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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
Unit
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LECTURES, ESSAYS
AND
PUBLISHED ARTICLES
ON
SCI1TIFIOLITERABY SUBJECTS
AND ON
FOREIGN TRAVEL,
BY
C. C. )MERRIMAN,
ROCHESTER, N. Y.
1885.
ROCHESTER, N. Y. :
JUDSON J. WITH ALL, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER, UNION STREET.
M375567
M31
THIS COLLECTION OF MY VARIOUS WRITINGS,
PROBABLY THE ONLY BOOK I SHALL EVER
PUBLISH,
I TAKE GREAT PLEASURE IN DEDICATING TO ONE WHOSE
CONSTANT FAITH IN MY SUCCESS,
AND GRATIFICATION IN THE RESULTS, HAVE BEEN THE
CHIEF INCENTIVES OF MY LITERARY EFFORTS,
TO MY DEAR AND LOVING WIFE.
CONTENTS.
BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION;
PAGE
OR, THE WORLD BELOW THE MICROSCOPE. — The infinitude
of the stellar universe. — Contrast of natural with mag-
nified vision. — The limit of microscopic vision. — The
evidences of germ life below the reach of the micro-
scope.— How scientists have got at the size and the
numbering of the atoms. — The thousands of millions
of molecules that are still in the smallest object that
has ever been seen under the microscope. — The recent
theory of the scientists that eacli atom is constituted
like smoke rings, that is of the vortical whirl of innu-
merable particles of ether immeasurably smaller than
the atom. — The world of small things as well as of
great merges into the infinite. - 5
THE POLAR GLACIERS. PART I.
There must be elevations above the ocean in the southern
hemisphere sufficient to balance the great excess of land
in the northern. — Other evidences of an enormous ice-
cap at the South Pole. — Astronomical causes for the
alternate glaciation of the two polar regions. — The
period is 21,000 years. — The northern hemisphere is
now in the midst of its great secular summer. — In
10,500 years it will be as much covered with water and
ice as the southern is now. — Former periods have been
of far greater severity than the present. — Evidences of
the great ice-cap all over the State of New York. -
About 70,000 years ago it retreated for the last time,
and man appeared on the stage of life. - 21
THE POLAR GLACIERS. PART II.
The causes of the prevailing winds, especially the trade
winds. — Their effect on ocean currents. — These always
flow into, and warm most, the hemisphere that is in its
vi CONTENTS.
PAGE
secular summer. — Particular description and geograph-
ical effects of the four seasons of one of the most glacial
of the great secular years. — Evidences in the earth's
strata of previous glacial periods ; and the help which
they give towards estimating the age of geological epochs
and of the world. - 31
UNIVERSITIES YS. SCIENCE.
An attempt to represent the arguments and convictions of
the good Methodist curators of the Yanderbilt Univer-
sity, of Nashville, Tenn., when they removed Prof.
Alex. Winchell from his Lectureship in Geology on
account of scientific heterodox opinions. — Showing
the unfavorable influence on religious tenets, and the
logical materialistic conclusions, that must follow from
modern scientific teachings, and particularly from the
Darwinian .theories. - - 43
WHAT THE CHEMISTRY OF THE ROCKS TEACHES.
The nebular theory of the origin of the earth proved from
the chemical condition and composition of the rocks. —
The order of position of the gases and vapors of minerals
in the atmosphere, according to their specific gravities.
— The oxidation of silicon arid formation of the granites
would be the first result of consolidation. — Then fol-
lowed the great storms and down-pourings of the metals
in their order, the most infusible first. — Then the for-
mation of water, bringing down sulphuric and carbonic
acid in solution. — The succession of the strata in the
earth corresponds to what would be the order of com-
bination and condensation in the atmospheric strata. —
The constitution of the other planets as judged of by
chemical laws. - 53
THE GENESIS OF WORLDS.
Outlines of the " Nebular hypothesis." — Action and trans-
mutation of the forces engaged in the consolidation of
worlds from the gaseous state. — First effect of the
condensation of gases is heat. — To a certain extent
this heat is transformed into the motion of the masses,
that is planetary revolutions ; the remainder is radiated
CONTENTS. vn
PAGE
into space. — All worlds must eventually become cold
and solid. — Then, from the arrest of motion by friction
in space, they must fall into each other. — Motion stop-
ped is again transformed into heat, arid all matter is
again expanded into gases with its original endowment
of heat. — Thus the never ending succession of world
formation and world destruction. - 69
ON THE STRUCTURE OF ATOMS.
Atoms in uniting to form compounds divide themselves into
various fractions, at least up to twelfths. — Instances
and a table given. — The composite structure of atoms
inferred from each separate kind producing its own
characteristic bands in the spectrum. — Also inferred
from the remarkable property of " specific heat," and
from other peculiar chemical principles. — A mixture
of gases of all weights is found in each of the planets.
— The existence of hydrogen, the lightest of all the ele-
ments, in the inner planets and notably in the sun, can
only be accounted for on the supposition that it has been
newly created in those bodies. 79
EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES;
OR, " EVIDENCES OF DESIGN IN EVOLUTION." - - The quanti-
ties and affinities of the elements that compose the
earth might just as well, on the doctrine of chances,
have varied in any number of ways that would have
failed to produce a habitable world.. — The exceptional
properties of water alone prove adaptation in the for-
mation of the elements. — The power of the atoms of
carbon to unite in hundreds and to hold together hun-
dreds of other atoms in one molecule of protoplasm is
both the condition and cause of organic life. — r W herein
the Darwinian theory fails to account for the facts of
organic development. — It acts and can act only within
very narrow limits. — The great advances from one
order to another were always sudden, with no interme-
diate links. — Examples from the quadruped orders. -
Marsupials particularly described. — The lowest races of
mankind do not approach the ape species in brain size
or in any physical peculiarity. — How and to what ex-
tent the increasing complexity of carbon compounds
explains the progress of evolution. 91
viii CONTENTS.
THE MICROSCOPIST IN BERMUDA.
PAGE
The situation, description and history of these small islands.
- The formation is "^Eolian," and dependent on coral
reefs. — It is entirely organic. — The life history of the
Foraminifera, the most numerous of the shells in the
sand. — Life history of the Echinus, or sea-urchin.—
Wonders and beauty of its structure as revealed by the
microscope. — The bird's-head Polyzoa. — The Hydro-
zoa, and their intermediate generation, the jelly-fishes.
— The great interest there is in the Invertebrate
kingdom. - - 115
MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA.
Florida peculiarly adapted to the development of air-plants
and of organs for the absorption of aerial nutrition. --
Glandular cells, like inlaid pearls, on leaves of Onosmo-
dium. - — Stellate scales on leaves of Croton plants. —
Beauty and object of the scales on Florida moss. — Resin
dots on leaves of Calicarpa and sweet myrtle. — Insec-
tivorous plants. — Drosera, or sun-dew. — A new, float-
ing, variety. — Utricularia, or bladder-wort. — Pitcher
plant, the most wonderful instance of adaptation to
special purposes. — Its development cannot be explained
under the Darwinian theory. - 131
ON THE PREPARATION OF OBJECTS FOR
THE MICROSCOPE.
Spiral tissue in leaf stem of castor-oil plant. — Methods of
staining vegetable tissues of all kinds. — Methods of
mounting in cells, both with fluids and as dry mounts.
- The author's views on the various cements used in
mounting. - - 145
PREPARATION AND MOUNTING OF DOUBLE
STAININGS.
A paper read before the American Microscopical Association,
giving a full account of the author's methods of multiple
staining, and of mounting the specimens both in Can-
ada balsam and in aqueous fluids. - 155
CONTENTS. ix
SOME NEW FORMS OF MOUNTING.
PAGE
A paper read before the American Microscopical Association.
— Method of making the transparent shellac cells.—
Curtain ring cells. — A cement cell that will withstand
the action of Canada balsam or turpentine. — Method
of mounting certain opaque objects in Canada balsam,
for the Lieberkiihn. - - 159
THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS PREPARATIONS.
Objects that are beautiful to natural vision are not so under
the microscope. — The two worlds seem to be entirely
distinct. — The fineness of the markings on Podura
scales and on diatoms. — Woodward's photograph of
lines so fine that 400 would be covered by the ordinary
ruling mark on writing paper. — Remarkable structure
and contrivances of the fly-catching Pitcher plant. —
Also of the bladders of the Utricularia, catching insects
in water. — The beautiful spores of a Mexican fern. —
Peculiar method of reproduction among ferns. - - 163
DIVERSITY OF RACES.
Written for a Yale College Senior Prize ; but denied the
prize, by the acknowledgment of the Faculty, solely on
account of its unorthodox sentiments. — It is an attempt
to show the impossibility of the descent of all the races
of mankind from one human pair, and within the Bib-
lical chronology. — Of interest chiefly as an example of
the earliest writings on this subject, (the first the writer
has any knowledge of), and as showing that 36 years
ago subjects were tabooed that are now preached about
in every pulpit. - - 171
CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE.
Intellectual gloom of the dark ages. — The rise of the arts,
discoveries, and literature, three to four hundred years
ago. — Errors of the middle ages, astrology and alchemy.
- Roger Bacon, Basil Valentine, and Paracelsus. — The
inductive method of reasoning. — Francis Bacon. -
The discoveries of Copernicus. — Sketches of the life
and work of Kepler. — Galileo the first true scientist.
- His contests with the church, the schools, and every
form of error. 187
x CONTENTS.
THE HUNS OF ATTILA.
PAGE
Their origin on the steppes of Tartary in central Asia. —
These Highlands the prolific source from which have
sprung all the dominant races. — The migration of the
Huns into Europe. — Their progress set in westward
motion all the intervening tribes of barbarians, causing
all the successive nomadic irruptions into the Roman
territory. — Sketches of these irruptions. — The Huns
under Attila were the last. — Their meeting with the
Roman armies in the heart of France. — The bloody
and eventful battle of Chalons. — One of the great
decisive battles of the world. - - Final triumph of
Christianity over barbarism. - 207
ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST
ARTS. PREFACE.
American travelers as a class do not take interest in the ruins
and relics of ancient structures and art that abound in
Italy. — There is however great value and absorbing
interest in old things that are "good for nothing," as
the following discourse will attempt to show. - 225
ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST
ARTS. LECTURE.
The rare and uncertain visits of the genius of culture to
mankind. — What we know of Grecian painting from
the classical writers. — Its processes are Lost Arts. —
Sketches and noted productions of some of the Greek
painters. — Story in regard to Benj. West as illustrating
the cause of the great superiority of the Grecian artists.
— Farnese Bull and Laocoon described. — The abound-
ing wealth of ancient sculpture. — Art remains found
in Pompeii. — The causes that brought about the ex-
tinction of all art knowledge and the destruction of all
art remains. — The decay of Roman culture and empire,
along with the gradual demolition of the great city of
Rome. - - ' - 227
CONTENTS. xi
SKETCHES OF THE "OLD MASTERS" IN PAINTING.
PAGE
Giving a brief account of what is most noteworthy in the
lives and character, the work and master-pieces of the
early Italian painters ; forming a kind of introduction
to the following more extended description of their
works. - - 245
STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS.
Descriptions and narratives explaining the most noted works
of the " Old Masters," as well as of many of the cele-
brated paintings of modern artists. — The author has
endeavored to make them models of concise story-
telling, such as in his judgment should characterize
descriptive catalogues. - - 257
A TRIP TO MEXICO.
A visit to "old Mexico" in the winter of 1875-6. — Yera
Cruz railway. — 9,000 feet up the mountains. — The
extensive fields of the "century plant" that produce
the notorious Mexican drink " pulque " (pool-kay). —
The valley of the city of Mexico an undrained basin,
with the salt lake Tezcuco in the lowest part. — The
City of Mexico. — Its conquest by Cortez. — The Diaz-
Lerdo revolution, in progress at the time of this visit.
- Poverty of Mexico and its causes. — The fallacy and
folly of the modern disbelievers in the Spanish accounts
of Aztec civilization and the "Conquest of Mexico."
- The beauty and variety of Mexican scenery. - - 283
SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND.
Its native animals and plants represent a geological age
nearly back to the Carboniferous. — The Maoris (native
races) are a quite recent imigration. - - How New
Zealand got its inappropriate name. — Description of
Auckland. -- Visit to the hot springs and lakes. -
Accounts of Maoris. -- New Zealand "bush."- -The
remarkable Terraces. — Lake Rotomahana. — Hot water
bathing. — The sheep-killing parrot. — Ravages of im-
xii CONTENTS.
PAGE
ported weeds. — The rabbit plague. — The Albatross. -
Its soaring with motionless wings explained. — The
Moa skeletons. — Maori " carved houses."- - The sounds
or fiords on the southern coast. — The southern con-
stellations.— Unfavorable conclusions in regard to New
Zealand, agriculturally and financially. - 297
THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION.
A plea for a broader liberalism in Christian theology. — The
critical comparison and contrast of the Christian with
the older religions of the world show it to be derivative
and not original. — Consequently it has no right to ex-
clusiveness. — The Greek philosophy of Socrates and
Plato taught the Trinity of Gods, the immortality of
the soul and the doctrine of future rewards and punish-
ments. — The Yedas of the Brahmaiis were written a
thousand years before the Flood. — Yet they tell the
stories of Adima and Heva, the first parents, and of
Chrishna the Redeemer of mankind, almost word for
word as they are related in the Bible. — There were
religious sects in Egypt shortly before the Christian
era so closely resembling the Church of the New Tes-
tament that they could not be distinguished from it. —
From all this it is argued that in all ages and nations
the man who has lived an upright and God-fearing life
according to the light that has been given him, is en-
titled to all the rewards that are promised to the faith-
ful. -321
SKETCHES OF SEA-LIFE.
The story of the author's first voyage " before the mast," in
the year 1847. — It was in the new packet ship, St.
Denis, from New York to Havre in France. — The trip
forth and back occupied about four months. — It occur-
red in the writer's sophomore year at Yale College ; but
all examinations were afterwards passed and he grad-
uated with his Class in '49. - - - 335
ILLUSTRATIONS.
DESCRIPTION OF THE GELATINE PROCESS OF
PICTURE MAKING.
As the art of reproducing photographs by the gelatine process
is quite recent and not yet very generally understood, a
few words in explanation of it may not be out of place
as an introduction to the description of the plates in
this book, which have been made wholly by this process.
All photo-mechanical w^ork depends on two peculiar proper-
ties of gelatine. 1st : Warm water readily dissolves gela-
tine, while cold water only soaks or is absorbed by it
without dissolving any portion of it. 2nd : A mixture
of a solution of gelatine with bichromate of potassa
remains a simple mechanical mixture as long as it is
kept in the dark ; but when exposed to white light it
becomes a chemical compound, hard and impervious to
water.
In the first place then, a thin film of this mixture of gela-
tine and bichromate is spread over a square of plate
glass in the photographer's dark room. A photographic
negative is then placed in close contact with this film,
and it is exposed to sun light. The film becomes hard
and insoluble under the light parts of the negative,
partially so under the half tints, and remains soft and
unchanged under the dark shades. After sufficient ex-
posure the plate is taken to the dark room and all the
uncombined bichromate washed out by cold water. It
is then in condition to print from, and may be taken
directly to the printing press.
For each, copy that is taken from it the plate is sponged
with cold water and lightly wiped, leaving the hard
parts dry, the semi-hardened parts more or less damp,
and the soft parts quite wet. In this condition the
ordinary " greasy " ink of the lithographers will adhere
only to the dry parts of it and be repelled from the wet.
Rollers coated with this thick ink, first of the quality
called " coarse," then of " fine," are successively passed
xiv ILLUSTRATIONS.
over the plate until the picture is brought out clearly in
all its dark and light shadings. A specially prepared
paper is now applied to the inked plate, passed through
the press, and then carefully raised from the film, a
perfectly printed picture. It is afterwards polished, if
desired, as in the samples in this book, with talc and
cotton batting.
Any color may be used in the printing. From three to
five hundred copies can be taken from one film, and
after that another film can be easily prepared from the
same negative. An original and perfect negative will
of course make the finest picture. The excellent repro-
ductions here presented were made however, in all but
two instances, the portrait and the diatom plate, from
copies of the originals, and the most of them from neg-
atives taken of the paper photographs brought from
New Zealand. They are the productions of The Lewis
Company, 15 Cornhill, Boston.
PLATE I. — FKOXTISPIECE.
PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR.
PLATE II. — OPPOSITE PAGE 8.
NEW ZEALAND "BUSH" SCENERY.
It is supposed that the New Zealand forest, or " bush " as it
is there called, with its rank undergrowth of ferns and
reed grasses, and its overhanging masses of parasitic
growths, orchids, creepers, and climbing ferns, represents
both in species and in luxuriance the vegetation which
formed the coal beds. Pages 298 and 303
PLATE III. — OPPOSITE PAGE 32.
MITRE PEAK, MILFORD SOUND, NEW ZEALAND.
This sound is one of many remarkable inlets from the
sea on the south-west coast of New Zealand, like the
fiords of Norway. This one is nine miles in length
and is walled in by snow-capped peaks which rise almost
straight up from the water to heights of from five to
seven thousand feet. On the left of the view is Mitre
Peak, 5,600 feet high, so called from its resemblance in
certain views to the double-peaked Cardinal's mitre.
ILLUSTRATIONS. xv
On the right is Pembroke Peak, 7,000 feet high. Be-
tween the two is the narrow entrance to the sound, in
one place only 500 yards wide. The view is taken from
Fresh Water Basin on the inlet river at the head of
the sound. Page 317
PLATE IV. — OPPOSITE PAGE 56.
TREE FERNS IN FERN TREE GULLY, HOB ART TOWN.
Although this view of the indescribable luxuriance and
beauty of the fern tree growths is in Tasmania (Van
Dieman's Land), still it faithfully represents the borders
and openings of almost every forest, or " bush," in New
Zealand. These tree ferns, some of which are 40 feet
high with a spread at the top of 20 feet, will not flour-
ish except under the protection and partial shade of
the taller forest trees. ' Page 303
PLATE V. — OPPOSITE PAGE 80.
MOURNING THE DEAD IN NEW ZEALAND.
The peculiarly heathen practice of wailing for the dead still
persists among all the Maori (Moury) tribes- of New
Zealand. The dead body is laid out in the porch of
the house, and the mourners come and bewail in a sad
and moaning tone by the hour. I have heard a belated
mourner going through his lugubrious wail in the door
yard of a deceased two weeks after the burial. Page 305
PLATE VI. — OPPOSITE PAGE 96.
A SETTLEMENT OF CRAY-FISHERS NEAR HOT
SPRINGS IN NEW ZEALAND.
This is the place where all excursionists to the celebrated
Terraces of New Zealand are expected to stop and buy
a bag of cray-fish, to be cooked for lunch in the hot
springs on Lake Rotomahana. Page 310
PLATE VII. — OPPOSITE PAGE 116.
ARRANGED GROUP OF DIATOMS AND SPICULES.
(MAGNIFIED SIXTY-FIVE DIAMETERS.)
The original specimen is all comprised in one-thirteenth of
an inch, about the size of the head of a pin, and con-
tains 202 shells and spicules. The center and outside
xvi ILLUSTRATIONS.
diatoms are Coscinodiscus radiatus. The first ring
cluster is wheel plates found in the skin of the worm
Chirodota. The second and fourth circles are the
diatoms Actinocyclus Ralfsii. The third circle is the
diatom Arachnoidiscus ETirenbergii. The outside
cluster is composed of the anchors and perforated anchor
plates found in the sldn of the worm Synapta, as also
of the long diatoms Pinnularia virides. The nega-
tives for this and the following prints of micro-photo-
graphs were taken for me by W. H. Walmsley, of 1016
Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. Pages 164 and 125
PLATE VIII. — OPPOSITE PAGE 128.
BIRDS HEAD POLYZO A — AVICULARIA.
(MAGNIFIED ABOUT THIRTY DIAMETERS.)
One of these illustrations is directly from nature, and the
other is from a drawing of a stem of the zoophyte,
showing the animals with tentacles extended, and the
muscles which actuate the birds head attachments.
These miniature heads, of no use or purpose in the
colonial economy, so far as known, keep up a continual
biting and snapping as long as there is life in the animal
which they seem to guard. Page 126
PLATE IX. — OPPOSITE PAGE 136.
SPIRAL TISSUE IN LEAF STEM OF CASTOR OIL PLANT.
1st. Transverse section, magnified 12 diameters, showing the
ends of the spirals in what are called the fibro-vascular
bundles.
2nd. Longitudinal section, magnified 70 diameters, showing
the spiral vessels as they lie in one of those bundles.
These little tubes, made, in the case of this plant, of closely
coiled fibers, are the passage-ways through which the
sap circulates to the extremity of the leaves and back
again. In the leaf -stem they are laid away in small
clusters between the wood cells and the pith cells.
There are over 400 of these spiral vessels in the stem
from which this specimen is taken. They are not larger
than human hairs, and yet they are wound with a thread
inconceivably smaller, and are as perfect as coils of wire
around a form. Pages 135 and 145
ILLUSTRATIONS. xvii
PLATE X. — OPPOSITE PAGE 152.
THE ECHINUS AND ITS LARVA THE PLUTEUS.
1st. The Pluteus or nurse form of the Echinoids, magnified
20 diameters.
2nd. The Echinus, the spiny sea-egg or sea-urchin, reduced
to \ natural size.
The Echinus which is here represented is found in holes that
it has drilled near low tide in the surf-beaten rocks of
the Bermuda coast. From its eggs is produced the
Pluteus, an intermediate generation, almost microscopic
in size, but an active swimmer by means of its numer-
ous cilia-hairs. It is an entirely different animal from
its parent, not having one point of structure in com-
mon with it. When this creature attains its minute
growth a tiny saucer-shaped disk appears on one side of
the stomach of the Pluteus, gradually growing at the
edges into a globular form until it has enclosed the vital
parts of its old nurse. It then forms a new mouth at
the point last enclosed, discards all the external parts of
the Pluteus, and sinks to the bottom of the ocean to
begin the new life of the spiny Echinus. Page 124
PLATE XL — OPPOSITE PAGE 168.
TRANSVERSE SECTIONS OF SPINES OF ECHINUS.
Magnified about 30 diameters, making the largest section
one-twelfth of an inch across. There is an infinite var-
iety in the beauty, the structure, and the exquisite
coloring of these thin sections. Pages 122-3
By request is here published the author's method of cutting
and grinding these sections in quantity: — Imbed the
spines in glue, making a stick of them. When nearly
solid with glue and dry, cut into thin cross sections with
a dentist's saw. Dissolve out the glue in hot water.
Dry the sections and imbed them in Canada balsam on
two pieces of glass. When hardened by heat, grind one
against the other with pumice and water until level and
smooth. Place another piece of glass in a saucer and
cover with turpentine. Put one of the ground pieces
on this with sections down. After one day the sections
wrill all lie turned over on the lower glass. Carefully
raise and imbed them as they lie in Canada balsam.
xvin ILLUSTRATIONS.
Treat the other ground glass in the same way, and when
hard grind the two new ones together with pumice and
water until the sections are as thin as possible. Then
carefully dissolve them off witli turpentine, and select
and mount in balsam. Some will show best as opaque
objects. Page 161
PLATE XII. — OPPOSITE PAGE 184.
PORTRAITS OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS.
There is nothing that pleases a native more than to make a
display of his accoutrements and insignia of rank. The
tattoo marks on the face, arms and breast of the New
Zealanders indicate the tribe and rank of each person.
A high chief is pretty well covered with them all over
the upper part of his body. A married woman is
tatooed on her chin as well as on breast and arms.
These scarifying marks are put on in India ink, under
some pointed instrument (formerly flint or bone), beaten
into the skin by a light mallet. It is said that 110 per-
son can bear the torture of it more than half an hour
in a day. Some of these old cannibals must have had
quite a foretaste of torment in this life. Page 298
PLATE XIII. — OPPOSITE PAGE 208.
WHITE TERRACES AND GEYSER, NEW ZEALAND.
In the central part of the North Island of New Zealand,
about 100 miles inland by the road, is the remarkable
geyser district which contains the hot lake Rotomahana,
on opposite borders of which are the far-famed
White and Pink Terraces. In each case, at a height of
nearly 100 feet above the lake, there is an enormous
fountain of boiling and spouting waters surcharged
with silica. Inasmuch as only hot water will hold any
of this mineral in solution, it must necessarily be depos-
ited as the water cools. This is the cause of the forma-
tion of these splendid and spacious steps and basins of
silicious sinter. A slight impregnation of iron in the
waters of the Pink Terraces gives to them their beauti-
fully variegated pinkish tinge. Pages 308 to 312
ILLUSTRATIONS. xix
PLATE XIV. — OPPOSITE PAGE 224.
WHITE TERRACES WITH FOUNTAIN NOT FLOWING.
The natives say that when the wind blows strong in a certain
direction, the waters recede from the fountain of the
White Terraces, and they can look down into it as into
a crater. This statement would be almost incredible
without the evidence of this photograph. Page 309
PLATE XV. — OPPOSITE PAGE 240.
VIEW AT THE HEAD OF LAKE WAKATIPU,
NEW ZEALAND.
Lake Wakatipu (Wah-kah-teep\ 60 miles long, 1,000 feet
above the sea, and said to be 1,400 feet deep, lying in
the heart of the Southern Alps at the farthest end of
New Zealand, is the wildest and grandest scenery lake
perhaps in the world. From the end where the Inver-
cargill railway reaches it, to the head where a single
Irish family on one side and a single Scotch family on
the other make the rival " towns " of Kinlock and
Glenarchy, increasingly high and rugged snow covered
peaks and ridges rise abruptly from the shores to heights
of six to nine thousand feet. The terraces which are
seen in this view, as sharply cut as if made by human
hands, and which are over 400 feet high, are found at
the same height and with the same shelves on all sides
of the lake, showing the different elevations at which
the water has stood in former times. Page 316
PLATE XVI. — OPPOSITE PAGE 256.
EUCALYPTUS FOREST OF AUSTRALIA, WITH
TREE FERNS.
In these forests which cover so large a part of Australia,
the enormous white trunks of the different. "gum trees"
(I have jneasured them over 17 feet in diameter) tower
up 200 or 300 feet without branches, while underneath
is an impenetrable growth of ferns and bushes. In the
edges and more open spaces flourish the tall tree ferns,
30 to 40 feet high. Page 297
xx ILLUSTRATIONS.
PLATE XVII. — OPPOSITE PAGE 280.
HOUSE AND GROUP OF MAORIS, NATIVE NEW
ZEALANDERS.
Tliis is the scarcely varying model of all the Maori houses,
a porch in front and one room back, all under a grass
thatched roof, and with more or less carvings on the
posts and cornices, according to the skill or rank of the
occupant. The Maoris have found it easier to dress
themselves in the cheap or cast-off clothes of the English
than to make them from their native " flax plant " as
they formerly did. Page 315
PLATE XVIII. — OPPOSITE PAGE 296.
PINK TERRACES AND BOILING FOUNTAIN, NEW
ZEALAND.
Described under White Terraces — PLATE XIII. Page 311
PLATE XIX. — OPPOSITE PAGE 312.
HOT BATH BASINS IN PINK TERRACES, NEW
ZEALAND.
The hot water in these basins is about breast deep, and one
climbs up from one to another as he requires or can
endure the hotter waters. Page 311
PLATE XX. — OPPOSITE PAGE 336.
SAILOR BOY "CHARLIE."
A copy from an old Daguerreotype, and the earliest likeness
taken of the one whose latest portrait heads this vol-
ume. Page 338
BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION;
Or, The World Below the Microscope.*
Midway between two infinities lies the world that is revealed
to our senses. A wide and wonderful world it seems to us, for
within its range are all the forms and phenomena which are at
the foundation of our knowledge, the arts and the sciences.
Yet marvelous and almost infinite as are the scenes and objects
unfolded to our sight, they form but an infinitesimal part of the
boundless range of nature both beneath and beyond the limits of
our perceptions.
The sharpest eyes, under .the most favorable circumstances for
observation, can see only about five thousand stars in all the
sweep of the heavens. With the highest powers of the telescope
it is estimated that twenty million stars are visible. Yet all
these are only the brightest or the nearest of the suns which
compose the great cluster of the Galaxy or Milky-way, to which
system our sun belongs. In many parts of the Miljky-way even
the giant reflector of Lord Rosse discloses, beyond the stars which
it resolves, only the same milky whiteness which we see every
clear night in that marvelous girdle of the heavens. We have
not yet seen even all the outlying lights of our own City of the
skies. Yet this immense aggregation of worlds composing the
Milky-way, numbering, with the dark planets which are doubt-
less circling about their suns, and the many un lighted orbs in
their midst, probably thousands of millions, is only one of
thousands of such star clusters that are within the range of
*A lecture written In 1884, and delivered before the Rochester Academy of Sciences and
on A'arious other occasions.
6 BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION.
telescopic observation. Over five thousand nebulae have already
been counted in the heavens ; and every increase in telescopic
power not only resolves more of the previously known nebulae
into faint clusters of stars, but reveals others still deeper set in
the infinitudes of space. Of the nebulous bodies which the
Spectroscope has been able to examine, about two-thirds are
proved to be clusters of stars, and the other one-third to be gas-
eous matter, nitrogen, hydrogen, and an unknown gas, imperfect
or new forming worlds. Over three thousand star systems then,
probably in every way similar to the one which lights our night
skies, have already been located in the outlying regions of space.
And still beyond are doubtless other systems teeming with their
myriads of self-lighted suns. There is no boundary to the hea-
vens. The mind of man cannot conceive of a limit to space.
For if there is one, what limits it — what is there beyond ?
The nearest fixed star to us is still twenty million million miles
away. Light, which travels at the perfectly inconceivable veloc-
ity of 182,000 miles in a second of time, takes three and a half
years to come to us from this star, Alpha Centauri. Sirius, the
brightest star in the heavens, is separated from us by the light
distance of seventeen years — or 100 -million million miles. Sir.
Win. Herschel estimated that some of the light of the Milky-
way is already ten thousand years old when it reaches us. Some
of the infinite multitude of stars which appear as the hazy cloud-
belt of the Galaxy, emitted the rays which strike our eyes
to-night over ten thousand years ago.
But this is all within our own circumscribed world of worlds.
There are telescopic star clusters so far banished in space that
they are perhaps to-day receiving the last glimmer of the molten
fire beds that once covered our earth. Were the entire stellar
universe except our sun and planets swept out of existence at
this hour, we would not know it — we would not even suspect
it — for ages to come.
Such is the infinity of magnitudes. But I will have occasion
to-night to speak to you of more startling infinitudes below our
sight than there are above it. The world of the infinitely small
is of vaster range and set off with far more inconceivable num-
BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION.
bers than the universe of the heavens. We will follow it grad-
ually down until it vanishes from all possibility of conception.
The limit of natural vision I suppose is not far from the one-
hundredth of an inch. The volvox, which can be seen by the
naked eye as a little green speck in pond water, is about the one-
fiftieth of an inch in diameter. The largest diatoms, which are
seen as the merest particles of fine dust, seldom reach the size
of one-hundredth of an inch. The finest point of the sharpest
needle is estimated at the one-thousandth of an inch across, and
as you know can no more be seen than the edge of a razor. You
can of course tell where it is, for it stops the passage of light ;
but you can see no dimensions about it whatever.
With the microscope the limit of .resolving power is somewhere
near the hundred-thousandth of an inch. The test rulings, known
as Robert's bands, are lines made by the point of a diamond on
glass guided by the finest screws and machinery. The nineteenth
band is ruled to the known fineness of 120,000 to the inch ; and
notwithstanding some claims to the contrary, I think it exceed-
ingly doubtful if these lines have ever been clearly separated by
the highest powers of the microscope.
One of the most interesting and complete illustrations of the
use of the highest powers of the microscope that I have ever
read, is in a monograph on one of the infusoria, by the Rev. Dr.
Dallinger, a distinguished English microscopist. He has followed
this animalcule, the greatest length of which is only the one ten-
thousandth of an inch, through all the phases of its life history,
comprised within ten to twelve hours. A full grown individual
divides itself lengthwise into two perfect beings in about five
minutes. In another five minutes, each of these go through the
same operation again, and so on for hours. After from three to
seven hours of this kind of multiplication, the older ones die off,
while some of the younger and more vigorous attach them-
selves to each other in pairs. One entirely absorbs the body
of the other into its own, and settles down to the quiet cysted
state, as it is called. Then after a certain time there commence
to ooze out of this body perfect little clouds of the minutest
spores, until nothing is left of the parent organism but the
8 BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION.
shriveled skin. These spores, at first too small to be resolved by
the highest powers that our microscopist could bring to bear upon
them, soon however grew to be visible as distinct points, then to
push out their little threads of locomotion, and at length to
become the full grown monads, ready to commence the other
kind of generation, that of self-division. You can any of you
easily repeat at least some part of this experiment, by putting a
bit of fresh meat into a tumbler of water and letting it stand for
a few days. You will then have a crop of infusoria that literally
" no man can number." They would not probably be the identical
species experimented upon by Dallinger, but one no larger and
having an entirely similar life history and modes of generation.
I have estimated in regard to Dallinger's monads that a hun-
dred million of them, great and small, might be contained in a
drop of water, and yet be no more crowded than I have seen
bacteria in infusions. Theoretically the natural increase of one
of these germs dropped into an infusion, and within twenty-four
hours, would be numbered as the figure one followed by eighteen
ciphers. Now as this would be as many as a good sized pond
would hold, we must suppose that the cruel principle of the
survival of the fittest comes into that community long before it
is twenty-four hours old.
But we must hasten our steps. We have not passed below the
microscope as yet, and we have a long journey downward still
to make. I will first endeavor to give you some idea of Molecu-
lar Physics — of the conditions and sizes of the ultimate particles
which compose the matter about us. I do not however dare to
present to you the array of figures which are necessary to show
the relations and dimensions of the molecules, without giving at
least an indication of the methods by which they have been
found out. You would not begin to believe me if I did not have
some show of proof to offer. So at a risk of appearing a
little abstruse, and perhaps of not being fully understood for a
few moments, I will attempt to tell you how the scientists have
been, able to come at the ultimate molecules of matter, so totally
below the reach of manipulation, or the highest powers of the
microscope.
BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION. 9
Sir William Thomson has made some very ingenious approxi-
mations to the actual size of molecules from such entirely inde-
pendent data as the following : First — In the dispersion of light
in the spectrum — how small must be the original particles in the
glass or the crystal of the prism, to retard light waves of 60,000
to the inch, which are the blue, and not much to retard those of
40.000 to the inch which are the red ; for this is the true sig-
nification of the dispersion of the colors in the solar spectrum.
Second — How many molecules thick must be the film of a soap
bubble to resist the force and tension necessary to draw it out to
an extreme thinness. And : Third — Knowing how much elec-
tricity or heat is developed by the application of thin plates of
different metals as copper and zinc, how thin would they have to
be to develop the same amount of heat which the same quantity
of these metals produces when they are alloyed to form brass ;
for then they are applied atom to atom. In each of these cases
his estimates of the probable size of molecules came to nearly
the same uniform result, and furthermore, to the same result
which is brought out by a far more accurate and reliable culcula-
tion, which I will more particularly describe.
It is now a well established principle that the molecules of any
gas, as hydrogen, oxygen or the air we breathe, are in constant
and rapid motion — one striking against another and bounding off
to hit a third, and so on continually, precisely as billiard balls
would act under the same impulse and without friction. This is
the mode of motion known as heat; and the hotter the gases
the swifter fly the particles.
The hydrogen that fills a balloon resists an outside pressure of
fifteen pounds to the square inch ; and it does it by this incessant
bombardment of the atoms of the gas against the inside of the
containing bag. Now the weight of a given volume of hydrogen
being well known, it is only a matter of calculation to estimate
with what velocity its parts must be hurled against the sides of
any containing receptacle to resist such an outside pressure. It
is found that its particles must fly about in every direction with
the average velocity of 6,055 feet in a second, about 70 miles a
minute. The particles of the air, being seven and eight times
10 BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION.
heavier than hydrogen, move with only about half that velocity.
This is one element of the problem.
Again, if different gases are placed in communication with
each other, they instantly commence mixing together. ~No mat-
ter how quiet they may be, or how different in weight within
certain limits, after a certain time they are found to be thoroughly
commingled. This is accomplished by the incessant knocking of
particles against particles until they are finally scattered equally
in every direction. Now it is by careful and repeated experiments
on the rate of diffusion of the different gases with each other
that physicists have calculated how many times in a second these
particles must be hitting against each other to produce the observed
results. It is found that the number of collisions which one atom
of hydrogen must make in a second is on the average 17,700
millions. Thus we have the distance an atom travels in a second,
and the number of hits it makes. From these figures we can very
easily tell the average distance the atom travels between each two
successive collisions, called the mean free path, and which must be
about the actual distance apart of these atoms. You see we are
beginning to get a little hold on these intangible and inscrutable
things.
From the general principles of molecular mechanics there has
been deduced the following simple proportion : As a given
volume of any gas is to the amount of solid matter in it, so is
the average mean path of any one of its molecules to one-eighth
of the actual diameter of that molecule. Now a cubic foot of
steam, which is water gas, when condensed makes almost exactly
a cubic inch of water, which may be taken as very nearly the
solid matter in that amount of steam. Therefore, the cubic
inches in a cubic foot (1728) is to one, as the mean free path
(about one-millionth of an inch), is to one-eighth of the diameter
of a molecule of water vapor. The working out of this sum
gives the size of the ultimate particle of any gas as about the
250 millionth of an inch. Here we have the problem solved ;
not perhaps with a perfectly accurate result, but certainly some-
thing near it. We have got at the approximate dimensions of
the last unit of matter — and it is an exceedingly small thing —
BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION. 11
perfectly inconceivable. The number of molecules in a cubic
inch of any gas at ordinary temperature and pressure is the
figure 3 followed by 20 ciphers. A drop of water contains about
the same number — three hundred million million million. If
that little drop of water were magnified to a globe as large as
the whole earth, and its molecules were enlarged in the same
proportion, they would still be no larger than apples. Now you
may think of a pile of apples as large as a meeting-house, or a
hill, or possibly a mountain, but it is beyond all possibility to
realize the number that would be contained in a mass as large as
the world we live on. If Mount "Washington in the White
Mountains were all sand, there would not be as many grains in it
as there are molecules in a drop of water.
The cheese-mite is a perfect little spider, with all the parts and
complicate organs of his order. This little insect, which you can
scarcely see by the naked eye, disposes of a number of structural
units represented by the figure 4 followed by 18 ciphers — enough,
if they were the smallest beads you ever saw, and strung on a
thread that was long enough, to reach to the bright star Sirius.
If the body of an elephant were composed of only the same
number of particles enlarged that go to make up the smallest
living insect, the grained structure of the monster would still be
finer than the finest dust of wheaten flour.
The smallest bacteria or infusoria, found so abundantly in foul
waters, and which can only be seen under the higher powers of
the microscope, are the proprietors each one of something like
four million million molecules.
I have already mentioned the germs of the infusorium which
Dr. Dallinger saw under a magnification of five thousand diam-
eters as little clouds issuing from the cyst.* He tells us that he
once watched these clouds two weeks before they had increased in
size sufficiently for him to resolve them into discrete points — as the
astronomer resolves the distant nebula into the faint glimmer of
separate stars ; both observations being on the extremest bounds
of the power of magnified vision. From this point of first
resolution, the germs gradually developed in about two days into
•Lecture before the British A. A. S., Montreal, 1884.
12 BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION.
full grown ciliated monads, fifty millions of which, he tells us,
could easily disport in a drop of water. Now these germs when
they first became barely visible under the Doctor's famous 25th,
could not have been mucli smaller than the one hundred-thousandth
of an inch. Therefore they were composed of about 10,000
million molecules each. That is an aggregate of 10,000 million
molecules is the vanishing point of microscopic vision. But
even these, it strikes me, are enough to build up a very respect-
able little body. There are not as many parts in any house in
the land, bricks, boards, tiles, nails and all.
The canning of fruits and vegetables is now a domestic art.
Every house-wife knows that if the cans are properly scalded and
sealed while hot, they will keep sweet for any length of time.
But if opened to the air they will sour and spoil in a very few
days. Now this last condition is simply the production in them
of enormous numbers of what is called the Bacterium termo,
about the smallest living thing that is known, somewhat oval or
cylindrical in shape, with two cilia or minute hairs at one end,
which lash the water, producing a rapid jerking motion. It is of
a plant nature, or at least is so called, and increases by sub-
division, in a short time completely filling the liquid and absorb-
ing all the nutrient matter. Then follow the tribes of the
infusoria, little voracious animals, which seem successively to de-
vour the bacteria and then themselves. But whence came the
bacteria and then the infusoria ? They were not in the water nor
in the fruit ; for if they had been, the preparation that had been
sealed up would have immediately spoiled. The first thing which
the microscopist sees with his favorite 8th or 10th is a swarm of
these full grown organisms lazily rolling or darting and frisking
about. They must have come then either from spontaneous
generation or from spores and germs let down into the infusions
from the air. But it is now pretty well established that there is
no spontaneous generation — no life except through antecedent
life. Therefore the latter, or the air-germ theory, is the only
true explanation. But no one has ever seen these germs in the
air, and we must consequently suppose that they are beyond the
reach of microscopic vision.
BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION. 13
Epidemic and contageous diseases are now recognized and
treated as produced and propagated by living organisms. Our
systems of quarantine and disinfection are founded on this theory.
In the case of most of these diseases, there has been discovered
and described the veritable bacteria or bacillus which is the cause
and virus of each. But still there are some, including malarial,
yellow and typhus fevers, equally well known to be germ-diseases,
the cause or contagium of which has never been discovered,
although you may be sure it has been diligently sought for.
These diseases have their regular periods of growth and culmi-
nation, of intermittence, or relapse and repetition. "We know
that there is something in them that grows and dies ; but what it
is no power of the microscope has yet revealed. In this case
then, both the germs and the full grown product of the germs are
below the limit of magnified vision.
Evidently the scale of life does not stop at or near the limit
which the present state of the optician's art prescribes to the
extent of our vision. And there is no assignable reason why it
should. The smallest living creature that has ever been seen
under the glass, has at least a million million units to work with.
But it may be a million times smaller, and yet have the very
respectable number of a million structural units, infinitesimal
bricks, with which to build its simple little house of a single
room.
