carapaces of Entomostraca. The animal had apparently taken his last meal from mosses and boughs of flowering plants growing on the margin of a stream or swamp. (Proc. Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist., vol. xvii., part i.)

In the same publication there is an account of the re-discovery of the locality of the so-called “Bermuda tripoli," well known as rich in diatomaceous forms. Dr. Christopher Johnson finds it to be near Nottingham, on the Patuxent, Prince George's County, Maryland. He identified specimens sent to him by Mr. P. T. Tyson, State Geologist for Maryland, as being the same material which he had received in 1854 from Professor Bailey as "Bermuda tripoli." This earth contains beautiful forms of Heliopetta, Coscinodiscus, Craspedodiscus, Aulacodiscus crur, and Eupodiscus Rodgers.

THE Monthly Microscopical Journal for July states (without reference to the original authority) that Professor Leidy, of the United States of America, has recently found the common house-fly to be afflicted with a thread worm about a line in

length which takes up its abode in the creature's proboscis. From one to three worms occurred in about one fly in five. This parasite was first discovered in the house-fly of India by Carter, who described it under the name of filaria muscae, and suggested that it might be the source of the Guinea worm in man.

THE functions of the frontal ganglion of Dytiscus marginalis are elucidated by M. E. Faivre in a paper which will be found in Comptes Rendus, May 31, 1875. After detailing a variety of experiments, he states, as a result of his researches, that "the frontal ganglion specially presides over the movements of deglutition, determining not only the contraction, but also the dilatation of the pharyngeal sphincter, while it reacts at the same sphincter. The action of this nervous centre may time by the recurrent nerve on the cardiac be excited by impressions from back to front or the opposite. It associates together by means of its connexion with the encephalon, acts of prehension, mastication, pharyngeal deglution, and ingestion of food to the stomachs and the intestine. the influence of which it reacts with the most The sub-oesophagal ganglion is the centre under energy. In fine, the frontal ganglion, distinguished by special functions from all other nervous centres of the ganglionic chain, is allied to them by by its structure also." its essential properties, and as we may be assured

THE same number of Comptes Rendus contains an account of experiments by M. V. Feltz on the poisonous action of putrefied blood. He found that dogs in whose crural vein he injected blood which had putrefied and reached a stage in which

bacteria and allied organisms disappeared, produced loss of appetite, vomiting, bilious diarrhoea, and other bad symptoms. Four out of six died, but not until ten or twelve days had elapsed. In another set of experiments he employed the powder of old putrefied and dried blood mixed with water. Two out of three dogs died, and as in the former case, their blood showed septicemic characters, with deformation of the red corpuscles. The bacteria, &c., present in these cases appear to have developed from germs that had survived the putrefaction and desiccation.

In the already cited number of Comptes Rendus, M. A. Béchamp, replying to some remarks of M. Gayon on the spontaneous changes that occur in eggs, says that certain microzymes occurring in eggs are so small that not less than eight thousand millions would be required to fill the space of a cubic millimètre. The millimètre is 0.039 of an English inch, or in fractions rather less than one-twenty-fifth of an inch.

common

MEETINGS OF SOCIETIES. ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE (Wednesday, May 26).

66

SIR CHARLES NICHOLSON, V.P., Bart., in the Chair. A paper on The Petrarch Collection at Trieste, with Notes on the Centenary Edition of the Africa, and the inedited Writings of Petrarch, published by Signor Hortis, of Trieste," was read by Mr. C. II. E. Carmichael, M.A., who represented the Society at the Petrarch Festival at Padua. In the course of his paper, which was illustrated by an exhibition of photographs of the principal scenes of the Festival taken at the time, Mr. Carmichael gave an account of the very valuable Petrarch Library, containing MSS. as well as printed texts, and plates and drawings, collected by Domenico Rossetti, of Trieste, and bequeathed by him to the Municipality. The catalogue of this collection, carefully compiled by Dr. Attilio Hortis, Civic Librarian, was presented to the Society by Mr. Carmichael on behalf of the Municipality. The Centenary edition of the Africa, by

the Abate Corradini, of Padua, was next adverted to, and the Society's attention drawn to the photolithograph of a contemporary fresco portrait of Petrarch, attributed to Guariento, whose history