So you see there is the easy possibility, and even probability,
of another realm of the living kingdoms far below the reach of
the microscope. And in strong corroboration of this conclusion,
is the fact, as shown by the beautiful experiments of Professor
Tyndall, that the blue color of both the sea and sky is produced by
an infinite number of minute, and as he thinks organic, particles
suspended therein, much smaller than the wave lengths of light,
which are on the average about the one fifty-thousandth of an
inch.
If you take a glass jar full of pure distilled water, which is
perfectly colorless, and while stirring let fall into it a drop or
two of a solution of resin or gum mastic in alcohol, you will have
a liquid slowly passing from pellucid water into the most beauti-
14 BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION.
ful marine and ultra-marine blue, and then into a milky and
opaque white. For resin, though perfectly soluble in alcohol, is
insoluble in water ; and by carefully mixing them as we have
described, the particles of the gum are first in a state of molecu-
lar division, in which they are totally invisible ; then by grad-
ual aggregation they become large enough to chip off and scatter
some of the blue rays of light, which are those of shortest
vibration ; and finally they become sufficiently large to intercept
all light. This is the explanation of the colors of deep waters,
verging from blue to dark green.
Again, there are certain gaseous compounds which sunlight is
competent to gradually decompose into their original elements.
One is sulphurous acid gas, composed of two atoms of oxygen
and one of sulphur. It is the pungent gas one smells when a
sulphur match is lighted. A beam of sunlight passing through
a glass jar containing this gas, literally shakes the atoms apart,
leaving the oxygen as a pure transparent gas, and the solid sulphur
atoms suspended in it. For about two minutes no change of
color is seen ; after that time the sulphur atoms will have joined
together into sufficiently large particles to affect the blue rays of
light. Then for fifteen minutes the color of the gas is a grad-
ually deepening blue, and finally a thick opaque white. This
exemplifies in a beautiful manner the cause of the deep azure
blue of our clear skies. There are scattered, through all the
regions of the air, minute particles of matter, small in comparison
to the length of light waves, which deflect and scatter some of
the smaller and less energetic undulations of the sun-beams ;
and this light, left behind in the swift passage of the solar rays,
remains as the ever-blue firmament of the skies.
That this light-scattering dust is mainly organic, that is, the
product in some way of living things, is shown by the fact that
it can all be burned out of any particular enclosure, and the air
therein be left perfectly light pure. If sunlight is passed through
a small apperture into a dark room, its passage through the air
will be marked by a white streak, from reflection against the
particles of matter which it meets. But if a platinum wire be
raised to a white heat in this room by the electric battery, and
BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION. 15
kept there for a half an hour or more, every particle of reflecting
matter in it will be burned out, and thereafter the track of a sun
beam through this air will be as black as through a perfect vac-
uum. Now the inorganic material of our world has been long
ago all burned up, and there is nothing now that burns except new
formed, that is, organic substances. Therefore the sky dust is
clearly of organic origin.
It is well known that the air which covers, and the winds which
blow, over the regions of prolific life, and especially the busy
haunts of men, are loaded with the gerrns and spores of every
kind of infinitesimal organisms. The seeds of decay, of ferment,
of disease, and of the myriad forms of infusorial life, must
abound in the air which surrounds us. For not an animal ceases
to breathe, or a plant to live, or a particle of organic matter to
be exposed, but it is in a very short time invaded by the peculiar
organism that seems to exist for the destruction of each.
Now this is not so on. the heights of mountains, or even on our
dry western plains. Meats may be preserved, and organic infu-
sions kept sweet, when exposed in such localities, for a longtime.
Cattle that die on the western ranges dry up before decay sets in,
and sealed cans of provisions opened on the higher summits of
mountains will remain preserved for any length of time, showing
that the germs of putrefaction and ordinary decay do not exist in
the dry air of elevated plains nor in the upper regions of the
atmosphere.
But organic matter is there in abundance, for the same deep
blue skies are above the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains,
that are over us here to-night. Therefore it is probable that the
germ life of the upper skies, whatever it may be, never develops
into anything that becomes sensible to our means of observation.
But I propose, if you will kindly have the patience to follow
me, to lead you down some long steps further into infinitesimal
magnitudes, to give you an idea of one of the boldest specu-
lations in regard to the ultimate constitution of matter, which
the mind of man has ever conceived.
It is common knowledge that the chemists describe and give
names to about seventy/ elementary substances, or forms of matter
16 BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION.
which cannot be further decomposed, or reduced to anything
simpler, by any means known to them. Still there are few who
really believe that those simple elements are the last and lowest
condition of matter. The physicist who has not had his dream
or his theory of the unification of all matter, must be the one
who never thinks beyond the tables. I will endeavor to explain
to you that one which has occupied such minds as those of
Helmholtz, Maxwell and Sir William Thomson.
It is now no longer questioned that all space is filled with a
highly elastic, all-pervading ether. Light and heat are simply
wave motions, and it is impossible that they should come to us
from the stars and the sun, except there were something to move,
some material medium all the way from those bodies to the earth.
Again, this medium retards light in coming from the sun to the
earth just eight and one half minutes. Now one of the defini-
tions of matter is, that which presents an obstacle to force.
Therefore the luminiferous ether, which does present an obstacle
to the passage of the light force, is material in its composition.
It is perfectly elastic, that is, its parts move among themselves
without friction, as is shown by the almost instantaneous passage
of the radiant forces through it (182,000 miles in a second). It
is beyond all conception minute in its structure, for it fills in
between the ordinary particles of matter, so that light, which uses
only this medium for its transmission, passes almost as readily
through air as through space, but is a little retarded in the more
solid material of glass and transparent crystals. Thus we have
furnished us a material substance pervading all space, of the
utmost tenuity and elasticity. Let us see if there is any way in
which atoms and molecules could be manufactured out of it.
You have all probably seen a tobacco smoker make little rings
of smoke from his mouth, or a steam locomotive, when just
starting, puff up great black rings of smoke that ascend to consid-
erable distances unbroken. I wish I could show you the beautiful
illustration of this which Prof. Tait exhibits to his audiences.
He produces by chemicals a dense smoke in a box some eighteen
inches square, with a cloth stretched over one end, and a round
hole in the opposite side. Then some smart blows struck on the
BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION. 17
cloth send out through the opposite hole ring after ring of the
smoke, chasing arid passing through each other, bounding and
vibrating as they come into contact. These are what are called
vortex rings, little whirlpools in the air. The particles of the
smoke are rapidly revolving in the perimeter of the ring, and a
constant current of air is passing through the center. You would
feel this little blast of air quite sensibly if you placed your cheek
in the way of one of these vortex rings.
Ilelmholtz has shown by mathematical demonstration that if
the air were a perfect fluid, that is if it flowed in all its parts
absolutely without friction, those rings once started would go on
rolling forever, and no power could destroy them, for they
instantly bound away from every thing that would touch them.
Furthermore, Helmholtz has shown that in such a fluid the
form of the rings need not necessarily be circles, but may be
figure eights, or any other continuous and knotted folds. And
the form impressed on them at their birth will continue to be
their form as long as matter lasts.
Now this is the essence of that bold conception which I told
you about concerning the constitution of the ultimate atoms
which go to make up our world. Minute portions of the infinite-
ly fine and subtle matter of universal space are in some way set
to whirling in innumerable little eddies and in certain stable
forms, which by the incessant beating of the etherial particles, are
compelled to approach each other, yet when they strike, their own
vortex motion makes them rebound and react on each other in
the manner constituting molecular motion.
I cannot tell you how the atoms were first started in this
vortical whirl ; nor why they are of certain constant patterns,
and in a certain limited number of forms. Nor can I tell why
they join together so capriciously to form the various substances
which surround us. But this I know, that when once the atoms
have been cast in their tiny moulds and emptied into space in the
quantity and with the affinities they have, it is not a difficult
thing to build a world out of them, nor to account for the laws
which will govern it.
18 BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION.
As to the materials of tins world-structure, they fell into place
as naturally as did the stones in Solomon's temple, for they were
fitted for it from the beginning. They could not do otherwise.
As to the laws, I will instance only two. And to explain the law
of gravitation, allow me to use a homely illustration. If two
balls were suspended near each other, and everybody was striking
at them, they would naturally receive more blows on the outer
and exposed sides than on the inner and somewhat protected sides.
Therefore, they would of necessity approach each other. So fhe
incessant beating of etherial particles against the unprotected
sides of two atoms or molecules near each other would make
them approach. And what is true of two, may be shown to be
true of twenty, a million or worlds of them. The mathematicians
say that the law of this approach would be exactly that of the
attraction of gravitation.
Take again the laws of chemical affinity. We found in the
case of the smoke-rings, that there was a constant suction of air
through their centers. This might be called their polarity, for
they would attract at one end and repel at the other. Now atoms
have exactly this polarity ; and if by any means, any two were
backed up to each other, with their streams flowing in opposite
directions, I think they would hold to each other, not quite in
contact. A figure eight vortex ring might hold two simple
rings. You see there is opportunity here for the play of any
amount of ingenuity.
But I will remind you again that this theory of the constitu-
tion of atoms is only an hypothesis. It may, or it may not, be
true. There is no doubt that the materials and conditions suited
to it are in existence, and it seems to be a possible and even
quite probable supposition. At least, so think some of the most
thoroughly scientific men of the present time.
But if true, what an astounding conception does it give us of
the infinitesimal world of matter! Every atom of the countless
multitudes that make up even the smallest thing we know of, is
itself composed of millions on millions of etherial particles,
rolling in ceaseless flow and impelled by the same forces that move
the rolling worlds of space.
BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION. 19
It is such conceptions as tliese which have forced the scientist
to the conclusion that there is no such thing as absolute size in
nature. There is relative greatness or smallness, nothing more.
Fix your minds on anything apparently great or small ; there is
still an infinite range of objects greater or smaller, above or below
it. But the absolutely great or small is never reached.
There is another conclusion. However far we may carry our
researches into the recesses of nature, however much we widen
the limits of natural and explainable causes, we always come at
last to the point where it is necessary to acknowledge the inter-
vention of some will or potency beyond the powers of nature.
Natural causes may construct a universe when the means and
materials have been supplied. But no conceivable powers of
nature can start into being the ever-rolling self-impelling mi-
croscoms that are to evolve this mighty structure. Matter and
force may be eternal, and the units of matter may eternally have
moved and clashed in obedience to that force ; but when that
molecular motion was transformed into the vortical motion of
innumerable little atoms of exactest weight and measure, we
know that a controlling will was there ; for the atoms could never
have measured themselves out, nor set themselves to rolling.
And when in two totally different moulds, two different atoms
were formed which, in a myriad ages thereafter, were to unite
to form the element of water, which alone could make the aggre-
gations of the other elements fit sustainers of life, we know
that a forecasting mind was there, for a far-reaching plan was
formed.
The atoms themselves bear the stamp of a master workman-
ship. Each one after its kind is a perfect copy of every other.
There is not the shadow of a variation in mass or weight or
properties. Each kind is exactly fitted to attach itself to some
other, either in pairs of atoms, or triplets, or some definite number.
And the substances which each union brings out are totally differ-
ent from every other, yet seemingly essential to the make up of
our diversified world. Sir John Herschel has well said, that the
atoms have the essential character of manufactured articles, and
that this precludes the idea of their being eternal and self -existent.
20 BEYOND THE LIMITS OF VISION.
Out of the myriad forms in which we must suppose it possible
to have moulded the formative matter of the universe, only a
few were chosen. Out of the infinite variation of quantities in
which they might have been supplied, only that proportion was
adopted which made a world that could be the home of living
beings. To this end, that of life in nature, conspire a thousand
coincidences in the creation and endowment of matter, each and
all of which we would have no difficulty in imagining might
just as well have been otherwise. The chances are then infinity
to one against the concurrence of all these favoring circumstances.
What shall we say then ? Is the world that bears us up, that
feeds us, that delights our every sense, a fortuitous jumble of
chaotic matter? Did the grim specter of chance preside at the
birth of the little world-workers that have evolved this beautiful
Cosmos? I am myself an unpretending reasoner. But every
sense I have revolts at the idea of an uncreated machine that
works a plan with never one mistake. For myself, I cannot but
think that he who sees no intelligence back of all this amazing
structure of the universe, must be the man whom " the gods have
first made mad."
THE POLAR GLACIERS/
The center of gravity of the earth is the center of the sphere
formed by the surface of the oceans ; or rather, owing to the
flattening of the earth at the poles, it is a point equally distant,
in opposite directions, from the level of the sea. The waters,
being free to move, must of necessity conform themselves to
this equidistance from the gravitating center of the whole mass.
Inasmuch, then, as any plane which cuts the earth into two parts
through its center of gravity, must equally divide the weight of
the whole earth, it follows also that the sam-e plane would exactly
bisect the great spheroid of the oceans. In each hemisphere the
sea-level in all corresponding parts would be at the same distance
from this center and whatever land and mountains there might
be above the ocean in one half would have to be counterbalanced
by land, or an excess of weight of some sort, in the other half.
And this counterpoising weight must itself rise above the level
of the sea, unless we say that one side of the world is composed
of heavier materials than the other, of which there is not the
least evidence or probability.
If the plane thus dividing the earth be that of its equator,
there will be found in the northern hemisphere about 44,000,000
square miles of land, and in the southern, so far as is known,
about 16,000,000 square miles. Now, the great problem in
physical geography is : What is there in the southern hemi-
sphere to counterbalance this great excess of land in the northern ?
Humboldt has estimated that, if the mountains and highlands
of Asia were leveled down and made to fill up evenly the low
places, the wrhole continent wrould have a uniform height of
* Published in Popular Science Monthly in April and June, 1876. The MS was in the hands of the
Publishers some months before the appearance of Croll's work on the same subject, " Climate
and Time."
22 THE POLAR GLACIERS.
1,150 feet above the sea. In like manner, South America would
have a height of 1,130 feet ; North America of 750 feet ; and
Europe of 670 feet. The averasjp of the whole he estimates at
920 feet. Of the mainlands not included in the above — namely,
Africa, Australia, the polar lands, and islands — about as much is
north as south of the equator. So that wre may safely estimate
that there is in the northern hemisphere an excess of 28,000,000
square miles of land, of the average height above-mentioned, to
be counterpoised by something yet to be found in the southern
hemisphere.
If there is an excess in the quantity or bulk of water south of
the equator over that north of it, then the difference of weight
between this excess and so much land, which is about in the
proportion of one to two and a half, must be added to the un-
known quantity which we are soon to look for above the southern
seas. As there is, of course, the same excess of water-surface
south of the equator that there is of land-surface north of it, and
as we may very safely assume that the oceans have a mean depth of
at least 3,220 feet (3^- X 920) and that the southern waters average
as deep as the northern, it follows that our unknown quantity is at
the very least doubled by the above considerations. We have,
therefore, to seek in the southern hemisphere what will balance
28,000,000 square miles of land at least 1,840 feet high.
We look over the map of the world, and down near the bottom
we find some uncertain landmarks with many breaks, but on the
whole tracing out very nearly the antarctic circle, and indicating
that there is, covering nearly all that zone, an unexplored and
scarcely discovered country. This impenetrable region is esti-
mated to be as large as the continent of North America, about
8,000,000 square miles. A very little arithmetic will now prove
the bold claim which I here make, that, even supposing the wrhole
of this region to be land of the average continental height, there
is still required over it all an average thickness of two and a half
miles of solid ice to make the southern hemisphere equal the
northern in weight.
This result of calculation is well confirmed by the information
which all southern navigators have brought back from those most
THE POLAR GLACIERS. 23
desolate and ice-bound regions. The zone of the antarctic lias
been encroached upon only in a small space south of the Pacific.
On every other side, so far as has been discovered, mountains of
ice block the way on and near the polar circle, which seems to be
the great ice-barrier of the south pole. Discoverers suppose
what they have looked upon to be land, but rarely have they
ever seen anything but rolling ranges of ice and snow rising
higher and higher as far as the eye could reach. In the most
open of the south-polar seas, Sir James Ross, in 1841, sailed 450
miles along an unbroken cliff of ice from 150 to 250 feet high,
and of unknown depth beneath the water. It was one of the
vast antarctic glaciers pushing down into the sea, from which
some of those southern icebergs were broken off, that navigators
have frequently laid down for islands, while the next sailor that
voyaged that way found open water where they were charted.
Not a sign of vegetation, not an indication of thawing, has
ever been discovered within or near the antarctic circle, whereas
there are aboriginal races and numerous settlements of civilized
communities on every side within the arctic circle. The whale-
boat or the dog-sledge has traversed the arctics and found the
sea-level in almost every degree of high latitude. In the south
no adventurer has yet penetrated within probably 1,500 miles of
the center of greatest cold. Whence comes this great differ-
ence in the climate and ice accumulations of the two poles of
the earth ? It is the object of this article to inquire if, in the
astronomical relations of our planet, there are found any sufficient
causes for such differences.
The path of the earth about the sun once every year is an
ellipse, with the sun in one of the foci or centers. An ellipse is
a circular figure having two centers instead of one ; that is, the
circumference is everywhere equally distant from the two centers
taken together- — the sum of the two distances is always the same.
Therefore, the sun being in one of these centers, the earth is
nearer to it in one half of the year than in the other. At the
present time the nearest approach, or the perigee, occurs about
the 1st day of January ; and the earth is at that time 3,200,000
miles nearer to the sun than it is on the 1st day of July.
24: THE POLAK GLACIERS.
It is a peculiar property of bodies revolving in elliptical orbits,
that they travel faster when near the center of attraction than
when further away. It follows, from the second of the three
great laws of planetary motion discovered by Kepler, that the
line connecting the two bodies must pass over equal areas in equal
times. The earth passes through our winter portion of its orbit,
that is, from autumnal to vernal equinox, in eight days less time
than through the summer part of it. In the southern hemi-
sphere of course the condition of things is reversed, and the
winter there is eight days longer than the summer. Moreover,
the sun is at its greatest distance from the earth during the long
southern winter, and at its least in the short northern winter.
Of the two causes, I regard the first as of main importance.
Distance from the sun, whatever theory may be, does not seem
to have much effect upon climate. The southern summers, when
the sun is over 3,000,000 miles nearer the earth, are said to be
even some degrees cooler than the same seasons in corresponding
localities of the northern hemisphere. And to take an extreme
example, Mars, which is 50,000,000 miles further from the sun
than the earth is, has snow-lines about its poles which reach no
nearer the equator than on our planet in corresponding seasons.
But the excess or diminution of eight days in the winters of
climates which, even in their warmest seasons, barely balance on
the thawing point of ice, is a true cause in polar conditions and
differences. Considering that these days affect chiefly the period
of briefest sunshine, it amounts to quite one-twentieth of the
whole power of the sun on a hemisphere. This difference would
not be apparent in the warm regions of the globe, where there is
always an excess of heat which is carried off by evaporation and
ocean-currents ; but it would exert nearly its full force in polar
regions which are unaffected by those influences.
It cannot be denied that it is the sun's heat which prevents the
temperature of the earth from sinking to, or very near to, the
absolute zero of cold, wherever in the thermometrical scale that
may be. Chemists have produced a cold estimated at 257° below
zero, of Fahr.* It is not by any means probable that this reaches
* The temperature of stellar space is estimated by Sir John Herschel and others at -239° Falir.
THE POLAR GLACIERS. 25
the entire absence of heat. But on the supposition that it is so,
and that polar regions are unaffected by the air or water currents
of the tropics, then an excess of eight winter days would lessen
a polar temperature 15°, and unquestionably amount to the
difference of an accumulation of ice and snow year after year,
instead of the annual thawing, during each summer, of the
winter's increase.
This is precisely what is, or has been, taking place at the re-
spective poles of the earth. Year after year, probably for a long
period, there has been a steady accumulation of ice-material
about the south pole, adding weight to that hemisphere. Then,
in proportion to this increase, the center of gravity of the earth
has moved a little toward the south ; and the waters, always
obedient to this controlling point, have gradually gathered into
the southern seas, covering the lowlands and plains of islands and
continents. At the same time the waters were drawn away from
the north-polar regions, uncovering lands, and leaving bays and
sounds and inlets innumerable. The geography of the countries
fully corresponds to these inferences. The seas of the arctics are
comparatively shallow and deeply cut up, and the lands are low-
lying. In the antarctics the oceans are deep and bayless, and all
the mainlands and islands are precipitous and craggy, as if they
were the peaks and table-lands of mountain ranges.
It is now the question whether this state of things is a perma-
nent arrangement — whether we of the north side are always to
have the advantage of extent of territory, of fertile lands and
healthful homes in middle latitudes, in short, of all that makes
the rivalry of nations, and civilization a necessity. To answer
this question it will be necessary to turn again to astronomy, and
to study for a few moments some of its more abstruse problems.
In addition to the rotation of the earth on its axis once every
day, and its revolution about the sun once in a year, there is also
a slow rolling motion of the equator, caused by the attraction
of the sun on the excess of matter in equatorial diameters over
the polar. It is precisely as when one touches the rim of a top
in rapid motion ; there is set up at once a slow gyrating or tilting
roll, and the upper end of the stem describes a small circle.
26 THE POLAR GLACIERS.
Just so the sun lays hold of the protuberant rim of the great
terrestrial top, and immediately it begins to oscillate in the long
secular period of 25,868 years ; while the polar axis, extended to
the heavens, describes in the same length of time a small circle
of 23^° radius among the northern or southern stars. This is
the motion which causes what is called the precession of the equi-
noxes. The plane of the earth's equator crosses the plane of its
orbit ; and when the earth is at the points of junction, the days
and nights are equal the world over. These two points therefore
are the equinoxes ; and the earth passes through them about the
21st days of March and September. Owing to the rolling motion
of the equator above described, these points, always in the line
of intersection of the two planes, pass successively through the
twelve signs or constellations of the zodiac, making slowly the
entire circuit of the heavens. The vernal equinox, which now
points to, or is on a line between, the sun and the constellation of
the Fish, after about 26,000 years will have traveled the great
circle of the heavens and come back again to point to the same
cluster of stars, which is now overhead at midnight on the 21st
of March.
But the time of this revolution, so far as it affects the climate
of the earth, is modified by the following circumstance : The
ellipse or oblong circle in which the earth revolves about the sun,
is itself all the time slowly revolving. The long diameter of it,
the major axis, makes a complete revolution in the heavens
once in 110,000 years. Now as this revolution is forward, or in
the the same direction among the constellations that the sun
appears to move, while that of the equinoxes is retrograde, it
follows that the extremities of the major axis, which are the
perigee and the apogee, advance to meet the equinoctial points ;
so that the revolutions, or rather the conjunctions, of the equi-
noxes, which have to do with terrestrial climate, are accomplished
in the shorter period of 21,000 years.
Now all this astronomy amounts to simply this ; that in the
year of our Lord 1248 the earth was at its nearest approach to
the sun on the 21st day of December, our winter solstice ; and
that in 10,500 years from that time the same thing will happen
THE POLAR GLACIERS. 27
on the 21st day of June, our summer solstice. In the period
comprising the first case, our winters are short and mild, and our
summers long and sunny. During the cycle which shall comprise
the latter case, our winters will be rigorous and our summers
short. The northern hemisphere is now having its great summer.
In about 10,000 years it will be in the midst of its great winter;
and whatever differences there may be between the two hemi-
spheres, owing to astronomical causes, will then be in full force
against the northern.
A distinguished Scotch mathematician, Mr. James Croll,* has
estimated that the melting of a mile in thickness of the present
antarctic ice would raise the sea-level at the north pole 300 feet,
and at Glasgow 280 feet. We have calculated, from data which
were intended to be under-estimates in every case, that there
were at least two and a half miles of average thickness in what
geographers call the great ice-cupola of the south pole. If
therefore, not only this were removed, but an equal quantity of
ice were deposited at the north pole, there would be a deepening
of the sea at the arctic circle of 1,500 feet.
Thus it is seen that, as certainly as terrestrial revolutions con-
tinue, in the course of 10,000 years there must come an entire
reversal of polar conditions. The southern waters must be
drained off to make the oceans of an opposite hemisphere. New
lands, enriched with the sediment of a hundred centuries, will
rise up to extend the borders of the old south continents, and
islands joining together, will expand into mainlands. At the
same time the northern continents must be in great part sub-
merged, and their summits and ranges become the bleak islands
and bold headlands oi. a tempestuous ocean. Central Asia, with
its broad table-lands, may still retain the name of a continent ;
but beyond a few outlying islands, there will be no Europe and
but little of North America left. The Atlantic waters will stand
five hundred feet over Lake Superior, and wrill wash the base of
the Rocky Mountains in all their length. A new Gulf Stream
may again, as it must often have done before, flow up the valley
of the Mississippi, returning the deltas to the prairies, and re-
* The reference here is to an article published some years since in the Philosophical Magazine.
28 THE POLAR GLACIERS.
making the beds of the garden of the world. These are no idle
or impossible fancies. Not only are they the results of rigorous
calculation, but they accord perfectly with the unmistakable
evidences which the ocean has left, all over our land, of its recent
wTork and presence.
The time-honored geologist, Sir Charles Lyell, lays great stress
on the quantity of land and the configuration of continents, as
chiefly efficacious in the great climatic changes. But it may be
pertinently asked, what becomes of his continents and configura-
tions when the seas of one pole advance to the other, as they
unquestionably do, as they cannot but do, every 10,500 years,
obedient to the transfer of vast ice- weights from one end of the
world to the other ? On all the mountains of New England
there are sea-lines at elevations of 2,000 and 3,000 feet, and Lyell
himself has recorded the facts. When the ocean was that deep
over Boston, there were no continents in the northern hemisphere.
Undoubtedly the height and direction of mountain -ranges, the
trending of sea-shores, and the course of the ocean currents,
have much to do with local climates. But instead of the relative
quantity or location of land and sea having any agency in pro-
ducing the glacial periods, it is these periods which produce the
land and the sea.
So much for the causes and conditions which pertain to the
geography of the present and the future. When now we turn
back a few of the leaves which tell us of the past condition of
our planet, we immediately see that the same causes have been
at work in recent geological times on a much more extensive
scale — in fact, that they have been the chief agents in composing
and modifying the present surface of the earth outside of the
tropics. Over all the northern portions of Europe, Asia and
North America, are found the unmistakable evidences of exten-
sive and recent ice-work. Bowlders of every size, some worn
and some angular, are scattered in immense quantities over all
the country, on the hills, on the plains, in places where the only
possible explanation is that they were lifted up, carried, and
dropped, just where they are found ; and the great iceberg was
the carrier. The face of the rock-beds, wherever brought to
THE POLAR GLACIERS. 29
view, in the valleys or on the mountains, is almost always found
to be ground or polished, and over that, grooved and furrowed
with nearly parallel scratches. The Alpine glaciers are doing
exactly the same work to-day. Erratic blocks of foreign origin
and sometimes of enormous dimensions, are frequently found
perched on the very tops of hills, or stranded high up the moun-
tain-sides ; and the quarries from which they came are invariably
found to the northward, sometimes fifty or even a hundred miles.
It is argued that nothing but polar glaciers could thus have
moved them in uniformly meridional lines. The scrapings of
grounding ice-floes, the marks of ancient sea-shores, and marine
relics and shells, are found at elevations of several thousand feet
above the present ocean-level. There is no escaping the conclu-
sion that the northern continents have been, in not remote ages,
deeply submerged beneath an ice-laden sea ; and that the entire
polar and north temperate regions, extending in some places
south of the fortieth parallel of latitude, have been capped with
one massive covering of ice of great thickness. Precisely the
same evidences are found in South America, and according to
Agassiz, even much nearer the equator than in North America.
We have again to search our astronomy for causes many times
more powerful than any thing we have yet found, for differences
of polar temperatures.
The earth is made to revolve in an orbit drawn out of the
circular form by the combined attractions of the other planets,
Jupiter carrying the controlling influence. When the average
of all these forces for long periods is more in one direction than
in another, our planet is drawn away from the sun on that side.
Now it must occasionally happen, with the various periods of
revolution of the planets, that they will unite at times to produce
extreme irregularities. The present difference between the
nearest and farthest distance of the sun from us is 3,200,000
miles. It is found, by calculating back the planetary orbits and
conjunctions, that this focal distance has been as much as 14,000,-
000 miles. There was at such a time, an excess of thirty-nine
winter days during each year of the great secular winter of either
pole. This exceptionally high eccentricity occurred, according to
30 THE POLAR GLACIERS.
the calculations of Mr. James Croll, about 850,000 years ago.
But it is now generally thought that we have no need to go back
as far as that for the period of the last glacial epoch. 200,000
years ago the focal distance was 10,500,000 miles, and the winter
excess was twenty-eight days. This, on the supposition heretofore
made of the absolute zero of cold being at least 257° below the
freezing-point, would lower the mean temperature in polar
regions, 50° Fahr., and would unquestionably extend the perma-
nent ice-limits far into the temperate zone. From that time,
down to 70,000 years ago, the eccentricity was continually from
two to four times greater than now. Since about 70,000 years
ago, it has been nearly all the time less than at present. Thus
it may fairly be concluded that the great glacial period of the
Post-tertiary era carne to an end with the fourth secular winter
in the past, or B. c. 67,000.
This is a very interesting date to us of the genus homo / for
it must have been about this time, according to all accounts, that
our forefathers made their appearance on the earth. Man, with
the long-haired mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the huge cave-
bear, the great-horned reindeer, and numerous other species now
extinct, followed close upon the retreating ice-fields of the
bowlder period. Our primeval ancestors were a race of hunters,
and they subsisted on the most abundant and magnificent game
that the world has ever seen. They lived in caves or under pro-
jecting ledges, and with only flint-headed wreapons contested
their lives and homes with savage beasts. They cracked the
bones of animals for their marrow, or crushed them in stone
mortars for the fats and the juices which they contained. It
was the lingering carnivorous instinct to gnaw the bones of their
prey. They .had fires at their funeral feasts, but there is little
evidence of their indulging often in the luxury of cooked meats.
It was a rude life, and a hard struggle they must have had for it ;
but their history is read in the drift-beds and cave-deposits of
Europe, as plainly as if there had been a Herodotus to write it.
The effect and bearing of the great ice periods on geological
work and time will be further considered in a second article in
continuation of this.
THE POLAR GLACIERS. 31
II.
The element of all others most sensitive to the changes and
impulses of every kind of force is the earth's atmosphere. It is
in a state of constant disturbance, and seems to be obedient to no
laws or regularity. Yet, unstable as the winds appear, they are
really, in their general movements, among the most orderly and
effective agents in Nature. This is shown in a remarkable man-
ner by their agency in impelling the great ocean-streams ; and
thence arises their important influence on glacial phenomena. In
order to make this evident, it will be necessary to explain in brief
the general laws of their circulation.
The earth turns on its axis from west to east, and with it ro-
tates daily the enormous envelope of the atmosphere. The velocity
of rotation at the equator is something over 1,000 miles an hour;
at thirty degrees distance it is about 150 miles an hour less. In
higher latitudes it is still less ; and at the poles nothing. There-
fore, whenever the air moves north or south on the surface of the
earth, it will carry with it a less or greater velocity of rotation
than the places it passes over, and will turn into an easterly or
westerly wind, according as it approaches or recedes from the
equator. In the region of the sun's greatest heat, the air, rare-
fied and lightened, is continually rising, and cooler currents come
in on both sides to take the place of the ascending volume. As
these side-currents come from a distance of about thirty degrees
from the equator, they have, at starting, an eastward velocity
many miles an hour less than the localities they will eventually
reach. Consequently they will appear to lag behind in all the
course of their progress to the equator — that is, they will have a
westerly motion united with their north or south movements.
These are the great trade-winds, blowing constantly from the
northeast on this side, and the southeast on the other side of the
equator.
But the heated air which has risen in immense volumes in the
tropics, spreads out to the north and the south in the upper re-
gions, passes entirely over the trade-winds, and comes down to
the earth in the temperate zones. It however continues to have
32 THE POLAR GLACIERS.
the velocity toward the east which it acquired at the equator, and
when it strikes the slower-moving latitudes, it will be traveling
much faster than the regions it comes down upon. Hence the
winds blowing towards the east, that prevail almost constantly in
the middle latitudes.
This is the normal order of the wind-currents, and that wThich
would prevail with nearly perfect regularity if the world were
a uniform globe of water or of land, and equally heated on both
sides of the equator. But the continents, and particularly moun-
tain elevations, produce great disturbances, unequal rainfalls and
ever-varying atmospheric pressures. When also from any cause,
one of the trade-winds, notably the southern, is increased in its
violence so as to push a tornado tongue across the dividing line
into the opposite system of winds, there is started one of those
cyclones, or great circular storms, which ravage the tropics and
whirl through the temperate zones, finally exhausting themselves
in the higher latitudes to the eastward.
The southern hemisphere is at the present time colder than the
northern, owing primarily to the fact that the winters there are
eight days longer than the northern, and the sun, during those
seasons, about 3,000,000 miles further from the earth than during
the northern winters. The difference of temperature therefore
between the warm air that rises at the equator and the cold air
that comes in from the south, is greater than that on the north
side. And as it is difference of temperature that produces the
whole movement of the air-currents, of course the greater
strength of that movement must be on the southern side. Hence
the larger share of the equatorial current passes over to the south,
and the southern trades are much the strongest. In accordance
with this theory it is a matter of observation that the southern
trade-winds reach across the equator and into the northern hem-
isphere in some places ten to fifteen degrees.
In obedience to and perfect accord with this great system of
winds, the waters of the oceans move. The strong southeast
trades blow up from Southern Africa, cross the equator, and
drive the waters of the South Atlantic into the Caribbean Sea.
The lighter northeast trades, blowing between North Africa and
N
*•?
< M.
THE POLAR GLACIERS. 33
the West Indies, assist and give direction to this movement, which
finally impels through the Straits of Florida a tide of tropical
waters a hundred times greater than the outflow of all the rivers
in the world. This great flood of thermal waters spreads out in
the Northern Atlantic, imparting to Europe a climate correspond-
ing to countries twenty degrees south of it on this side of the
ocean. There is of course an under-current from the arctics to the
the equator, exactly compensating this enormous northward flow
of the surface-waters. The same process and effect are repeated
in the Pacific Ocean ; and the great Japan Stream robs the south-
ern hemisphere for the benefit of our Pacific States, only in a
degree less than does the Gulf Stream for the benefit of Europe.
A change in the relative strength of the trade-winds, such that
the northeast trades would blow across the equator into the south-
ern hemisphere, would entirely reverse the course of the warm
ocean-currents, and carry to the southern continents the heat ab-
stracted from the northern. Such a change in the course of
ocean-streams has unquestionably followed every change in the
glaciation of the hemispheres from astronomical causes. The
winds and the water-currents have always helped to increase the
difference in temperature which a considerable eccentricity of the
earth's orbit must always have produced between the northern
and southern halves of our globe. It matters but little which of
the two — the ocean-currents or the astronomical causes — have
produced the greater effect, since it is certain that they have ever
cooperated in one and the same direction.
On all the tropical seas, between the terminal lines of the two
trade-winds, there is what is called the belt of calms, a tract aver-
aging from 300 to 500 miles wide, in which whatever winds there
may be are exceedingly light and unreliable. It is here$ as we
have seen, that the air and vapor, heated by the vertical rays of
the sun, are continually rising and spreading outward in the
upper regions. It is a complete dividing line between the cli-
mates of the two hemispheres. One may be frigidly cold, while
the other is highly heated ; the only difference being that the
calm belt would be removed further into the warmer hemisphere.
It now ranges from ftve to ten degrees of latitude on this side of
34 THE POLAR GLACIERS.
the equator. In this belt of ascending air-currents is carried up
the greater part of the moisture which afterwards descends as rain
or snow far from the equator. Whatever excess of solar heat
there may be in the tropics is here absorbed in evaporating water.
To vaporize a pound of water, according to Prof. Tyndall, re-
quires as much heat as to raise fifty-five pounds of ice-water to
the boiling-point. It is manifest, therefore, that there must have
been, during the glacial periods, an enormous amount of sun-
power somewhere on the face of the earth to have supplied the
vapor that buried one zone and half of another beneath a solid
ocean of ice.
These facts effectually do away with all the theories, except
the astronomical, which have been advanced by physicists to
account for glacial phenomena ; one, that our solar system has,
during certain ages, passed through a colder region of space ;
another, that the sun in glacial times for some cause failed to
supply his usual quantity of heat; and, as a consequence of
either, that the glaciation of both hemispheres occured at the
the same time. Equatorial heat is as necessary to a glacial period
as polar cold. The one transforms the waters to vapor, and ele-
vates it to the cloud-spheres, wdiile the other sends in the cold
winds beneath, which compel the vapors to come over to the
frozen side and build up the glacier.
The system of the stratified rocks has been called the great
geological book, with its uncounted leaves overlying each other.
Now as it is a part of the glacial theory that each of these leaves
or strata, at least in greater part, was the work of a glacial period,
it is important for us to examine closely and particularly the
course and effect of one of these great cycles of about 21,000
years. We will take for example, that one of the Post-tertiary
glacial which was of the greatest extent and severity. Ten
cycles back, about 210,000 years ago, one of the periods of
maximum eccentricity had just commenced, the highest since
four times that number of years. The perigee, or nearest ap-
proach to the sun, happened then as now, a few days after the
winter solstice of our half of the world. It was the great summer
o
of the northern hemisphere. But over the southern hemisphere
THE POLAR GLACIERS. 35
at this time, almost if not quite to the tropics, extended one vast
sheet of ice. It reached far into Brazil, it covered Southern
Africa and lapped over on Australia. The marks are all there,
scored on the solid rocks, to show how it crept up the southern
slopes of the hills, and how far it pushed its icy arms. In South
America at least, there is ample proof that the great glacier
spanned the southern ocean to reach it ; for the furrows on the
rock-beds of Patagonia are from the pole toward the equator,
whereas in any other case they would have been from the moun-
tains to the sea. With such a state of things at the southern end
of the world, with probably miles in depth of ice and sea in its
higher latitudes, there could have been but little water left for
the opposite northern regions. What is called the Atlantic-cable
plateau, between Newfoundland and Ireland, was very possibly
the north shore of the Atlantic Ocean ; and probably no consid-
erable bodies of water existed anywhere north of that parallel.
The present continents were all mountain table-lands, far from
the vicinity of evaporating surfaces. Like all such elevated
regions, not exposed to specially moist winds, they were doubtless
dry and arid deserts. However warm may have been the climate
of the north temperate and arctic zones during this their great
summer, their great elevation and the want of any kind of water-
supply must have made them barren of all forms of animal or
vegetable life. Consequently there would be, as is notably the
case, but few if any traces of this part of the great season left
in the geological records, at least above the present seas.
Five thousand years pass, and the perigee has advanced to
meet the vernal equinox. The spring season is now the shortest
of all ; but as the autumnal is correspondingly lengthened, the
average climate is about that of the present time. But it is the
season of the great thaw — the breaking-up time — of the southern
hemisphere, and the waters are returning to fill the northern
ocean-beds. Imperceptibly a permanent white cap begins to
fasten itself to the heights of the boreal zone, to extend its out-
line, and to increase its depth. Slowly the lands are being sub
merged and the oceans broaden out, till there comes a. time when
land and water are equalized in the two hemispheres, and the
climates are substantially alike.
36 THE POLAR GLACIERS.
Another 5,000 years pass, and the perigee now coincides with
the summer solstice of the northern hemisphere. This is the
position there of greatest cold ; the winters are twenty-eight
days longer than the summers ; and the extra days are in great
part those of the briefest sunshine. Besides this, the earth is
10,500,000 miles further from the sun in winter than in summer.
According to the most careful calculations, the temperature of
extreme northern regions would be lowered 50°, and the mean
annual range would be fully 60° below zero. This in all proba-
bility would carry the isothermal line of Labrador, South Green-
land, and Iceland (32° Falir.), down to Charleston and the Gulf
of Mexico. The late Prof. Agassiz found ice-marks as far south as
this, though it can hardly be supposed that the permanent glacier
extended so far. There are however abundant signs of the
permanent ice-layer all over the State of New York, and both
east and west of it. The same distinguished authority was wont
to claim in his lectures that all the beautiful north and south
lakes of Western New York — the Cayuga, the Seneca, the Can-
andaigua — were ploughed out of the solid rock and walled around
with their clay and gravel hills, by advancing and retreating
glaciers. The rocky summits of New England are found to be
grooved and scored all over their sides and tops with markings
always in nearly a north and south direction. They have been
traced on Mount Washington to within 300 feet of the highest
point. There can be no doubt that, at the time we are writing
of, about 200,000 years ago, there was one solid ice-stratum of
immense thickness — Agassiz said from two to three miles — slowly
being pushed from the northward by the power of freezing
water, over all of New England and the Lake States.
Again the perigee proceeds to meet the autumnal equinox.
The winter and the summer seasons have again become equal in
length ; and the sun is just half its time on the north side of the
equator. The great ice-shroud is now being gradually withdrawn.
Where it abuts on deep waters, enormous icebergs are broken off
and float away to the south, carrying bowlders and soil and what-
ever it may have picked up in its slow course down to the sea.
Where it terminates in shallow waters or on the land, its effect is
THE POLAR GLACIERS. 37
to produce such an arrangement and diversity of soils and such
a peculiar outline of country as no other agency could ever have
brought about. So different is the nature and work of the great
polar glacier from anything with which we are familiar at the
present day, that it has seemed to me to require a few words of
more particular description.
As is well known, the glacier is an accumulation of many win-
ters' snows, consolidated by pressure into a clear blue ice. In this
condition it manifests the peculiar property of viscous bodies —
it is in continual slow motion in the direction of least resistance.
Whether it is by the expansion produced by the repeated thaw-
ing and freezing of water in its interstices, as Agassiz claimed, or
whether by the pressure of the mass and glacial regelation, which
is the constant freezing together of ice-surfaces in contact, after
breaking under unequal pressures, or crushing against obstacles,
which is the theory of Prof. Tyndall, or whether by both causes
combined, certain it is that large bodies of ice not only flow like
a heavy lava-stream, conforming themselves to all inequalities of
the surface, but they also scrape along in solid mass, as if pushed
by some irresistible force from behind. Mountain-glaciers show
both motions. But the great polar glacier, extending over com-
paratively level surfaces, seems to have been pushed bodily out-
ward from its fixed polar base, and to have moved almost entirely
under the mighty impulse of expansion. The parallel scratches
and furrows which, in our hemisphere, mount straight up the
north sides of mountains; the worn and rounded appearance of
those sides and of the summits, as compared with the rough, un-
smoothed southern slopes ; the erratic blocks, or some peculiar
specimens like the native copper of Lake Superior, carried almost
directly south for scores or hundreds of miles, over heights, and
even over arms of the sea — all show conclusively that the great
glacier pushed its meridional course over all obstacles and to long
distances.
Imbedding in its under surface the grit and gravel on which it
froze, the mountain grindstone grated and ground the solid rocks
over which it passed into the various materials of soil. Sand and
gravel were the products from granitic rocks and sandstones, clay
38 THE POLAK GLACIERS.
from the slates arid shales, and loam from the softer lime-rocks.
But the most striking effects which the polar glacier produced
were the long ridges of gravel and bowlder-cla}^ hills which it
scraped up as it advanced, and left at the end of its journey, or
at each halting-place of its retreat. For it must be borne in mind
that the glacier was still pushing southward all the time that it
was, on the whole, retreating. These terminal moraines are
either the promiscuous gatherings of clay and bowlders and
earths of all kinds, or, if they have been subjected to the sorting
influence of moving waters, they are gravel hills with sandy
bases, and clay flats extending usually to the southward of them.
They run in somewhat parallel courses easterly and westerly,
sometimes hundreds of miles. Great numbers of these concen-
tric ridges may be counted in Western New York, between the
long Lake Ontario ridge and the lake hills of the south part of
the State. Several cross the New England States, one running
along the coast of Maine, and westerly through the White
Mountains. In addition to these are the lateral moraines, run-
ning, in an opposite direction. These were, some of them, pushed
out at the sides by outstretching arms of the glacier ; others were
formed by streams running down through breaks or fiords in the
melting ice-sheet. So extensive and so marked are the traces of
the great polar glacier over all middle latitudes both north and
south, that it may truly be called the great landscape-gardener of
the temperate zones.
JBut it is natural to conclude that, if there has been one glacial
era caused by astronomical cycles, there must also have been
others in earlier geological times. And, as we turn back the
pages of the great earth-book, we find therein recorded the evi-
dences of the vicissitudes of climate which we thus anticipate;
but, if we mistake not, in continually lessening force and extent
the further back we go. For long ages previous to the recent
glacial epoch, through all the Tertiary era, the fossil plants and
animals indicate the prevalence of a warm and genial climate
over the greater part of the globe. Then come the chalk-beds
of the Cretaceous period, in which are frequently found water-
worn blocks of granite and aggregations of pebbles, proving that
THE POLAR GLACIERS. 39
then, as now, the ice-berg floated down from the north over seas
that were quietly depositing the chalk-shells. Still older, is found
a long series of secondary strata, the Oolite, the Lias, and the
Trias, which were deposited in at least sub-tropical climates.
They are the burial-grounds of the enormous saurian reptiles
that once had an age all to themselves in the world's chronology.
Their remains have been found within a thousand miles of the
north-pole, thus proving that warm seas covered every zone.
Between the great divisions of Secondary and Primary in
geology, there lies a stratum found only in the higher half of
the latitudes, and known as the Permian or New Red Sandstone.
The scanty life-forms found in it, and the coarse grit and angular
bowlders of wThich it is composed, evince the well-known glacial
action. Geologists generally think that there elapsed between
these great divisions a very long period of time in which, except-
ing this sandstone, but little was done one way or another to
build up the crust of the earth, or to leave a mark in its records.
This doubtless indicates periods of very small eccentricity.
Such periods did occur, according to Mr. Croll's calculations,
immediately before and after the great eccentricity of 850,000
years ago, in which we may perhaps conjecture the New Red
Sandstone to have been formed.
Previous to this age were the long Carboniferous periods, dur-
ing all of which a warm and moist climate prevailed over all
lands that have yet been explored. Below the coal-measures are
found again the grits and bowldery conglomerates of the Old
Red Sandstone, which, with the great paucity of organic remains,
would imply the alternations of somewhat glacial climates. The
Silurian, Cambrian, and Laurentian systems preceded the Old
Red in the order named, and reach back to the dawn of life on
the earth. These formations are of vast thickness, and were de-
posited at the bottom of warm seas in all parts of the world.
It cannot be denied that, as we go back in the geologic records,
we find more and more the evidences of greater heat and a more
equable climate. It is certain that the astronomical relations
which we have pointed out — the revolutions of the orbital points
and the alternations of great and small eccentricity — have never
40 THE POLAR GLACIERS.
ceased to exist. Therefore, if the world had been subjected to
only the same solar heat in ancient as in recent periods, there
must have been repeated glacial epochs ; and we should find the
bowlder, and the unsorted drift, and the scratched and polished
rocks, all through the stone presentations. But very few, if any,
such evidences have been found.
Again, for a warm and exuberant climate to extend into the
arctic zone, there was necessary one of those great summers of
considerable eccentricity, without the excessive drainage which
an unusually large accumulation of ice in the opposite hemisphere
would necessitate. Each summer cycle of coal forests, or of
reptile monsters, implies, not only a long visit and a high evap-
orating power of the sun, but also the addition to the opposite
polar regions, of a weight of ice only sufficient to draw the
waters from a small part of the low and flat lands of the warmer
hemisphere. We have seen that periods of warm, perhaps even of
tropical climates in polar latitudes, intervened between the great
winters of the last glacial epoch. But they have left scarcely a
trace in the strata. They were the nearest approach possible,
with the sun-power of recent times, to the conditions which of
old brought out such a profusion of animal and vegetable life.
But the only result in the later periods was, that the earth was
unbalanced ; all the waters were either turned into ice, or were
following after it toward one of the poles; one side of the
world was a frozen waste, while the other was a burning waste.
I think we cannot avoid the conclusion that the sun shone
with a far intenser power on the Carboniferous swamps and the
Oolitic shoals than on the gravel-hills of the Drift; that the
oceans of early times were wider and warmer than now, and cir-
culated more freely between the tropics and the polar seas ; and
that the heated and moisture-laden atmosphere retained the heat
and equalized the temperature between the equator and the poles
far more than at present.
With these conditions, that is, with a greater sun-power and a
considerable eccentricity of the earth's orbit, I can conceive of a
rational explanation, that which I have not yet seen in the books,
of the formation of the coal-layers, alternated as they always are
THE POLAR GLACIERS. -il
with marine deposits. These alternations are sometimes very
numerous. There are as many as sixty distinct veins of consider-
able thickness, one over another, in the coal-mines of South
Wales, as also of Nova Scotia. There must have been, in that case,
sixty periods of dry land, each of sufficient duration to grow
many forests, and each followed by a long-continued submergence,
in order that each layer should become fossilized, and buried be-
neath a shale or a limestone, which could only have formed in
the depths of a quiet sea. The books say there were so many
upheavals, and a like number of subsidences, alternating with
each other. As if Old Earth had bent her back, for her load of
pit-coal, three-score times among the Welsh hills, and again as
many more at Halifax. It is a far more reasonable explanation,
that each considerable layer of coal indicates a cycle of long sum-
mers, and the withdrawal of a moderate depth of the oceans
from one hemisphere to the other, by reason of moderate accumu-
lations of ice in polar latitudes, arid the return again of the
waters after 10,500 years. In this way, and in no other that I
can conceive of, can be fairly explained the constant mixture and
alternations of terrestrial and marine relics, all through the fossil-
bearing formations, and the hundreds, if not thousands of differ-
ent and distinct strata which are found lying one above another.
Whoever, even cursorily, studies the phenomena of geology,
must be impressed with the enormous length of time it has taken
to arrange the terrestrial substructure, and prepare it for the
higher forms of life. Even the comparatively recent period of
the Bowlder Clay, which laid out the grounds of the present area
of civilization, dates back for its commencement, as we have seen,
probably 200,000 years. If it might be assumed that the Per-
mian or New Red Sandstone was formed during the next previous
period of extraordinary eccentricity, which was 850,000 years
ago, then the Devonian or Old Red Sandstone would come in,
very appropriately, at the next anterior era of extraordinary focal
distance, which occurred 2,500,000 years back. The Carbonifer-
ous period, which came between these two, could not have been
formed in less than 1,000,000 years, as most geologists concede ;
and by calculations previously indicated, those sixty Welsh layers
42 THE POLAR GLACIERS.
of coal, if there are that many divided off by marine deposits
of considerable thickness, would have consumed 1,250,000 years.
The average thickness of all the strata that lie above the Old
Red Sandstone is not far from two miles. But this formation is
itself, in many places, two miles thick. And the lower Primary
systems will add at least ten miles to the vertical measure of the
fossil-bearing rocks. It is estimated that " the f ossilif erous beds
in Great Britain, as a whole, are more than 70,000 feet in thick-
ness;" and many that are there wanting, or nearly so, elsewhere
expand into beds of immense depth. There are certainly fifteen
miles deep of strata to be accounted for — the slow accretions of
the ages — mainly ocean-sediment that has come down from the
wear and washings of the solid rocks. It would be by no means
a bold assumption to say that 20,000,000 years had elapsed since
the eozoon first built its reefs in the warm Laurentian seas.
UNIVERSITIES vs. SCIENCE ;
Or, Shall Science be Excommunicated ? *
In the good old times when the Church had her own way, if
any one proved refractory, he was threatened with excommunica-
tion, and he immediately came to his orthodoxy. This is what
made old Galileo get down on his knees and renounce his heresies,
and it kept back many a book of premature science from seeing
the light of the early centuries. But after the great Protestant
Reformation, and the loss of the hold which the Church had on
the literature of the times, Christendom was inundated with
books of men's wisdom, and strange doctrines which served only
to unsettle the minds of the faithful.
It may be too late now to arraign science in this highly
satisfactory manner, but we can at least show up some of the
mischief it is working, and, for educational purposes, confine it
to expurgated and approved editions of school books. With
this view, I propose to follow up some of the most recent
advances of scientific thought, as it is called, and to let all see
where they inevitably land us.
Ever since the time of Luther and Calvin, the advocates of
Christianity have been constantly engaged in contesting, and
finally conceding, the claims of scientific investigators. The
common-sense interpretation of those sublime verses in Genesis
which tell the simple story of Creation, has had to be, in repeated
instances, distorted and stultified to accommodate itself to the
slow and toilsome processes of evolution.
* 'Written a few years since, on the occasion of the removal of Prof. Win-
chell from the Lectureship of Vanderbilt University, on account of scientific
heterodox opinions.
44: UNIVERSITIES VS. SCIENCE.
As long as the contest was over the Old Testament account of
the Creations, it would not seem to matter much whether the
Church gained or lost in the controversy ; for the truth of the
Christian religion is not necessarily dependent upon either the
cosmogony or the theocracy of Moses. The religion of the New
Testament was a great and radical reform of the straight and
highly anthropomorphic monotheism of the Hebrews. After
this great Reformation was once established, it was no more im-
portant to it that the writings of the Mosaic priesthood should
be retained, than it was to the reformed Protestantism of the
sixteenth century that the bulls and encyclicals of the Popes
should be longer regarded. In fact it is very much of a question
whether the Christian cause has not lost rather than gained by
incorporating the books of Jewish Mythology and Ritual among
its sacred Scriptures.
In the first place the New Religion gave up at once the very
primitive and human conception of God which was held by the
Hebrews, as one coming down and talking with men, doing
their battles and making laws for them, as one contesting his
place with the gods of other nations, and governed by like passions
as we ourselves. Again, the Christian religion first brought out
the doctrine of future rewards and punishment, and the great
theological tenet of the immortality of the soul. St. Paul says,
" Christ came to bring life arid immortality to light." Surely
this is an entirely different religion from the Unitarian theocracy
of the Jews ; and we cannot see how its eternal truth can be
affected one wray or another, though the beautiful verses of Gen-
esis be shown to be figurative or fabulous, though neither the
earth nor the sun is the center of the universe, though the world
was created neither in six days nor in any periods whatever,
and though neither Adam nor any portion of the human race
was ever started off at once in the full tide of civilization and
enlightenment.
But science does not stop when it would seem to have worsted
the Hydra of ancient fable. It is every day putting forward
bolder and more far-reaching claims, and it is now perhaps be-
coming a serious and important question whether some of the
UNIVERSITIES VS. SCIENCE. 45
recent theories and discoveries of our scientific friends are not
striking at the root of Christian theology as developed ont of
the New Testament — whether the time has not really come
when Christian institutions of learning should discriminate
against professors who teach or who meddle with these advanced
theories of science.
I approach the further elucidation of these theories with great
hesitation, because some may think they are subjects which should
not be written upon. But how can we fight an enemy in the
dark ? How shall we know what to beware of, unless we expose
it to the light ? I therefore plunge " in medias res."
Late developments in what is called the kinetic theory go to show
that all the forces in nature are only different modes of motion—
transmutable one into another, but still motion and nothing
but motion. If then all force is motion, and there can be no
motion without something to move, the forces cannot exist
except in connection with some form of matter. There is, and
there can be, no impulse nor life nor manifestation, in the world
or out of it, except through material substances. Under such a
state of things, one can hardly understand how the spirit of man,
which is certainly a force in his natural body, can exist separate
from that body.
The life force of all the animal creation is a transmutation
from chemical force, the materials for which are constantly sup-
plied through the food we eat and the air we breathe. The
moment the supply gives out, the life force ceases and the body
becomes other kinds of matter, in most cases the food and sub-
stance of other animals. By far the greater part of all organic
matter, the human organism included, passes the round of vege-
table and animal existence time and time again. Therefore the
body, once dead and eaten up and passed on to another generation
of animated beings, can never be gathered together and animated
over again. The resurrection of our bodies then would seem to
be a physical impossibility, and under the kinetic theory there
can be no spirits without corporeal bodies.
If we still maintain, as the most of us certainly will, that the
soul of man is some mysterious entity independent of natural
46 UNIVERSITIES VS. SCIENCE.
laws, and after the death of the body will animate forever some
kind of an etherial form, we naturally inquire, where will be
the habitation of such existences? We turn to the Holy Scrip-
tures and we find the abodes of the blessed, the Christian's
Heaven, described as in the upper sky, above the earth, outside
of all its commotions, in regions of eternal day, where there is
no night and the sun forever shines. "Where else can this be
than in the outlying regions of space? Now the scientists have
lately been telling us that the temperature of the inter-planetary
spaces is somewhere about 250° below zero, and that they are
filled with shooting stars and meteors and fragments of iron, fly-
ing about in all directions with amazing velocities. Now this
would not seem to be a very serene and tranquil location for the
reunion of the saints.
The soul quits the natural body if its temperature is reduced
to near the freezing point, which is 32° above zero. We can
hardly suppose it would leave one body just because it was
slightly reduced in temperature, and forthwith take up with an-
other that had not the least last shiver of heat in it.
Again, the place for the eternal punishment of unbelievers is
represented to be in lakes of fire beneath the surface of the
earth, and we have always supposed there was no lack of that
fluid in the bowels of our planet. But now comes forward the
great geologist, LeConte, and tells us that the earth is solid from
center to circumferance, that even the volcanoes are only so
many chemical retorts that are emptied as fast as filled. He has
effectually forestalled the arguments of the Beechers, for there
is now no longer a place for Hell.
But by far the most serious inroads yet made in the Christian
intrenchments come from the Darwinian hypothesis, or that of
the slow and gradual development of the human from the lower
races of animals. We will present the main points of this
theory as fairly as we can, for the purpose of seeing what infer-
ences come with it. There can be no greater argument for
development than the actual tracing or following of that devel-
opment from either end to the other. We will attempt this kind
of a showing, and will take for our example the nations of
UNIVERSITIES VS. SCIENCE. 47
northern Europe, which now stand at the head of the world's
advancement.
The native races of these countries can be followed back by
authentic history through all the stages of civilization, feudalism,
and barbarism, to the time when Julius Caesar invaded the great
Northland, and was everywhere met by hordes of fierce, half-
naked and painted savages. Here we leave written history and
follow up the abundant remains and traces which the prehistoric
tribes have left of themselves throughout Europe.
First, we come to the builders of the mounds and tumuli
scattered over all these countries, and containing the bones and
the implements of an aboriginal people. They occupied Europe
for a long period, in the same manner and conditions that the
Indians inhabited North America for so many ages previous to
its discovery.
Next, we come to the race of the lake-dwellers, who found
their security against wild beasts, and an advantage against
enemies of their own kind, in locating their dwellings on piers
extending out into lakes and shallow waters. Their implements
and the piles of their rude dwelling places have been found in
prodigious quantity near the shores of the lakes of central
Europe. Utensils and arms of bronze and polished stone, with
some rude pottery, show that their period was the middle ages of
priirfeval man. The unique location of their dwellings shows
that even they lived long before man had dominion over the
brute.
Lastly we come to the cave-dwellers. In late years there have
been opened up in the bluffs which border the water courses of
Europe numerous caves, nearly or entirely filled with river sedi-
ment, in which have been found great numbers of rough stone
implements and a few human bones, mingled with quantities of
the bones of the mammoth, the woolly-haired rhinoceros, the
cave bear, and many other species of animals now extinct.
Places where these early men gathered to chip and fashion their
flint arrow-heads, axes, and hammers, have been found ; and their
location, always in or underneath the drift and gravel-beds of
the Diluvial period, gives evidence of the great antiquity of
these earliest known races.
48 UNIVERSITIES VS. SCIENCE.
The cave men lived on tlie flesh of all manner of wild beasts,
which they probably ate raw, breaking np the bones for the
marrow they contained. They were themselves but little better
than carnivorous animals. Aside from their rude and unpolished
implements, they have left no other marks of their presence and
life in these dens than would have been left by a pack of hyenas.
In fact, many of the caves give evidence of being alternately
occupied by man and by wild beasts, whichever happened to
have the mastery for the time being.
But man, at this period, had passed over the bounds which
separate him from the brute creation. He had learned to make
and use instruments to help him in his work. The Chimpanzee
and the Gorilla build sleeping places, rude homes, for themselves
with branches and sticks in the crotches of trees, and some
monkeys use sticks and throw stones in defense and in fighting.
But the cave-men had gone one step further. Some fortunate
chance had taught some more than usually reflective individual
that a well directed blow of another stone upon a piece of flint
would split it into sharp-edged instruments with which he could
cut off a larger branch than he could break off, or cut up his
meat easier than he could tear it to pieces with his fingers and
teeth. Then he learned that a few chipping blows on the end of
a longer piece of flint would sharpen it to a point, and that he
could throw this, fastened to the end of a stick, and wound a
reindeer, with far greater effect than with a common stone. Here
he had a knife and a spear, and he must then have names to dis-
tinguish them by. Thus, probably, arose first the rude arts of
life, and then the rudiments of language.
We have said nothing thus far of the physical conformation
of these cave-men. They have left exceedingly few remains of
their own persons ; probably from the fact of their burning their
dead, or otherwise disposing of them out of their sight. They
could live in the midst of any amount of the carrion of wild
beasts, but they were very particular to remove every trace of
their own dead bodies. However, two skulls of adult persons
have been found, one in a cave at Engis, in Belgium, which,
although denoting a person of low intellectual grade, does not
UNIVERSITIES VS. SCIENCE. 49
differ materially in type from the ordinary cranium of the lower
races of mankind ; the other, found in a cave at Neanderthall, in
western Germany, on the contrary, represents an individual more
than half way down between our lower races and the anthropoid
apes. The low and retreating forehead, the great development
of the bony ridge over the eyes, so characteristic of the larger
apes, the massive size of all the processes for the attachment of
muscles, the enormous thickness and strength of some other
bones of the skeleton found with the skull, all denote the pow-
erful and terrible wild ape-man of the Rhine forests. There is
no question of this creature being a link between man and the
brute ; and the finding of one such specimen is as conclusive of
the former existence of an intermediate race as the discovery of
a single fossil archseopterix was of an order of flying animals
half way between birds and reptiles.
All further traces of primitive man end with those of the
cave-dwellers. It is probable that no others will ever be found ;
because any condition lower than this would be simply animal.
There is then no absolute proof that this lowest type of mankind
originated from the next lower order of the animal kingdom,
that is, from anthropoid apes. But this at least is certain, either
the cave men did so advance out of the ape condition, or they
were created in the semi-bestial state <• in which we have found
them. But the Bible account as well as every mythology of man's
creation launches the first human family into the full tide of an
advanced culture. Therefore no account that we have of any
supernatural creation can by any possibility apply to the poor
degraded cave-dwellers. The conclusion then seems unavoidable
that they came up through still older and lower stages of animal
being ; that the succession must run uninterruptedly down and
into some now extinct species of carnivorous apes.
Here we leave the argument of the evolutionists. I think no
one can say I have not presented their case with fidelity arid to
the best of my ability. It remains to follow up these premises
to their unwelcome but logical conclusions.
In all this long and slow progress from the cave-men or the
ape men to the sovereigns of Europe, embracing a period, some
50 UNIVERSITIES VS. SCIENCE.
think, of a hundred thousand years, there is no break in the chain.
An exceedingly slow but constant advancement, worked out by
the races themselves, spreads over the entire period. Where now,
it may be pertinently asked, in this continuous line of progression
from ape to kaiser, was the point at which immortal souls were
introduced into the race ? Brain capacity, intelligence, language,
cultivation, were all slow and toilsome growths. But the
attribute of immortality could hardly be a growth. Either the
spirit of man has an eternal duration and destiny, or it dies like
the soul of the brute. Neither has immortal life come with a
certain upright stature, or with a certain weight of brain, or with
the dawning of language or reflection, or with inter-breeding and
contact with some favored race. By all the principles of logic,
if the Europeans have immortal souls to-day, their forefathers
had them when the Romans stocked the arena with wild beasts
and barbarous Northmen — their prehistoric ancestors had them
in the bronze age, in the stone age, and in the far distant ages of
the gravel and drift beds — and their lowly progenitors had them
when they were only gibbering apes.
I have had the pleasure of listening to the great apostle of
scientific theology in his famous attempt to prove the immortal-
ity of the soul from the most advanced researches of microscop-
ical science. It was ingenious and eloquent, but it turned out
as all such theorizing outside of the Bible is apt to do, it proved
too much. If there is an element of immortality in the myster-
ious life force that builds up, from undistinguishable germs, the
lion after his kind and the man after his kind, then the lion is
as immortal as the man, and all life is immortal. The distinguished
lecturer himself realized the dilemma, and met it with a sublime
expatiation on the delight it would afford the saints to have, in
another world, the pleasant recreations and the domestic surround-
ings of this. The spiritual hunter would pursue spiritual game,
and retrieve with spiritual dogs. It is the happy hunting grounds
of our Indian aborigines over again. Religion as well as history
repeats itself.
A noted Professor of Geology has attempted to bridge over
the chasm between science and evolution by the hypothesis that
UNIVERSITIES VS. SCIENCE. 5i
Adam was not the first of the human family, but simply the
head of a subsequent and favored race. According to him, there
were Adamites and Pre- Adamites, the first comprising the great
Aryan race of Eastern Asia and Europe, the last comprising the
aborigines of every country, which the Adamites have been
constantly displacing ever since the dawn of history. The
descendants of Adam received the divine blessings and all the
benefits of the Promises. The aborigines struggled up as they
could, on natural laws and the survival of the fittest. Now this
was a most ingenious theory. It fitted into the rough edges of
both sides of the great controversy, and gave to each a pretty
fair division of the earth's inhabitants. The whiter races, of
course, are given to the religionists, while the darker are consigned
to the evolutionists, the former with immortality breathed into
them by their Divine Creator, the latter — well ! they are a little
doubtful ; they are in a kind of " no man's land." Still they may
have a sort of improved brute soul. The Professor thinks if he
were called to preach the gospel to the heathen, " his appeals to
the negro would be of a widely different character from his
appeals to the Aryan Hindoo or the Mongoloid American
savage." The Professor is logical. He is to be commended for
his honesty. For if the negro has a soul to save, neither he nor
I, if this evolution is true, can tell when he got it or how he
came by it.
It has thus far been our unpleasant duty to run down a few
of the recent scientific theories, for the purpose of seeing where
they would land us. If we have seemed at any time to present
them as an advocate, it is only because by showing them in their
most favorable light, could we discover their dangerous tendencies.
We have found that, reduced to their logical conclusions, these
theories are in opposition to the Christian's simple faith, and that
they raise doubts and difficulties in respect to the scheme of
salvation and future life. Can it then any longer be said that
there is no conflict between religion and science. Is it not plain
that Christian Institutions of learning should discriminate against
all text books in which the development theory is made to explain
the great facts of the Organic World, and that they should look
52 UNIVERSITIES VS. SCIENCE.
with suspicion on all new Geologies, new Physics, or new f angled
sciences of any kind ? It would almost seem as if they would
be equally justified in introducing among their studies the phil-
osophies of Hume and Voltaire, as these latter-day sciences which
tend to the subversion of the tenets they were established to
maintain. As to calling professors, who are known to be tainted
with these heresies, to lectiire to pupils who have been confided
to sectarian institutions, it would seem almost as absurd and out
of place as it would be to invite Prof. Tyndall or Prof. Huxley
to speak in a religious meeting.
One venerable President of a University has publicly stated
that possibly the theories of evolution might be admitted and
talked about " as working hypotheses." But we would kindly
say, let him take warning ; for they will surely work only mischief
in any well ordered and orthodox institution. The only safety,
as we suggested at the outset, is to excommunicate science, or
expurgate the text books.
WHAT THE CHEMISTRY OF THE ROCKS
TEACHES.*
It is a general rule that substances can crystallize only while
solidifying from the liquid state of either fusion or solution.
The only exceptions are, that some few substances crystallize
directly from their vapors without passing through the inter-
mediate liquid form. Now the older unstratified rocks of the
geological formations, as the granites, are unquestionably fusible,
are crystalline in their structure, and are practically insoluble.
Therefore the evidence is conclusive that they were all at one
time in a molten, fluid state.
Thus far, it would appear, geologists are agreed, since they
have named these formations the igneous rocks. But whether
the melted minerals were ever heated to a higher degree than
fusion — that is to the condition of vaporized elements — is an
inquiry either carefully avoided by the authorities in geology, or
merely mentioned as pertaining to an ingenious hypothesis which,
it is claimed, is unsustained by any sufficient proof. It remains
to be seen, however, if this theory of the original gaseous form
of the material elements does not follow as a necessary conse-
quence from the chemical constitution of the rocks themselves ;
and if it does not explain and bear testimony in geological and
cosmical sciences to such an extent as to make it absolutely
essential to them.
The question here presented resolves itself into two alterna-
tives : Either the materials of the earth's crust were formed
according to chemical laws out of the simple elements preexist-
* Published in Popular Science Monthly, April, 1874.
54 CHEMISTRY OF THE KOCKS.
ing in gaseous forms, or they were created in the condition
of melted and oxidized masses ready to cool into granite and
limestone. The latter supposition will hardly be seriously
entertained in these days of free inquiry into the natural causes
of tilings. It is now not only conceded, but expected, that
science shall have sole jurisdiction in every case where compound
bodies are the subject of investigation. To follow them back to
the primal laws and elements of their being, to reveal the cause
and manner of their birth among the atoms, is now the highest
aim of inductive research. On this border-line of inquiry where
the known shades off into the unknown and the finite into the
infinite, science has of late gained its most signal triumphs. And
it scarcely requires a prophetic sense to discern that the ground-
work of all systems of scientific knowledge will soon be laid in
molecular physics.
In the constituents of the solid earth we have forms and con-
ditions of matter of remarkable composition and complexity.
The original materials of the ground, of the rocks, and of the
mines, are found to be, in every case, fully saturated chemical
compounds. Many of them, as the silicates, are adamantine acids
neutralized by alkaline bases harder than the flint. They could
not be made more stable, inert, and solid. They are materials
that have apparently gone through stupendous changes, activities,
and combustions, and at last have settled down to a rest that
knows no waking. Science has no duty more legitimate or more
imperative than to inquire how these rock-masses came to be
where they are, and in the condition they are.
In pursuing this inquiry, since we find one of the alternatives
to be inadmissible, it is necessary to accept the other, namely,
that the matter which composes the geological formations
preexisted as simple elements, in a gaseous form. Oxygen,
which makes up fully one-half the weight of the solid parts
of the earth, is and always was a gas in its free state. In
regard to the remaining elements that enter into the composi-
tion of the rocks, such as silicon, aluminum, calcium, and
sodium, they could not all have existed on the earth at the same
time as melted liquids ; for the same heat which would hold one
CHEMISTRY OF THE ROCKS. 55
in fusion would evaporate others. Some therefore must have
been contained in the atmosphere as simple gaseous elements.
Inasmuch as granite is beneath all the other formations, if we
show that this must originally have been in a gaseous state, we
show that every other material must have been at the same time
in like condition.
The granite rocks are by far the most abundant terrestrial sub-
stance that we know of. Geologists assign to them a depth of
not less than thirty miles. And still below them there is the
same or nearly the same chemical substance in fusion, as the fact
and analysis of volcanic products sufficiently prove. The com-
pound which is in excess in all granite rocks is silica, the oxide of
the element silicon. The varieties are formed chiefly by small
percentages more or less of the oxides, alumina and magnesia.
This silica, or quartz, as well as the other components of the
igneous rocks, is what has been termed "burnt material." It is
the product of a most complete and tremendous conflagration ;
for the oxidation of silicon is as much and as powerful a com-
bustion as the oxidation or burning of coal. To accomplish this
burning, every particle of the silicon must have been brought
into contact with oxygen gas. This would have been simply im-
possible if the mineral element had always been in a melted mass
of miles in depth ; for this, if for no other reason, that the oxy-
gen could never have got at it — certainly not, if it was covered
by other solid or liquid substances. -Or, if it were conceded that
silicon ever formed the surface of the earth, then all other
materials of what is now the crust must have been gases above
it ; arid as nine-tenths of the elements in vapor are heavier than
oxygen — many of them more than ten times as heavy — this gas
could never have even touched this imaginary sea of silicon.
The oxidation then was only possible in the regions of the
atmosphere, where oxygen existed and abounded. There only,
among the free-moving gases, could the incalculable amount of
heat evolved in the combination be carried off.
We confidently assume therefore that the whole of this most
abundant mineral element once existed in the atmosphere in the
form of a high-heated gas ; and that some time and somewhere,
56 CHEMISTRY OF THE ROCKS.
on the confines of the enormously extended sphere of vapors,
there was found a current sufficiently cool to condense a portion
of it. If the vapor of silicon follows the general rule, that the
density of gases is in proportion to their atomic weights, then it
was but a fraction heavier than oxygen, and therefore not far be-
low it in the atmospheric strata. The unceasing commotion of
the elements would soon have brought this first cloud-mist of
silicon into contact with oxygen, to which it has a strong affinity
under high heat. Oxidized, and in molten drops of silica, or
crystals of quartz, this new-formed material commenced its de-
scent toward the center of gravity — the first creation from the
primordial elements. As it fell into the more heated regions
below, it was probably soon evaporated, and the vapor rising car-
ried up with it the heat taken up in the evaporation. It was
again condensed, its heat given up, and it descended for another
charge of the internal fires. This in all probability is the epit-
ome of the process of world-cooling.
At last the showers of melted silex reached the liquid surface
of the nucleus which the force of gravity and compression must
have formed, at an early period of the nebulous globe, of less or
greater extent about its center. From this period the increasing
torrents of silica, intermingled with the silicates which were
forming at the same time, poured down through the heavy
vapors, arid filled up the furlongs-deep of granite ocean. On
this vast deposit, and at about this stage of the gradual cooling
of the earth, began, we must suppose, the first hardening and
crusting over of the surface, since at this point, near the close of
the granite age, first commences the division of the earth's crust
into varieties and layers more or less distinct, as also the upbear-
ing of the heavy metals which, without this surface-hardening,
could never have floated on any molten sea of minerals. The
slow cooling of the granite masses beneath this crust and under
the enormous atmospheric or other superincumbent pressure, con-
formed them to all the acknowledged conditions of the formation
of the igneous rocks.
There is found in the different beds of the'granitic rocks every
proportion of the admixture of silica with the silicates of alum-
CHEMISTRY OF THE KOCKS. 57
ina. It is as if chances as variable as winds and storms had
regulated the production and mixture. There is every gradation
in the texture of granite, from the fine-grained blocks of the
quarry, to the coarse compacted breccia so common among
bowlders. It is as if the deeper beds had slowly cooled under
great compression and consequent immobility of the particles,
while the superficial layers had been worked up and closely con-
glomerated at the surface. There are specimens of granite com-
posed of massive angular crystals that seem as if they had been
thrown together and cemented. It is again as if they were the
congealed debris of some terrific hail-storm of quartz, mica, and
feldspar.
After the greater part of the silicious minerals had been de-
posited, and the cooler exterior gases had thus been let down to a
nearer vicinity with the heavier vapors, we find that the metals
proper began gradually to condense and fall. Those which have
no active affinities for the other elements were deposited in their
native purity. Others took on the forms of oxides or sulphurets,
according to their first exposures or strongest attractions. Among
the first of these cloud-productions, the rock records tell us, were
the scanty rainfalls of gold and platinum, and the more plentiful
showers of silver and copper. Rivulets of native ores ran along
the hardening crust, filling the veins and crevices, or mingling
with the liquid quartz that was seaming the granite and gneiss.
Then from clouds of condensing iron vapor that must have
burned and scintillated with indescribable magnificence, fell the
thick heavy storms of the black lodestone, the blood-red hema-
tite, or the dark yellow pyrites. Possibly storm-centers were
established, over which the cyclones were held concentrated and
often repeated, by force of intense magnetic attractions which
have left their traces in almost every iron-mine.
Following these, at times and places, came on the great snow-
storms of the waxy flakes of zinc-blende and the pearly calamine,
the red oxide or the white carbonate of lead and the gray galena,
the beautiful crystals of the tin-stone, the gray plumes of anti-
mony, and all the tinted and varied forms of the less abundant
ores and alloys. Meanwhile through all the long ages of these
58 CHEMISTRY OF THE ROCKS.
metallic precipitations, there was continually falling over all the
earth the white impalpable powder of lime — the element calcium
condensed into cloud-mist and oxidized in the upper regions of
the air.
These were the great chemical periods of our world ; when
the cooling vapors of the swollen sphere were struggling to unite
and hold fast the embrace against the antagonist force of heat ;
when the conjoined elements were pouring down their fiery tor-
rents, and the air was laden with the falling cinders and ashes of
aerial conflagrations ; when the vast workshop of Nature was
forming and sorting its raw materials.
We do not however wish to be understood as insisting that all
these minerals and metals came down in just the form and order
that we have indicated, or that they were regularly deposited
and left the orderly traces that perhaps our hasty sketch would
seem to imply. There were unquestionably constant and pro-
found commotions in the atmosphere, and the commingling of
the most diverse elements. There were doubtless repeated melt-
ings and chemical recombinations at the surface, and the rending
and comminuting of the newly-formed crust by internal forces.
The history of the earth's irregularities and disorders forms the
greater part of geology.
But what we do claim as certain is, that all the constituents of
the outer shell of our globe existed at one time as elemental
gases above a sea of matter that was held in condensation by
superincumbent pressure ; that as the earth gradually cooled,
these gases condensed somewhat in the order, inversely of their
fusibility, and directly of their nearness to the outer bounds of
the atmosphere, and fell to the surface like rain and snow from
water-clouds ; that they formed chemical combinations at the in-
stant of their condensation or subsequently, according to the
power of their affinities or the elements that were present ; and
that, excepting the more recent displacements by mechanical
forces, they now lie in the earth as they fell from the heavens.
The silica and silicates which form the base and by far the
greater part of the earth's crust, became oxides of their several
selement because oxygen was the superabundant gas in the earth's
CHEMISTRY OF THE ROCKS. 59
composition. There have been worlds made up apparently
without oxygen ; for the meteorites, which must be regarded as
sample specimens from some stranger world however they may
have been dispatched to us, are mostly composed of pure crystal-
line and malleable iron, which could have cooled into that con-
dition only where there was no oxygen nor carbonic gases. If
chlorine had been our superabundant gas, the silicon would per-
haps quite as readily have united with it, and formed as stable a
compound as with oxygen. But the product, instead of being
the hardest of rocks, would have been a liquid, very much re-
sembling water, a little heavier and nearly as volatile as the
common ethers. In this case there could have been no dry land,
and no living beings that we can conceive of. Eternal clouds
and storms would have covered the face of the surging and
boundless ocean.
Hitherto in our accounts of terrestrial phenomena, water has
played no part. It is probable that it was early formed, and in
the condition of vapor or steam diffused through the upper air.
In this state it bears the highest degree of heat that we can produce,
without decomposition. Hydrogen is the lightest of all the gases,
and unquestionably took its place on the outer limits of the at-
mosphere. There it was brought into contact with oxygen by
the commotion of the elements, and converted into steam as fast
as its lowering temperature allowed of the combination. As we
might expect from the respective positions of the gases, all the
hydrogen which fell to the portion of the earth in the making
up of its constituents was transformed into water-vapor. Hydro-
gen is found in no other combination that cannot be traced
directly or indirectly to the decomposition of water.
The aqueous vapor being thus formed and lying in the upper
and cooler regions of the air, it began after a time to condense
and fall toward the earth. Meeting with warmer strata as it de-
scended, it was soon evaporated and sent up with a load of heat
that was set free by a recondensatiori. Then another and perhaps
lower descent, for another charge of heat. Thus on the out-
skirts of the air, water-vapor was cooperating in the work of the
heavier vapors of the interior. It was the great fire-carrier of
60 CHEMISTRY OF THE KOCKS.
the globe during all the time of the contraction and consolidation
of the lower elements. When every thing else that was conden-
sable had turned to dust and ashes and fallen to the earth, at last
the waters reached the parched and scorious surface and com-
menced that grand series of aqueous transformations which made
a new earth for the indwelling of life.
In the first place it was necessary that the upper crust should
be hydrated, precisely as lime is slacked by pouring water on it.
The material which had been last deposited was in reality this
same caustic lime. In its lower deposits it was gradually inter-
mixed with the sillicious compounds, until these latter formed
without admixture the masses which are now the stratified gran-
itic rocks. As every one knows, the slacking of quicklime
absorbs a large quantity of water which is incorporated into the
solid as water of crystallization, and great heat is evolved with
enlargement of bulk. The pure silicious rocks do not take up
water in this way, being what is termed anhydrous. All the
rock-materials then that lie above the granite, must at some time
have undergone this hydrating, reheating and swelling process.
We accordingly find that all those strata which have remained
in their original position, such as gneiss, the mica schists, the
clay-slates, and the primary limestones, have the appearance of
having been subjected to great heat and pressure, after having
been acted upon by water and steam. In some instances they
have been partially melted, in others strangely contorted, and in
others partly dissolved. Under certain circumstances hot water
and steam will dissolve small portions of silica, and if charged
with carbonic-acid gas will dissolve lime quite freely.
The rainfalls of the primeval ages must have been fully satu-
rated with the oxide of carbon which has played an important
part in the making up of the strata. In this form it carbonated
all the limestones, carried all the building-materials to the shell
and coral land-makers, and furnished the supplies for the immense
magazines of the hydro-carbons. And after all this there was
enough carbonic-acid gas left in the air for the enormous vegeta-
tion of the coal-beds. But it was necessary that the carbon of
this gas should be laid away in the earth in some form, either
CHEMISTRY OF THE KOCKS. 61
burnt or unburnt, before air-breathing life could come to any
perfection. The solidifying of the carbonic oxide was the latest
and slowest of the atmospheric changes.
It appears that during the epoch of the hydration of the lime-
rocks there occurred periods when the waters were gathered into
seas, and were sufficiently cooled for the existence of marine in-
fusoria, mollusks, and corals. Life in some form has been ever
ready to spring into being the moment that conditions and sur-
roundings were suitable for it. After the deposition in those
temporary oceans of considerable thicknesses of Cambrian or
Silurian strata mixed with organic remains, some rent or uphea-
val has let the waters down to new beds of unslacked material,
which have heated and as it is termed metamorphosed those
first fossil if erous deposits.
The subsequent changes which the earth's crust has undergone
— aqueous, volcanic, and organic — the working up of the con-
glomerates arid sandstones, the depositing of the deep-sea beds,
the overflowing of the traps and lavas, the storing away of the
carboniferous treasures, are all the story of every hand-book of
geology, and pertain no more to one theory than another of the
origin of the rocks. When the quarries of the igneous rocks
were once made and opened up to aqueous operations, the after-
work was merely mechanics and masonry.
We have heretofore assumed that the gases which originally
composed the aerial envelope of the earth, took up separate posi-
tions therein according to their specific gravities. This might seem
to be controverted by experiments on the diffusion of gases, in
which those of very different weights, as chlorine and hydrogen,
will intimately commingle, even against gravity, when brought
into contact. This may be true in the narrow compass of lab-
oratory experiments, and yet not apply to any considerable thick-
nesses of the gases. Such a diffusion of one mile in depth of
chlorine would be equal to lifting up to the hydrogen a shell of
solid iron two feet thick. Whether we explain the distinguishing
principle of the constitution of gases as a mutual repulsion of
their moleciiles, or according to a late theory, as an incessant
motion and clashing of atoms, there is nothing in either to warrant
62 CHEMISTRY OF THE ROCKS.
the supposition of the lifting or overcoming any considerable
weight in the diffusion of gases. Under the first theory, diffu-
sion to a limited extent would be accounted for by the small
residuum of chemical or cohesive attraction that would remain
between the atoms when separated as they are in the gases ; and
under the last theory, by the mechanical impulsion of the mole-
cules, through their hitting against each other. Evidently it is
a principle which operates only within narrow limits and in the
lower temperatures of the gases. The sun gives no indications
of such a commingling of its gaseous elements. Spectrum
analysis, when applied to its outer edges, shows first hydrogen,
then the vapors of sodium and magnesium, and lastly those of
calcium and iron. The same fact and order of position are found
to exist in the more condensed layers of the sun spots.
We have also further assumed that the elements in their gaseous
states have specific gravities corresponding to their atomic
weights. It is well known that all gases, whether simple or
compound, at the same temperature and pressure, and not near
to a condensing point or other change of state, contain precisely
the same number of molecules in the same volume. Therefore
it necessarily results that equal measures of the different gases
should have weights corresponding to the weights of the molecules
of which they are composed. Thus the atom of oxygen is six-
teen times as heavy as that of hydrogen ; therefore a cubic foot
of oxygen gas will weigh sixteen times as much as a cubic foot of
hydrogen gas. This is found to be experimentally true of all
the gases that can be measured or weighed. The apparent but
not real exceptions are, that in arsenic and phosphorus two atoms
of the element unite to form one molecule of the gas, thus mak-
ing it twice as heavy as it would be according to the general
rule; while in the case of mercury and cadmium, the atom
divides into two in forming their vapors. Hence we are not ab-
solutely sure in regard to the vapor-molecule, and therefore
vapor-density, of such elements as carbon, silicon, and calcium,
which chemists have not been able to volatilize. But there is
every probability, both from analogy and the position in which
some of them are found in the photosphere of the sun, that the
CHEMISTRY OF THE ROCKS.