Mr. Carmichael gave from the details furnished to the Centenary edition by Count Giovanni Cittadella, President of the Padua committee. Finally, Mr. Carmichael described the inedited writings which Signor Hortis has brought together, and made the occasion of an interesting monograph, as an additional contribution to the literature of the Petrarch Festival. In the discussion that followed, Sir Charles Nicholson, V.P., and Mr. Vaux remarked upon the historical interest of the well-authenticated contemporary portrait of Petrarch, and upon the value of these commemorations of great names in literature and art, so well carried out in Italy.

three well-marked compartments, of which the first possesses two groups of deep hexagonal cells, the orifices of which are capable of being completely closed. According to the concurrent testimony of travellers, these cells are used as a reservoir of water, enabling the animal to traverse arid wastes without drinking. In camels which have died in this country no water has been found, but it is easy to understand that the fluid-storing power may fall into abeyance when it is not necessary for the welfare of the individual.

SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY (Tuesday, June 1).

S. BIRCH, LL.D., F.S.A., President, in the Chair. The following papers were read:-1. "On Ancient Metrology." By F. R. Conder, C.E.-In this paper Mr. Conder indicated the confused and contradictory state of our present knowledge of the subject, and proceeded to establish an absolute metrical base, identifying the barley corn, which the Hebrew writers state to be the unit of length and of weight, with the long measure barley corn and with the troy grain. The grounds of identification were (1) actual measurement and weight of full-sized grains of barley at time of harvest; (2) determination of specific gravity according to statements made in Hebrew literature; (3) actual dimensions of ancient Jewish buildings; and actual weight of a Babylonian talent now in the British Museum, which corresponded to Mr. Conder's determination of 960,000 troy grains within one per mille. The remarkable double division of the Chaldee metrical system, which is both decimal and duodecimal, was then explained, and shown to apply to measures of length, area, capacity, and weight. The origin of the troy ounce, the diamond carat, the Spanish ducat, and other existing divisions, is traced to the early system employed by the Phoenician traders. Appended to the paper was a tabular statement of the comparative weights and measures of the ancient Greeks and Hebrews. II. "On the Egyptian Shawl for the Head, as worn on the Ancient Statues of the Kings." By Samuel Sharpe. -The writer showed that the head-dress with apparent folds and lappets could be formed out of a square yard of striped calico, arranged in a peculiar manner; and, to prove the truth of his statements, an actual shawl thus folded was exhibited to the Society. III. "On an Assyrian Inscription in F.R.G.S.-This inscription, which has hitherto the Vatican Museum." By E. Richmond Hodges, and the commencement is missing. It appears to been unpublished, is in a very mutilated condition, commemorate the foundation of a city and the receipt of tribute; it also mentions the tribes of the Nakli and Sapiri; but through the imperfect be ascertained. state of the monument its date and history cannot

Miss Amelia B. Edwards exhibited and described

a collection of water-colour sketches made during a journey on the Nile from Cairo to the Second Cataract. The views were chiefly of Egyptian and Nubian temples, and more especially of a small rock-cut Speos of the period of Rameses II. at Abou Simbel, which was discovered by Miss is in perfect preservation. The decorations and Edwards' party on February 14, 1874, and which inscriptions of this Speos were given in detail. With the sketches was also exhibited a fine funeral stele in painted sycamore wood, period of the XXII. Dynasty.

ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON (Tuesday,
June 1).

DR. GÜNTHER, F.R.S., in the Chair. Mr. Sclater remarked upon some rare monkeys and other mammals now living in the Society's collection. Sir Victor Brooke read a paper on the African buffaloes, of which he recognised three species as distinct-namely, Bubalus caffer from the south, B. pumilus from the west, and B. equinoctialis from

ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON (Thursday, June 3).