63
vapors of nearly all of them correspond strictly to their combin-
ing numbers. The following table therefore will show the
relative positions in the atmospheric strata, of some of the most
important elements, with the weights of their atoms in hydrogen
units, their vapor-densities compared with air, and the solid spe-
cific gravities of some of them as compared with water :
GASES.
Atomic Weights.
H — 1.
Sp. gr. of Gas.
Air = 1.
Sp. gr. of Solid.
Water = 1.
Hydrogen
1
069
Carbon
12
828
209
Nitrogen _
14
972
Oxygen
16
1 105
Sodium
23
1.59
98
Magnesium
24
1 66
1 74
Aluminum
27 5
1 90
2 60
Silicon
285
1 97
2 40
Sulphur
32
2 22
2
Chlorine
35.5
2 44
1 33
Potassium
39
2.69
.86
Calcium
40
2 76
1 58
Iron
56
3 86
7 80
Copper _
63 5
439
8 96
Mercury
200 -=-2
6 97
13 60
Silver
108
7 47
1053
Gold
196 5
13 57
19 34
Platinum
198
13.66
21.50
The atomic weight of any substance, simple or compound,
multiplied into the specific gravity of hydrogen (.069) will give
the specific gravity of that substance in gaseous form as in
the above table, and which ought very nearly to agree with that
found by actually weighing the gas when that is practicable.
It will be noticed from this table that the elements were ar-
ranged in positions most suitable for their combination and de-
position, both in geological order and in the probable order of
their condensation from vapors. Oxygen and silicon, which
doubtless composed more than four-fifths of the entire bulk of
the gases, were separated from each other only by the elements
that were needed to make up the silicates. Their compound,
silica, is involatile, and even infusible by itself, under any de-
gree of heat that we can command. The same is true of lime
and the earlier-formed silicates. Therefore it is impossible to
decide from their volatility which of these substances would
64 CHEMISTRY OF THE ROCKS.
have first condensed and reached the surface. But as the vapor
of silica when formed would still be of nearly the same specific
gravity (2.07) with silicon (1.97), and would still separate by its
immense volume the oxygen from the calcium below, we may
suppose that in any case the silica would have to be condensed and
deposited, in greater part at least, before lime, the oxide of
calcium, could be formed.
Along with silica were formed and deposited the silicates of alu-
mina— mica and feldspar; then the partially fusible silicates of
magnesia, lime, and iron — hornblende, augite, and talc. Then
followed a numerous order of complex silicates, in which the '
above-named ingredients are varied by small proportions of man-
ganese, soda, strontia, zirconia, and many other mineral bases.
With and after these, was produced the lime-deposit, the last of
the minerals. The metallic vapors, which were all heavier than
the mineral, were condensed and deposited chiefly during the
later silicate period, and somewhat in the inverse order of their
volatility, but locally and irregularly, as results of great perturba-
tions or storms in the air.
It will further be seen from the last column of the table, that
in no respect are the materials of the earth deposited according
to their specific gravities as solids or liquids. There is in the
superincumbent rock and ore masses, no order of position that
would indicate in the least the floating buoyancy of the lighter
substances. Therefore their arrangement cannot be referred to
any origin from liquid conditions; and the only other theory is
that of their gaseous origin.
There are many apparent anomalies in the deposition of the
metallic and mineral compounds, which may require much study
and perhaps further knowledge and experiment for their expla-
nation. Thus there is in one place a carbonate of lime — mar-
ble— and in another a sulphate of lime — gypsum. There are in
certain localities sulphuret ores of iron or copper, and in others
oxide ores ; while the metals of greatest vapor density, as mer-
cury, lead, bismuth, and antimony, are found almost exclusively
in sulphuret ores. It will perhaps eventually be established that
sulphur was combined wholly into sulphuric acid gas, as carbon
CHEMISTRY OF THE ROCKS. 65
was originally combined only into carbonic acid gas ; that both
were brought to the surface of the earth in solution with rain-
water ; and that sulphur in this form united with the metals which
had failed to be oxidized upon their condensation in the air, and
also sulphated the quick-lime in the earth which had not been
carbonated by the carbonic solution. Then there is the exceptional
production in nature of the chloride of sodium — common salt.
Apparently in this one instance the oxide is the less stable com-
pound.
But if, as we have endeavored to prove, there is a necessity of
accounting in accordance with this theory for the various com-
pounds and phenomena with wrhich geology makes us familiar,
then it is in the highest degree essential that experiment and re-
search be prosecuted in this new field. And there must be no
hesitation in accepting the conclusions to which they lead.
Should the nebulous origin of one planet be thus established
by internal and inductive evidence, then the nebular theory of
the formation of worlds, which has heretofore been received as
only a provisional hypothesis, must be accepted as having a scien-
tific basis. If the earth has once been a self-luminous body, in
all respects excepting size like the sun of to-day, it follows from
anology that the other planets have likewise been minor suns
which have become extinguished by the burning out of their mate-
rials. To an observer on any unseen world among the stars, our
sun should have appeared in those times as a brilliant double or
multiple star, around which nine lesser companions have shone
out for a season, and then one after the other folded themselves
up in darkness.
Furthermore the study of this subject may throw light on
many cosmical problems — may tell us in earth- periods if not in
years, how old the sun is when his glowing vapors begin to con-
dense into dark clouds, and perhaps too something of his future
prospects as a luminary. It is remarkable that the spectrum has
never shown any indications of free oxygen in the atmosphere
of the sun. Is not the absence of this element further corrobo-
rated by the fact that the solar spots which, there is evidence to
believe, are condensing clouds of iron and calcium, do not glow
66 CHEMISTRY OF THE ROCKS.
with fierce burning as they would if oxygen were present?
Does not the enormous volume of the sun's uncombined hydro-
gen indicate that it has not found there the element of its strong-
est affinity ? And is there not reason to believe that the heat and
light supplies of our great luminary will last all the longer for
the absence of this most extravagant fire-generator ?
Again, the four outer planets of our system have specific
gravities varying but little from that of water. Considering
central condensation from pressure, it is probable that they are not
more dense than they would be if composed of the lightest com-
pound substance that we know of. If oxygen had been there in
excess, it would long ago have burned and condensed their ele-
ments, whatever they might be, into most stable and solid forms.
This gas therefore cannot have formed any considerable part of
their constitution. Is it not then a probable supposition that
these distant planets are composed of some non-combining and
inactive elements like nitrogen, and that, undisturbed by com-
bustions or elemental agitations, they have quietly stratified into
gaseous worlds, retaining in great part their original heat ? So
far as the spectroscope gives any indications of their constitu-
tion, it shows them to be composed of gases unknown in the
earth.
As we have stated, the four outer planets are very nearly of
the specific gravity of water ; then come the innumerable aste-
roids, filling the place of a missing planet, and of which we
know but little ; then three planets that are five and a half times
as dense as water;: and lastly, Mercury, over eight times as
dense. Does not this increasing density of the planets from the
outer to the inner, imply that they have been successively
formed on the exterior of one great parent globe, and received
each its proportion in the main of denser elements, as it was
later born ? That this effect should appear somewhat in groups
of the planets, is owing probably to the absence or excess of
oxygen among their components.
But if this is so, what shall we say of hydrogen, the lightest
of all the gases, which seems to be most abundant the nearer
to the center of the system ? To explain this notable exception,
CHEMISTRY OF THE ROCKS. 67
might we conjecture that hydrogen is a more recent production
than the worlds themselves? It has been observed time and
again to burst up from the nethermost regions of the sun with
inconceivable force, as if it were the pent-up product of a volca-
no, and to throw up columns of its flaming gas, in one case
200,000 miles high. And these great outbursts of hydrogen are
always the precursors of the dark sunken spots in the photo-
sphere. How came this almost imponderable ether to be impris-
oned in the deep craters of the sun, if it is not a product that is
constantly forming in the solar caldron?
But it is easier to ask questions than to answer them. And I
will close, in the fear of having already been thought too free
with the scientific imagination.
THE GENESIS OF WORLDS;
Or, World Creations.*
The New-World pioneers of the sixteenth century, when as
first comers they looked on the sea-worn shores and giant forests
of New England, had in reality no compelling reason for be-
lieving in the veritable old age of this new-found land. They
had no " first order of proof " that the shores were not recentl}7
upheaved there for them to land upon, and with the growth of
the centuries on them for the purpose of testing the manhood
that was soon to reclaim them. But I think those sturdy adven-
turers, if they stopped at all to consider of scientific doubts,
were not long in deciding that the scene before them was con-
formable to the laws and processes of nature, and therefore
must have been the slow growth of time.
In like manner, the geologist, looking into the bowels of the
earth and finding here and there the remains of a tree or a saur-
ian, presumes that they once lived and grew in the same locali-
ties, and were buried and petrified under the rock-grindings of
after-ages. But he really has no absolute proof of any such thing.
They may have been created in the fossil state and laid away in
the strata on the same day the earth was made. But I think
the scientist, knowing laws of nature by which, with suffi-
ciently long periods of time, all these geological results might
have been gradually brought about, is justified in believing that
they too were the slow product of nature and of time.
So we, finding that the world has certainly at some time been
subjected to a heat at least sufficient to volatilize nearly every
* Published in Popular Science Monthly, April, 1877.
TO THE GENESIS OF WORLDS.
known substance, and that there are laws of nature by which,
through periods of time immensely long, the earth arid the
planets might have been rolled up from a gaseous nebula and
bowled off in their mighty revolutions, have just as much right
to say that it was so, as we have to say that the American forests
grew, or that the Triassic beds were deposited.
Geology has proved that the earth, up to the primary rocks,
was once a molten mass. The crystalline structure of the un-
stratified rocks compels to this conclusion ; for minerals insoluble
in water can only become crystallized in large masses by cooling
from a state of fusion. If then the earth was once an incan-
descent globe of melted rocks — for everything above the granite
beds must then have been in a state of vapor — it is not un-
reasonable to suppose that it may have existed prior to that time
in a still more highly heated condition — even volatilized and
diffused through space as rare and attenuated gases ; for this is
the condition which all matter assumes under sufficient degrees
of heat. In fact we must either suppose that the earth was
created as a fiery liquid globe, for which we have no warrant, or
we must follow back to the time when its vapors were scattered
in space, unreflecting and impenetrable to light — when the earth
was " without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of
the deep."
Let us start then with that condition of things which is now
very generally conceded must once have existed — the diffusion
of matter in a nebulous form throughout all space. Calculations
easily made show that the nebula must have been of extreme
tenuity — such that the few grains taken up on the point of a
knife-blade must have been expanded to fill several cubic miles.
A heat so powerful — for we know of no other force which could
thus hold apart the atoms of matter — would doubtless be suffi-
cient to resolve every known substance into its simplest elemen-
tary constituents, perhaps into a very few primordial elements ;
for chemists are far from being satisfied that they have arrived
at the ultimate forms of matter in their list of sixty-five ele-
ments. But however this may be, we know that the atoms,
whatever they were, must have been held so far apart that no
THE GENESIS OF WORLDS. 71
combinations could possibly have existed. Neither were they
drawn more in one direction than another by their mutual attrac-
tions, for they were equally diffused through all space. Therefore
heat, the great repulsive force, had overcome all the forces of at-
traction— cohesion, chemical affinity, and gravity.
Between such mighty contending forces we can hardly imag-
ine a state of perfect equilibrium. Immense currents and world-
wide surgings must be the long-continued if not the permanent
condition of this state of things, especially if we conceive it
brought about by natural causes. More condensed portions of
nebulous matter would be formed — sections of space larger or
smaller in which the forces of attraction counterbalanced those
of repulsion. Each such section would then have its center of
gravity, around which all the currents within its influence, by
the law of the composition of forces, must eventually unite in
one. This one flowing ever around and slowly toward the cen-
ter, like a ball rolling down an inclined plain, goes faster and
faster, until the centrifugal overbalances the centripetal force,
and a part separates completely from the inner mass. Thus a
ring is formed revolving around a central nucleus. Unless per-
fectly equipoised and of homogeneous material, this ring would
sooner or later break up into a number of globes, which by the
superior attraction of the largest, would ultimately coalesce into
one. This globe still contracting might throw off satellites or
moons, while the nucleus, also continuing to contract, would throw
off other planets, all revolving in nearly the same plane and in
the same direction. All these processes are in perfect accord,
not only with the conditions of the heavenly bodies so far as dis-
covered, but with known natural laws. Many of them have been
successfully imitated on a small scale in experimental illustra-
tions, as in the rapid rotation of oil suspended in water.
We have here given only the simple outlines of the famous
"nebular hypothesis" of Laplace. In later years the discovery
of nebulse in the heavens in all stages of world-formation, the evi-
dence of the spectroscope on the unformed material of the uni-
verse, and other proofs, have compelled for the proscribed hy-
pothesis a recognized place in science. We do not stop to
72 THE GENESIS OF WORLDS.
consider these subjects more fully because it is the purpose of
this article to inquire chiefly concerning the forces that would be
engaged in such a process of evolution ; and firstly, how from
the preponderance of the repellent forces holding matter in uni-
versal diffusion, there came the final mastery of the aggregating
forces ever concentrating, combining, and working up the mate-
rials of the universe.
The first of the operations which comes to our notice in
the progress of this evolution is the condensation of the gases.
This according to all experience ought to evolve heat ; but in-
stead, we find only that the flow of the currents — the motion of
the masses — is proportionately increased. Is there a connection
of cause and effect between these phenomena?
All motion that we are familiar with requires the expenditure
of heat. The combustion of coal supplies motion to the steam-en-
gine. The evaporation of water by the sun's heat causes the rain-
clouds and the mill-streams. The oxidation of certain elements
in the food we eat is the combustion which supplies our bodies
with power of motion. Recent discoveries have shown, not only
that motion is heat transformed, but that to produce a certain
quantity of motion an invariable certain quantity of heat is re-
quired.
Again, the cessation of motion evolves heat. It is well known
that by skillful blows with the hammer a cold iron bar can be
made red-hot. Two wheels revolving in opposite directions and
touching at the circumference, become highly heated ; and fac-
tories have been warmed solely by this transfer of motion into
heat. Friction is but another name for the arresting of motion,
and as we well know always produces heat. There is also here
the same equivalence as in the other case. The stoppage of mo-
tion evolves just the amount of heat that was required to pro-
duce that motion.
The greatest triumph of modern science is the splendid in-
duction that all the forces are correlative and indestructible. Not
an impulse of motion, of light, or heat, or any force, is ever lost.
It may be communicated from one body to another, or transmu-
ted into some other form of force, or become for a time latent
THE GENESIS OF WORLDS. 73
or imperceptible ; but it always exists, and is reclairnable back
again into tlie same in mode and quantity from which it started.
The grandest exemplification of these truths will be found in
what we are now considering, the origin of the celestial revolu-
tions. The condensation of gases gives out heat in direct pro-
portion to the contraction of volume. The attraction of gravi-
tation, not only between masses but between all particles of
matter, increases in the inverse square 'of the diminishing dis-
tance. From these two principles it can be mathematically
shown that in the contraction of each great world-nebula, heat
would be set free in the precise proportion of the increase of
atomic attraction ; or in other words that it would take the ex-
act amount of heat-force that had been released, to separate the
atoms again to their original distance apart. But in this instance
the heat-force is not really set free ; it is transformed into the
motion of the mass from which it came. Instead of holding the
atoms apart, the work which it now has to do under the form of
motion is to prevent the masses from falling into each other.
It is this motion — the celestial revolutions — which keeps the
worlds apart, and allows each to work out its destiny under the
aggregating forces, without any interference from any other.
Up to a certain point of condensation, which is previous to the
radiation of heat into space, if this motion were at any time
stopped, it would be resolved into just the amount of heat
necessary to expand the mass again to its original dimensions.
The attractive forces, gravity, chemical affinity, arid cohesion,
whether these forces are many or one, are inherent properties of
matter. Every atom has its definite capacity of attraction,
which may be exercised or not according to circumstances. For
it is evident that an attracting body may be at the same time
drawing toward itself a million other like bodies, or none at all,
without change of its power of attraction. In like manner
the magnet has a definite lifting power whether it is actually
holding up a weight or not. If this attribute of matter is not
operative, or but partially so, it is because heat, or motion, or
some repellent force, is holding the atoms or the masses at a dis-
tance from each other, and thus opposing the exercise of it.
74: THE GENESIS OF WORLDS.
The sura however of the attracting power belonging to the
world of matter is as fixed as the quantity of matter itself. And
I think it is in the highest degree probable that there is in the
universe precisely enough repulsive force or heat to overcome all
this inherent power of attraction. When all motion of the masses
and of the atoms is resolved into repulsive energy, and brought
to bear on the elements of matter, I imagine that they must com-
pletely fill the bounds or the infinity of space. Then if there
were perfect equilibrium or rest, no further changes or effects
could ever be manifested. Such a condition however could
probably never result from natural causes, for the time necessary
to the perfect balance of the forces must be as infinite as the
space through which they extend, and to " set bounds to space "
has puzzled philosophy from a very ancient date. If on the
other hand the universe of matter was created in a state of abso-
lute rest, we have the further and necessary provision that the
Spirit of God moved on the face of his creation, and thus un-
balanced the forces. But the equilibrium once broken, in what-
ever manner, from that moment evolution must inevitably pro-
ceed. For let there be an overbalancing of the aggregating
force in ever so little or much, an equivalent of the opposing
force must thereafter find some other work to do, and the field is
effectually given up to the mighty agency that combines and
constructs and brings order out of chaos.
So long and in proportion as the forming worlds continue to
contract their dimensions, the rotations and revolutions increase
in their velocity. Thus in the rapid and ever-speeding move-
ments of the heavenly bodies there is stored up the ever-increas-
ing reserve of heat that is liberated from the great contest with
gravit}^. But in the progress of concentration there comes a
time when the atoms of matter have approached each other
sufficiently near for other forces of attraction, equally correlative
of heat, to come into play — chemical affinity between molecules
of unlike nature, and cohesion between those of like kind.
Under the latter term are included all the changes of state which
are the result of cooling, as liquefaction and solidifying. By
these attractions heat is set free in such abundance and under
THE GENESIS OF WORLDS. 75
such conditions that it cannot be stored away in the motion of
the masses. It is then, probably for the first time, that heat
becomes a wave force and is radiated into space as light and
radiant heat — not however lost, for that is impossible, but moving
ever onward and outward to the day and place of its final
reclamation.
Our own solar system has already progressed far in this stage
of aggregation. All the planets and satellites have become
crusted over, and have ceased almost entirely to radiate heat.
But the sun, the great central body, the one which should last of
all become cold, is still in active combustion or chemical combi-
nation. Immense quantities of light and heat are still radiating
from its surface — so immense that the little fraction which our
earth catches as it flies through space, gives us all the motion and
life and beauty which we enjoy. But the sun is not even now
the glowing orb that once it was, as the rock-records of our globe
testify. Its bright radiance is slowly but surely fading. Those
huge black incrustations, often twice as large as the whole surface
of the earth, that float awhile on its photosphere and then are
suddenly broken up, were not always there. And if they have
grown upon it, the uncomfortable conviction arises that they will
continue to grow and darken more and more its life-giving face.
Old age is certainly being written on the solar brow. It may
be millions of years hence — for time is not one of the economies
of nature — but the period will surely come when light and heat
will both have departed from the sun, as they once ceased to be
radiated from the earth and the planets and the numerous stars
that have gone out within the records of astronomy. A pall of
darkness wrill gradually overspread the universe as one by one
the stars of the firmament shall fade away and sink into gloomy
lifeless sleep. A day in the grand calendar of creation has
passed, and a night has followed, cold and dark as the tomb of
expiring nature.
But is there no awakening, no morrow to this night of the
universe ? Is the contest over, and never to be renewed ? For
answer, let us seek out in this case, as we did once before, the
condition and movements of the great contending forces. Those
76 THE GENESIS OF WORLDS.
of attraction have now in each world expended their utmost
possible energy, and are holding all the forms of matter combined
and compacted in a cold and rigid embrace. The forces of
repulsion have entirely abandoned the contest, and are either
vibrating through the unknown realms of space, or are locked
up in the swift and complicated motions of the heavenly bodies.
It is probable that by far the greater part of the repulsive forces
thus exists in the form of motion. It has been estimated, no
doubt with a near approximation to truth, that if by any means
the earth could be suddenly arrested in its rapid course, its mass
would thereby be raised to the enormous temperature of 23,360°
Fahr. — a heat sufficient to vaporize and dissipate every known
substance. If then, as would be the case, it should fall into the
sun, this heat would be increased by the fall four hundred fold.
Now it makes no difference in the aggregate evolution of heat
whether this cessation of motion is sudden or gradual ; and if
we can find in nature any agencies tending to retard the revolu-
tions of the planetary bodies, they must inevitably sooner or
later fall into the sun. In such a case it can hardly be doubted
that we have found a cause sufficient to produce again the disin-
tegration and diffusion of matter.
The wave-theory of light and radiant heat presupposes the
existence of an ethereal medium pervading all space. It must
be a medium of material atoms held in equipoise by a balance of
forces, for it is evident there could be no wave-motion unless
there was something to move, and something too having the
attributes of matter in a state of extreme mobility or fluidity.
There is no other conceivable way by which light could reach us
from the sun and stars except through this all-pervading form of
matter. And if there is a material medium, of whatsoever ex-
ceeding tenuity it may be, it must present something of resistance
to everything passing through it. It resists the passage of light
eight minutes in 90,000,000 miles, thus proving its materiality
by its resistance to force, which is one of the definitions of mat-
ter. If one could conceive of any force passing through an
absolute vacuum, it could only be conceived of as passing instan-
taneously, for there is absolutely nothing to detain it. Again heat
THE GENESIS OF WORLDS. 77
and its allied forces are only effects, and the subject is and can be
only matter. There is no physical truth better established than
that the forces can exist only where matter is in some form. It
is not essential that this form of matter be subject to the ordinary
laws of gravitation. The probability is that it differs entirely
from anything that we have experience of. It would seem that
the atoms composing the ether of space, instead of attracting
each other like those of ordinary matter, must repel each other.
At least this supposition would account for what there is remark-
able in connection with the ethereal medium. But whatever
theories we may adopt in regard to it, this is certainly true, that
the revolutions of the heavenly bodies must be continually open-
ing passages through it, and that a certain part of the force of
those revolutions must be expended in pushing it aside. The
centrifugal force is thus lessened, and the bodies are drawn nearer
to the sun. In consequence, the periods of their revolutions
are shortened. This has not as yet become noticeable in the case
of the planets, from the fact that the slow contraction of their
bulk by the loss of internal heat through volcanoes, thermal
springs, and other sources, has the contrary effect of increasing
the velocity of revolution, and thus counterbalancing the retard-
ation by friction. The fact that the two effects are thus nearly
counterbalanced, proves the retardation, for otherwise we know
that the acceleration would be observable. In the case however
of the light cometary bodies, it has been shown that they suffer
a very considerable retardation in their passage through space.
Encke's comet formerly came regularly back into the iield of
the earth's orbit once in every three years, but with a period
shortened six hours each time. The whole planetary regions
seem to be filled with collections of matter — star-dust and mete-
orites. They are all revolving about the sun in eccentric orbits,
and are doubtless slowly circling toward it. The zodiacal light
is supposed to be only an immense aggregation of this material.
Thus the thickening stratum, as these strange bodies draw near
to the sun, shows that they are all slowly gathering to that great
center of attraction.
78 THE GENESIS OF WORLDS.
The evident effect of the fall of any of the planets into the
sun would be the diffusion of highly-heated vapors far out into
the spaces that surround it — probably far enough to reach the
next outlying planet, and thereby to increase its retardation and
hasten its fall into the mighty caldron. So one by one the
planets dissolve and their elements fill the void of space. The
expanding gases catch up the waves of radiant heat that have
long been wandering from planets and suns and the nebula is
again seething and surging with its mighty contending forces.
Sun-system reaches out to sun-system, and star-galaxy mingles
with star-galaxy, till through all the abysmal depths matter is
again " without form and void, and darkness is upon the face of
the deep." Chaos has returned once more, again to be breathed
upon by the Omnipotent Spirit that reforms and recreates.
ON THE STRUCTURE OF ATOMS.
Chemists are now quite generally disposed to admit that the
original and ultimate form of all matter is some single simple
substance, and that what we call the atoms or simple elements,
numbering now about sixty-five, are only different manifestations
of this universal matter, depending on the quantity combined
and the degree or complexity of its condensation. This theory
accords so well with the first principles of chemical science, and
with the tendency of all inductive knowledge, which is to bring
facts and particular phenomena under more simple and general
laws and conditions, that there is scarcely a writer on chemistry
who has not somewhere shown a leaning toward this greatest of
all generalizations — the unification of matter.
This field of inquiry is the great border land between the
known and the unknown. As such, it has been so long the
batting ground of the metaphysicians, that one feels almost like
offering an apology for attempting to introduce a little common
sense, or at least common language, into it. Still I have the
courage to think that some clear reasoning may be held and some
pertinent facts presented looking towards this great simplifica-
tion. I will at least attempt to find how far we can go in
this direction without abstruse speculation.
It is a well known principle of chemistry that all true gases,
under the same quantity of heat and pressure, have precisely the
same number of molecules or ultimate particles in the same vol-
ume. A cubic foot of oxygen or hydrogen or carbonic acid or
any other gas contains in each case exactly the same number of
atoms or molecules. Therefore the weights of the cubic feet of
all the gases will correspond to the weights of their molecules.
80 ON THE STRUCTURE OF ATOMS.
A cubic foot of oxygen will weigh just sixteen times as mucli as
a cubic foot of hydrogen, because the atom of oxygen is sixteen
times heavier than the atom of hydrogen. It is immaterial then
whether we say two atoms or two measures of hydrogen unite
with one of oxygen to form water. In this case the three vol-
umes of the original gases are condensed in the combination into
two volumes of water-vapor or steam. If we were to suppose
that these measures were cubic inches, and that each one con-
tained 1,000 atoms, then the case would stand in this wise : 2,000
atoms of hydrogen have combined with 1,000 atoms of oxygen,
and these 3,000 have formed 2,000 molecules of water-gas.
Each molecule of the water therefore contains one atom of
hydrogen and one-half an atom of oxygen. The oxygen atom
has divided itself into two, and the hydrogen has not divided.
Let us take another instance. Three atoms of hydrogen unite
with one of nitrogen to form two molecules of ammonia. The
compression in this case is four volumes into two. Of course
each molecule of ammonia contains one and a half atoms of hy-
drogen and one-half atom of nitrogen. Both hydrogen and
nitrogen have in this case divided their atoms into two. Again,
one atom of hydrogen unites with one atom of chlorine to make
two molecules of hydrochloric acid, each molecule of the latter
containing one-half atom each of hydrogen and chlorine. Now
one molecule of ammonia will unite with one molecule, of hydro-
chloric acid to form two molecules of sal-ammoniac or muriate of
ammonia. Evidently a molecule of the latter is composed in
the following manner : (|H. + JN) + (JH + JC1) ; and here is the
proof of it. Reducing the above to their atomic weights: £ 4-
3£ + J-f 8-J = 13f = atomic weight of sal-ammoniac. Now, any
given measure of air being called 1, the same measure of H.
will weigh .069, which is called its specific gravity. The atomic
weight of any gas multiplied into that decimal will give the
specific gravity of that gas. Therefore 13f multiplied into .069,
which is .92, is the calculated specific gravity of muriate of am-
monia gas. This gas has been carefully weighed, and the ob-
served specific gravity found to be .89. The two are considered
to correspond within the limits of error.
ON THE STRUCTURE OF ATOMS. 81
Let us take one more example. Two molecules of ammonia,
2(l^-H + i|-N). unite with one molecule of sulphuretted hydro-
gen, (11 + -JS), to make three molecules of hydrosulphate of
ammonia. Therefore a molecule of this latter substance is com-
posed as follows: (H + iN) + (£H + |S), that is, l+4f + i + 5i=
11-J, its molecular weight. This multiplied into .069 makes .78,
the calculated specific gravity, while the observed is .79.
In this manner we have found that the atom of hydrogen
divides itself into halves, thirds, and quarters ; that of nitrogen
into halves and quarters, and that of sulphur into sixths. In
like manner it can be shown (see table appended hereto) that
chlorine subdivides into halves, thirds, and quarters, phosphorus
into eighths, carbon into sixths, and nitrogen and oxygen into
thirds. Thus we see that atoms are far from being the indivis-
ible things which their name would imply and the chemical books
assert. They can be "cut up" at least into twelfths, which is
the common divisor of the fractions named above.
When simple elements combine chemically, as oxygen and
hydrogen to form water, there is always a product entirely
different from either of the components. Ordinary mixtures
of the gases, as oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere, although
to all appearance as intimately associated as chemical combina-
tions, yet still retain all the properties of the ingredients. On
the other hand, chemical compounds will not show a trace
of the qualities of the original constituents. The atoms them-
selves have been broken up and rearranged. There has been a
new distribution of original matter in the molecules, and an
entirely new substance has come out of it.
The alotropic states of oxygen in ozone and antozone, as also
those of phosphorus, sulphur, carbon and others, where the same
simple substances under different circumstances present entirely
different properties, can be explained only on the supposition
that there is some change or rearrangement of the internal
mechanism of the atoms themselves.
Light is supposed to be a wave motion passing through space,
by means of an all-pervading ethereal medium, at the rate of
180,000 miles in a second. Each color of the spectrum has its
82 ON THE STRUCTURE OF ATOMS.
own determinate length of wave, though all colors travel with
the same speed, and together form white light. In every inch
of the progress of light there would be 38,000 waves of red and
59,000 waves of violet, and intermediate numbers for every
shade of the other and intermediate colors.
Now in the passage of white light through the gases or vapors
of the simple elements, as is the case with the light from the sun,
certain colors are absorbed or held back, and the spectroscope,
which simply spreads light out into its component colors, shows
just what colors each elemental gas retains, by the dark bands
which cross the spectrum. This is an infallible test by which
any gaseous element may be known whenever interposed before
any luminous substance. Some of the elemental gases cut out
but few bands of colors, others a great many. Hydrogen for in-
stance has but four dark bands, while in the spectrum of the
vapor of iron there have been counted something like a thousand
bands. Now each of these numerous bands indicates that some
infinitesimal portion of the atom of iron has the power or the
freedom to vibrate exactly in unison with the rays thus absorbed,
and that these particular vibrations of the light are communicated
to parts of the iron atom instead of passing on their way unob-
structed. But it is impossible to suppose that a single solid
atom has the power to, and does thus actually vibrate in a thou-
sand different periods at the same time. This power can only be
conceived of as belonging to a thousand or more sub-atoms or
portions of which the atom of iron may be composed.
But if the elemental gases are in a state of incandescence,
that is are themselves emitting the light, as is shown in the vola-
tilization of substances in the electric arc-light, then they send
forth only the same rays which by the former supposition they
absorbed. That is, four bright lines would be all the light we
should get from incandescent hydrogen, while something like a
thousand very fine bright lines would represent the light from
glowing iron vapor. In this case the thousand portions of the
iron atom which have the power to vibrate in the same periods
with certain light-waves, are the only ones that when set in motion
by high heat can communicate motions to the ether which come
ON THE STRUCTURE OF ATOMS. 83
within the limits of luminiferous vibrations. Hence we have the
law of Angstrom, that a gas when luminous emits rajs of light
of the same refrangibility as those which it has the power to
absorb.
Heat, which is a vibrating movement of greater amplitude
than light, affects the individual atom, not in its parts like light,
but as a whole, as will be seen from the following remarkable
property of substances, known as specific heat. In all substances
whether solid, liquid, or gaseous, a given quantity of heat will
raise the temperature of an equal number of atoms or molecules
the same number of degrees. Thus 9 Ibs. of water, 56 Ibs. of
iron, 118 Ibs. of tin, 200 Ibs. of mercury, warmed by the same
amount of heat, would each cause the thermometer to rise exactly
the same number of degrees. These numbers, as is well known,
represent the relative weights of the molecules or atoms of these
several substances, and of course the quantities given above must
contain each the same number of molecules. Therefore the
mode of motion, or the force, which we call heat affects all
molecules or atoms alike, no matter how light or how heavy they
may be. Now it is contrary to all the laws that we know of, for
a force to move a heavy body as easily as a light one. Conse-
quently we must suppose the atoms to be constructed on entirely
different principles from ordinary aggregations of matter. It is
probable that motion, perhaps the vortex motion of minute por-
tions of the ethereal fluid of space, is all we can predicate of
them.
In all substances, simple or compound, there is a degree of
temperature at which the particles are suddenly released from all
cohesive attraction, and at once have a tendency to fly away from
each other. This is at the transition from a liquid to a gaseous
state, and the degree of heat at which this change is operated is
called the boiling point of each substance. At this point there
is a change in the balance of the forces lodged in the molecule —
they now repel instead of attracting each other. The changes
must be in the forces inherent in the particles themselves, for
all we have done by the increase of heat is to remove them a
little further apart, when all at once they burst away and endeavor
84 ON THE STRUCTURE OF ATOMS.
to separate from each other. It is as if the atoms were made up
of two kinds of sub-atoms, one kind attracting and the other re-
pelling all others. If the one kind attracted according to the
inverse square of the distance, as is the case in the attraction of
gravitation, and if the other kind repelled simply as the distance,
which is the law of the gases and probably of all repellent forces,
then of course in the separation of molecules composed of these
two kinds, there would always be a point where the repellent
force decreasing simply as the distance would overbalance the
attracting force decreasing as the square of the distance.
In organic compounds there are numerous series which increase
regularly in the complexity of molecules, by the successive addi-
tions of CH2 — such as the alcohol, the ether, and the ethyl series.
Now it is found that with a considerable degree of regularity
the addition of each carbon atom raises the boiling point of the
compound from fifty to sixty degrees, Fahr., while each hydrogen
atom lowers it about ten degrees, the average of the CH2 group
being about thirty-five degrees rise. Although variable and de-
pending somewhat on the other elements in the compound, yet this
change in the boiling point is so constantly in one direction and
so nearly uniform as to indicate conclusively that there is a law
connecting the two occurrences. The evident meaning of this
fact is that carbon adds to the cohesive force of molecules, while
hydrogen takes away from it. The balance of the force in the
carbon atom is an attraction, while in the hydrogen it is a repul-
sion. This is in accordance with the nature or properties of each.
Carbon has never been volatilized or even fused by any heat
that it is in the power of man to control. There is seemingly no
principle of repulsion in it. On the other hand, hydrogen shows
no signs of atomic cohesion ; there is no force which can press it
or freeze it into close enough contact to make it take the form of
a liquid or solid. The principle of atomic attraction seems to be
wholly absent from its units. Hydrogen is the most electro pos-
itive of all the elements, and as is well known the positive or
vitreous electricity is that which makes all light bodies repel
each other. While carbon stands at the head of the electro
negative solid elements, which form of electricity makes light
ON THE STRUCTURE OF ATOMS. 85
bodies attract eacli other. All the other elements vary in their
electric properties between these two, and the fact that they do
vary shows that they are composed in varying proportions of
parts or substances that attract or repel.
There is indubitable evidence that the earth was-once a mass
of melted rock material. The crystalline structure of all the
primitive rocks shows this. They could not have crystallized
except they had been previously in a state of fusion. There is
also evidence that in still earlier periods all the matter forming
the earth's crust was in a gaseous state. In no other condition
could all the silicon and calcium and every other mineral have
become completely oxidized. The chemistry of the rocks is a
complete vindication of the nebular hypothesis. The moon has
gone through the same fiery ordeal, as the volcanic nature of its
surface gives evidence. The planet Mars is exactly like the
earth in all its main features, and in all probability reached this
similitude through the same cycle of changes that the earth has
gone through. The sun is to-day still in the later stages of its
gaseous state. Iron, calcium, magnesium and sodium are still
vapors on its heated surface. Every indication goes to show that
all the bodies of our solar system were once in gaseous or nebu-
lous conditions.
Now either the material substances composing each planet and
satellite were created separate from all the others and around
each one's own center of gravity, or else the matter of the whole
system was once equally diffused through all the space comprised
within the planetary orbits, with but one center of gravity.
In regard to the first alternative we must of course acknowl-
edge that it is impossible to argue against the assertion of direct
creation ; because certainly the Creator could, if he had seen fit,
have spoken into being every part of the universe in fully devel-
oped conditions. But inasmuch as he has not done so in any
single instance that has been closely investigated, but has left his
purposes to be worked out by the laws which he has ordained, so
I maintain that if we can form a reasonable and probable theory
of the formation of the planetary worlds out of a more general
diffusion of nebular matter, we are fully authorized to adopt it.
86 ON THE STKUCTUJKE OF ATOMS.
The nebular theory of LaPlace does this so completely that
every physicist feels that it is a true one, whether it can be abso-
lutely proved or not.
If it is true, and the matter of our solar system was ever thus
expanded to fill the planetary spaces, then this matter must have
been very nearly homogeneous ; that is, all its ultimate particles,
however small, mast have been of nearly the same weight or
attractive force. For if it had consisted of atoms of much dif-
ferent weights, like those of our sixty -five elements, many of
which are over two hundred times heavier than the lightest, then
the densest must inevitably have collected at the center of the
mass. There would have been a very great increase in the den-
sity of the planets according to their nearness to the sun. The
outer ones would have been composed of hydrogen ; the inner
ones perhaps of the minerals lime, silica, &c., and the sun would
probably have retained all the heavier metals, as silver, mercury,
lead, gold, and platinum. It is almost inconceivable that the
earth should have really had such a mixture of the lightest and
densest of the elements, ranging in comparative weights from 1
•up to 230, or that the sun should be surrounded by such im-
mense volumes of hydrogen, the lightest of all the elements,
while underlying it should be the vapors of sodium, magnesium,
calcium, and iron, belonging to the category of lighter elements.
The supposition which most fully meets the requirements of
the case we have been presenting, is that at least some of the
lighter and simpler elements of each planet and satellite contin-
ued in some manner to be formed and brought out during the
cooling and condensation of each body. It is a very bold specu-
lation, but after all it is sometimes necessary to form what are
called "working hypotheses," and then work up to them, and
ascertain what there may be of truth in them.
It is now an almost every day occurrence with the astronomers
to watch through the spectro-telescope the eruptions of hydrogen
gas on the surface of the sun. Enormous volumes of this gas
are frequently seen to burst up through the chromosphere and
ascend with amazing velocity to a height sometimes of 200,000
miles. These outbursts often carry up with them the glowing
ON THE STRUCTURE OF ATOMS. 87
vapors of iron, magnesium, &c., showing that they come from
beneath these low-lying vapors. Schellen says (Spectrum Anal-
ysis, p. 306) : " It appears that eruptions of hydrogen take place
from the interior of the sun ; their form and the extreme rapid-
ity of their motion necessitates the hypothesis of a repulsive
power, at work either at the surface or in the mass of the sun,
which Respighi attributes to electricity." Now how could this
hydrogen gas get down underneath the vapor of iron, which is
fifty-six times heavier than it is, unless it was formed and molded
there ?
We are to suppose that electricity has everything to do with
these tremendous outbursts ; for whenever they occur there is
instantly sent out from them such an electric disturbance that
the minute portion which the earth picks up creates auroral
displays, electric storms, and terrific cyclones. Now the little
manifestation of electrical action which we have in our thunder
storms, brings about the union of nitrogen with oxygen, forming
the nitrous acid compounds in the air, and of nitrogen with hy-
drogen, forming ammonia which is almost always perceived in
the air after a near stroke of lightning; and it also changes oxy-
gen into the alotropic state of ozone. Now if our comparatively
feeble electric actions are able to accomplish so much in the
way of chemical combinations and changes, what must the
inconceivably more powerful action in the sun be enabled to per-
form in the way possibly of atom formation ? I do not think it
unreasonable to suppose that it might originate the vortical whirl
of ethereal particles, which some of our most distinguished
scientists think constitutes the elemental atoms. They conclude
from certain physical principles and analogies that all atoms are
only vortices of infinitesimal quantities of the ethereal matter
that pervades all space, similar to smoke rings, only in far more
complicated patterns. It might be supposed that in such a
tremendous electrical laboratory as the sun, immense numbers of
these vortices of various patterns were evolved, but that only a
few forms and combinations would be able to withstand the pow
erf nl repellent force of heat, or in other words that it was a case of
the survival of tjie fittest ; and as hydrogen is the simplest and
ON THE STRUCTURE OF ATOMS.
lightest of all- the atoms, it would naturally be the most abun-
dantly formed or preserved, as we see is the case at present in
the solar workshop.
APPENDIX.
The proof of the correctness of the following figures is the
multiplication of atomic weights into .069, the specific gravity
of hydrogen, making the calculated specific gravity of each
substance, and the comparison of this with the gases as actually
weighed. The divisions of the atoms in the examples given are
as follows :
Hydrogen — £, -J. Chlorine — J-, £, J.
Nitrogen — J-, -J, J. Phosphorus — J, £.
Oxygen — J-. Sulphur — -J-.
Carbon — J, -J-. Iodine — J.
For an atom to be divided into both thirds and quarters, it
must also be divisible into twelfths, the least common divisor of
those fractions.
(See table on opposite page.)
ON THE STRUCTURE OF ATOMS.
89
Chemical Sub-
stances.
Composition of
Molecule.
Same
Reduced.
Atomic
Weights.
Same
Reduc
ed.
Calcu-
lated
Sp.Gr.
.069
Ob-
served
Sp.Gr.
.069
Hydrogen,
H
H
1
1
Nitrogen,
N
N
14
14
.97
.97
Oxygen.