IN the seventh lecture of the course at the Society's Gardens, Professor Flower, F.R.S., treated of elephants. Few animals are better known, and none perhaps are more thoroughly isolated from all other existing forms, than the two recent species of elephant, E. indicus and E. africanus. The former has been domesticated from the earliest ages; the latter was trained by the Cartha ginians and was well-known to the Romans, bat in modern times it is only lately that African elephants have been brought alive to Europe. In the general structure of these animals the most striking feature is the trunk, which is really a vast prolongation of the nose and upper lip. The walls of the skull are swollen by great air-cells, so as to give room for the attachment of the muscles. The tusks are true incisors, and the molars, which are three in number on each side of each jaw, move forward in succession, only one being in use at a time. As one tooth is thus worn away its place is taken by the one next behind it, which gradually forces out the remaining stump. Although now standing completely alone, the ele plants had many relatives in geological times. Every transition may be traced from the mastodon, in which the grinding-teeth were much like those of other animals, to the mammoth, which was nearly allied to the living Asiatic species. Thus the elephants are the survivors of a more numerous family, and they are themselves likely soon to become extinct.

LINNEAN SOCIETY (Thursday, June 3). DR. G. J. ALLMAN, President, in the Chair. The President nominated the following gentlemen as Vice-Presidents of the Society for the ensuing year, viz.-Mr. G. Bentham, F.R.S., Mr. G. Busk, F.R.S., Dr. J. G. Jeffreys, F.R.S., and Dr. J. D. Hooker, F.R.S. The following papers were read: 1. On the Barringtoniaceae, by J. Miers, F.R.S.

The purpose of this paper is to show that the Barringtoniaceae constitute a distinct natural order, forming an extremely natural group with peculiar and uniform characters, differing from the Myrtaceae in their alternate leaves without pellucid dots, and in the nature of their inflorescence and fruit. They are trees, frequently of large size, rarely low shrubs, all delighting in running streams, some growing in estuaries or along the seashore. The author describes the characters of the order in considerable detail, and gives the diagnosis-in many cases redrawn from actual examination-of each genus and species. The number of genera he makes to be ten. The paper is accompanied by drawings illustrating the floral and carpological characters of each genus. 2. Note on the Occurrence of Fairy Rings, by Dr. J. H. Gilbert, F.R.S. This paper was founded on the observations made by the author and Mr. Lawes on their experimental plots at Rothamsted. After some particulars as to the effect of various manures in changing the proportion of different kinds of vegetation, especially Grasses and Leguminosae, the author suggests that the determination of the source of the nitrogen in the fungi that constitute the "fairy rings," which frequently make their appearance on the plots, would throw some light on the much disputed question of the source of the nitrogen of the Leguminosae. It is remarkable that although, according to published analyses of various fungi, from one-fourth to one-third of their dry substance consists of albuminoids or nitrogenous matter, and 8 to 10 per cent. of mineral matters or ash, of which about 80 per cent. is potassium phosphate, yet the fungi develope into "fairy rings" only on the plots poorest in nitrogen and poorest in potash. The questions which appear still to require solution are these:(1) Is the greater prevalence of fungi under such circumstances due to the manurial conditions themselves being directly favourable to their growth? or (2) are the lower orders of plants-in consequence of other plants, and especially grasses, growing so sluggishly under such conditionsbetter able to overcome the competition and to assert themselves? (3) do the fungi prevail simply in virtue of the absence of adverse and vigorous competition, or to a greater or less extent as parasites, and so at the expense of the sluggish underground growth of the plants in association with them? or (4) have these plants the power of assimilating nitrogen in some form from the atmosphere, or in some form or condition of distribution within the soil not available, at least when in competition, to the plants growing in association with them?

FINE ART.

:

MESSRS. GOUPIL'S GALLERY. THE well-known Parisian art-publishing firm of Goupil and Co. have established themselves at 25 Bedford Street, Strand; and they have opened as a picture-gallery the handsome range of rooms at the rear of the premises. According to the current fashion, this is made a paying exhibition; but one may safely assume that the pictures are, in fact, a dealer's stock. Here, therefore, is one more of those commercial speculations in foreign art with which London has of late been so greatly overrun. We cannot thank Messrs. Goupil for displaying to us all the paintings thus selected from their ware-rooms-saleable and unsaleablegood, bad, and indifferent: we should much have preferred it if the excellent ones had been made into an exhibition, and the others left to take their chance of a purchaser through the ordinary channels of trade. Certain it is, however, that there is a minority of the pictures extremely good; and the collection generally acquaints us tellingly with one of the main influences now swaying continental art that of Fortuny and his style. The works of this class are executively ingenious and dexterous to the last degree, and display a quick observation and ready

command of nature, without prepossession in favour of any one element of subject-matter, design, or presentment, rather than another. What they lack is distinction and elevation, breadth, and, above all, repose. They are full of variety, vivacity, and sparkle; brightness of colour, without much harmony; common nature in the personages, without either comeliness or immediate expression; impulse, without passion; reality, without significance; sumptuousness, without refinement. They are, in the fullest sense of the word, fashionable works. We speak of the prevailing tone of these productions, not intending to derogate from the great merits of some of themstill less from the pre-eminent genius of Fortuny himself, who appears to us (from a rather restricted acquaintance with his paintings) to have been one of the most singularly gifted executants of recent, or indeed of any, time.

In the present exhibition there is one work by Fortuny, A Spanish Bull-Fighter; a masterly sketch, pairing with the one, of which we spoke lately, at the French Gallery in Bond Street. The work at Messrs. Goupil's represents the Bull-fighter making his salute to the plausive spectators, and has of course less of action and excitement than the companion subject. Other specimens to which our preceding general remarks will apply, more or less fully, are-On the Sands at Yport, and On the Coast, Yport, by Charnay; The Clever Dogs, lion-clipped performing poodles in a Moresque Spanish building, apparently one of the courts of the Alhambra, a surprisingly clever picture of its kind, by Agrasot; The New Dress, by Capobianchi, hardly less clever, but a piece of pitilessly over-dressed art-millinery, adapted to please the least tasteful of the luxuriously idle class; A Seller of Arms, and La

Siesta, Algerine subjects, by Villegas; The Chat in the Woods, modish women of about the year 1830, lolling in lush grass under a brilliant sun, by Boldini; A Lady reclining on a Sofa, by L. Rossi. The Jesters of De Beaumont, which was exhibited a year or two ago in the Paris Salon, shows something of the same influence, but has more direct affinity to some other painters; it is a talented piece of grotesque.

The famous picture by Gérôme, of Frederick the Great playing the flute with furious zeal on his return from hunting-named Rex Tibicenis here; the picture which was hung in Paris last year, and to which the médaille d'honneur was awarded. It is accompanied by three other examples of the same master: Oriental Women fetching Water, an ordinary specimen of a hand always too skilful to be ordinary; The Caravan, crossing the Egyptian desert: An Arab and his Dead Horse, also a desert-subject, in which the horse's head seems disproportionately (or at any rate disagreeably) big. A Sketch from Life is a truly excellent Meissonier, and comparatively speaking a large one: it shows once again that the practice of working on a minute scale has not bereft this consummate painter of his command of a free and even an offhand touch. The subject is an artist drawing a French soldier of the Revolutionary period, clothed in a white uniform with blue facings, and wearing the tricolour cockade. Five other soldiers, varied and highly appropriate in pose and expression, are in also a stolidly-staring dog, an "ugly customer to any obnoxious intruder. Another Meissonier (of much earlier date, 1857) is named The Standard Bearer, in a costume of about the opening of the sixteenth century; this likewise is a choice example. There is a minute and unimportant Delaroche, Herodiade; an ordinary Millet, The Shepherdess; La Malaria, by Hébert (this is, if our memory serves us, a duplicate of a highlyreputed work in the Luxembourg Gallery), and other works by the same painter; Jules Breton's bold but rather commonly handled picture, On the Cliffs, from the Paris Salon of last year; and Corot's ever-fresh and elegant Souvenir d'Arleur du Nord. The Florentine Concert, by Sorbi, is a