O
0
16
16
1.1
1.1
Carbon,
C
C
12
12
Chlorine,
Cl
Cl
35.5
35.5
2.45
2.44
Phosphorus,
P
P
62
62
4.28
4.32
Sulphur,
8
s
32
32
2.21
2.22
Iodine,
I
I
127
127
8.76
8.72
Ammonia,
3H+N
HH+iN
n+7
8.5
.59
.59
2
Hydrochloric
Acid,
H-M31
iH+iCl
l+17f
18.25
1.26
1.25
2
Muriate of
Ammonia,
4H+N+C1
H+iN+iCl
1+3|+8|
13.4
.92
.89
4
Chlorous
Anhydride,
3O+2C1
0+fCl
16+23f
39.66
2.74
2.65
3
Phosphorus
Anhydride,
P+30
P+30
62+48
110
7.60
Phosphu retted
Hydrogen,
iP+3H
iP+HH
154+H
17
1.17
1.18
2
Phosphoric
Chloride,
iP+5Cl
iP+HCl
7f+44f
52.4
3.62
3.65
4
Hydriodate of
Phosph'd H.,
4H+iP+I
H+iP+il
l+7f+31f
40.5
2.79
2.77
4
Hydrosulphate
of Ammonia,
8H+2N+S
liH+iN+iS
li+4£+5i
11.33
.78
.79
6
Carbonic
Anhydride,
C+2O
iC+0
6+16
22
1.52
1.53
2
Anhydrous
Garb, of Am.,
6H+2N+C+2O
H+iN+^C+iO
l+4f+2+5i
13
.897
.9
6
EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL
FORCES.
According to evolutional theories the first great act in the
formation of the world we live in, was the dividing off from the
central nebula of the quantity of matter that was to belong to
the terrestrial quota. This apportionment in the case of the
earth contained some sixty-five different elemental gases, of ex-
ceedingly varying weights and properties, and. in singularly un-
equal proportions. Some of these gases were more than two
hundred times heavier than the lightest one, measure for measure ;
while one of them was more abundant than all the rest put
together, and others were present only in mere traces. It was a
strange and anomalous mixture ; yet when in process of time
these gases came to cool down and to consolidate into their most
stable forms, it was found that this seemingly chaotic assemblage
of most diverse elements had really been apportioned out in ex-
actly the quantities, and the different gases had been endowed
with precisely such dispositions for uniting with each other, that
were necessary to make up a solid and habitable world. Any
material variation in those affinities or in the proportions of
supply would have entirely prevented the formation of an
encrusted, well watered, and air surrounded globe.
For instance, if the element oxygen had not been both the
dominant and superabundant material, the world could never
have had a hard and permanent shell about it. Oxygen, so far
as we know, is the only substance in nature that could have
burned up the silicon, calcium, aluminum, magnesium, and other
minerals, and laid them away in the rocks that form the crust of
the earth. Silicon and carbon are two elements that are always
classed together as having quite similar properties, and according
to all analogy their compounds with oxygen ought to have been
92 EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES.
very similar. But if the oxide of silicon, instead of being the
most solid substance in nature, that is quartz, had been like the
oxide of carbon, a permanent gas at all terrestrial temperatures,
the earth could never have been a solid globe. Calcium and
sodium are two entirely similar elemental substances. But the
compounds of lime are durable insoluble rock strata, while those
of soda are salts and alkalies. If calcium had behaved in any
manner like its compeer, sodium, the earth would have been
covered with desolate seas of caustic solutions. If nitrogen had
O
not been an exception to all the other elements in its inert and
neutral character, if it had united with oxygen as readily as any
one of all the others, the world would have had only seas of
nitric acid and an atmosphere of the fumes of ammoniacal salts.
Thus we might go on enumerating a thousand other contingen-
cies, one as probable as another, in the happening of any one of
which, our world, so far as we can judge, could not have existed
in a condition suitable to living beings.
Ages on ages before ever there was a drop of water formed or
a vapor cloud had floated in space, two gases existed which had
the property or potency, under certain contingencies which up to
that time had never happened, of combining together and form-
ing the substance we call water. They were two out of sixty-
five elemental gases. They had no resemblance to, and no prop-
erty in common with, the vapor of water, except the gaseous
state. They existed in such quantity relatively to the rest, that
when the time came for them to combine, water should be one
of the most abundant materials that were to result from the
various chemical combinations. IsTow so far as human knowledge
and experiment can determine, there were thousands of possible
contingencies against the production of this substance which
apparently alone makes this world or any world inhabitable.
The union of oxygen with hydrogen, instead of being the most
inert and neutral substance in nature, might just as well
have been like that of oxygen with sulphur or phosphorus or
nitrogen, or like that of hydrogen with chlorine or iodine or
bromine, powerful and destructive acids: It might just as well
have been like the compound of oxygen and carbon, a permanent
EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES. 93
gas, or oxygen and any of the minerals, a permanent solid at all
ordinary temperatures. The chemical union of hydrogen and
nitrogen is ammonia, of hydrogen and chlorine is hydrochloric
acid, of hydrogen and sulphur is hydrosulphuric acid, and so on
through a long list, all suffocating and destructive gases. ISTow
all the compounds of hydrogen with any other element except
oxygen, when they do freeze, which is only at very low temper-
atures, turn into solids that are heavier than their liquids and
sink in them as fast as formed. So likewise all the compounds
of oxygen with any other base except hydrogen, follow the gen-
eral law of contraction in bulk through all stages of cooling.
But water when cooling, as is well known, commences to expand
from a few degrees above freezing, and the ice that is formed
always floats on the surface of the waters.
I have stood on the brink of the great surging fountain of
liquid lava in the volcano of Kilauea in the Sandwich Islands,
and have seen it quiet down and freeze over like a lake of
water, turning from glowing red to black. After a few moments,
in some spot or along a crack, the crust would begin to sink
downward, the edges of the huge blocks would turn up, and
then disappear in the liquid, which commenced again to leap in
columns and dash against the shore.
If bodies of water froze over and the crust sank in them as
the lava in this caldron of melted silica, then all freezing lakes
and rivers and seas would turn into solid ice. The inevitable
final result would be that all the water of the world would accu-
mulate in solid frozen masses in the regions of ice-forming
latitudes.
Water is in all respects an exceptional product. It is excep-
tional in its abundance, in its being a liquid at ordinary tempera-
tures, in its perfectly neutral qualities, in its solvent and hydra-
ting properties, in its constant evaporation from liquid and even
solid conditions, in its frozen form being a non-conductor of heat,
and above all in its expansion in freezing so that ice remains
always on the surface. On these exceptional facts, and especially
on the last, depend not only the well being but the possibility of
life on the earth.
94: EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES.
When therefore out of myriads of possible and to all human
conception equally probable states and conditions of matter, only
those few and peculiar ones were selected which alone could
bring about a certain result, I say unhesitatingly that such result
must have been forecasted and provided for when matter was
apportioned and received its attributes. I claim that the excep-
tional qualities of water in its various forms, subserving as they
do special and apparently predestined purposes, are an unanswer-
able argument in favor of design in the original constitution of
the elements out of which water is formed.
If then the elemental atoms were formed to bring about cer-
tain purposes in inorganic nature, why may not some of the
elements have been formed to bring about a special purpose in
organic nature ? Why may not the successive evolution and
advancement of life forms be as necessary a result of formative
matter as the successive evolutions of the cosmical states that
have finally resulted in a habitable and beautiful world ? It is
my purpose in the remaining part of this article to inquire if
there are any direct evidences or reasonings leading to such con-
clusions regarding the organic kingdoms.
Carbon, the base and substructure of all living bodies, is a
highly specialized and exceptional element. It has the capacity,
which none of the other elements have, of yoking together its
atoms in bands of hundreds and of taking on loads of some
hundreds of other atoms, forming the exceedingly complex
molecule of albumen or protoplasm, which constitutes the vital
matter of all cells whether animal or vegetable.
The following are some of the formulae given for different
specimens of albumen. But as all analyses of this substance
differ, sometimes very widely, it is necessary to suppose that albu-
men is equally varying in its composition.
Lieberkuhn — Egg albumen C144 H112 K18 046 S.
Win. Gregory — Blood albumen C216 IT169 ~N^ O^ S2.
Wm. Gregory — Blood fibrin C298 Ilm N40 693 S2.
Sun-light, acting 011 the foliage of plants, has the power to
lake the carbon atoms out of the carbonic oxide in the air, and
EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES. 95
to build them up into those wonderful molecules that are
laid away in cereals and other seeds for the nourishment of
vegetable germs. These substances, variously known as fibrin,
glutin, legumin, &c., have thus become veritable reservoirs of
sun-power. When taken into the animal system as food, they
are carried through the digestive processes into the blood, and by
the blood are laid away in the muscles, brain, and various tissues
of the body, where as occasion requires they are burned up again
in the oxygen of respiration, precisely as wood and coal are
burned to generate mechanical power. This is the epitome of
the history of all vital phenomena. The radiant energy of the
sun builds up a frail and complex structure, which the animal
economy tears to pieces ; and as the atoms fall off from this
microcosmic pile in the living organism, and yield up their forces
to the body politic, there is life and impulse and intelligence. If
it were not for the unique capacity of the carbon element to be
thus enormously accumulated in the electric batteries of organic
molecules, there would be, so far as we can judge, no possibility
of life.
From the consideration of several facts in chemical physics it
is reasonable to conclude that the atoms of all elemental bodies
and the molecules of all compound bodies are very nearly if not
exactly of the same size. Equal measures of all gases, no matter
how heavy or how light, contain the same number of atoms or
molecules. A cubic inch for instance of the vapor of aluminic
iodide, which weighs 408 times as much as the same measure of
hydrogen, contains just as many molecules as a cubic inch of air,
oxygen, hydrogen, or any other gas, under the same temperature
and pressure. Now the law of the equal contraction in bulk of
all gases under the same weight of compression or lessening of
heat, could not very well hold good if there was such an enor-
mous difference in the sizes of molecules and atoms as there is in
their weights. Again in solids, where the atoms are supposed to
be nearly in contact, there is a very considerable correspondence
between the atomic weights and the specific gravities of sub-
stances. Thus aluminum with an atomic weight of 27.5 and a
specific gravity compared with water of 2.6, shows nearly the
96 EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES.
same ratio between the two (10.6) as silver with at. wt. 108 and
sp. gr. 10.4 (ratio 10.4) and gold, at. wt. 197, sp. gr. 19.3 (ratio
10.2). If we take into account the comparative bulk of such
weights of substances as are represented by their atomic weights,
the correspondence is complete' all through the list ; * showing
that all ultimate particles in solids occupy very nearly the same
space.
Now if it is really true that the last divisions of matter are
all of about the same bulk, then the molecule of albumen, con-
taining over 600 atoms and weighing more than 6000 times as
much as the atom of hydrogen, is not essentially larger than that
or any other atom. We can thus see what a tremendous amount
of energy must be concentrated in the exceedingly minute mole-
cule of the substance which makes up our lives. We can also
see how readily may be explained, as for instance by the addition
of an atom or the change of place of an atom, the infinite vari-
ations in life-forces that are necessary to account for all the
infinite varieties of individuals or species or families of the
organic kingdoms.
From the fact that all organic substances are formed on the
same complex pattern as albumen, with carbon for their base, and
that the nearer to the seat of life these compounds are found, the
more complex they are, we are fully justified in concluding that
the remarkable property which only carbon possesses of joining
together its atoms in one molecule apparently without limit, is
the true cause and condition of life. The carbon compounds
that take active part in the life-processes never crystallize, but
assume always when active the peculiar plastic condition known
as the colloid, in which the dynamic forces, whether of the atoms
in the molecule, or the molecules in the cell, or the cells in the
organism, have full and free course to accumulate, and as we know
do amount in the case of large sized animals to a very great sum
of energy.
The constant repetition of muscular acts, or the practice of
any skill or cunning, or the exercise of the memory or the per-
ceptions or the reasoning faculties, become after a time habits,
* See full tables in "Miller's Chemistry," Part 3rd, page 957.
EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES.
second natures, involuntary actions, and instincts. It is undoubt-
edly true tliat many of the effects of such acts and habits, and
often the instincts themselves, are transmitted to succeeding
generations. The modifications in any individual caused by the
habitual exercise of any functions of body or mind will most
likely be inherited by the descendents of that individual. This
is without question a vera causa in the origination of variations
in species as set forth by the evolutionists. But it must be re-
membered that disuse and atrophy are also hereditary, and that
species often retrograde as well as advance. Indeed as far back
as observation has extended it would seem that species in the
wild state have deteriorated more frequently than they have im-
proved. Therefore the principle of evolution through inherit-
ance of slight changes does not necessarily mean progress, nor
can it exercise any very extended influence on specific characters.
It cannot in the nature of the case serve to explain great struct-
ural differences where there are no intermediate grades; for the
first axiom of Darwinian evolution is " Natura non facit saltum."
I am of the opinion that all the labored evidences and arguments
in favor of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, prove
nothing more than the application of these principles within the
narrow limits of varieties and nearly allied species, and that the
great advances that have been made from one order to another
and from family to family are yet to be accounted for. These
great generic steps, always from a lower to a higher standard, are
never graded up but always bold and precipitate. The forms
that ought to exist in order to show the gradual ascent are never
found. The presumption is strong therefore that they never
existed.
Let us for a moment make the attempt to apply the doctrines
of modern evolution to the explanation of some one of the great
structural transitions from one genus to another. Let us take as
an instance the loss of one of the toes in any of the equine series
in Prof. Huxley's famous crucial example of the development of
the one-toed horse from the ancient Eohippus. This was a tapir-
like animal about as large as a fox, with four hoof-toes to the
fore feet and three to the hind feet. Its remains have been
98 EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES.
found in the Eocene or lowest Tertiaries in our western terri-
tories. Professors Marsh and Leidy have found in later strata
the remains of other equine animals, with a gradually lessening
number of toes, increasing size and horse-like appearance, and
consolidation of the double leg-bones, forming connecting links
through at least six hippoid forms up to the present genus, Equus.
The toes are got rid of in these successive forms by being
withdrawn upwards, at first just clearing the ground, then drawn
up into what are called dew-claws, then into splints on the meta-
carpus, then vanishing altogether. They are always removed in
a regular prescribed order, in this as well as in every other case
of the elimination of these members ; first the big toe, number
one ; then the little toe, number five ; then number four, or
numbers two and four together, leaving two as in the ox, or only
the middle one as in the horse. This regular order in the devel-
opment of the ungulates precludes all possibility of chance being
concerned in the operation. Chance makes no selections.
The fundamental doctrine of natural selection as set forth by
Darwin is the perpetuation through inheritance of slight advan-
tageous changes happening to any organism.* These must how-
ever be of sufficient advantage to enable the possessors of them,
by reason thereof, to run out and supercede all the animals not
possessing them ; for otherwise the peculiarities would certainly
be lost or merged by interbreeding. Indeed it is one of the
great mysteries of natural selection in the wild state, how any
slight variation happening to one individual is preserved for any
length of time from being merged in the common characteristics
of the race. However let us suppose that some one Eohippus
of the ancient eras had been favored with a slight elevation from
the ground of the fifth hoof -toe of each fore foot, and that this
peculiarity had been successfully transmitted to a line of descen-
dents. Three toes then touched the ground when running,
but the little toe hung somewhat loose and failed to make a
track. Now can it possibly be imagined that there was advan-
* "As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favor-
able variations, it can produce no great or sudden modifications; it can
act only by very short and slow steps." — Origin of Species, page 409.
EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES. 99
tage enough in this circumstance to enable those with the dan-
gling toe to run out and supercede all those that had their four
toes planted square on the ground ? And then how many varia-
tions in this one direction, and how many exterminations of the
race must have occurred before the Mesohippus came in with
three clean toes on all his feet ? It lias always seemed to me
that the commonly described processes of evolution, depend-
ing solely on the slow accumulation of slight advantageous
variations, were entirely too inadequate, and the chances against
their continued operation in one direction too infinitely great, to
make them worthy of any consideration as a part of nature's
means for bringing about the great advances in organic structure.
It will be shown subsequently that this same process of evolv-
ing races of one and two hoof-toed animals out of the five toed,
was gone all through with by another and entirely independent
order, the marsupials, long before the placental mammalia started
out on the same course. Furthermore, at the same time that the
one-toed horse was being evolved on the western plains of
America, precisely the same development was going forward in
the Tertiaries of Europe, with the Atlantic ocean rolling between.
The Anchithere found, in the Miocene of Europe was a tapir-like
animal of the size of a sheep, with three hoof-toes to each foot.
The Hipparion found in later strata in France and Germany,
had grown to the size of the ass, and had the middle hoof much
enlarged, with the side hoofs withdrawn upward and no longer
serviceable. Besides the fully developed horse, these are the
only hippoid forms that have been found in Europe ; but they
are sufficient to show that the horse was independently evolved
on both sides of the Atlantic and at about the same time. It
appears then that this slow and laborious task of constructing the
most specialized and valuable quadruped in existence, is a process
that nature has often gone through with. It seems to be one of
the diverging lines that development is obliged to take, as if to
accomplish some predestined purpose. And it is a little singular
in this connection to note that all of man's useful domestic animals
are of the single and double hoofed varieties. Moreover it has
often been claimed that civilization would have been an impossi-
100 EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES.
bility without the valuable services of this fleetest and hardiest
of quadrupeds, nature's common-carrier.
When we look back over the various geological eras, during
which the earth was under the reign of different orders of the
animal creation, we may very pertinently ask the question, why
these were not each in its time sufficient for all the requirements
of the great laws of food supply and the restriction of over-
production ? The races of the saurian reptiles ate up and killed
off the redundancies of population as effectually as ever later
races did it. The marsupial families that succeeded them were
abundantly able to use up the food supply of their age, and to
keep up the great balance of the producing and destroying forces
of nature. But these again proved to be on an unsuccessful pat-
tern, and they passed away, giving place to the quadrupeds of
more recent times. These possessed the earth and fully filled their
spheres until the tribes of mankind appeared, which have killed
off and wasted the natural products until pretty nearly all balances
are upset and there is but little of real nature left. Now what
was there in the requirements of the ages or the laws of natural
supply and demand that called into being the lowrly marsupials
to take the place of the gigantic reptiles, or the more delicate
placentals to supercede the pouched animals, or finally the bipeds
to exterminate the wild races of quadrupeds? It seems to me
that nothing short of an inherent and independent principle of
advancement in the races themselves can explain these anomalies
of development.
It will be more f ulljr shown hereafter that the great physiolog-
ical changes occurring in the transitions from order to order and
family to family of the living kingdoms, could not, in very many
cases, have had intermediate stages, from the fact that anything
less than the full and complete change would have been, not only
of no advantage, but often a positive detriment or cause of
destruction to the organisms. In these cases, as we might ex-
pect, no connecting forms have ever been found. It is as if
nature had made a leap from one grade to another. I can explain
in no other way the following instances of great and apparently
sudden development. One is the transition from endogenous
EVOLUTION THE KESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES. 101
trees like the palms, that sprout from the ground with full-sized
trunk and grow only upward, to the exogens like the pines, with
bark and external rings of growth that often increase their bodies
to an enormous size. This great change happened, to all appear-
ance, suddenly in the Upper Silurian age. LeConte, in describ-
ing it as one of the steps of "rapid evolution," adds:* "When
all the conditions are favorable for a great advance, the advance
takes place at once, that is, with great comparative rapidity."
Another instance is the transition from the boneless, soft-bodied,
external shelled, invertebrates, to the internal skeletoned verte-
brates, with an entirely different nervous system. This happened
in the next succeeding age, the Devonian ; and the same author-
ity says of it : * " — the advance is immense. It is impossible to
account for this unless we admit that, when conditions are favor-
able and the time is ripe for a particular change, it takes place
with exceptional rapidity, perhaps in a few generations." Other
instances are, the change from water-breathing to air-breathing
organs, from the fish skeleton to the reptilian, from the oviparous
orders to the mammalian, from marsupials to placentals, and
so on.
There are definite and invariable lines of advancement in
which both animals and plants develop, even in widely separated
and independent provinces. All over the world are found
similar and nearly identical forms of life, both living and
extinct. Considering that impassable seas cover nearly three-
quarters of the surface of the earth, it is simply impossible that
all lands should in all ages have been so nearly connected that
species could pass from one to another and intermingle. There
must of necessity have been many centers of evolution, either
partial or complete. Not to specify others, I will merely take
the instance of the two polar regions. It has recently been very
clearly brought out that life began in the arctic zone,f at least
as one of the centers of distribution. But as the climatal and
continental conditions of the northern and southern hemispheres
alternate in certain long secular periods, and as there is an equal
* "Elements of Geology" by Joseph LeConte, pages 317 and 333.
\" Where did Life Begin," by G. Hilton Scribner, 1884.
102 EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES.
necessity of accounting for the existence in the southern temper-
ate zone of life-forms which could never have crossed the
equator, it is rendered almost certain that the antarctic zone was
once a center of origin and distribution of animals and plants as
well as the arctic. Now if this was so, the two sources of life
must have been, in the nature of the case, entirely independent.
Yet they have evolved identical orders, families, and genera, and
in some cases even species. Almost the only difference in the
two hemispheres is that the southern provinces have not advanced
in their indigenous productions to the same grade of develop-
ment as the northern. Australia for instance represents almost
accurately the life-conditions of Europe in the earliest Tertiary
times, South America the later Tertiary, and South Africa the
Quarternary. Now who will estimate the probability on the
doctrine of chances of these hundreds of thousands of similar
and often identical life-forms springing by fortuitous variation
from two independent sources of origin? The chances against
it are beyond the limits of figures.
All evolutionists have seen that independent centers of evolu-
tion would be fatal to their theories. Consequently they have
exhausted their ingenuity in endeavoring to explain the anomalies
of organic distribution. They have raised up sea bottoms to
connect continents, have created imaginary islands for migratory
halting places, and have stretched the great glacial bridges across
the equator. They have been seemingly so afraid they would be
obliged to acknowledge a supernatural Creator, that they have
laid out miraculous sea-voyages for animals and plants, have sent
them against winds and ocean-currents from north zones to
south zones, they have loaded the whirlwinds with vegetable
seeds and the feet of birds with living embryos. But notwith-
standing the formidable array of the literature on this subject, I
must think that if there is not an innate tendency to progressive
development in living organisms, something that compels an on-
ward movement along the entire front of the line, we might as
well skip Darwin, Haeckel, and Spencer, and go back to Paley's
" Natural Theology ;" for this is the latest book that has given
even an intelligible explanation of how animals and plants came
to be what they are and where they are.
EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES. 103
The earth had passed more than half of its life-bearing age
before a single air-breathing animal had appeared. Up to about
the period of the Carboniferous formation all animals had lived
in the water, the highest forms being fishes of the shark type,
undoubtedly the air at that time was loaded with carbonic oxide,
and the profuse vegetation of those eras was needed to clear the
atmosphere of noxious gases and render it fit for respiration.
But about the time we have mentioned the record of the rocks
shows the appearance of an amphibious animal, the labyrintho-
dont, with gills to breathe in the water and lungs to breathe in
the air. It had feet with five toes, the double bones of the
lower leg, the shoulder and collar bones, in short all the essential
parts which make up the perfect mammalian frame-work. It
was as different in its skeletal structure from any fish that then
lived, as a beast is different from a fish to-day. The skeleton
of the first amphibian was an immense advance on anything that
had gone before it. It was the model on which, without the
addition of a structural bone, has been constructed the varied
frame-work of all air-breathing vertebrate animals.
There is no instance in the development of vertebrates above
the fishes, where any structural bones have been formed anew or
added to the frame. If there were any modifications to be made,
they were simply changes in form and function, or more often
the entire elimination of certain bones or members. The zebra,
horse and ass, as we have seen, in the course of ages, by dropping
successively the phalangial members, have finally come to possess
only one, the middle toe. The ox and camel have got rid of all
but two. The normal and original number however is always
five ; and man, as well as anthropoid apes, still retain the full
complement. Therefore every species that has ever been in the
line of man's derivation, back to the primeval batrachian, must
have had the full complement of structural bones, the five fingers
or toes, the double bones of the fore-arm or leg, the scapula and
clavicle, and so on. But no fish that ever swam has any of these
parts in any wise resembling those of air-breathing animals. For
this reason I say that the production of the first lowly amphibian
that crawled out of the water to live on land, was a miracle in
104 EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES.
animal creation. A genuine fish could never have developed
into it by any manner of gradual selective changes. What bene-
fit would it be to a fish to have simply a trace of an air-breathing
lung, or any fraction of one not capable of sustaining its life out
of water? What advantage would it be to a fish gradually to
get rid of the numberless little bones in its fins, down to the five
sets of phalangial bones, or gradually to develop jointed limbs
with double bones in the lower parts, together with collar and
shoulder bones ? These are only useful for walking on land, and
of course could be of no advantage to a fish until it had lungs
for breathing air. The two developments must advance pari
passu, and neither are of any utility until they are both in large
measure perfected.
This amphibian order, the first development of land animals,
and represented by some gigantic forms during the Primary
epoch, seems to have been the prolific mother of races. But
nearly all the offspring, including the saurians, the lizards, the
flying reptiles, the dragons, the duck-billed monotremes, and the
marsupials, proved to be failures in the great plan of life, and
after a short but widely disseminated reign, either entirely or
very nearly passed out of existence. From the very important
fact that every family or order of the quadruped animals was
started out with the full equipment of structural bones, and
thereafter in its branchings immediately commenced to eliminate
or to modify these skeletal parts, I think it amounts almost to a
demonstration that each one sprung independently from the
same line or stem of full- structured, undiiferentiated, and primi-
tive animals. This line, in the nature of the case, could have
been no other than the great Carboniferous order of amphibians,
which we know to have been the prolific parent of all the earlier
orders of land vertebrates. Consequently the few living, and in
all cases degraded forms, like the lancelets (amphioxus), the mud
fishes (lepidosirens), and the duck-billed platipus (ornithorhyn-
chus), which have been so often brought forward by evolutionists
to represent intermediate classes or links, probably never had any
connection whatever with other orders, but are merely the
vanishing remnants of distinct and decaying families — the last
EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES. 105
relics of some of nature's numerous failures in the world-stock-
ing enterprise.
The first departure from the* egg-producing animals, for it is
now known that the monotremes are oviparous, were the mar-
supials, which bring forth their young in an exceedingly imma-
ture state. The mothers take the little embryos, as soon as born,
in their mouths and place them on nipples inside of a ventral
pouch or receptacle, where they remain until they are large
enough to run alone. The young of the kangaroo, which is an
animal nearly as large as a cow, when first born are only about
an inch long and quite worm-like. They have an embryonic life
of only five weeks, and afterwards remain in the pouch about
nine months. The embryos in this order of animals never have
any connection with the circulatory systems of the parent. The
gestation of the marsupials differs but little from that of some
few genera of viviparous reptiles. But there is this great ad-
vance and difference, that the pouched animals nourish their
young to maturity on the milk of the mothers.
A most singular structural peculiarity is found in the just born
embryos of the marsupials. It is the elongation of the larynx,
through which air is breathed, across the throat and into the
nasal passage, where the end of it, which is like an inverted
cone, is grasped by the membrane of that passage, so that res-
piration can go on freely and safely while the mother is at the
same time forcing her milk down the throat of the helpless little
one. In all other mammalia, including the mature of the mar-
supials, the larynx opens into, and is on a level with, the bottom
of the throat ; but it is protected by what is called the epiglottis,
which closes when we swallow and prevents us from choking.
Now here is a wonderful adaptive contrivance in a little formless
embryo, the only thing that is at all developed in it, and without
which it could not live a moment in the place where it is to
mature. How will modern evolution account for such a struc-
ture as this, which is only of use in a complete and perfected
form ? The whole race of developing mammalia would have
choked to death long before this absolutely necessary little device
had been, by any slight adaptive changes, made effective.
106 EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES.
As soon as marsupials became established in the animal king-
dom they branched off into the different lines of development,
the herbivorous, the insectivorous, the carnivorous, &c. There
are marsupials corresponding with nearly every kind of quadru-
ped that is described in our familiar books of natural history.
When it is considered that undoubtedly from one marsupial
species branched off all the various tribes of the pouched animals,
and from one placental species divided off all the numerous races
of our modern animals, it is certainly a most remarkable circum-
stance that they should so nearly agree in all their ramifications.
The original and primitive species of both orders, as we have
often insisted, must have possessed the full complement of
structural bones, because derived species never gain, but are
almost always losing skeletal parts. Therefore we predicate a
a common stem for the two orders, and that all the branches of
each order descended from one individual or species of that
order. Still if any should claim that each species or genus of
the present order of mammalia had developed out of the corres-
ponding species or genus of the marsupial order, then we would
reply, that our point was gained without further argument ; for
it would be simply impossible that so many animals should inde-
pendently and simultaneously pass through the great change
from the marsupial to the placental organization, unless there
were an inherent and irresistible tendency in the race itself
toward that advancement ; and this is all we are contending for.
' O
The fact of this remarkable parallelism of species in the two
orders was brought before me in the most striking manner when
visiting recently the exceedingly interesting museums of Aus-
tralia, particularly that of Melbourne. There are to be seen in
those collections specimens of marsupial striped tigers and spot-
ted leopards, marsupial wombat and climbing bears, pouched
foxes, wolves, native cats, bandicoot rats, leaping rats and mice,
marsupial rabbits, beavers, weasels, woodchncks, porcupines,
phalanger squirrels and flying squirrels, ant-eaters, vulpine
opossums, prehensile tailed monkeys, and many others that
might be named. All these are of living species of marsupials,
found in the Australasian islands. But there have also been
EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES. 107
found in various parts of the world and north of the equator,
fossil specimens of a far greater variety of marsupial species.
Among them are gigantic skeletons corresponding to the hippo-
potamus and rhinoceros, and to the large hoofed-animals and
insectivora, to the giant sloth and armadillo, to lions and the
ape-footed animals. Thus it is seen that there were at one time,
spread all over the continents, classes of marsupial animals filling
all the spheres and presenting all the similitudes of the quadru-
peds of the present day. Why they were not sufficient for all
the requirements of nature and did not persist to the end, are
questions which natural selection does not answer.
But for some reason, whatever it may have been, the marsu-
pial type was not found to be entirely satisfactory. Apparently
it was not the best that nature could do, and so it was allowed
quietly to pass away, and another order of animals, with im-
proved methods of reproduction and a better quality of brain,
was. brought forward to take its place. The distinguishing
quality of the placental mammalia is that the fetus has direct
connection, by means of the membrane called the placenta or
after-birth, with the circulatory systems of the parent, and is
brought forth in nearly a full state of development. It was a
great advance over the clumsy arid imperfect processes of the
marsupials, and it was at once accompanied by more graceful
and symmetrical forms, by larger and more convoluted brains,
and a much higher standard generally of animal life. But not
the least trace of any intermediate races, or connecting links be-
tween the two orders, have ever been found. And it is impossi-
ble to conceive that there could be any. Either there must have
been full uterine connection and sustenance of the fetus until
mature, or there could have been none at all. A fractional or
partial development of a placenta would have answered no pur-
pose ; for that would not have sustained the fetal life. Any
gradual lengthening of the period of gestation, even if we could
conceive of any means by which it could be brought about,
would seem to be out of the question ; for what possible advan-
tage could it be to a kangaroo for instance to carry its unborn
young six weeks instead of five ?
108 EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES.
If however, according to the theory of evolution, this most
important of all the advances in organic nature was worked out
in any way by the hereditary transmission of slight advantageous
changes, the great question comes back to ITS : what was there in
nature, or in the environment, or in the struggle for existence, to
induce or start any tendency to any such change ? The old mar-
supials were prolific enough, were apparently successful with
their mites of embryos, were good feeders, well balanced in
their orders, and filled satisfactorily every sphere in life. Al-
though a little dull and lacking in brain capacity, yet they were
physically a powerful race, and held their sway until the
improved order came fully branched and developed to take their
places. There was not only no necessity for the change, but no
such ad vantage in its first stages as would cause them to be selected
and perpetuated. Yet the great transformation came, according
to the testimony of geology, suddenly and unheralded, just as
many other changes in ancient life-histories have come. The
great geologist and evolutionist, LeConte, has been obliged to
specify this as one of his " critical periods," when life-forms
were subject to sudden and most unaccountable variations.
Writing of the era of the mammals, he says: "There is at cer-
tain geological horizons, a rapid and most extraordinary change
in life-systems. This it seems impossible to explain on the
theory of evolution, unless we admit periods of rapid evolution."
It seems to me very much as if these grand and radical
advances came because they could not help it, because in the
great plan of organic life the times had come when it was neces-
sary they should rapidly develop. Just as in the life of the
amphibian frog, the time comes when it must lay aside the
habits and organs adapted to a water life, and take on the full-
boned members, the lungs, and the sense organs necessary to a
life on land. The hairy caterpillar, with a mandibulate mouth,
with cutters and jaws and stomach for eating and digesting leaves
or other vegetable food, after storing up a quantity of living
matter, goes to sleep in its chrysalid case. In this condition all
the parts of the caterpillar, the mouth, the members, the organs,
the muscles and tissues and nerves, entirely disappear, and there
EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES. 109
is nothing left but formless protoplasm. Then, in this rich store
of formative matter, there commences to develop an entirely
new and different creature, with a suctorial mouth, a simple
stomach for the nectar of flowers, a covering of gaudily colored
scales, with two long articulated legs and broad wings, in short
the airy and joyous butterfly. Now to my mind every metamor-
phosis of a larva into an imago is more of a miracle in organic
development than the rapid transformation of a fish into a batra-
chian, or an amphibian into a reptile, or into a marsupial, or into
the highest mamalian type.
One of the most striking instances of great and inexplicable
changes suddenly supervening to the animal organization, is
found in the remarkable difference in the sizes of the brains of
the highest apes and the lowest races of men. From a great
number of measurements and comparisons the following capaci-
ties in cubic inches of the crania of averaged human races and
of individuals have been estimated.*
Finns and Cossacks, 98 cubic inches ; Teutonic (German) family,
94; Esquimaux, 91; Negroes, 85; natives of Australia and Tas-
mania, 82 ; Bushmen (Hottentots), 77. The following are some
individual or exceptional developments : Cuvier, the naturalist,
114 cubic inches; Byron, 110; Napoleon and Webster, 108; an
Araucanian (south of Chili in South America), 115.5 ; an Esqui-
maux, 113; a Teutonic skull, 112.4; a Marquesan (South Pacific
Islands), 110.6; a Negro, 105.8; an Australian native, 104.5.
The skulls of prehistoric men that have been found are of the
average brain capacity of modern savage races. Even that of the
lowest cave man that has ever been found, the Neanderthall
skull, is estimated at 75 cubic inches.
Now for the other side. The adult orang-utan, quite as bulky
as a small-sized man, has a brain capacity of only 28 cubic inches.
The gorilla, considerably above the average size of man, estimat-
ed by bulk and weight, has a brain of 30 cubic inches; the largest
specimen yet known had 34£. The proportions average as fol-
lows: anthropoid apes, 10; lowest savages, 26 ; civilized man, 32.
From these facts we deduce the following conclusions.
*Dr. J. Barnard Davis. Philosophical Transactions. 1869. Pas:e 513.
Alfred K, Wallace, in "Littdl's Living Ace." 1872. No. 1410.
110 EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES.
1st. Large cranium capacity is not an unvarying index of high
culture and intelligence ; but such culture and intelligence never
exist without the large averages of brain size. The case is like
this: strong and powerful machinery is necessary to drive the
mill ; but if the power is not sufficient to drive the machinery,
the mill will never run. The capacious brain that was given to
the human race from its very inception, so far as we can judge,
and wThich is in notable contrast to that of every other large
sized animal, was a machinery that was absolutely necessary to
the wrorking out of any kind of civilization ; but it lay dormant
for untold ages, and only awakened in these later years under the
spur of over-population, or rivalry, or of some master spirit. In
all this the idea is unavoidably suggested of the original endow-
ment of mankind with a surplusage of mind material — with an
organ far above the then existing needs of its possessor, and de-
signed for use only in long distant ages.
2nd. There is a gap between the brain-capacities of the lowest
or most ancient races of men, and the highest known ape species,
that natural selection does not and never can fill. If the princi-
ples of Darwinian evolution had anything to do with the case,
we would have a right to expect that savage and primeval man
would be furnished wTith a brain only a little superior in size to
that of the larger apes; whereas he has one nearly three times
larger, and but little inferior to that of races of the highest
culture.
3rd. From the fact that whenever an adult European has a
cranium less than nineteen inches in circumference, or brain con-
tents of less than sixty-five cubic inches, he is invariably idiotic,
we say confidently that man could never have sprung by any
slow and ordinary evolutional gradations, nor probably by any
relationship whatever, from anthropoid apes ; because if he had,
he would, with lessening brain or other abnormal conformation,
according to the principles of reversion as exemplified in all de-
rived species, become ape-like instead of idiotic. But so far as
known there has never been a case nor an indication of any such
reversion.
Throughout the whole race of the quadrumana, both living
and extinct, the foot is prehensile, the thumb being opposed to
EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES. Ill
the other fingers as in the human hand. In man there is a
complete change in the bones and muscles of the foot, so that
the power of opposability of the large toe is entirely lost, and
the same is the case in the most ancient races that we know any-
thing of. The structure of the organs of the voice in man is on
a superior type to that of the apes; yet it is as perfect in the
lowest savages as in the most cultured races of mankind. In the
perfection of the human hand, its entire freedom from all loco-
motive uses, in man's erect form and the adaptation of feet and
limbs to that position, in his naked and sensitive skin, demanding
clothes and houses, and finally in all distinctly human peculiari-
ties, man does not approach sensibly nearer the ape-condition
even in the lowest or most primeval state in which he has ever
been found. There are not only no intermediate forms between
man and the anthropoid apes, but there is really no approxima-
tion to any relationship to them as we follow back the line of
his descent.
The great cry of modern evolutionists is for " lost links " — the
great complaint is, " the imperfection of the geological record."
They find all the connecting links they want between species and
perhaps nearly allied genera. But when it comes to intermediate
forms between orders, families, and most genera, the findings
have been in the highest degree unsatisfactory. Where in fact
the most should have been found, there is really found the least
or rather none at all. Intermediate forms, according to slow and
gradual evolution, should have had as long and as prolific an
existence as any others. Therefore the fact that they are not
found in the geological strata, is the best of evidence that they
never existed.
If now, after presenting the outline of the facts and reason-
ings which have led me to dissent from the promulgated doctrines
of evolution, I might be permitted to indulge in a little exercise
of the scientific imagination, I would say that all the facts and
principles of the growth of life-forms would be readily explained
under the hypothesis that every addition to the combining num-
bers of the molecules of germinal matter would necessarily pro-
duce higher and advancing orders of organisms. The great
112 EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES.
complexity of the carbon compounds in the life-centers, is quite
certainly one of the conditions and causes of organic growth.
It is natural therefore to suppose that the more complex those
compounds are, the higher will be the development that proceeds
from them.
All the higher forms of the animate creation, all in which there
is any principle of progress or variation, reproduce by the union
of two sexual elements. There is thereby added some mysterious
force which starts cellular subdivision, and a new and indepen-
dent life. The constitution of the fecundated nucleus is most
certainly changed from the type of either parental germ, because
an offspring is formed that always differs more or less from either
or both sources of origin. It is then altogether probable that the
molecules of one sexual element conjoin their chemical forces to
the molecules of the other, thus creating a surcharged center of
forces sufficiently powerful to start into being a new and self-
unfolding life. Then whatever combinations of atoms, repre-
senting either parental ancestral or original traits, prove to be the
stronger in the two-fold elements, will rule the subsequent differ-
entiations. Sometimes from such unions hare sprung remarkable
and often valuable race varieties, called sports of nature, and
differing from anything that has ever preceded them. As such
variations occur most frequently among domesticated animals,
which are in exceptional conditions of food supply and freedom
from care or exertion, they may perhaps be naturally explained
as springing from some extraordinary increase or superposition of
atoms in the molecules of the impregnated germs which pro-
duced them.
In like manner in the geological ages, I imagine that when the
suitable conditions have come about for a new step to be taken
in the grand advance of life-forms, nature has provided for it in
the simplest way imaginable, by merely piling a few more atoms
on the enormously loaded molecules of germinal protoplasm.
It might naturally be supposed that a higher quality of food
would increase the formula of the vital compounds derived from
it; and as a consequence the uniting germinal elements would
form a higher combination in the ovarian nucleus, thus causing
EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES. 113
a rapid or perhaps sudden advance in the animal organization.
At all events such advances have always come whenever changes
have occurred in vegetable growths giving a greater supply or a
higher grade of nourishment to the animal kingdom.
It is a strange and 'awe-inspiring thought that on the inconceiv-
ably minute atoms of carbon, was impressed the power of forming,
in the slow progress of evolving ages, the highly organized
beings who would one day take in hand these infinitesimal life-
workers, and weigh them, and reason on them, and endeavor to
find out in what manner they could so accumulate their wonder-
ful centers of force as to build up this powerful and reasoning
creature. And now I would submit the question : "Which is the
nobler thought ; to conceive of man's exalted position in nature
as arising from the God-given attributes of even the lowly car-
bon atoms ; or to regard his origin and growth as the result of an
infinity of slight and * favorable variations that gave to their
possessors in each case the upper hand in life and enabled them
times without number to starve out or kill out their rivals that
did not possess those advantages ? To me it is not a satisfying
reflection that each one of our ancestors, near or remote, has
been the successful combatant in a deadly struggle for existence.
I had far rather believe that the important organic advances have
been made so rapidly that there has been no occasion for collisions
and rivalries of races. The improved orders have come upon
the stage of the world's progress precisely as the white men have
planted themselves on the lands of the dark races, and the
aborigines have vanished from before them imperceptibly and
unaccountably, as is always the case with feebler races in the
presence of the stronger..
THE MICROSCOPIST IN BERMUDA/
Out in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean, directly east of Charl-
eston, and over six hundred miles from it, or from any other
land whatever, lies the little group of the Bermuda Islands. It
is claimed that there are 365 islands in the group; but all told,
there is not as much dry land in them as there is in the corporate
limits of the City of Rochester. A mere speck in the wide
waste of waters, it is a wonder that it was ever discovered, or
being once discovered, that it was ever found again. In fact
both these events were the mere chance results of shipwrecks.
In the year 1522, Juan Bermudez, a Spaniard, was wrecked on
these islands while on his way to the New World. He was glad
enough to get away with leaving only his name on the stormy
Bermudas. Nearly a hundred years later, Sir George Sommers,
on a voyage from England to Virginia, ran against them and
suffered shipwreck. This time the English took formal posses-
sion, and have held them ever since.
They are surrounded by dangerous coral reefs, which lie be-
neath the surface of the water, and on all sides except the south,
are from ten to fifteen miles from the shore. These treacherous
shoals, lying in a wind-beaten sea and in the track of the high-
ways of commerce, have been the cause of innumerable maritime
disasters. Some of the best fortunes of the island residents
have arisen out of the poor mariners' misfortunes.
I do not however intend to give you either the history or
geography of Bermuda; but only to illustrate some scientific
facts and a few microscopic preparations, by its singular structure
* A Lecture written in 1878. Delivered in Canandaigua, and on several
occasions.
116 THE MICEOSCOPIST IN BERMUDA.
and its abundance of marine invertebrate life. I went there
with my little pocket microscope, to examine among the curious
and interesting things of the ocean shore. It was almost my
first lesson in microscopy, at least in the preparation of micro-
scopic objects; and my story I hope will be an incentive to you
to study nature and to gain knowledge, wherever you may
chance to ramble or journey.
The Bermudas, in latitude 32° 15', are the most northerly lands
where the reef-building corals grow. These little tropical ani-
mals can flourish only in water which never falls below the
temperature of 68°; and the clearer and salter that water is the
better it suits them. In these respects the Bermuda Islands are
admirably adapted to them. For while it never freezes there,
there are also no fresh water streams to either muddy the ocean
water or diminish its saltiness. These animals, belonging to the
lowest order of beings that are provided with stomachs — the so
called Gastrula type — have the power of secreting large quan-
tities of carbonate of lime from the sea-water. And although so
small individually as to be scarcely distinguishable by the naked
eye, yet by the enormous increase of their numbers by budding,
they are able to build up barriers that inclose continents and
make islands. The branching species may grow to the height of
six or eight feet ; and the brain corals may make solid hemi-
spheres 15 or 20 feet in diameter. These extreme sizes however
are only found in more tropical waters. I have never seen them
in Bermuda even the half of these dimensions.
The reef corals do not grow on bottoms deeper than one hun-
dred feet, and never quite up to the lowest tide level. So that
they are really confined to narrow vertical limits, and would
never produce appreciable effects if it were not for the fact that
nearly all shores are, in the long course of geological ages, grad-
ually either sinking or rising. It is a mistake to suppose that
the reef-building corals construct, directly from their growth, a
solid wall of coral material. They only rear a forest of branch-
ing stems, into which the waves wTash up shells and bones and
broken fragments, which are all cemented into a solid mass by
the deposition of carbonate of lime from the sea-water. And on
'
Plate VII.— ARRANGED GROUP OF DIATOMS AND SPICULES. See Page xv.
Magnified 65 Diameters. Original size of Group = O
THE MICROSCOPIST IN BERMUDA. 117
this foundation they continue to build as long as they are un-
covered by the lowest tides. Such a profusion of life as is found
in the coral beds, requires a constant change and commotion in
the waters which supply them their building material. There-
fore these animals flourish best in the fiercest surf and on the
stormiest coasts. The most dreaded of all the sailor's perils lie
always concealed beneath the most tempestuous waters of the
ocean.
The theory of coral islands is that there was once a much
larger island — perhaps a mountain or a range of mountains — in
the place where such an island now is. That the reef corals then
built an encircling barrier around its shores, called in this case a
barrier reef; and that, as gradually the island sank into the
ocean, the corals kept on raising and narrowing in their reefs,
until finally the main land entirely disappeared beneath the
waters, leaving only the more or less circular reef about it. As
any barrier, thus thrown up against the action of the waves, has
a tendency to accumulate, and to raise into shore lines, the sand
and shells of the ocean, so there is soon dry land where those
barrier reefs once were. There are hundreds of these circular
islands, called atols, in the Pacific Ocean. Some with a rem-
nant of the old island still in the center, others with only water,
into which, through a narrow opening that is usually left on the
leeward side, ships can sail in and find a safe anchorage.
This is undoubtedly the condition of the circular reef about
the Bermudas, except that the waves and the winds have made
dry land on only a portion of the southern line of the reef.
Outside the reef the bottom declines somewhat rapidly, and in a
few scores of miles from it the water is almost unfathomable.
There are further evidences of the gradual sinking of the islands
during geological times, which I will not stop to enumerate. It
is pretty certain therefore that there wras once a larger and very
different island in the region where the Bermudas now are and
that as it gradually sank into the waves, the reef builders kept
working in and up towards the surface, until finally every vestige
of the old island disappeared ; and there is now above the surface
of the ocean only the material which the waves have washed up
118 THE MICROSCOPIST IN BERMUDA.
on the shore, and the winds have blown into the hills which so
beautifully diversify the landscape of these islands.
Almost my first excursion was to the long stretches of sand
beach on the southern shore, about two miles south-west of
Hamilton. To my surprise I found the sand there composed
almost entirely of minute shells ; some perfect in form, others
more or less worn by the action of the waves ; but not a particle
of the angular silicious grains which make up the entire body of
our own sand both inland and on the sea-shore. All there was
calcareous, carbonate of lime ; and it was entirely the product of
animal organisms. Back of the beach the winds have piled up a
high hill of sand, which they are gradually rolling over on the
valley beyond, thus giving an actual example of how all the hills
were formed. I examined this sand in many places and found it
identically the same with that on the shore. On the way back
to the hotel, I examined the stone in the cuts through which the
road passes, and found it composed entirely of the same shell
substance, loosely cemented together by a deposition of carbonate
of lime. Many times subsequently I saw masons — or carpenters,
one hardly knows which to call them — sawing this same stone
with our common hand saws into blocks and pannels and cor-
nices and all kinds of convenient shapes. It did not dull their
saws as much as an oak board would. This then is the material
of which the whole islands are composed ; for there is no other
kind of stone found there. I saw also the same material which
had been excavated from 'fifty feet below the level of the ocean,
and which must of course have had that amount of subsidence
at least; for this kind of rock forms only in the air. It is tech-
nically called ^Eolian Rock, from ^Eolus, the master of the
winds, in ancient Mythology.
I ought perhaps here to tell you when and how to gather this
sand, in order to secure the most perfect shells and the greatest
variety of the finer and lighter spicules, corallines, &c. Go to
the sea shore immediately after high tide, when there has been
considerable surf coming in. You will find that the highest
wave of high tide has left a little ripple mark along the shore, a
mere skimming, not an eighth of an inch thick. But it is the
THE MICROSCOPIST IN BERMUDA. 119
gathering of that tide, fresh from the ocean and all cleaned and
whitened. If you get there before the wind has blown away the
lighter materials, and carefully scrape it together and bag it, you
have the best samples which can be obtained.
Having studied thus far the problem of Bermuda, I wras now
even more anxious than ever to know the names and the life-
history of the minute creatures which had built up, with the
clothing of their bodies, a beautiful island, with its mass of roll-
ing hills. By far the largest portion of the shells in the sand, I
found to belong to the order called Foraminifera. Foramen is
the Latin for a small apperture ; and as you will see from the
specimens shown to you later this evening, these shells are
pierced with innumerable little holes, some of them not larger
than the ten thousandth of an inch. But through these holes,
no matter how small they may be, the animal pushes out parts of
its body in minute threads, which may extend to several times
its own length. These filaments, or pseudopodia as they are
called, are both feeding arms, and means of locomotion. They
feel around for food, and finding it, bring it by their natural ad-
hesiveness up to the body and into the hole in the shell if this be
large enough, or if not they envelop and digest the morsel out-
side. It makes little difference to this most simple of all living
creatures wThere it takes in, or where it assimilates, the food
which supports it. For its whole body is nothing in the world
but a little albuminoid substance, just like the white of an egg,
nothing more. There are absolutely no parts, no organs, about
the creature at all. It seizes its food without members, swallows
it without a mouth, digests it without a stomach, and sends the
nourishment of it to the most distant parts without a circulating
system. It moves from place to place without muscles, feels
without nerves, propagates without organs, and builds an ex-
quisitely beautiful house without a vestige of the senses.
I have taken these tiny specimens alive from the sea-weed at
the bottom of the shallow bays, and placed them in sea-water in
small vials. After a time I have seen them climbing the sides of
the vial with a perfect forest of little threads thrown out from
their margins. They had evidently realized that they were de-
120 THE MICEOSCOPIST IN BERMUDA.
prived of their customary food or supply of fresh water, and
were trying to get out. A sea-weed or any senseless organism
would have quietly settled down and died. But this morsel of
structureless protoplasm has the same feeling, when deprived of
the proper conditions of life, that an insect or a mouse has, and
equally tries to escape. There is then sense and feeling in the
first and simplest form of animated matter. ISTow so far as
chemical analysis can determine, the body of the foraminifera is
precisely the same albuminoid substance that fills the germ which
originates, and the cells which make up, the body substance of
every living creature. I can therefore readily conceive that as
the scale of animal life ascends — as cell is added to cell of this
already sensitive matter — as organs and members gradually
appear, built up so variously and receiving their different func-
tions from this same wonderful bioplasm — I can conceive that
the combination of so many myriad batteries of electric sen-
sitiveness might at last result in the complicate volitions and the
high intelligence of the superior orders of creation.
Just in what way the foraminifera commence their little span
of life, has not yet been fully determined. I have no doubt that
the smallest morsel stricken off from any living individual,
would go on growing and finally develop into the same form as
that from which it was taken. This may in some manner be one
mode of generation. But it is also probable that, in conformity
with the law which seems to govern in all the lowest orders of
the animal kingdom, separate individuals become merged in
some way into one ; and then the entire body thus united granu-
lates into germs, which escaping become new individuals of the
same species. Every shelled foraminifer, however generated,
begins its growth as a little speck of jelly, around which it de-
posits a layer of carbonate of lime, leaving one or more openings
for communication with the outer world. Then when the body
substance has grown so that its shell will no longer hold it, the out-
side portion secretes and deposits another shelly layer about
itself, inclosing the apperture into the first shell, and leaving
others in the new. At the next stage of growth another or
other segments are added. And according to the way in which
THE MICRO8COPI8T IN BERMUDA. 121
these successive segments are added, will result the peculiar form
which is characteristic of each species, whether a whorl, a spiral,
a cone, a disc, or any one of an immense variety of shapes.
There is a beauty and a symmetry about the foraminiferal shells
that make them peculiarly interesting objects under the micro-
scope. Some are exquisitely fluted, or dotted, or lined. Some
are of the purest white, others like glass, and in the form of
most beautiful vases or bottles, while others glisten like porcelain.
The curves and the whorls are always exceedingly graceful, and
the rulings beautifully regular. I have often wondered what all
this display was for, when there were no eyes to see it. Why
such a wonderful geometry of curves, when there was no mind
to appreciate it.
But the class of animals we are now considering, derives per-
haps its greatest interest from its past history. It was amazingly
abundant in the old geological ages. The nummulitic lime stone
of the Alps, which is made up in chief part of the coin-like
shells of forarninifera, is in places ten thousand feet thick, and
extends under nearly all of Southern Europe. The building
stone of Paris is from its quarries, and the pyramids of Egypt
are made out of it.
The Eozoan Canadense, which is the earliest trace of anything
living found in the rocks, belongs to this class of animals. It is
the largest of the foraminifera, sometimes several feet in diam-
eter, made up of corrugated plates of carbonate of lime, between
which was the sarcode body of the animal. On the bottoms
of the earliest seas which covered the still warm crust of our
globe, the Eozoan formed immense reefs, which are now the
serpentine limestone so abundant in the Laurentian strata of
Canada and other parts of the world.
It is singular that this simplest of all animal structures should
have survived without change, except in its shelly covering, from
the earliest dawn of life on the earth, through all the long eras up
to the present time. It seems that evolution and the survival of
the fittest, if they had any thing to do in the matter, could find
no being that was better suited to live on shallow sea-bottoms
than this undeveloped creature. I imagine that as long as the
122 THE MICROSCOPIST IN BERMUDA.
same conditions remain, there can be no material improvement
made on the forms of animal life which nature iirst provides to
meet those conditions.
In searching among the rocks at lowest tide, and in protected
coves of the sea-shore, I found, hidden away in little round
excavations just large enough to hold them, some fine specimens
of the large-spined sea-urchins or Echini. It seemed to me that
they had hollowed out and enlarged these secure homes for
themselves as they grew, for I never could get them out without
breaking up the rock in which I found them. They have strong
spines all over their round shell, and strong muscles to move
them ; still it would seem to be a Herculean task for them to ex-
cavate into the solid rock. Yet there they were in their little
round holes, so securely braced in that after pricking my fingers
most unmercifully in trying to get them out, I soon gave it up
and resorted to the hammer and cold-chisel.
The Echinus in its development is about midway among the
invertebrates. It has a very fair digestive apparatus, and a little
show for a nervous system. Its great peculiarity is that all its
parts are arranged in divisions of five. Its mouth has five jaws,
and five teeth that meet together in one point. It has five little
red eyes on the opposite side of the body from the mouth. Five
similar segments make up the shell in which it lives ; and the
plates of which they are formed are five-sided. The shell in-
creases in size by these pentagonal plates enlarging at the joints.
The test or shell of the Echinus bears three different kinds of
members. The first are the spines. Of course these differ in
size, shape, and function in the different families. For instance
in the Spatangoids, which live in the sand, they are spoon or
spud shaped, for the purpose of digging away the sand and then
covering tlie animal with it. But in the kind we are describing,
the Echidna, they are strong and conical, running to a point,
for the purpose of wearing away the rock. They are as beauti-
fully fluted as an Ionic column. Each one has a socket at the
base which fits on a little protuberance on the shell, forming a
perfect ball and socket joint ; and a set of external muscles
moves the spine in every direction. The internal structure of
THE MTCROSCOPIST IN BERMUDA. 123
these spines is most remarkable. Thin transverse sections of
them make exceedingly beautiful objects under the microscope.
Rays from the center pass outward through successive rings
which seem to mark certain periods of growth, these all being
formed of the finest net-work of calcareous glass, while every
shade of color beautifies the pattern. I will have the pleasure
of showing you some of these at the close of the lecture.
But another set of organs, not less numerous or wonderful
than the spines, covers the test of these animals. Alternating
witli the meridional segments which carry the spines, are other
segments pierced with minute holes. Over every two of these
holes there is a fleshy tube, which can be extended to a consid-
erable distance beyond the spines, and at the end there is a
sucker which can be applied to any surface, and by drawing on
the central part a vacuum is produced, by which the Echinus
pulls itself about, or climbs the rocks beneath the water. The
holes are for the purpose of admitting water, which the animal
forces into the tubes to extend them. Muscular contraction does
the rest of the work. Considering that there are as many as
five thousand of these little elephant trunks on each sea-urchin,
and that each of them seems to be under separate control, one
would think that this small animal ought to be a pretty skillful
operator to know just which one to extend and take hold with,
and which one to draw in and to loosen. Yet it never makes a
mistake.
There is still another set of organs, more strange and wonder-
ful even than the two others. Scattered all over among the
spines and tube-feet, are tiny upright threads of glass, covered
wTith a muscular tissue, and surmounted at the tops, each with
three minute prongs, toothed or spiked on the inner edges ; and
these triangular jaws are being continually opened and shut
against each other, snapping and biting without a moment's
pause as long as the animal lives: They were for a long time
supposed to be little parasites on the Echinus, and received the
name of pedicellarise, which is the Latin for the louse parasite.
They still retain the name, but are now known to be an essential
part of the Echinoid economy, whatever that may be ; for the
124 THE MICROSCOFIST IN BERMUDA.
utility or function of these snapping members lias never yet
been found out. We shall have occasion later to notice very
similar organs belonging to another marine animal, and to speak
of their probable use.
The Echinus produces a great quantity of eggs. In many
maritime countries they are collected and eaten by the poorer
classes. Now, what is very strange about these eggs is that they
do not develop into the Echinus, nor into anything at all like it.
The progeny is lively little creatures, almost microscopic in
size, that swim about in the water by means of cilia, or minute
hairs, on various parts of the body. Instead of being five-sided
like the parents, they are two-sided like nearly all the rest of the
world. They have two eyes, organs in pairs, a mouth, a big
stomach, and eight spiny legs projecting downwards. After a
time there begins to appear on one side of this creature's stomach,
a flat round disk, which grows more and more dish-shaped, with
the markings of five distinct segments. Then the saucer-like
disk puts out five arms, then five clusters of rudimentary spines ;
all the while gradually enclosing the stomach of the poor Pluteus,
which now begins to lose its legs, its mouth, and everything else
that is of any use to it. Finally the parasite completes its little
round shell, makes a new mouth on the side of the stomach last
enclosed, discards now all of its old nurse, and settles down to
the bottom to begin the new life of the slow creeping Echinus.
Here, it strikes me, is one of the strangest transformations in
all the course of animal existence ; one creature producing, in
the ordinary course of generation, an entirely different being,
perfect in all its life and parts, out of which, in the manner of
an excrescence, grows the parent form again. If here is not a
puzzle for the Darwinians, then I fail to appreciate the case. In
accordance with what law of inheritance is it, that the Echinus
lays eggs which hatch into another order of beings? By what
principle of the natural selection of variations useful and advan-
tageous, has it come about that the Pluteus develops in its vitals
a little monster that literally eats it up alive? That a stationary
animal like the Echinus should develop, in its mode of genera-
tion, some means of more widely scattering its progeny, I can
THE MICEOSCOPIST IN BERMUDA. 125
very well understand. Other slow moving animals accomplish
the same purpose by means of an intermediate and more active
generative form. We shall even have a further instance of this
before we close. But in all other cases the second or abnormal
generation is a budding — a natural outgrowth from the first — like
a flower bud from its stem. And it is the second, like the flower
bearing its seed, which produces the eggs from which grow again
the parent form. But in the case of the Echinus, it is the par-
ent form which is the bud, the ova producing only the inter-
mediary, or the nurse as it is called. One would suppose that
if these slow and stupid urchins should happen to produce a
being livelier than themselves, and better fitted to get a living
on the high seas, this latter animal would repeat itself, perpetu-
ating the variation; certainly not reverting to the original form
in the clumsy way that the Phi tens does. However, I ain not
here to settle differences among the doctors; but simply to tell a
few life histories of the lowly tribes of the sea-shore.
The Echinus has several relatives which live in the same waters
with itself. They are however very strange relatives, being in no
manner like it in external appearance ; and they would hardly
have been mistrusted to be of the same family, if they had not
been discovered to have the same peculiarity of producing ova
which developed into another kind of animal, out of which they
themselves grew, in some way or other, like parasites. This is
the case with the star-fishes, the feather-stars, the crinoids, the
sea-cucumbers, arid the worms called Chirodota and Synapta.
These latter are very much like large angle worms, and live in
holes in the sand and under stones lying very near low-tide mark.
They are of great interest to the microscopist, from the fact that
in their skins are found, in great quantity, the wheel plates and
the anchor plates which make some of the most beautiful speci-
mens of his cabinet. The anchors of the Synapta I can imagine
to be of some sort of use to the worm in making its way in and
out of its hole in the sand. I have held it up by merely touch-
ing it with my finger. But whatever can be the use of those
beautiful wheels of the Chirodota, with hub and spokes and rim,
made of the clearest calcareous glass, and laid away in such pro-
126 THE MICROSCOPIST IN BERMUDA.
fuse clusters in their skins, I have not the remotest idea. I will
be pleased to show you these objects, under dark-field illumin-
ation, at the close of the lecture.
In rambling about the island I happened one day to meet my
friend, Dr. F. M. Hamlin, of Auburn, K Y. He was in the
outlet of Harrington Sound, in his high rubber boots, searching
for the rare little bird's-head Polyzoa, the Avicularia. On the
sides or the exposed under surfaces of rocks where some strong
tide current runs almost continually, will sometimes be found
these little animal clusters attached and growing like a tiny
bunch of sea-weed. Later at his room we had some of these
objects under the microscope while still living and disporting in
their native element. I do not think I have ever seen a more
interesting sight than they presented when magnified by a low-
power objective. Every branch of the shining white tuft was
swaying and instinct with animal life. One above another on all
sides of the stems were perched the little sea-anemones, with
their vases of bright colored tentacles searching about in the
water. Over the side of each polyp cup and about half-way
down, was loosely attached a miniature condor's head, slowly
nodding and at the same time snapping its enormous jaws with
savage spitefulness. Without a moment's respite, and withoiit
any apparent connection with the animal within the cup, these
singular appendages keep up their mimic show of battle as long
as there is life in the cell which they seem to guard. "Whatever
can be the use or office of these strange members of the com-
munity, it is very difficult to determine. They are too far
removed and too clumsily large to be purveyors of food for
their host. However, that they subserve some important purpose
is quite certain ; for there are no useless members or wasted func-
tions in the animal economy. Several observers have noticed
that when these formidable jaws have happened to seize some
passing object like a minute crustacean, they have held on to it
with a death grip. So it has been conjectured that the office of
the bird's-head attachments was to catch animal prey and to hold
it until it died and its decaying body brought around those
swarms of infusoria which are always present to feed upon de-
THE MICKOSCOPIST IN BERMUDA. 127
composing matter ; and that these minute creatures, which are in
reality the peculiar food of the polyzoa, are drawn into the mahl-
strom which the tentacles are continually creating in the immed-
iate vicinity. If this is the true explanation, and it seems
somewhat probable, we have here a strange and altogether anom-
alous provision for the feeding of these ever stationary colonies.
The question then naturally arises : how came these singular
members to be jointed to the cells of certain genera of Polyzoa,
and to be endowed with the instinct of catching prey that their
masters never ate?
The general theory of evolution is that an organism lays hold
of all the slight modifications of structure which are in anywise
useful to it, and by perpetuating them through inheritance,
eventually comes to possess the perfected organs or peculiarities.
But in the case we have presented, you will doubtless agree with
me that nothing less than a perfect seizing instrument and a fully
acquired habit of holding on to its captures until they died and
decomposed, would be of any use at all to the polyzoan animal.
There can be no intermediate links — no less useful processes for
natural selection to lay hold of. We must therefore suppose that
these remarkable appendages sprouted out at once and all perfect,
as a sport of nature; or else that they grew upon the animal
without cause or provocation. For myself I hold to the opinion
that we have not yet begun to fathom the depth of nature's plans
in the matter of perfecting its great families and orders of
organisms.
There is often thrown upon the sea shore some matted tufts of
fibers which look like clusters of fine sea-mosses. But the micro-
scope shows at once that they are of animal origin and built up
by the budding out of successive polyp-like animals one above
the other. They have much the appearance of the Polyzoa just
described, but are built up on a larger and coarser pattern, and
are really of an entirely different family. They are the Hydro-
zoa, nearly at the bottom of the scale of animal life, with a
simple sack stomach, and scarcely another organized structure in
their systems. But they exhibit in their manner of reproduction
the most characteristic example of what is called the alternation
128 THE MICK08COPIST IN BERMUDA.
of generation ; and it is for that reason that I bring them for-
ward. Certain buds of this plant-like organism, instead of
growing as usual into feeding members of the colony, become
cells or capsules in which are formed and sent out one after
another little animals bearing not the slightest resemblance to
the hydroid polyps. In fact they are jelly fishes, medusae, those
inert umbrella-shaped masses of jelly which we have all seen
lazily floating about in the sea, or lying stranded on the shore.
Of course there has been a rapid and perfectly enormous growth
between the microscopic forms first produced and the jelly fishes
as we have seen them. After attaining this growth and maturity,
the medusee produce what are called ciliated gemmules, which are
simply hatched eggs provided with vibratile cilia. By means
of these swimming hairs the embryos move about in the water,
but finally settle to the bottom, become attached to some shell or
rock, and grow into perfect Hydra with tentacles and horny
cups, from which other polyps bud off until we have again the
plant-like tuft from which we started.
All the numerous individuals of a hydroid colony are connected
to a common alimentary canal running through the center of all
the branches. There is therefore but one animal, though having
many heads, like the fabled Hydra from which its name is
derived. Constructed on one of the simplest plans of nature,
with only its feeding arms, and a stomach common to the whole
community, fixed for life to its permanent base, this creature,
apparently so un cared for, at the proper season, like the tree
which it simulates, pushes out a profusion of flower buds, from
which it detaches the flowrets one after another and sends them
forth to bear seed and to. disseminate far and wide its progeny.
All its needs are thus wonderfully provided for. But it is at the
cost of operating almost a biological miracle. For an animal of
one form and habit and life has begotten another of totally dif-
ferent form and habit and life ; and this one after swelling to
enormous proportions and voyaging the ocean for a time like a
water baloon, has finally produced — not its like, nor anything
resembling itself — but a brood of little insignificant polyps, that
take root and vegetate like the lowest things that live.
8.
THE MICBOSCOPIST IN BERMUDA. 129
It is not however the case that all the Hydrozoa produce free-
swi mining medusae ; for instance this Sertularia, which I will show
you later under the microscope with its beautiful white-beaded
reproductive capsules, retains the generative medusoid forms
within these capsules, and emits only the ciliated gem mules which
are produced from them. On the other hand some of the
medusae do not generate the branching Hydrozoa. There seem
to be all gradations in the relations between these two kinds of
beings. And it is a matter of surprise, seeing that the connec-
tion is not necessary either to one or the other, that natural
selection, if it operated at all between them, has not long ago
dissolved all connection whatever.
But I have not time to describe more of the marvels of the
marine invertebrate kingdom. To me it is by far the most in-
teresting province of natural history. The world had passed
more than half of its living age before animals began to have a
bony skeleton. The fishes of the Devonian strata, which is the
formation next below the coal measures, were the first creatures
that possessed anything like a bony structure. All the animals
before these were invertebrates ; and they abounded and held
sway while the sea was depositing in places ten miles of the
thickness of the earth's crust. All the rocks that are below us
where we are to night, were formed before ever there was a ver-
tebrated animal in existence. The invertebrates belong then to
the most ancient families of the world. They are the last sur-
viving representatives of the oldest inhabitants. While all the
higher races have been progressing from grade to grade, these
have always remained the same, except in a few changes of dress
and externals.
They tell us of the prevailing conditions of life in the earliest
geological ages ; for the spheres they filled and were adapted to
then, are the restricted spheres they fill and are best adapted to
now. The same environments have followed them down in their
gradually diminishing numbers from the Silurian age to the
present time. They tell us of the earliest fashions of growth
and of reproduction ; when animals budded and sprouted like
plants ; when instead of pairs, it took triplets to carry out the
great behest " to go forth and replenish the earth."
130 THE MICROSCOPIST IN BERMUDA.
They flourished in the ages before man was formed ; before
the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, and the great whales
were created ; before the earth brought forth grass and the herb
yielding seed and the tree yielding fruit after his kind ; before
the waters were gathered together and the dry land appeared.
There is no day set apart for the creation of these lowly tribes.
Yet they had the seas all to themselves for a period longer than
four of the creative eras, and have had more to do with bringing
the land to the surface of the waters than any other agency.
They were the silent workers at the marbles and the limestones
while shoreless oceans covered all the earth.
MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA.*
It has been my fortune during the past two winters to spend a
few weeks in the regions of central Florida. Lake Harris is the
most southern and the most beautiful of the cluster of lakes
which forms the source of that exceedingly picturesque river, the
Ocklawaha. With high banks, and surrounded by a belt of
hummock land as rich as any that Florida affords, this lake is be-
coming settled upon, and its lands are fast being taken up by
enterprising southerners for orange-groves and pine-apple plan-
tations. The sojourner will find the society of this lake-settle-
ment intelligent and hospitable beyond anything that would be
expected in so new and pioneer a country. The vegetation of
this almost tropical region is so full of interest to the microsco-
pist, and the causes conducing thereto so peculiar, that I have
thought them deserving of especial mention and illustration.
The absence, or at least the rarity of frosts injurious to vege-
tation in these lake districts, gives the longest possible season for
the growth and maturity of such organs as are best or especially
adapted to the exigencies of Florida plants. There is a period
of rest, usually comprising about the three winter months, after
which vegetation takes up and continues its growth again as if
there had been no period of interruption ; so that practically
there is a continuous development of plant life, whether annual
or perennial, from birth to death.
The soil of Florida, as of all the South-Atlantic sea-board, is
sandy and naturally barren. ~No polar glaciers have ground up
* A Paper read at the Boston meeting of The American Association for the
Advancement of Science (August, 1880); and published in its proceedings;
also in American Monthly Microscopical Journal, October, 1880.
132 MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA.
for these regions, as for the Northern States, a rich and abundant
alluvium, sufficient in itself for the production of a rapid and
vigorous vegetation. The South has apparently only the siftings
of our northern soil, carried down to the ocean by rivers, and
then washed up by the sea-waves to form its interminable
sandy plains. But to compensate for this natural infertility of
soil, the atmosphere, especially of southern Florida, abounds in
all the elements of plant growth. The winds which come up
from the Gulf on one side, or the Atlantic on the other, are
charged with moisture, and bear also minute quantities of nitric
acid and saline compounds ; while the exhalations from the
swamps and marshes furnish in abundance the salts of ammonia
and carbonic oxide.
Now to utilize these precious products from the air, it is nec-
essary for plants to have peculiar organs, such as absorbing
glands, glandular hairs, stellate hairs, protecting scales, and a
variety of other special appendages. All these have been devel-
oped by time and necessity in remarkable profusion and perfec-
tion in the vegetation of southern Florida. Although the
meagre soil produces no nutritious grasses and scarcely enough
of an honest vegetation to keep an herbivorous animal from
starving, yet there is an abundant flora such as it is — air plants,
parasitic growths, insectivorous plants, and strange herbs, all
seeking a livelihood in some other way than the good old honest
one of growing from their roots. It is this fact which makes the
microscopical interest of botanical researches in central Florida.
One can scarcely examine with a two-thirds objective the flowers,
leaves, or stems of any plant growing there, without discovering
some beautiful or striking modification of plant hairs, or scales,
or glands, or other absorbing or secreting organs.
We will notice first the Onosmodium as found in Florida— O.
mrginianum. It grows from Virginia south, but is more gland-
ular I think in Florida than anywhere else. It will be almost
the first plant one would stop to observe on entering the pine
woods — a dark green, narrow-leaved, biennial herb; its straight
stem of the second year's growth, about a foot high, bearing a
raceme-like cluster of flowers, coiled at the end, and straighten-
MICKOSCOriCAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA. 133
ing out as the flowers expand. The leaves of this plant are
thickly studded on hoth sides with stiff transparent hairs, lying
nearly flat on the surface, and all pointing towards the tip end of
the leaf. At the base of each hair is a cluster of glandular cells,
amounting sometimes to fifty or more, arranged in beautiful
geometrical forms. When pressed and dried in the herbarium, the
body of the leaf turns to a dark green, almost black, and on this
back-ground, with a half-inch objective, the hairs stand out like
sculptured glass, and the glands like mosaics of purest pearls. I
think it is the most attractive opaque object that can be shown
under the microscope.
That these glandular cells, covering as they do nearly half the
surface of the leaves, especially the upper surface, and differing
from all other vegetable cells, subserve an important purpose in
the sustenance of the plant, there cannot be a doubt ; but just
what that purpose is, or at least what is the mode of operation, I .
think, has never been ascertained.
In the same locality will very likely be found the most beauti-
ful of all the Croton plants, the C. argyranthemum. Unlike
the other Crotons, which are bushes, this is an herb growing
only about a foot high, with a milky sap which exudes when the
stem is broken. The leaves are silvery, verging in some cases to
a bronze color, and are thickly covered on the upper side with
most remarkable and beautiful stellate scales. The flower-buds
and stems when pressed, make much more beautiful opaque
objects than the leaves.
The object of these scales is, without doubt, to prevent the
too rapid evaporation of the moisture stored up in the plant. .
They are the exquisitely woven blankets which preserve the
precious juices so laboriously gathered. The same kind of cov-
ering is spread over the leaves and stems of all the air-plants of
Florida, and doubtless for the same purpose. The well-known
Florida moss, although not a moss, but a member of the pine-
apple family, (Tillandsia usneoides), is an exceedingly beautiful
object under the microscope. Each hanging stem is overlaid
with filmy white scales, every one of which is fastened in its
place by what wrould seern to be the stamp of some miniature
134 MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA.
seal on golden-tinted wax. This plant as ordinarily seen on the
live-oaks near cities, is a dirty-looking and unattractive object,
and goes by the name of " black moss." But in out-of-the-way
places, removed from the dust and smoke of settled localities, it
is pearly white, and exceedingly beautiful both to the naked eye
and under any power of magnification. Florida moss should be
preserved with only very slight pressure, just enough to make
the threads lie straight. After it has dried in this way, small
cuttings may be mounted in the ordinary cells for opaque
mounting.
On the high banks of the lake, and in the adjoining fields, may
be found the large-leaved and vigorous-growing Calicarpa (C.
Americana), sometimes called the French mulberry, a bush
growing some five or six feet in height. The under sides of the
leaves of this plant are nearly covered with little round, yellow,
sessile glands, flattened on top arid marked off into eight or ten
sections by ribs like those on a melon. They are in immense
.numbers — something like thirty thousand to the square inch —
over half a million on a good sized leaf. Under a light net-work
of branching glandular hairs, viewed with a two-thirds objective,
these polished amber-colored disks glisten like a spangle of
golden beads.
The same kind of glands is found on the leaves of many
other shrubs in Florida — the sweet myrtle (Myrica cerifera), the
low ground blueberry ( Vaccinium tenellum\ a certain bush or
dwarf hickory (Gary a glabra) and some others. These glands
have been variously called resin dots, resin glands, and odorif-
erous glands. So far as I can judge however they are not con-
nected with any resinous or odoriferous secretions. From their
almost perfect resemblance to the terminal bulb of the mushroom
glands of the Pinguicula and Drosera, which are known to be
absorbing glands, the probability is that these also serve to absorb
moisture and ammonia from the atmosphere and from rains.
Although I am free to acknowledge that the position of the
glands, being for the most part on the under side of the leaves,
militates somewhat against this view of their purpose.
Great care will have to be taken in pressing and drying vege-
table specimens in the moist climate of Florida. The little
MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA. 135
threads of the mould fungus will be sure to creep over the surface
of the leaves, spoiling them for microscopical material, if they
are not quickly and effectually dried. For this purpose it is well
to have a good supply of the bibulous botanical paper, and to
change the specimens every day to fresh sheets for at least four
or five days. The sheets after being once used, should be spread
out in the sun to dry. A weight of about thirty pounds may be
used for the pressure.
The objects heretofore mentioned are all for opaque mounting.
Almost every preparer of slides has his own favorite method for
this kind of work. I myself prefer the use of the transparent
shellac cells. Clarified shellac is dissolved in alcohol, and filtered
through cotton-wool under a bell glass, and with the application
of heat. The solution is evaporated down until it is so thick
that it will only just run — almost a jelly. In this condition it
can be put on a slide with a camel's hair brush, on the turn-table,
and very quickly worked up into a ring with the point of
a knife, used first on the inside to make the cell of the size
wanted, and then on the outside to turn the cement up into
a compact ring. Two or three applications of the cement, with
intervals of a day or two after each, will make cells of sufficient
depth for all ordinary specimens. These cells dry quite slowly ;
and if artificial heat is used, it must be increased only very
gradually, otherwise vapor of alcohol bubbles will make their
appearance in them. A small ring of Brunswick black may be
made inside of the cell, to which wrhen thoroughly dry, the
object may be fastened with a very little liquid marine glue. In
this case both sides of the leaf can be seen, which is often
desirable. In all opaque mountings a minute aperture should in
some way be left open into the inside of the cell, so that it shall
not be hermetically sealed up. This little precaution will save
an innumerable number of failures.
The collector in Florida, will not fail to secure- a supply of the
leaf stems of the castor oil plant (Ricimis communis). In
regions be}^ond the influence of frosts, this plant grows contin-
uously from year to year and becomes quite a tree. It is only in
such a growth that the spiral tissue of the fibro-vascular bundles
136 MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA.
is fully perfected. The castor oil plants grown in our climate
during one short season, will furnish very little spiral tissue,
mostly spotted ducts and scalariform cells. There is no more
beautiful object for multiple staining than thin longitudinal sec-
tions through the woody fiber, the vascular tissues, and the pith
cells of the castor oil plant. I will briefly describe my process
of making these stainings. After being decolorized in chlorin-
ated soda, the sections may be left for half a day or more in a
solution of carmine in water containing a few drops of aqua am-
monia; then for half an hour in a rather weak solution of
extract of logwood in alum water, and finally 10 to 15 minutes
in a weak solution of anilin violet or blue in alcohol. From
this they can be carried through absolute alcohol into turpentine,
and mounted in balsam at any time thereafter. If successful in
this staining you will have the pith cells in red, the spiral tissue
in blue, the wood cells in purple and the stellate crystals in green
or yellow.
But the chief objects of interest to the microscopist in the
vegetation of Florida, are the insectivorous plants. Not only
are they more abundant and, as I think, more perfectly developed
in the central lake regions, of Florida, but some varieties are
found there different, it seems to me, from any found elsewhere.
I desire particularly to mention one which I discovered, and
which perhaps might be entitled to rank as a new species.
In a lagoon-like basin at the side of a small lake near Lake
Harris, in water from two to three feet deep, I found numerous
specimens of the insectivorous plant known as the Drosera or
sun-dew, growing thriftily and floating about among the scattered
water-weeds, without any attachment whatever, indeed with very
little root of any kind, the dead leaves that hung down in the
water seeming both to buoy it up and to hold it upright. This
plant differs from all the described species of Drosera, so far as
I have been able to ascertain, in having an upright, leaf-bearing
stem from four to five inches long, in floating free on the water,
and in having unusually long, vigorous and numerous leaves.
As I never found this floating Drosera in any other location, and
as there was an abundance of the ordinary Drosera longifolia
Transverse Section. Magnified 12 Diameters.
Plate IX.— SPIRAL TISSUE IN THE LEAF STEM OF THE CASTOR
OIL PLANT. See Page xvi.
Longitudinal Section. Magnified 70 Diameters.
MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA. 137
growing on the adjoining shore, I could not resist the suspicion
that at tin's very spot in some past time a plant of the longifolia,
had by accident become uprooted, and floated out on the water ;
that finding it could capture insects even better on the water than
crowded among shore plants, it adapted itself permanently to its
new location and modes of growth. It appeared to me quite
within the bounds of probability that here was an instance of
the evolution of a species in loco.
The Drosera or "sun-dew" is found on the margins of nearly
all small ponds and permanently wet places throughout the
south. It is a small red plant, growing close to the ground, and
glistening in the sunlight. Its little whorl of expanded leaves
forms a circlet as beautiful as any flower, and often so very small
that I have frequently mounted whole plants with flower-stalk
and buds on an ordinary slide. Each leaf of the Drosera has,
spread out on its upper surface and edges, from two to three
hundred arms, called tentacles because endowed with the power
of motion, and of such varying lengths that when naturally in-
curved, their ends just meet at the center of the leaf. Each
tentacle has at its extremity a pad, like an extended palm, with a
ridge raised lengthwise upon it ; and in this palm is a bundle of
spiral vessels connected with the same tissues in the leaf. Now
all these tentacles secrete and exude from the glands at their
ends a little drop of a very adhesive fluid ; and the glistening of
these drops in the sunlight on their usually bright red back-
ground, gives to the plant its beauty and its name of the " sun-
dew." An insect attracted to and alighting on these leaves is
inevitably held fast. The tentacles by which it is held very
soon begin to bend towards the center of the leaf, carrying the
fly with them. Then in some mysterious way, intelligence is
communicated to the other tentacles, and they too begin to turn
towards the center of the leaf, in the course of an hour or two
completely covering the captured prey. If the insect is caught
entirely on one side of the leaf, then only the tentacles of that
side inflect. The glands after envelopment, exude a gastric fluid
which dissolves the nitrogenous matter in the body, after which,
by another change of function, they absorb and carry down into
138 MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA.
the plant all this nutritious little feast. In the course of three
or four days the tentacles again expand and prepare themselves
for another capture.
There are several reasons which lead me to believe that these
unique and most wonderful organs of the Drosera are a direct
and special development from the common simple mushroom
glands, which are found on many plants, and which have for
their primary function to absorb moisture and ammonia from the
atmosphere and from rains. . I found on the calyx and flower
stem of the Drosera an abundance of these mushroom glands.
Indeed the flower stem with its buds furnishes by reason of them
an exceedingly beautiful object for the microscope, both in a
natural state and when prepared by double staining.
I have found it quite a general rule as regards plants, that
whatever organs, such as stellate hairs or glands, the leaves may
possess, the calyx and stem of the flower will show them in far
greater luxuriance and beauty. The stellate hairs of the Deutzia,
the protons, and the Shepherdias, are far more numerous and
striking on the flower buds than on the leaves. The mushroom
glands which are found on the leaves of the Saxifrage and Pin-
guicula, are multiplied many fold in number and attractiveness
on the calyx and flower stem of these plants. So I regard that
this was once the case with the Drosera ; and that the mushroom
glands, which are now found on the flower, were then common
to the leaves. A process of evolution has transformed them on
the leaves into those wonderful motile arms adapted to the
capture of insects, but has left them unchanged on the flower,
where that function would be of no use to the plant. I
occasionally find in my preparations a solitary mushroom gland
among the tentacles of the leaf — a remnant of a race that has been-
supplanted. There is found in Portugal a plant very similar to
the Drosera, the Drosophyllum, which has still only the mush-
room glands on its leaves, and catches insects in great quantity
by loading them down with the viscid secretion which these
glands abundantly pour forth.
To exhibit the very delicate structure of the leaf and tentacles
of the Drosera, it is necessary to color them slightly. The
MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA. 139
danger will be in over-staining; therefore, after decolorizing and
immersing for a few hours in the carmine solution, the specimens
should be exposed to only a very weak fresh solution of logwood
for fifteen or twenty minutes. If the anilin blue is resorted to
at all, it must be in a very weak solution. A mounting of a leaf
and a stem with flower buds in one cell in camphorated or carbo-
lated water, makes a very pretty and complete slide for the
Drosera.
The Utricularja is a floating carnivorous plant which grows in
the shallow water of quiet ponds. On the surface of the water
from five to seven leaves are spread out like the spokes of a
wheel, and from the center of these leaves the plant sends up-
ward its flower stalk and downward its root-like branches, floating
freely in the water. Among the thickly branching fibres of these
long submerged stems, are perched innumerable little bladders or
utricles, not much larger than the head of a pin, each provided
with a mouth at the bottom of a sort of funnel of bristles,
closed with a cunning little trap lid which opens inward, engulf-
ing and imprisoning whatever minute creatures or substances
may happen to be resting on it. In these sacks during the grow-
ing season, we will find numerous microscopic water fleas, mites
and beetles, with grains of pine pollen and other floating parti-
cles. The organic bodies will be found in all stages of digestion,
showing that the plant derives nourishment from such captured
prey ; and apparently its only means of livelihood is trapping.