the group;

remarkable little painting, with Dantesque costumes and clear-cut form and colour, in full daylight without shadow; well drawn and executed, and the expressions good, and all in uniform keeping. What spoils the work is the artist's liking for bright tints, without colourist feeling, or any toning down. Suchodolski is striking in The Burial of a Monk, Isle of Capri; a multitude of Carthusians under the canopy of heaven, in a glorious late twilight, carrying tapers which scintillate momently the clearer in the gathering dusk. This is one of the most impressive pictures in the gallery, with a good deal of consentaneous and even of individual subject-matter. If a certain conventionality of manner is not allowed to become confirmed into a taint, this painter should do something to be remembered. Another picture that strikes the eye, and lingers upon it, is The Child's Dream, by M. Maris; a singular piece of execution, in flat and faint tints well combined, and, like its theme, intangible in feeling and suggestion.

We can only name in addition-Boughton, The Siren, a pleasing modern pastoral; Bouguereau, The Storm; Hamman, The Bad Book, a young indiscrète detected by her mother, in costumes of about 1780; Cortazzo, The Needlewoman; Bellecour, La Siesta; Bonnat, A Turkish Barber; Goupil, Une Citoyenne; Munkacsy, The Bad Husband; Emile Breton, A Lock, Sunset; Jacovacci, Eglise des Frari, Venise; P. Rousseau, Dogs, Jacque, The Shepherd; Troyon, Return from the Meadows; J. Maris, Dutch Downs, The Town of Amsterdam. W. M. ROSSETTI.

THE ELGIN MARBLES.

SOME surprise has been caused by a report in the Levant Herald (May 26) to the effect that of the sculptures which Lord Elgin had removed from Athens and had got as far as Cythera (Cerigo) when the ship went down, a considerable portion (five out of seventeen cases) was still visible under water at the depth of sixteen fathoms. This information, it appears, has been communicated by a Mr. Makoukas, of Cerigo, to the Archaeological Society of Athens, and it is hoped that the Greek Government may lend a hand in recovering these precious treasures. Such is the story, and already the question is being discussed as to the legitimate ownership of the marbles. Meanwhile, it may be well to bear in mind that this is not the first occasion on which wonderful treasures have been seen at the bottom of the sea; and further, that in an appendix to the Report of the Commission appointed by Parliament with reference to the acquisition of the Elgin marbles in 1815, it is expressly stated that "all the cases were finally recovered and none of the contents in any way damaged." The work of recovering them did not end till the third year after the shipwreck, and it is not likely that a laborious and expensive task of this kind carried so far would have been left so incomplete as the statement of the Levant Herald implies. It is, of course, always possible to suppose that Lord Elgin had been deceived by those whom he employed at Cerigo, the more so since the work of removing the sculptures from Athens had been done, not under his personal superintendence, but by a paid agent, Lusieri, from whom he may not have received such a list of the objects embarked at Athens as would enable him to check them on their arrival here. Should the report prove correct it will, apart from the value of the objects, add another incident to an already remarkable story. When, in 1799, the young Earl of Elgin was appointed ambassador at Constantinople, he had working for him in Scotland an architect, Mr. Harrison, by whom he was persuaded of the immense importance of obtaining accurate drawings and models of the ancient buildings and sculptures in Athens. Thinking it a matter of national interest, he made a representation to the Government, but failed to induce them to take it up. On his way to Constantinople he