When taken from the water and dried under slight pressure,
the submerged portions of the Utricularia will be found literally
covered with diatoms; and many very interesting chrysalids of
water-insects will be found attached to them. These will all be
washed off if the plant is bleached in chlorinated soda. To pre-
serve them it will be necessary to remove the color in alcohol,
and besides to handle very carefully. The staining can only be
single ; and I have found a weak solution of eosin in water, to
be the best material for coloring, showing at the same time the
structure of the utricles and the captures contained in them.
Specimens of new growths, showing the just forming utricles
and the peculiar circinate mode of growth, should be included
on the slide. The mounting should be in camphorated water.
140 MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA.
The Pinguicula, another of the insectivorous plants, is found
abundantly on the more open plains, and not far from wet places.
It is a compact rosette of very light green leaves, growing close
to the ground, from the center of which rises a single flower-
stalk, eight or ten inches high. The leaves have their edges
turned up, forming a shallow trough, and on the upper surface
are mushroom glands, which exude a viscid secretion. Insects
are caught and held by this sticky substance until they die. The
nutritious matter is then dissolved out by an acid secretion, and
is ultimately absorbed into the substance of the plant by the
glands on the leaf. The edge of a leaf when excited by a cap-
ture will bend over upon it for a short time, for the purpose of
more effectually securing it, and of bathing it in the secretions.
The calyx and flower-stalk, as I have already mentioned, are
thickly covered with the same mushroom glands that are found
more sparingly on the leaves. I have never seen any evidence
that the flower appendages took any part in the digestion of
insects. They seem to be rather in the nature of an ornamenta-
tion than of anything useful. For exhibition, therefore, or for
double-staining, the calyx and flower stem will be found by far
the most attractive part of the plant. The best way to preserve
them, as well as all such small material, until wanted for use, is
to put them green into a common morphia vial with a few drops
of alcohol and water, and then to cork and seal them up tight
with melted beeswax. To prepare them for the slide these ob-
jects may be treated precisely as recommended for sections of
castor-oil plant, but should be mounted in a weak solution of
glycerine in camphorated water.
If cells are made of rings punched out of the thin sheets of
colored wax, used by artificial flower makers, and then coated
with either liquid marine glue, or a mixture in equal parts of
gold size and gum dammar dissolved in benzole, this method of
liquid mounting may be as easily and safely performed as mount-
ing in balsam. In very many cases simple water, made antiseptic
in any manner, will be found far preferable to any other media,
both for retaining the full and distended forms of minute organs,
and for bringing out the delicate markings of vegetable structure
which the highly refractive balsam would entirely obliterate.
MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA. 141
There is only one other insectivorous plant found in Florida,
the pitcher plant, (Sarracenia variolaris\ a species growing
only in the South 'Atlantic States. It is found in low and wet
places among the open pine-barrens, but is not as abundant as the
others which have been mentioned. The leaf is a hollow, coni-
cal or trumpet-shaped tube, with a flange or wing running up
one side, and a hood which arches over the orifice of the tube.
Durin*g the growing season this tube is usually more than half
filled with water, which we must suppose secreted by the plant
itself, because the hood effectually sheds all rain water from it.
Crowded into the bottom of the tubes of mature leaves, we shall
almost invariably find a mass of the hard and indigestible parts
of insects. These creatures have been in some way attracted
into that suspicious looking receptacle, and once in have been
unable to get out again. A mere partially covered tube however,
with a little water in it, is by no means a fly-trap. Not one
insect in a hundred would fall into that well and drown, if there
were not some special device absolutely preventing it from
crawling upward. Now a microscopical examination of the in-
side of the hood and tube of the pitcher plant reveals the most
skillful contrivance for securing insect prey that could possibly
be imagined. In the first place, there are in the upper part of
the receptacle and about the mouth, great numbers of sessile
glands which secrete abundantly a sweet fluid very attracting to
ants and flies. Further, there is on the inner surface of the hood
and mouth, a formidable array of comparatively long pike-
pointed spines, all pointing backward and downward. These
grade off into shorter, more blunt, but still exceedingly sharp-
pointed spines, which overlap each other like tiles on the roof of
a house. This kind of coating lines the tube for a third of the
way down, the spines growing finer until at last they grade off
into regular hairs which line all the lower part of the tube ;
spines and hairs all pointing downward. An insect attempting
to retrace its steps after its ambrosial feast, would find nothing
which it could penetrate or grasp with the booklets of its feet ;
and the wetness of the spines, from the constantly overflowing
glands, would probably prevent it from making use of any other
142 MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA.
device that insects may have for climbing glazed surfaces. As a
matter of fact no creature comes out of that prison house, unless
it be with the single exception of one cunning spider, which in
some way finds a safe and rich retreat under the hood of its great
vegetable rival.
The bodies of the captured prey fall into the fluid in the tube
and are macerated or decomposed, but without any signs of
putrescence. Therefore the plant must at once absorb the ani-
mal matter, for otherwise this would cause the infusorial life
which-is called putrefaction.
In order to show the internal structure of the pitcher plant
leaf, it will be necessary to separate the cuticle which bears the
spines and glands from the rest of the leaf. To do this, pieces
cut from the leaf, and preferably those showing the transition
from one kind of spines into another, after being soaked in
water, may be put into common nitric acid, and this brought up
to the boiling point over an alcohol lamp. They should then be
immediately washed in several waters, when it will probably be
found that the cuticle, both the inner and the outer, has already
separated from the parenchyma. The specimens will need no
further bleaching, and may be stained either in eosin dissolved
in water, or in anilin blue in alcohol. As there is only one kind
of tissue to be stained, it will be impossible to get more than one
color in them. They should be mounted or kept in water very
slightly acidulated with carbolic acid.
I cannot but regard the pitcher plant as the most highly de-
veloped, and the most specialized in its organization of any of
the insectivorous plants. It differs more widely from ordinary
vegetation, and has more special and adapted contrivances about
it, than any of the others. Now as I believe that the truth of
the modern evolutionary theory will be eventually brought to a
test by well-studied monographs, made by microscopists, on some
such highly differentiated organic structures as this pitcher plant,
I do not deem it a digression to present here briefly some infer-
ences which seem to me to arise from the developmental history
of this particular plant. Of course, if the pitcher plant was de-
veloped from other and ordinary plants, it had at one time the
MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA. 143
simple plain leaves of common herbs. It must have early com-
menced in some way to appropriate insect food on these leaves,
because every subsequent change was for the betterment of the
plant in this direction. The stem of the leaves soon began to
put out flanges or wings on each side, the phyllodia of the botan-
ists, which are not uncommon among plants. And these out-
spread wings must have assisted in the absorption of insect food
that was washed down upon them. Then the edges of the wings
turned up, and curved around towards each other, until finally
they met and grew together, forming a tube and a much more
complete receptacle for decomposing animal bodies. A South
American genus, the Heliamphora, is just in this partly develop-
ed condition at the present time. Then from some unknown
cause and in a way exceedingly difficult to explain, our Sarra-
cenia commenced preparations for an entirely different manner
of capturing insects. The leaf bent over the orifice of the tube,
forming the hood, and those remarkable spines and tiled plates
were developed on the inside of the hood and tube, growing
backwards, contrary to the order of nature. When all this was
accomplished and fully completed, but not before, our plant could
commence its career as the most successful trappist of either the
vegetable or the animal kingdom.
Now according to the Darwinian theory, all these transform-
ations were the result of innumerable slight and favorable vari-
ations, each one of which happened to be so beneficial to the
particular plant concerned, that it got the start of all the others,
and every time run them all out of existence. One cannot tell
how many million times this extinction and reproduction must
have occurred, before our marvellously perfect little fly-trap was
finally produced. Excuse me if I confess that not all the canon-
ical books of Darwin are sufficient to make me put faith in the
miracles attributed to natural selection and the survival of the
fittest. I believe in the fact of the progressive development of
the organic kingdom ; for all science teaches it. But I believe
it was governed and guided by forces more potent than chance
variation and adaptive selection. The Being, or the First Cause
if you will, who originated the simple elements of matter, and
144 MICROSCOPICAL COLLECTIONS IN FLORIDA.
endowed them with the power and the tendency to aggregate
into developing worlds, might equally as well have endowed cer-
tain of them with the power and the tendency to aggregate into
ever advancing organisms. There is no element of chance in
the myriad forms of crystalline and chemical substances ; then
why should there be in the scarcely more varied colloid forms of
living matter? In a world that unfolds from chaos in one steady
line of progress, that shows only design at every advancing stage,
I must logically place somewhere at its commencement the
almighty fiat of a Designer.
ON THE PREPARATION OF OBJECTS FOR
THE MICROSCOPE.*
In the matter of microscopic objects and preparations, I ac-
knowledge myself the advocate of the beautiful. In this new
world which the microscope has opened up to us, I seek mainly,
if not only, for that which is fair and lovely to behold. In the
estimation of some of the professors of this science, I am afraid
that this acknowledgment will place me in the class of those who
make of the microscope a plaything, and who turn a means of
instruction into a means of amusement only. But to me it seems
that the field of microscopic research is so vast, and the harvest
of instructive lessons so abundant, that I may be excused for
gathering only the flowers.
The specialist and the expert, for the purpose of personal in-
formation and judgment, will have occasion, and ought, to exam-
ine the minutest and the dryest details in the line of his specialty.
But he who would simply draw interesting lessons from nature,
or instruction for the uninformed, need not go beyond the beau-
tiful and the attractive in the list of microscopic objects. The
facts of science and the range of discovery can be amply, and I
think best illustrated by preparations which strike the eye and
command the attention.
To illustrate my meaning, I will show you later this evening a
longitudinal section through the fibro-vascular bundles in the
leaf -stem of the castor-oil plant. It is, I think, one of the most
beautiful objects in structural botany, and at the same time it
opens up to us some of the most interesting and puzzling quest-
*A Paper read before the Rochester Microscopical Society, Dec. llth, 1879.
146 PREPARATION OF OBJECTS FOR THE MICROSCOPE.
ions in the history of plant growth. As you know, there is in
plants almost as complete a circulation of fluids as in our own
bodies. The sap travels up from the roots through the capillary
tubes which are grouped in these fibro- vascular bundles, and
from them passes out through the veins of the leaves. At the
tip end of the veins it turns into another set of tubes under-
neath, and follows its course backward, gradually descending
towards the roots again, through cells between the bark and the
wood, where it leaves its deposit of formed material. The
capillary tubes of the vascular bundles were first and originally
formed as rows of large cells placed one on top of another.
Afterwards the partition walls which separated the cells were
absorbed and they became perfect tubes. Then on the inside of
these tubes were deposited closely coiled spiral threads, sometimes
rings, and sometimes again more open spirals, running in opposite
directions and crossing each other, forming what are called the
spotted ducts. But the spiral tubes, or tissues as they are called,
are certainly the most remarkable structures in the vegetable
economy. They are larger and more numerous in the castor oil
plant than in any other that I know of. But even in that plant,
it is as if wire, far finer than any silk or spider-web fiber, had
been closely wound around a form more slender than the finest
cambric needle, and then these coils had been laid away in groups
or bundles of twenty or more in the woody tissues next to the
pith cells. But now comes the puzzling question of how these
spiral tissues or threads were formed. By what laws of growth,
or by what natural process were these strange and complicate
structures built up? The botanist has not yet been able to
find it out.
I may show you also this evening the remarkable glandular
organs, called the mushroom glands, of certain insectivorous
plants, which glands are said to secrete a gastric juice that
digests the bodies of insects, and which afterwards absorb the
products of that digestion. They are found on the upper sur-
face of the leaves, where they fulfill this extraordinary function.
But what is very strange, they also follow up the stem of the
flower, and are most beautiful and abundant on the outer leaves
PREPARATION OF OBJECTS FOR THE MICROSCOPE. 147
or sepals of the blossom, where it cannot be supposed that they
ever have occasion to perform their peculiar office. But I have
found it very generally the case that whatever appendages the
leaves of a plant may have, the calyx of the flower will show
them in much greater beauty and abundance.
I have said this much to explain in a measure my predilection
for botanical subjects for the microscope. There is no end to
beautiful things among them, both for artificial preparation and
unprepared specimens, as opaque objects. There may be beauti-
ful things among the preparations of animal tissues and growth,
but I must confess that I have never yet seen many of them.
Compare the plates of any animal histology, the illustration of
Beale's work on the Microscope, for instance, with the elaborate
drawing's of Sach's Botany. To use a rather gross comparison,
the former might remind one of a German sausage shop, the
latter of a French fancy store.
Now the only way in which vegetable preparations can be
made available for the microscope — that is, to be seen by trans-
mitted light — is to remove the green chlorophyl, or other color-
ing matter, by either soaking in alcohol or immersing for a time
in the Labarraque fluid, which is the same as the chlorinated soda
sold by druggists as a disinfectant. Alcohol merely dissolves out
the coloring matter, leaving the cell contents, or the protoplas-
mic matter, still in the specimen. Therefore an object decolor-
ized in alcohol will be somewhat more opaque than if decolorized
in chlorinated soda, which destroys all the softer parts, leaving
only the frame work, or the cellulose. Sometimes the alkaline
soda in this preparation is not fully saturated or neutralized by
chlorine. In this case vegetable substances will be eaten up and
destroyed in it, as they would be in any alkali. This fact has
given the preparation a bad ndme with some microscopists, who
say that it is unsafe to use. But I have never experienced any
trouble in the use of that which has been made by reliable chem-
ists. The preparation should be kept in the dark as much as
possible, as light causes it to precipitate. Thin objects such as
ordinary leaves and thin sections will be decolorized in this solu-
tion in from twelve to twenty-four hours. They must then be
148 PREPARATION OF OBJECTS FOR THE MICROSCOPE.
thoroughly washed in several waters to remove all trace of the
cry stall izable solution.
Now in order to bring out and to contrast the various tissues,
as the woody fiber, the cell walls, the ducts and spiral vessels, it
is necessary to recolor these objects ; and it is highly desirable, if
possible, to color the various parts differently. Now it is a sing-
ular and fortunate fact that certain colors, or at least certain
pigments, will either go to certain sets of tissues and leave the
others entirely unaffected, or they will color certain tissues
quicker and more readily than they will others. Thus carmine
dissolved in water with a few drops of aqua-ammonia in it, will
color only cell contents. Therefore, for carmine to have its best
effect, or indeed any great effect, it is necessary that the leaves
or thin sections be decolorized in alcohol, which does not remove
the albuminoid matter. Again, the extract of logwood, dissolved
in weak alum water, will color first the woody cells or fibers,
then other cell walls, as the pith and leaf cells ; and finally, if
the specimen is left in it long enough, it will color the spiral and
other vascular tissues. It is therefore well to remove the objects
from this dye before its work is complete — say in from fifteen
to thirty minutes. And if it has then colored them too far or
too deeply, they -may be soaked in pure alum water, which will
remove the color in the reverse order already named above.
Lastly, aniline blue dissolved in alcohol will color spiral tissues,
hairs, glands, resin dots, leaf veins and generally all that is left
uncolored by the other pigments. I have not however been able
to color the stellate hairs of Deutzia, Croton, Shepherdia and
others, with aniline blue. Aniline green will color them ; but it
is not always a permanent color. It is very powerful in its action
and requires only a minute or two to do its work.
A general formula for double or multiple staining may then
be given as follows : Carmine one day, logwood half an hour,
and aniline blue an hour. But it is nevertheless true that each
kind of objects, as for instance sections of stems, thick leaves
and thin leaves, leaves to show crystals, and those to show hairs
or glands, will require a somewhat different treatment one from
the other. It is very desirable that experimenters in this field
PREPARATION OF OBJECTS FOR THE MICROSCOPE. 149
should record their experiences, thus giving us a literature on the
subject which shall be a guide to future operators for all similar
preparations.
Now in regard to the mounting of double stainings ; balsam is
undoubtedly the best medium for all such as will bear this
mounting. An object mounted in Canada balsam is sure to im-
prove with age. If we can say of other media that they will
preserve their objects without change, it is the highest excellence
that can be expected from them. But a preparation in balsam
will be brighter and clearer the more the volatile elements are
evaporated from the medium — that is, the older it is. It is how-
ever a fact that high refractive media, such as balsam and, less
so, glycerine, will obliterate, or render indistinct, the fine and
delicate markings of objects. There are very many vegetable
stainings which in balsam are without character or interest, but
which in carbolated or camphorated Water are veritable beauties;
all the fine cellular markings and the smallest hairs or glands ap-
pearing plain and distinct. I think it is safe to say that more
than half of the vegetable preparations you will have to do with,
if you exploit this field, will appear to better advantage in water
than in any other medium.
So it has been quite a study with me for some time back to
find a means and a mode of fluid mounting both expeditious and
reliable. I am happy to say that I have found a method which,
so far as I can judge from the limited time that I have used it,
seems to be fully satisfactory. At least I have yet to discover
the faults of it. Our worthy member, Mr. Streeter, has been
lately making a very neat and ingenious set of punches by which
circular rings, five-eighths and three-fourths of an inch in diameter,
can be cut out of the colored sheets of wax used by the artificial
flower makers. Several colors of this wax are made in sheets
double thick, and if a still greater thickness is desired, two or
more sheets may be laid on top of each other. These rings, if
cemented in any way to the slide, make very convenient cells for
opaque mounting. But it occurred to me that if they were cov-
ered with a coating of some cement, such as marine glue, which
is unaffected by any of the liquids used for preserving objects,
150 PREPARATION OF OBJECTS FOR THE MICROSCOPE.
they would be exactly what is wanted for fluid mounting; for
the great requisite in fluid mounting is a cell that is a little soft
or yielding, so that the thin glass cover will come down into close
contact with the cell all around. When this is the case, you can
quickly take up the fluid that runs out, with a camel's hair brush,
and at once apply a coating of cement to the edges of the thin
glass, and your slide requires no further care. But if the thin
glass cover does not fit closely to a cell, the air will be very apt
to get in while you are drying it ; and when you come to put on
the cement, that will be almost sure to run in.
The marine glue, with which I thought to cover the wax cells,
is a composition of equal parts of India rubber and shellac, dis-
solved in mineral naphtha. It has long been considered the most
adhesive and permanent cement that can be made ; and from the
large quantity of rubber in it, it would seem as if it ought to be
impervious to all the liquids used in mounting.
In applying these wax circles to the slide, a little care is neces-
sary, that no air bubbles remain between the wax and the glass,
nor in the cement which covers the cell. First, make a ring of
cement on the slide, with a small camel's hair brush, of the same
size of the wax ring. Then lay on the ring, accurately centering
it on the turn table, and press it down under a piece of writing
paper held on it in such a way that the ring underneath cannot
be displaced. It is well to let this dry for a day. Then cover
the top and the edges of the cell with one or two coats of liquid
marine glue, and in two or three days it can be trimmed with the
point of a knife blade, cleaned and used for mounting.
As a preservative fluid, one can use carbolated water — four or
five drops of carbolic acid to each ounce of filtered water — or
camphorated water — that in which a little fine camphor has been
mixed and afterwards filtered — or any other preparation of water
which will prevent fungoid growths, or in other words preserves
the objects. Put enough of the liquid in the cell to fill it full,
immerse and arrange the objects in it, and then let a thin glass
cover of the proper size come gently down on the liquid. It
will infallibly press out all the air and settle gradually on the
cell ring, pushing out all superfluous fluid. A gentle pressure
PREPARATION OF OBJECTS FOR THE MICROSCOPE. 151
around the edges will make the glass attach itself to the cell so
that it can hardly be moved. Then, with a small camel's hair
brush, take up the outside fluid, squeezing the brush between the
thumb and linger to dry it. When as dry as the brush will make
it, apply a coating of the marine glue around the edges of the
glass cover, and the slide is finished, so far as its safety and dur-
ability is concerned.
In looking over and arranging my cabinet of specimens not
long since, I was greatly surprised at the great number of slides
that were merely opaque mountings — fully one-half, I should
say. Now this implies that I have found as much beauty in
natural unprepared objects as in those which have been in some
way carried through a process of preparation, such as staining,
cleaning in potash or acids, carrying through alcohol and turpen-
tine into balsam, etc. There is an exhaustless field of attractive
objects in the scales of the insect tribes, the feathers of birds,
the shells of the protozoans, the spore cases of mosses and ferns,
the hairs and glands of plant leaves, in seeds and pollen. All
these require mounting as opaque objects ; and, in my view, the
best way to do it is to make cells either of shellac cement or of
the wax sheets, as I have already described, and in the center of
them paint with Brunswick black a round disk three-eighths or
one-half of an inch in diameter. On this disk, when thoroughly
dry, fasten the object with a minute drop of marine glue, and
fasten a thin glass cover on the cell with the same Cement. With
this form of mounting, the Lieberkuhn can be used or not, as
one may desire. I have found it necessary in almost every case
of dry mounting to leave a small opening into the cell, either by
filing a little notch on the ring and leaving this open when the
cover is cemented on, or by afterwards pushing a small cambric
needle through the ring. If the cell is hermetically sealed, the
expansion and contraction of the air within, by changing temper-
ature, seems to cause a slow movement in the cements that are
inside of it, no matter how much they have been previously
dried. The walls of the ring or the finishing varnishes will work
inward and spoil the mounting, or the object will be slowly
immersed in the black cement that forms the background. All
152 PREPARATION OF OBJECTS FOR THE MICROSCOPE.
these troubles seem to be obviated by the minutest aperture
opening into the cell.
I have on several occasions, both here and elsewhere, recom-
mended the shellac cement, which is now made by Mr. G. H.
Haass, the druggist, on East Main Street, as the best material for
building up cells for dry mounting. I have never yet seen
occasion to change my opinion in regard to it. The cells are
beautiful, durable and tough as horn when thoroughly dry. The
cement is so easily managed, can be so readily worked up into a
ring with the point of a knife blade on the turn table, that I
would think almost any one could easily acquire the skill or
knack of making the cells. I have made many hundreds of
them, and I know they cost me less labor and time than any
other cell that is made. I always carry along two dozen at a
time, first laying the foundation of the rings, making them of the
right size in diameter and breadth, then afterwards, with a day
or two of interval each time, making successive additions to them
until they are of the required depth. One hour's time is suffi-
cient for each operation with the whole two dozen ; and four
times going over them would make the deepest cells that one
would ever have occasion to use. Thus it takes me only ten
minutes in all, and at the most, for the making of each cell, and
it does not require any subsequent painting or fixing up. After
the mounting is completed however, I usually finish around the
outside with balsam, turning it up trim and true with the knife
point on the turn table.
As I desire these remarks to be a pretty full expression of my
views and experience in the higher forms of mounting, I cannot
omit speaking a few words in regard to a certain cement which
has been recommended to you for cells for fluid mounting, on the
authority of Dr. Hunt, of Philadelphia. It is white zinc mixed
with gum dammar dissolved in benzole. Now every preparer of
slides would hail with delight a white cement that was safe to
use in all cases, but unfortunately no cement can be made white
without the mixture in it of solid particles, particles that do not
dissolve, that settle to the bottom of your vials. It is a mechan-
ical mixture, and no cement is safe to use in contact with liquids
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PREPARATION OF OBJECTS FOR THE MICROSCOPE. 153
of any kind, that is not a thorough and complete solution in all
its parts. This is the experience of all microscopists. Dr. Car-
penter, who as you know is no mean authority, says : " The
varnishes used for mounting objects in liquid should always be
such as contain no mixture of solid particles. This is a principle
on which the author from an experience of many years is
disposed to lay great stress." He says, "that he has always
found that such cements (mechanical mixtures), although they
may stand well for a few weeks or months, become porous after
a greater lapse of time, allowing the evaporation of the liquid
and the admission of air." White zinc cement may answer for
finishing purposes, if used with great caution ; but it is at best
a very treacherous material, insidiously working its way into
places where it has no business to be. It has caused more failures
than any other material we work with. I know that nine-tenths
of my lame ducks have white feet.
In conclusion I would remark that there is a strange fascina-
tion in the art of the microscopist. It has been the life work of
many men of cultivated and superior minds. It has been the
recreation of a vast number of scientific and professional men.
Those who have once taken it up in the love of it, have seldom
laid it aside. There is in it the widest field for the display of
ingenuity and artistic taste, together with the fullest scope for
research and new discoveries. To the gratification of accom-
plishing a new process or of finding a new object of interest or
beauty, there is added the highest incentive which is now left to
the man of science — that of searching out the secrets of nature
on the border-land of the invisible. Be assured that the field of
labor and research to which this evening I seek to incite your
exertion and your emulation, is at once the most fascinating, the
most important, and the most honorable of the occupations of
cultured minds.
THE PREPARATION AND MOUNTING OF
DOUBLE STAININGS.*
There is no art of the microscopist more beautiful and inter-
esting than that of bleaching and re-coloring vegetable tissues.
In no other way can the wonderful processes of plant growth be
made manifest under the microscope. Therefore, any sugges-
tions tending to simplify the art and make it more generally
practicable, will be of interest to all workers in microscopic
preparations. In my experiments with double staining I have
found that different colors, or at least different pigments, vary
greatly in the activity or penetrating power with which they
affect vegetable substances. Thus, an object prepared for stain-
ing may be left in a strong solution of carmine for a day without
having all its parts colored ; whereas in a logwood or analine
dye of equal strength, it would be colored perfectly opaque in
less than an hour. By taking advantage of this fact and
immersing objects, first in the color having the slowest action,
then in another of greater activity, and so on, double or even
multiple staining becomes a simple process, instead of the very
difficult and complicated one which has been published in our
magazines.
I will give the general details of the operation as I have now
practised it for some little time. I do not claim that exactly the
same formula will answer for all kinds of plant specimens, or
that all the colors given below should be used in all cases. I
merely give a general formula, which each operator will find it
necessary to vary somewhat according to the results of his
experimenting. If I succeed in stimulating others to more
detailed work, by showing how simple the process is in most
cases, I will have accomplished my purpose. All vegetable
preparations, whether parts of leaves or sections of stems, should
first be fully decolorized in the common chlorinated soda solution,
* A Paper read before the National Microscopical Congress, held at Buffalo,
August, 1878, and published in its Proceedings.
156 PREPARATION AND MOUNTING OF DOUBLE STAINING S.
sold by all druggists as a disinfectant. This result will be
accomplished in most cases in about one day. Then, after being
thoroughly washed in pure water, the preparations should be
placed in a solution of carmine of about the consistence of com-
mon carmine ink ; and they may remain in this for a day. Pure
carmine will readily dissolve in water with a few drops of aqua-
ammonia in it. After being washed in two or three changes of
pure water, the objects may now be placed in a somewhat weaker
solution of extract of logwood in alum water. A small quantity
of alum in the water is sufficient to effect, at least with the aid
of heat, the solution of the logwood. This should be filtered,
not old at the time of use, and of a strength not more than half
that of common writing ink. In this solution the objects may
remain from fifteen to thirty minutes, according to the delicacy
of the specimens. If the color should appear to be too deep or
opaque, it may be partly removed by soaking in pure alum water.
Then, after washing again in several waters to remove all trace
of the alum, place the objects in alcohol for a short time, and
then into a weak solution of aniline blue in alcohol. In this
they may remain an hour or two, or until all the parts not
previously stained are colored blue. If on trial the blue should
appear to be too deep, it may be partially removed by soaking
for a time in pure alcohol. It sometimes happens that even
aniline blue will riot color all the parts of vegetable substances,
such as large glandular or stellate hairs. In this case an immer-
sion for a minute or two in a very weak solution of aniline green
in alcohol will accomplish the work. Green is the most power-
fully absorbent color that I know of; and should be used with
caution, as it would soon spoil a staining.
From alcohol the objects may be removed directly to turpen-
tine. I do not like the action of oil of cloves. It shrivels up
the tender tissues and gives them the appearance of being
burned. Besides, it is not necessary as an intermediary between
alcohol and turpentine. After a day's immersion in turpentine
the preparations will be ready for mounting in Canada balsam.
Vegetable preparations have quite an appreciable thickness, and
unless some special care is taken of them after being mounted in
balsam, it will be found that air will quite often work in under
PREPARATION AND MOUNTING OF DOUBLE STAININGS. 157
the cover. Therefore, as soon as a balsam mounting is dry enough
to have the superfluous balsam cleaned off with the point of a
knife around the thin glass cover, which will be in two or three
days, especially if aided by heat, a light coating of shellac
cement, colored with aniline blue or red, riot green or yellow,
can be spread with a camel's hair brush around the edge of the
cover, and the next day another coating, and perhaps the third
day another still. In this way the cover will soon be firmly set
and can be cleaned ; and the slide is a permanent mounting in
much shorter time than if left simply for the balsam to dry hard ;
and there is no risk of air working in from the drying of the
balsam. Canada balsam is by far the best and safest medium in
which to mount all stained preparations that will bear this
mounting. But there are many, such as those with delicate
hairs or glands, or with fine cellular markings, that will not
show to advantage in so refractive a medium as balsam. These
may be removed from alcohol into water containing three or
four drops of carbolic acid to the ounce of water. It will be
necessary also to mount them in the same fluid in the cells.
Well dried shellac cells may be used ; and if the tops are made
perfectly level by holding a bit of fine sand paper on them while
being turned on the turn-table, the thin glass cover will fit
closely, pressing out the superfluous water, which can be taken
up with a camel's hair brush. When well dried in this way, a
little gold size can be applied to the edges with perfect safety
against its running in. A very simple and almost universally
applicable cell I have recently made in the following manner :
My friend Win. Streeter, foreman in the works of Sargent &
Greenleaf, of Rochester, makes a neat little double punch for
the purpose of cutting out narrow circles from the thin colored
sheets of wax used by artificial flower-makers. Either single,
doubled or three-folded sheets can be used, according to the
thickness of cell that may be required. These circles may be
fastened on the slide, either by shellac cement or by simply
warming the slide. Then over all the cell, both inside and out,
a coating of gold size or of marine glue dissolved in coal naphtha,
must be spread with a camel's hair brush. When this is dry we
have a cell beautifully colored, and proof against all the fluid
158 PREPARATION AND MOUNTING OF DOUBLE STAININGS.
media which one may have occasion to use in mounting. Besides,
the cell is always soft enough to have the thin glass cover pressed
into perfect contact with it all around, which is the great requis-
ite in all fluid mountings. It should afterward be finished on
the outside with Brunswick black or shellac cement to form a
firm support to the thin glass cover.
REPLY TO THE QUESTIONS RAISED IN THE DISCUSSION
'OF THE PAPER.
In answer to the objections which have been made to the use
of chlorinated soda, on the ground that it is liable to destroy
the structure of tender vegetable substances, I wTould say that if
leaves are dried and pressed, or stems are first dried and then
soaked before cutting into sections, they will not be injuriously
affected by the soda solution. At least that has been my experi-
ence. I am informed however that there are preperations sold
under the name of chlorinated soda, which are imperfectly sat-
urated with chlorine ; and consequently are still strongly alkaline.
These would naturally have the effect to destroy organic struc-
tures. Moreover, if this solution is exposed much to the light
there is a precipitate formed and deposited, which may leave the
fluid more strongly alkaline and therefore more destructive in
its effects upon vegetable tissues. The preparation known as
Labarraque's fluid, imported from France, is perhaps the most
reliable for bleaching purposes, though somewhat more expensive
than the home-made chlorinated soda solution.
In regard to decolorizing vegetable substances by soaking in
alcohol, this may be very well with thin and tender specimens,
and where the object is to exhibit the cell contents ; but where
the object is to show the cellular structure or the fibro-vascular
tissues, I think that the results will be more satisfactory in the
use of the stronger chlorinated solution, which removes entirely
the cell contents, and makes the specimen more transparent, and
in my view far more beautiful.
SOME NEW FORMS OF MOUNTING.*
I have the pleasure of offering, as my contribution to the
Microscopical Congress, a brief description of some recent
methods which I have used in the preparation of slides. The
cement which is essential to these processes, and which I regard
as the most important working material of the microscopist, is
shellac varnish, prepared in the following simple manner : The
white clarified stick-shellac is dissolved in alcohol, and filtered
through cotton once or more times until it is quite clear and
transparent. As the filtering is a somewhat difficult operation,
it will probably be best for most persons wanting it, to let the
druggist make this preparation for them. With this cement I
build up a cell as deep, and perhaps as quickly, as one can be
made with a curtain ring, painted up as it usually is. As much
as one or two drops of the cement can be put on a slide with a
brush, using the turn-table, and then slowly worked up into a
narrow ring with the point of a small knife-blade held on the
turning slide. When this has dried a day or two, another layer
can be put on and worked up in the same way. Three or four
such layers will be sufficient for almost any cell, and it can then
be dried in the heating oven and laid aside for future use. By
carrying along a dozen or two slides at a time, one will find great
economy both of time and labor. These rings, being transparent,
are admirably adapted for opaque mountings that may be used
with the Lieberkuhn.
If common curtain rings are cemented to slides with the
shellac cement colored with aniline blue, the joined edges of the
brass film of which they are made being on the glass, and then
* A Paper read before the National Microscopical Congress, held at Indian-
apolis, August, 1879, and published in its Proceedings.
160 SOME NEW FORMS OF MOUNTING.
subjected to a slowly increasing heat until the cement begins to
burn, a very beautiful appearance is given to the under side of
the ring, a circle of minute golden links, as seen in the specimens
which I offer for your inspection. These rings can then be
painted on the turn-table according to one's fancy, and used as
cells for any kind of mounting.
I use this cement, colored with the various aniline dyes which
are soluble in alcohol, for painting and finishing slides. These
colors are far superior, for all purposes of ornamentation, to any
other materials or devices of painting. They dry quickly, and
adhere to glass with greater tenacity than any other cements that
I have ever used.
For a cell that will perfectly withstand the action of Canada
balsam or turpentine, I make use of shellac cement colored with
aniline blue, in the following manner : After a cell of the
required depth has been made on the slide, and pretty thoroughly
dried in the usual way, it is heated on the heating table, lightly
at first, in order to avoid bubbles, then gradually increasing the
heat until the cement commences to smoke and the color to burn
out. By heating one side of the ring a very little more than the
other, as may be done over an alcohol lamp, a part may be left
blue, while the rest is yellow or reddish, which has a very pretty
effect under Canada balsam. These cells are hard as bone, and
can scarcely be cut from the glass. Balsam has no effect on
them whatever. Slides may be finished off outside with
liquid balsam, made true and circular with the point of a knife
on the turn-table. In a few days, or in a shorter time by using
the oven, they will be ready to clean and lay away. The cells
which I have described are the only cement cells that can be
used with Canada balsam. They are particularly adapted to
vegetable stainings, algae, and other preparations, either too thick
or too tender to be mounted in balsam without something to
sustain the thin glass covers.
In opaque mountings, where cements of any kind are used
either for backgrounds or to hold objects in place, I have found
it highly advantageous to leave on or in the lower part of the
ring, a minute aperture opening into the cell, not necessarily
SOME NEW FORMS' OF MOUNTING. 161
larger than a fine cambric needle would make. With this pro-
vision both the cell and the cements go on drying, and there is
no sinking in nor moving about of the objects in the cements
which hold them. But if the cell be hermetically closed, one
may almost certainly expect that the beautiful shell or other
object will sooner or later be overwhelmed in a black sea. I*
have lost in this way scores of foraminifera and coralline speci-
mens on which I had expended a great deal of labor. If curtain
rings are used for the cell, a little notch can be filed in the under
side of it, and this be left open on the lower side of the slide
when finished.
If the opaque mountings are for dry objects, I make in the
center of the ring a disk of Brunswick black, or white zinc, ac-
cording as the object to be shown is white or dark. It may be
5-16 of an inch in diameter for the Lieberkuhn of the 1^ inch
objective, but not over a quarter of an inch for that of the two-
thirds objective. After the cement is dry and quite hard, a
•slight coat of balsam is spread over it, and the objects placed in
this and arranged, if necessary, under the microscope. The slide
is then set aside to dry, and may be covered safely the next day.
If the objects to be mounted will bear immersion in balsam,
as shells, plant seeds, minerals, etc., I pursue the following plan :
The thin glass covers are cemented to some old slips, which aret
kept for that purpose, by two or three touches of balsam applied
at the edge of the cover. Care is taken in this, and in all cases,
to accurately center all work on the slides by means of the self-
centering turn-table. Then, on a light coating of balsam in the
center of the cover, the objects, whatever they may be, are placed
and arranged. When quite dry, and the 'objects are thus securely
fastened, they may be completely covered by balsam, and put
into the drying oven until thoroughly hardened. Then, over the
balsam, Brunswick black, if the objects are white, or white zinc
cement, if they are dark or high colored, may be spread, by thin
layers at first, each being dried in the open air for a day before
the next is applied, until there is an opaque covering to the ob-
jects. The thin glass cover is now to be thoroughly cleaned
around the objects and then removed from the slip by a slight
162 SOME NEW FORMS OF MOUNTING. •
heating, just sufficient to loosen it. It can then be turned over
and mounted on the cell designed for it.
The best preparation for fastening the cover to the cell is gela-
tine, dissolved in water, with enough alcohol added to liquify it
from the jelly state. I place the thin glass on the cell, and then
apply the gelatine solution with a brush around the edges, leav-
ing the little opening on the lower side. Just enough of the
water cement seems to run in under the glass, and to dry just
where it is placed. Afterwards the cell may be finished with
liquid balsam, carefully avoiding the little aperture, and the
outer edge gathered up into a neat trim little circle, with the
point of a knife on the turn-table.
The last and most important recommendation which I have to
make, is the strict observance of every rule and precaution tend-
ing to neatness and cleanliness. There is a world of beauty and
delight in the revelations of the microscope; and there is a
peculiar fitness that all the surroundings should be likewise
lovely. Whenever I receive a mounted object disfigured with
dirt or fibres, with ragged or unfinished settings, I write another
name in the already very considerable list of "Exchangers to be
avoided."
THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS PREPARATIONS/
The more I study the wonderful revelations of the microscope,
the more I seem to realize that there are two distinct worlds of
vision, with a well-defined line of demarkatiori between them.
The one is the world of our natural vision — the beautiful display
of nature which is ever before our eyes. The other is the world
which the powers of magnified vision have in these latter days
unfolded to us. The things which are beautiful and interesting
to the unaided eye, are not the things which are beautiful and
interesting under the microscope.
The exquisitely colored plumage of some birds, even the bril-
liant feathers on the breasts of tropical humming-birds, are coarse
and unattractive objects when magnified sufficiently to bring out
their true structure. IsTot that the feathers of birds do not fur-
nish some very beautiful microscopic objects. The structure of
the fibers of the minute down feathers of some birds, composed
of little cones, the black point of each just inserted into the
white mouth of the one next below it, the exceedingly minute
booklets and barbed fibrils which unite the edges of the vanes of
common feathers, are striking and interesting objects. But they
are not the things that contribute to the visible attractions of
the feathered tribes.
The gaudy colors on the wings of butterflies are among the
coarsest and most ill-defined of objects under low powers of the
microscope. But the exquisitely wrought and beautifully paint-
ed scales which the high powers bring out, regularly laid like
tiles on both sides of the wings, and which the naked eye fails to
* Lecture written in 1881, and read before various societies, with exhibition
of specimens.
164 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS PREPARATIONS.
discover except as the finest dust, are objects which once seen
will never be forgotten.
The ever varied and delightful colorings of the flowers have
no beauty under the microscope. But if you examine those
gaily colored stamens and pistils under a magnifying power of
about a hundred diameters, you will see, adhering to them in
myriads, minute grains of pollen of exquisite pattern and beauty.
They are the object of all the growth and the display of the
flowers; but are things which no eye had seen, save as an impal-
pable powder, until the microscope revealed them.
So through all the list of objects in nature, with hardly an ex-
ception, the things which strike our eyes and that we call so
beautiful, are not the things which will bear the enlargement of
microscopic vision. And it seems to me that there is a natural
boundary — a line of demarkation — between these two realms of
vision ; as if each had been produced for its own particular and
separate purpose. We can readily understand the reason of the
development of that which through all time has pleased or served
the eye of man. Every thing in nature, it is said, at least in or-
ganic nature, has its utility, its adaptation to some useful end.
But of what use could be the production or development of colors
or forms or beauties, other than such as can be seen by ordinary
eyes? And there are no indications, so far as we can judge upon
optical principles or by comparative anatomy, that any other
eyes see images much more magnified than do ours. I may then
propound the questions which have so often puzzled me : "Why
was this nether world, this microscopic world, which is vaster in
its limits and more wonderful than the other, which no eye had
seen or could see, before the invention of compound lenses some
three hundred years. ago, why or how was this world ever brought
into being, at least in such beauty and marvelousness ? Why the
almost inconceivably minute and accurate rulings and curves and
radials on the shells of the lowly diatoms, when there were no
senses that could perceive them ? Why the complicate clottings
and etchings on the almost invisible scales of the insect tribes,
when there was no vision in the world that could see them ?
But children can ask questions which the philosophers cannot
THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS PREPARATIONS. 165
answer ; and so far as I know, I have just been asking precisely
such questions.
There is a lively little insect, the largest of which is not more
than the tenth of an inch long, called the Spring-tail or Podnra,
found in damp saw-dust in wine cellars, or in any moist and pro-
tected places near decaying wood. You may catch or collect
them by sprinkling a little flour on a piece of paper and placing
it near their resorts. The body of this insect is covered with
minute scales, remarkable for their almost infinitesimal markings.
The finest line that can be made, visible to the unaided eye, is
about the 250th of an inch in breadth. The rulings on writing
paper are at least five times as broad, or about the 50th of an
inch in width. Now across that finest line, which you can only
see as a mere mark without breadth at all, as many as four or five
of these Podura scales could be placed side by side. And across
each scale in waving lines are rows of forty or fifty dashes, like
exclamation points, side by side. This makes them, as you may
readily figure, about 50,000 to the inch. This Podura scale used
to be the test for the highest powers of the microscope ; but now
object glasses are made of such perfection that test objects
of double that number of lines to the inch are required. These
are found in the shells of a certain diatom, the Amphipleura
pellucida, found quite common in almost any pool or rivulet.
The rulings or striae running across the frustules of this diatom
are as fine as anything that has as yet been found in nature, ex-
ceeding in some cases 100,000 to the inch. Yet Dr. Woodward,
of Washington, has repeatedly photographed portions of this
shell, showing distinctly and clearly markings so fine that 400 of
them might be drawn lengthwise on the finest line that you can
see with the naked eye.
But I did not come before you to-night to speak of the most
difficult of the objects which this instrument resolves ; but
rather of the beautiful and interesting preparations, requiring
not nearly so high a power and satisfying something more than
curiosity. I am myself inclined to search for the attractive and
the beautiful for exhibition with the microscope ; and whenever
I find anything that satisfies in those respects, I am very apt to
166 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS PREPARATIONS.
make a study of it— to find out all I can of its intimate structure,
and of the life history connected with it if it is an organism.
So if there is anything of interest to you in my talk this evening
it must come from these special studies.
When I came home from Florida last winter, I brought with me
some herbarium specimens of nearly all the insectivorous plants
—those which catch and digest insects in some way or other as
a part of their food. Among them are these leaves of the
Pitcher plant, some species of which you have probably all seen.
This is the Sarracenia variolaris which grows only in the Southern
States that are on the Atlantic coast. The leaves are composed
of a hollow conical tube running down to a point on the stem, of
a projecting wing or flange which follows all the way up on the
inner side of the leaf, and of a hood which in this species arches
over the entire opening of the tube. This tube during the
growing season is usually nearly full of water, which we must
suppose to be secreted and furnished by the leaf itself, because
the hood would effectually keep out all rain water. At the bot-
tom of the tube is a perfect mass of the hard and indigestible
parts of insects — heads by the hundreds — a veritable Golgotha
of skulls. Now it is evident that there must be something about
these leaves that is very attractive to insects, in order to make
them go in under that suspicious looking monk's-hood ; and then
some further peculiarity that makes them fall in such numbers
into the well below. Insects do not drop into ordinary receptacles
of water in that way ; for if they did there would soon be none
left to fall into anything.
Mrs. Treat, of Yineland, N. J., who is quite an observer and
writer on the insectivorous plants, says that the edge of the wing
secretes a sweet and intoxicating fluid which, as the flies drink it,
and at the same time crawl up the blade, gradually inebriates
them until, as they rise over the lid of the tube, they tumble
headlong into the well beneath. I do not myself think it is
necessary to suppose anything more than an ordinary sweet
secretion from the glands which are specially numerous under
the hood and all around the mouth of the tube. When I show
you, under the microscope, the formidable array of bristling
THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS PREPARATIONS. 167
spikes and pointed scales which lines the whole inside of the
tube, all pointing downwards, and especially the strong pike-
pointed lances which are thickly set under the hood and on the
inner margins of the lid, all pointing backward and downward,
you will not wonder that when a fly has once entered those
horrid portals he is inevitably lost. There is only one way for
him to go, and that is straight downward. I could not imagine
a more perfect fly-trap, a more dangerous den for an unwary in-
sect to get into. And I have no doubt that many a poor fly at
the bottom of that charnel house has recalled his Virgil :
" Facilis descensus averno est;
Sed revocare gradum — hoc opum, hie labor est."
To help you that are not versed in fly-talk, shall I give you
Dryden's beautiful translation of that passage ?
" The gates of hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way :
But to return, and view the cheerful skies —
In this the task and mighty labor lies."
In order to make the structure of the inside of the pitcher
plant leaf at all apparent and in condition to be seen, I was
obliged not only to remove the original coloring matter of the
leaf by soaking in chlorinated soda, but also to separate the inner
cuticle or skin, which holds all the hairs and spikes and glands,
from the rest of the leaf by immersion for a time in a weak
solution of potash. Of course the cuticle, thus prepared, has to
be again artificially colored in anilines or other colors, in order
to make the different parts and structures distinguishable.
The Utricularia, or Bladder-wort, is another very singular
insectivorous plant. It grows on the water, on the surface of
shallow ponds, but is not rooted to the ground. It spreads out
from five to seven leaves, like the spokes of a wheel, on the sur-
face of the water, and these are buoyed up by numerous little
air bladders. From the center of these leaves the plant sends
upwards its flower stalk, and downwards its root-like branches.
These latter bear, among their finely branching fibers, great
numbers of little egg-shaped bladders or utricles, not larger than
the head of a pin. These bladders have at one end a cunningly
arranged mouth, or rather lid, opening inwards, and surrounded
168 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS PREPARATIONS.
by some bristling branching hairs. Through this mouth and
into the cavity of the utricle, quantities of microscopic insects,
water fleas, and animalcules, in some way or other find their way,
and are there digested and absorbed with the exception of their
hard parts. What brings so many of the tiny denizens of the
water to crowd themselves into these uninviting little prison
houses, is I think still a good deal of a mystery. The prey
caught is indiscriminately animal and vegetable eating organisms,
and even larvae and floating pollen grains. So that it cannot be
a secretion of any kind which attracts so various an assemblage
of aquatic animals and things. The bristles around the mouth
are so arranged as to form a kind of open-work funnel, conduct-
ing directly to the valve which closes the mouth. The writers
on the subject, Darwin and others, seem to think that chance and
curiosity alone conduct the prey to and into the orifice. I hardly
think that these would account for the presence of all and so
many of the things which, as you will have an opportunity to
see for yourselves, are found within the bladders. I think that
the lid is sensitive to the touch or irritation of anything lying
upon it, and opens with a quick motion, engulfing whatever may
be near it. We have plenty of instances of such sensitive
movements in other plants of similar habits.
But how strange it is that down in the water there should be
this little carnivorous vegetable, lying in wait for its prey, and
like a great shark ready to turn up its mouth and swallow any-
thing and everything that happens to come along. Really our
ideas of the distinction between animals and plants are quite
disturbed by the performances of these animal-eating plants.
I have here a preparation of a small portion of the fruiting
stalk of a greenhouse fern, called Aneimia Mexicana. It pro-
duces its spores on a stalk which grows up from the top of a leaf
stalk, and the spores are like the pollen grains of the mallows
and abutilons ; in both which respects it is quite unique and
remarkable among ferns. It makes a very beautiful object under
dark field illumination, as I will show you later in the evening.
It is a very pretty experiment to place the spores of a fern on a
piece of porous sandstone, partly immersed in a saucer of water,
f
g> "*
a«
§5
n
11
a
.
THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS PREPARATIONS. 169
and to watch their growth. You would be surprised, if you did
not already know the fact, to see that the spores did not, like
seeds, produce ferns or anything like them. They produce what
is called " the nurse " of the future generation of ferns. It is
a plant resembling another and a lower order than the ferns
themselves : a little flat leaf with a tiny stalk and root imme-
diately under the middle of it. On this leaf when mature, little
projections arise, in a certain number of which are developed
minute spiral sperm-cells with vibratile cilia at one end of them,
which finally leave the cases in which they were produced and
wriggle about in a lively manner over the surface of the leaf.
In the meanwhile another but much smaller number of the pro-
jections develop into stationary germ cells ; and into these germ
cells the active little motile cells eventually find their way, thus
fructifying the germ, which immediately commences to throw
down a separate root and to develop into the true fern. It is a
case of alternate generation among plants ; and it is the same
kind of reproduction which is so common among the lower
orders of animals, the invertebrates, in which one kind of animal
produces another entirely unlike itself, which in its turn produces
the first kind again. Both the plants and the animals which
undergo this strange kind of generation, lived and flourished
together, and possessed the earth all by themselves, in that far
olden time when .the coal beds were being made. And up to
this time there had not been an " herb yielding seed " nor a
" tree yielding fruit after its kind " on the earth. Apparently
the sublime narrative of organic creation given in Genesis, com-
mences at this point.
It has been objected to the method of preparing such speci-
mens as I have described to you — that is by decolorizing them
and then staining them in various colors — that they are unnat-
ural, that there are no such things thus colored in all the realm
of the vegetable kingdom. This objection formed the burden
of a very caustic article published some months ago by a distin-
guished microscopist. He was immediately replied to by such a
number of infuriated preparers that, so far as I know, the
distinguished microscopist has never opened his head since.
170 THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS PREPARATIONS.
The fact is, that in order to display at all the internal structure
and modes of growth of vegetable tissues, and the delicate
glands and organs which make up the vegetable economy, it is
necessary to make the specimens transparent by dissolving out,
in some way, the green chlorophyl. Alcohol will do this, but it
usually takes quite a long time. The chlorinated soda solution,
sold by druggists as a disinfectant, will do it much more effectu-
ally, and in a few hours time. After this operation, we have an
object which is certainly translucent, but the parts are of such
uniform brightness that they are not readily distinguishable one
from the other. It is necessary again to slightly color them, in
order to obstruct some portion of the light, and to contrast one
organ or tissue with another. Here comes in the art of the
microscopist. Without effacing a mark or destroying the faintest
tracing in his picture of nature's work he can give it to you in
oscuro, in monochrome, or in varied and contrasting colors. And
when you see that beauty of coloring in no wise detracts from
the naturalness of organs or tissues, or from the true representa-
tion of vegetable growth and processes, I think you will accord
to the enthusiast of this art, the painters' freest license.
My friends, I have given you a brief introduction to one of
the most interesting of the sciences — one which lies at the
foundation of all the natural sciences, for the microscope is now
the indispensable instrument in all physical research — one which
opens up more vistas of knowledge and of exploration than any
other branch of experimental physics — and one the merits of
which, I am happy to say, are being every day more appreciated.
I even cherish the hope to live to see the day when its claims as
a distinct and worthy science shall penetrate the incrusted hel-
mets of the heads of our learned universities — when its manip-
ulations, its processes, and its investigations shall be considered
equally important teachings with the reactions of chemical
agents, and the work and handicraft of the laboratory.
DIVERSITY OF RACES.5
There is a problem yet to be solved in the history of man,
which is now the occasion of much uncertainty and mystery in
its records. It is the problem of the origin of races — a question,
the solution of which alone will account for those strange diver-
sities in organization, in civilization, and in character, which so
distinctly divide the families of mankind. It lies then at the
very foundation of the philosophy of history. But so involved
is it in mythical fable and allegory, so obscured by dark and
varying traditions, that he who, in history and nature, would
search out data for conclusions, must content himself with only
arriving at probabilities, or perhaps merely indicating a course
for further investigations. And that we are authorized, and even
called upon in seeking out the origin of races, to look beyond reve-
lation, will be readily conceded by those who consider the very
different construction from the popular one, which science has
placed on the Mosaic account of the world's beginning. Nor are
we forbidden to reason on this subject because we may not as yet
be able to establish the correctness of a different and better inter-
pretation. It required ages to explain the allegory of inanimate
creation ; and it will yet require years of laborious research to
remove all the mystery of man's origin.
* Written in 1849 for one of the Senior prizes of Yale College. The writer
was called up by President Woolsey and Prof. Larned, and told that the
Faculty adjudged the essay worthy of the prize in a literary point of view,
but could not award it in this case because they did not consider the article
orthodox, and could not do anything to encourage such writings. It was at
once demanded by the students and published in the Yale Literary Magazine
for April, 1849.
172 DIVERSITY OF RACES.
To him who looks out on the world with an inquiring eye, it
would seem that there could remain no longer a doubt in regard
to diversities in the human family, independent of climatic and
sectional influences. For over all the earth, wherever man is
found, he beholds the unvarying marks of species; but not a
trace of any uniform effects from either heat or cold, fertility or
barrenness. From the bleak and inhospitable regions of Terra
del Fnego, through the torrid Pampas and forests of the Ama-
zon, as far as to the icy abode of the Esquimaux, the American
Aborigines are physically the same.* The negroes of Van
Dieman's Landf and Caffraria^: are even darker in complexion
than the Abyssins,§ the GallasJ and numerous tribes of Ethiopia,
which roam beneath the scorching sun of the Line. The white
man possesses the same organization on the cheerless mountains
of Caucasus as in the loveliest valleys of the Rhine. And the black
man is the same, whether on the arid wastes of his native Nig-
ritia, or the exuberant fields of the American States. Local
influence may affect its subject for a season or a life ; but it has
never wrought an hereditary change. The same sun in his round
of ages could never have bleached the European and blackened
the African, or tinged the Asiatic with yellow and the Indian
with red. Uniformity without variableness is the offspring of
nature; and when we find this following not in the train of ex-
traneous causes, we must turn to race itself as the key to the
mystery.
Behold then the world divided not less into continents than it
is by families of men. Australia, and South Africa whither the
roving Arab has not fought his way, present a species of the
most distinct character, stamped as it is with the impress of its
own degradation. The Aborigines of the New World bear every
mark of a peculiar people. As the beings of a day, in their
slender proportions and delicate hue, they exhibit the signs of
their own evanescence. Asia teems with its countless myriads,
*Malte Brun's " Univ. Geog." Boston Ed. of 8 vols., vol. 5, p. 15.
fMalteBrun, vol. 1, p. 547.
tPrichard's " Phys. Hist, of Mankind," 3d Ed., Lond., vol. 2, p. 289.
gPrickard, vol. 2, p. 136. || Priclmrd, vol. 2, p. 15G.
DIVERSITY OF RACES.
and, though varying somewhat among themselves, yet all together
bearing a sufficient resemblance to distinguish them from every
race besides. Europe too appears proudly exhibiting its charac-
teristic species. And what is yet more striking, under similar
circumstances and the same climate in which is found every
variety of mankind, this continent alone affords the spectacle of
an aboriginal white man.
Such are the physical diversities of races. But there is a still
more marked distinction appearing in their psychical characters ;
between which and the former, there is an obvious but strange
connection. One race seems as it were set aside by the hand of
Providence for a doom of the most dismal degradation. Another
appears sadly fated to grope ever in mere conceptions of wild
sports here and hunting grounds hereafter. A third, amid all
the elements of progress, is bound down under an immutable
conservatism. While yet another seems equally destined, and
rapidly speeding on, to the highest perfection of humanity.
Those lands of the Negro to which the dim light of Islam or
the rays of foreign culture have never penetrated, present the
gloomiest picture of man. It is there that he has arisen in no
sense above an instinctive existence. Without a letter or symbol
of language, barren and blank in intellect, aroused from habitual
stupor only by the clang of horrid dissonance, like the brute he.
lives, and seems like the brute to pass away. The American
Indians are a people of unique character, having many noble
traits, but wholly incapable of permanent civilization or improve-
ment. They seem to have been created merely to be the tenants
of an unoccupied territory, till in the fullness of time it should
become the home of a mightier race. That time has come, and
now before the white man they vanish like a breath of air, and
soon will be numbered only by their bleaching bones on our
plains. Wide over the continent of the orient dwells another
race, midway in the ascent of civilization. It is here that man,
with every incentive of a bountiful nature and of rich discover-
ies, as it were with the thread of his own destiny in his hands,
has plodded on for untold ages in the same profitless round.
Nations here have sprung up in a day, have swept like the storm-
174 DIVERSITY OF RACES.
king over all the East, and again as speedily have disappeared.
Here unceasingly, since the earth has been tenanted by man, has
been witnessed the spectacle of myriads jostling against myriads,
of empires clashing with empires ; yet Asia is Asia still, a vast
sea of humanity that stagnates over half the world. From these
sad contemplations we turn to Europe, the birth-place of pro-
gress, the home of refinement. Select from the chart of earth
that spot, the blackest with mountains, the most jagged with
stormy seas, and every way the most unpromising of any the
sun beholds, and you have marked the land of civilization's
nativity. In this bleak corner sprung up those fair favorites of
nature who have ever gloried in advancement as the state alone
congenial to them, and who are nobly bearing onward all that is
enlightened in humanity.
Who now will say, what, other than native character, produced
these astonishing differences? What, but the impress of the
Creator's hand at their origin, made the white man civilized, the
dark man half civilized, the red man savage, and the black man
brutish ? It is no answer to say that education or state of society
might gradually have wrought the diversity; for the question
again reverts back upon those very influences ; and we ask, what
occasioned their existence, or what brought them to affect separ-
ately each species as a whole, distinguishing it from every other ?
Again, who will show the external causes which have made
the European, from the very infancy of his being, the lord and
arbiter of earth? Behold the monuments of the Macedonian,
reared on the Indus and on the Nile. Behold Asia and Africa
cowering before the resistless Csesars. The hosts of Persia cross
into Europe for conquest, but scatter in fright and dismay when
the bold Greek comes out to battle. The Saracens make the
sweeping circuit of the " midland sea," and plant the crescent of
Islam in the heart of Europe ; but speedily again recoil before
the chivalrous Franks. The Spaniards' rude cannon is heard on
the plains of the Aztecs, and forthwith the conquest of the
" White Gods" is extended wide as their terrible fame. While
the dark races have ever bowed a willing neck to the most abject
'despotisms, and while every revolution throughout the East has
DIVERSITY OF EACES. 175
but reproduced this same sad feature of enslavement, tlie Euro-
pean has unceasingly fostered the principles of freedom, and
every governmental change, from the earliest times to the
present, has served but to make more republican his civil insti-
tutions. This same democratic element we find in the municipal
structures of the Greek and Roman republics, as also in the laws
of the ancient Briton and German ; and beyond this race the
world presents no other such spectacle. Men in early stages of
society have wrought out for themselves two distinct forms of
natural religion; and these, if any thing can, must indicate
original character. We find then the most prevalent to be a
symbolical idolatry, a gross materialism, which formed the cum-
brous machinery of the worship of the brutes, of " stocks and
stones," or of the celestial orbs. Such are Fetich ism, Shamanism,
Boodhisrn, and the varied forms of Pantheism and Sabeism.
The other is a personified mythology, a beautiful idealism ; in
which alone is recognized the existence of an extra-mundane
God. This religion, whether figured under its Saturn or Zeus,
its Odin or Veli-bog, is the only and peculiar creation of the
white man.* Over all the East, the South, and the West, polyg-
amy and sensuality have reigned with unbridled license. How
different, how chaste and pure comparatively, has been society in
Europe from the very infancy of its nations ! Here too, on the
soil of this small continent, mind has cast off its shackles and
widened its realm, till now the very elements of nature and the
attributes of force are subservient to its uses and pleasure. By
the beautiful art of stamping thought, the dead live on in all
their former greatness. By simply poising the magnet, the
trackless ocean at once lost its terrors, and New Worlds loomed
up beyond it. The lawless vapor of the sky is bolted in, and
made to bear man's burdens. The sun stoops to paint his image,
and the lightning does his errands. The recesses of thought,
too, open to the light of day their own dark caverns, and mind
explores the mystery of mind. But beyond his native home,
wherever the white man has appeared to assert his supremacy of
intellect, . the spectacle is still the same. Long ages back he mys-
» .
* Prichard, vol. 3, p. 12.
176 DIVERSITY OF RACES.
teriously came to the wilds of this Western Continent, and
started into magic being a beautiful but frail civilization ; and
long did the red man worship his " white and bearded god." *
The fair sons of Circassia have formed for centuries the ruling
castes of Egypt and either Turkey ;f and many a once humble
merchant on the Thames or Zuider Zee, is now basking in
oriental state.
Such is European superiority. And we say again, let him who
can assign it an impersonal cause. It is vain to point to any
tendencies in the natural world ; for these cannot produce genius ;
nor often have they favored its development. Equally vain is it
to refer the cause to a concurrence of circumstances ; the chances
against which, even if any could be conjectured sufficient to the
effect, would be beyond computation. Again must we revert to
native character. And, as we behold a Newton born to great-
ness, so must we regard this race as created to its supremacy.
At intervals down through the generations of men, the Creator
has seen fit to send forth some giant mind, whose capacities
should astonish, or whose might awe, the wondering pigmies
beneath it. So likewise, to vary the monotony of ages, has He
ushered into being a powerful race, a master-piece of His mys-
terious workmanship, whose Titan arms should wield the
destinies of a benighted world. Why He has wrought in His
Creation so incomprehensibly, it may not be for us to inquire.
The Lord God made it so, and it is good.
It is an opinion quite common in regard to the origin of races,
that it is referable to a period immediately following the Deluge,
and to those descendants of Noah who received divine blessings
or curses. This however is founded, we think, on no direct
authority of Holy Writ, which, in that connection, specifies only
what may be explained more plausibly by events comparatively
local and immediate. Thus, the malediction on the son of Ham
was fulfilled in the subjection and enslavement of the Canaanites
to Israel ; and the blessing of Shern, in the prosperity of the
Israelites. Surely the assertions that " Japheth shall be enlarged,
*Prescott, "Conq. of Mex." vol. 1, p. 60; .Bradford, "Am. Antiq." p. 301.
fBlackwood Mag. for 1849, vol. 28, p. 134.
DIVERSITY OF RACES. 177
and shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his
servant," are very far from having received their verification in
any past or existing order of things, if these patriarchs were the
authors of races. Again, that the scriptural account of the
Deluge does not necessarily imply its literal universality, we
have very clear evidence, as well as high authority.* And that
it was not in fact universal, is now generally maintained by
scientific men and conceded by most divines. For, to the geolo-
gist, the physical appearance of the earth presents no indications
of a flood prevailing over all lands at one and the same time;
but on the contrary every presumption against it. The natural
historian affirms that the dissemination of animals from one
common center is not only impossible, but contradicted by innu-
merable facts. The theologian perceives the necessity of such
an unparalleled combination of miracles, in the collection, storage,
and sustenance for nearly a year, of over a hundred thousand
zoological species, in an Ark of but an acre's area, that he also is
compelled to assign a comparatively limited extent to the
Noacliian Deluge. f Nor can this tendency of modern science
to modify and explain, by the intervention of natural causes,
the phenomena of Bible history, with the exception of avowed
miracles, be regarded as in the least heretical. So far from it, it
must give us the noblest conceptions of a Deity, to reflect that
the wondrous machinery of the universe, moved and regulated
solely by a few grand laws, works out, of itself, His own eternal
purposes. There is then no necessity, arising either from the
Mosaic records, or the universality of the Flood, for accounting
Noah as the second progenitor of all the human family.
In the days of Abram, the tenth in descent from the patriarch
of the Deluge, Egypt was a populous country, the seat of a
flourishing empire. On the other side, Assyria "of the Chaldees"
was on its march of refinement and magnificence ; and on every
hand we read of " kings of nations," and " captains of hosts,"
coming out to battle on those ancient plains. Before the time of
Moses, in the tomb of Osiris far up the Nile, the Egyptian was
*.Tohn P. Smith's "Relation of Scrip, and Geol.," London, 1830, p. 304.
f John Pye Smith, p. 159.
178 DIVERSITY OF RACES.
painted with all the peculiarities of the Copt at the present day,
and with him were represented the white and blue-eyed stranger
from the North, and the sable sons of the South.* Long back in
time, in the cave of Elephanta, of which not even the ancient
books or traditions of the Brahmins have preserved an account,
were placed the sculptured images of the Indian, the perfect
statues of the modern Hindoo, and of the crisp-haired African. f
Thus to the earliest date of history must we refer the existence
of permanent nations, as also the existence in them and around
them of permanent races. Arid no one will gravely say, that
either through or from Egypt there went out a tribe which was
so soon found to be the ill-formed Negro, from India another
branch which immediately stood forth as the fair Caucasian, and
from China another which appeared as the red race, while the
original families remained of the same dark hue and peculiar
organization.
If now we turn to the researches which have been made in
relation to the antiquity of the old Empires of Asia, we will find
that all antiquarians, without giving the least credence to the
pretensions of those nations to a prodigious age, but judging
from their literature connected with accidental astronomical
observations, have dated back their origin to a period coeval
with, and in most cases long anterior to the scriptural era of the
Deluge. They are united, so far as I have been able to find, in
fixing the dawn of reliable history, in Egypt,;): in either India,§
and in China, | between the first century after and the fifth
before that epoch. And beyond these comparatively authentic
periods, traditions and dark mythologies tell us of wonderful
demi-gods, of dynasties of the sun and moon, of silver and
golden ages, reaching back in time to the day when the fiat of
the Omnipotent spoke man into being. When now we consider
that in those remote ages, many centuries must have been
*Creppo's "Researches of Champollion," p. 264.
f Asiatic Researches, vol. 4, p. 431 and 433.
JPrichard, vol. 2, p. 199. Creppo's Cham., p. 82
gPrichard, vol. 4, p. 105 and 106; also p. 107, note, and vol. 2, p. 195 and
196. Heeren "On Anc. Nat. of Asia," vol. 3, p. 291 and 304.
|| Prichard, vol. 4, p. 474-477.
DIVERSITY OF RACES. 179
requisite for nations to have wandered so far from each other,
over vast tracts of country equally inviting with those they
eventually chose, and with no necessity whatever impelling them
on, and that many more must have been required for them to
have established in those seats, two thousand leagues apart,
splendid and well adjusted monarchies, and to have attained no
inconsiderable advance in science and literature, it verily seems
counter to all probabilities, if not possibilities, to ascribe their
origin to that lone Ark which rested but forty-two centuries
ago on the summit of Mount Ararat.
Thus have we traced the characteristics of races back through
all historic time, and in all probability beyond the age when
righteous Noah was selected to be the head of a favored line.
It remains for us to consider if even further we may not peer
into the dark night of antediluvian ages.
All history, sacred and profane, as well as tradition running far
back of this, establishes the fact that from time immemorial
there has reigned from the Nile to the Hoang Ho, over one-fourth
of the earth's circumference, the same peculiar culture, stamped
with such a striking unity as to be remarked by every antiquary
from Herodotus to the present time. Throughout the realms of
China, India, Assyria, and Egypt, they have found, ever prevail-
ing, the same dogmas in philosophy and religion, the same
institutions and superstitions, the same knowledge in the sciences
and advance in the arts.* Not only were years and cycles
similarly apportioned in many of those nations, but even weeks
were divided alike, and days named after the planets ranged in
precisely the same arbitrary order, f Such coincidences have
compelled all to assign to ancient civilization a common origin.
Is then this origin indigenous or foreign?
That there has been no intercourse between these nations since
the earliest records of history, we have abundant evidence. And
that there was none previously is shown by the fact, that while
the languages in common use in the Old Empires had no simi-
larity whatever and the literature in those languages was wholly
* Prichard, vol. 2, p. 103.
f Ty tier's Univ. Hist., Harper's Fam. Lib. ed., vol. 5, p. 67.
180 DIVERSITY OF RACES.
distinct, the elements of their civilization were almost identical.*
Yet however, many of their sacred books, as the Yedas of the
Brahmins and the Zenda vesta of the Magi, were written in
foreign and similar tongues, but understood only by the priests.
Again this ancient civilization itself bears the marks of a for-
eign origin. It is such a strange composition of refinement and
barbarism, of exalted ideas mingled with the lowest conceptions
of sense, such a peculiar combination of the most refined truths
of religion and philosophy, with a mass of childish superstitions
and ridiculous notions, as to be accounted for on no other suppo-
sition. The Chinese have at the present day implements of
science of the use and application of which they are totally
ignorant. They have been acquainted with the art of printing
for thousands of years ; yet even now it is but a laborious system
of wood-engraving. For ages they have used the magnetic
needle but to gaze at in toys, and have compounded gunpowder
but to blaze in fire-works. The Indians have had many beautiful
specimens of sculpture, but valued them only for filling the
dark and loathsome caves connected with their superstitions.
The Chaldees were conversant with many sublime truths in As-
tronomy, which they brought into use only in reading destinies
in the horoscope. The Egyptians applied a superior knowledge
in architecture only to rear huge pyramids and obelisks to cumber
the earth. In short, over all this vast region, from the Pacific
to the Great Desert, we find the vestiges of a progress far
beyond the genius of the people, the elements of a civilization
which, from their present inferiority, from the history of the
past, and more than all from that eternal immobility which has
stamped its identity on the annals of four thousand years, we
must infer, they never were capable by themselves of acquiring.
It seems as if in remote ages the fragments of some noble and
perfect machinery had been carelessly scattered over Southern
Asia, which a wondering race had preserved as toys or as relics.
The existence of permanent hereditary castes in all the Empires
of the East, from the first faint glimmerings of their history,
*Pricbard. vol. 4, p. 480 and 556. Creppo's Cham., p. 207. Multe Brun,
vol. 1, p. 567.
DIVERSITY OF RACES. 181
would seem to indicate a peculiar foreign agency ; since every
such institution in modern nations, of which an origin has been
recorded, is known to have sprung from the advent of foreigners,
superior either in authority or in native powers. That such was
the case in at least one of the ancient nations, we have the
clearest evidence in the distinctive character of the sacred caste
of the Hindoos, which is acknowledged to be of foreign ex-
traction.*
But further, all the traditions of the East refer the origin of
its literary and religious castes to the distant North. Thither the
Magi and the Zendish priests of Western Asia point as to the
home of their heroes and their gods.f From thence, in remote
antiquity, came down the Brahmins of India, diffusing through-
out the South a foreign culture.^ The Chaldeans are said to
have been strangers in Assyria, whose native land was far among
the Highlands of Upper Asia.§ The priests of Lao-tseu, from
whose system the great Confucius drew the elements of his
practical philosophy, trace back the wanderings of their sect to
the same regions of the North.] That the same early teachers
found their way to the Nile as to the Ganges, is shown from the
fact that, of all nations, no two have ever had more dissimilar
languages, or a more identical cultivation, than Egypt and India.^f
Hence we conclude that the ancient civilization of the East was
there introduced by foreigners, who were so few as to be unable
to change the native tongues of the lands they civilized, as also
that it emanated all from those same lofty table-lands of the bold
Tartar, from which Asia has recruited its dynasties from time
immemorial.
To this tendency of tradition to assign to oriental advance-
ment, dating back with much certainty to diluvian ages, a still
more ancient original in the regions towrard the Arctic, the
accounts of travelers who have penetrated thither add much cor-
roborative evidence. They tell us that over the vast snow-fields
of Siberia and the bleak uplands of Tartary, where now roam a
*Heeren's Asia, vol. 3, p. 279 and 280. §Ib., vol. 4, p. 563.
fPrichard, vol. 4. p. 12 and 49. || Ib., vol. 4, p. 485.
j Ib., vol. 4, p. 244. lib., vol. 2, p. 217.
182 DIVERSITY OF RACES.
few scattered savages gleaning their bare sustenance from a
sterile nature, are to be found the vestiges of an ancient people
which once was numerous, refined, arid powerful. Here have
been discovered in countless numbers ancient mines, quarries,
and tumuli, of which the barbarous tribes which now behold
them with a careless look or a vacant stare, have preserved not
the slightest account or tradition.* In the Ural and Altai Moun-
tains, are mines so long since abandoned that nature has even
already progressed far in the tedious process of filling them
again with the original materials. Quarries also are found,
deeply excavated, and in them the implements of the workmen ;
but the constructions, for which these doubtless afforded mate-
rials, exposed to the elements, have, with but few exceptions,
crumbled to dust. Of the mounds which are scattered up and
down on the banks of the Irtish and Yenisei, many contain
ornaments of gold and copper, beautifully embossed and of
exquisite workmanship ; but others present only the rude relics
of a people who had lived out their day before art was known
or mines were wrought. Would we now follow up the stream
of time to the era when this polished people, from unknown
causes, deserted their primeval seats, and still on to the far more
remote period of their origin ? We pass from age back to age,
from the fall to the rise of mighty empires and religions ; we
trace back the tribes chosen of God, to the patriarchal family of
the Deluge, and yet we have not probably arrived even to the
decline of this ancient race. But a nation springs not, Minerva-
like, into refinement in a day. And we have yet to allow for the
slow progress of man into the arts and inventions of compara-
tively civilized life. Who then, on that scroll of time which
counts its cycles of ages back to those when the giant creatures
of a tropical clime roamed over exuberant plains where are now
the wastes of Siberia, will venture to mark any but a darkly dis-
tant period for the origin of this long since extinct nation.
Again, in Europe, we find the same peculiar phenomena, its
traditions and early history pointing ever northward; while
*Prichard, vol. 4, p. 281; also vol. 5, p. xvii. Malte Brun, vol. 2, p. 394.
Tytler's Hist. vol. 5, p. 73.
DIVERSITY OF RACES. 183
there, profusely spread, are found the vestiges of ancient and
unknown races.* Those strange mounds, called "giant's tombs,"
which have long been the wonder of the Northmen, have opened
up for antiquaries a field of most interesting research. By the
differences, not only in their structure, but in the relics they
contain, there has been made a chronological division of them
into three distinct classes. In the most recent are found various
implements of iron, which metal is known to have been in use
among the tribes of the North long before the Christian era.
Other tumuli, different from these, present only relics of gold,
bronze, and copper, which, before the age of iron, were long the
materials on which was exercised the ingenuity of a polished
race. But in a third series of barrows, by far the most numer-
ous, appear only ornaments of amber and weapons of stone.
Not a trace is here found of any remains that would indicate the
knowledge of metals among the tribes which deposited them.
Both the numerousness of the rude relics of this class, and the
wide extent over which they are spread, bear evidence that the
people who wrought them were for long ages the sole inhabitants
of Northern and Western Europe. What then must be the ex-
treme antiquity of the original race which there began to work
its slow and toilsome way into the advanced state which it
occupied even at a very distant epoch from the earliest date of
its history or traditions ?
Thus have we attempted to thread a few of the windings in
the labyrinth of the past, and have shown, we think, that from
such researches may be deduced the strongest probabilities in
favor of several distinct centers of distribution, and consequently
of the original diversity of races in the human family. Nor can
such a supposition be justly construed as at variance with revela-
tion. That the history of creation in Genesis, so beautifully and
appropriately written thus for the imaginative Jews, is allegori-
cal, science is daily proving more and more conclusively, and the
learned are now agreed in the belief that the true beginning of
things is but darkly figured forth in the work of those six days.
Then why select from the very midst of an otherwise continuous
* Pricliard, vol. 3, p. 294, also p. xvii — xxii.
184 DIVERSITY OF RACES.
allegory, a part only on which to impose a rigidly literal con-
struction. And Moses himself, so far from recording anything
inconsistent with the supposition that there were coternporaries
with Adam, has related many circumstances which can be ex-
plained on no other whatever. The fear of Cain, as he went out
from his father's home, lest those who found him might slay
him ; his marrying and founding a city in the land of Nod, while
yet he was -the only child of the primeval pair ; the circumstance
of "giants in the Earth in those days," ere it was possible for the
human organization thus to have changed ; the marriage of the
" sons of God " with the " daughters of men," which made the
renovation of the chosen people necessary; all imply the exist-
ence of races coeval with the Adamic creation.
This hypothesis moreover explains much that has been myster-
ious both in nature and in history. It alone accounts for those
distinguishing marks in organism which so plainly divide the
world of man; and also for those distinct traits of character
which are deeply impressed on each several kind. It tells how
the American Indian, sequestered from all the world besides,
became the only and ancient tenant of this Western Continent,
and how the European, environed by thronging myriads of a
constitution and capacity totally different, grew up alone and
distinct to his high preeminence. It explains why the Negro in
his benighted home has ever contested sway with the wild roam-
ers of the forest, and never yet has asserted his right of " domin-
ion over the brute," and why the dark race of the Orient has
groveled on in its childhood of ages, as if man had no goal of
destiny in his career through time. It adds the lacking links to
that chain of gradation which is at once the beauty and wonder
of terrestrial creation. And it perfects the range of that beau-
tiful economy of living existences, that whatever variations
nature calls for, the Creator provides.
But beyond the analogies drawm from inferior orders of beings,
there is another and a higher analogy, which seems to force upon
us this theory. No one doubts that the providences as well as
the revelation of the Omnipotent, proclaim man to be an origin-
ally distinct and superior order of animal creation. No one now
New Zealand Chief.
Fiji Warrior.
P^Jj^FlPI "' PI^^T^'"
^i -*_.
Solomon Islander.
High Chief, N. Z.
Chieftainess, N. Z.
New Zealand Girl.
HH^
< ; iii«!r Kate, N. Z. New Zealand Wife. Guide Sophie, N. Z.
Plate XII.— PORTRAITS OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS. See Page xviii.
DIVERSITY OF RACES. 185
supposes that he to whom all nature is made subservient, whose
manor is the Earth, whose realm of thought the Universe, is but
a favored chimpanzee, and undistinguished from it by the cre-
ative hand of the Deity. But there is a particular race of men
in which have always centered His most marked providences.
Yet we are told that this is but a chance variation from the rest ;
as if, while in one case providental agency was applied in aid of
creative power, in another and for the attainment of the same
grand result, He could combine it only with accident. On the
bounds of Europe were erected those mighty barriers of mount-
ains and seas which have ever kept within their own allotted
homes the hordes of Tartary and the nomads of the South, while
that favored land rested in quiet until the dawn of its glorious
day. During more than twenty centuries Jehovah instructed
and watched over His chosen tribes. But when, by His agency,
the civilization of the East had been borne to the classic shores
of Europe, and all things were adapted according to His eternal
purpose, He compelled even reluctant Israel to deliver over to
the favored race the trust of His sacred religion. And again,
when the time had come that the nations of Southern Europe
must be renovated, or Christianity and man's advancement be-
come extinct, He stirred up the countless tribes of the North,
whose incursions beyond the Alps gave the grand impetus to
modern progress. Surely the hand of God has marked the
course of the white man. There is a glorious destiny to which
He is guiding him, and for which He created him. Providence
then, as well as reason and research, indicates an original diver-
sity of races.
CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE.*
In the middle centuries of the Christian era, between two ages
of promise and of progress, occurred the gloomiest period in
human annals. The thousand years that ended with the fifteenth
century have been named, by the common consent of historians,
the dark ages of the world. All the lights of ancient civiliza-
tion were extinguished in the growing darkness of that period.
The grace of Grecian culture and the charm of classic literature
relapsed into ugly wranglings and the empty war of words.
The amenities of social life and the peaceful sway of civil law
sank into the misrule of passion and the lawless reign of feuds.
It was a strange and unaccountable relapse, for the records of
noble civilizations were on the shelves of the monasteries, and
under the dust of ages lay the volumes of the teachers of anti-
quity, of Plato and Socrates, of Euclid and Archimedes, of
Pythagoras and Aristotle. With many of the elements of
knowledge and the revelations of nature, with the unlit lamps of
science and philosophy in their hands, the scholars of the middle
ages groped and stumbled through the night of a thousand
years.
In the year 1346, on the famous battle-field of Crecy, in the
heart of France, thirty thousand Englishmen under Edward the
Third and his son the Black Prince, gave battle to a French
army of four times their number. But from the English van-
guard, we are told, the booming of cannon for the first time
broke in on the clang of spears and the twang of crossbows.
The mail-clad archers were stricken with terror as they saw their
* A Lecture written in I860, and delivered at various places in Illinois.
188 CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE.
ranks plowed by unseen and resistless missiles. One of the finest
armies that France ever raised was that day beaten with the
most fearful slaughter on record. The use of artillery was the
fatal blow to ancient chivalry ; for it rendered useless the brute
courage of hand to hand conflicts, and made the issue of battles
to depend on the element of numbers and guns.
A hundred years later (1450), in the German town of Mentz,
three humble artists,* with the utmost precautions for secrecy,
were working at the mystic art of book making. The unwieldy
but neatly printed folios which they issued were the superstitious
wonder of Christendom. Indeed the pious Parisians burned
their first consignment of books as the work of witchcraft. But
no art was ever more eagerly seized upon by the nations of
Europe than was that of printing. This was a second and a
greater blow dealt at the institutions of the dark ages ; for it
carried knowledge to the fireside of the lowly hamlet, and enabled
the people to form a public opinion, which is the greatest coun-
terpoise of bigotry and oppression.
The fifteenth century, the terminating period of the dark
ages, closed with the announcement of a series of most splendid
geographical discoveries. The Portuguese had boldly pushed
out into the Atlantic and added to their charts the outlying
islands. Columbus from over the western ocean brought the
tidings that he had found the golden Indies. Yasco de Gama
crept around the stormy cape of Africa and reached the Indies
of an opposite hemisphere.
The opening up of new worlds at the same time opened up
new spheres of thought and judgment. The bursting of the
boundaries of the old-world geography had much to do with the
overthrow of the old-world boundaries of creed and opinion.
Within twenty years the heroes of the Reformation were storm-
ing the hoary castles of Romanism. Erasmus was hurling his
satire against monastic ignorance and grimace. Martin Luther
was launching his denunciations against the trafic of indulgences.
And immediately came Calvin and John Knox to sweep up and
clean out the rubbish of Popery.
* Johann Gutenberg, Johaun Faust, and Peter Schoffer.
CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE. 189
In the last half of the sixteenth century literature had its
most flourishing period ; when Queen Elizabeth (1558—1603), as
well from her own elevated tastes as from a peculiar spite at the
Puritans, extended the patronage of royalty to talent, especially
the dramatic ; when Sidney paraded his heroes in the "Arcadia,"
and Spencer sang the allegory of the " Faerie Queen ; " when
Shakspeare new-vamped kings and immortalized them in tragedy,
while " rare Ben. Jonson " did the same for their fools in comedy.
But the brightest constellation of genius was seen rising on the
world in the year sixteen hundred. It was then that Francis
Bacon was preparing the canons of his new philosophy ; that
Napier, the Baron of Merchiston, was following up that splendid
mathematical induction which ended in the discovery of Logar-
ithms ; that Tycho Brahe was just closing at Prague his memor-
able observations on the planets. It was then that Galileo was
wrestling with the forces of nature, making himself strong for
the great contest with the schools, and the fiery Kepler was
searching in the heavens for the unwritten laws of creation.
Thus was science the last-born of the brotherhood of Letters
—the latest but the mightiest leader in the second march of
civilization.
The first and by much the hardest task of every new instructor
is to unteach the errors and unseat the prejudices which have
found a lodgment in the universal mind. For the purpose
therefore of bringing out the earliest struggles of the school of
science, we must first unfold the errors and prejudices with
which it had to contend.
In the scope of the sciences dependent on observation, astrol-
ogy was the great and universal error of the early ages. It was
observed that the sun regulated nearly all the phenomena of
nature, as the growth and death of vegetation, the changes of
seasons and climate, the life and habits of animals. The moon
also had her influences, directly in the ebb and flow of the tides,
indirectly, as was generally thought and as many still think, in
the determination of the weather, and in all the critical condi-
tions of plant and animal life. From such premises the leap to
the conclusion that the planets and the stars had much to do with
190 CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE.
the affairs of men and of kingdoms, was as nothing for the
logical vaulters of those days. In accordance with this theory,
the fixed stars in the zodiac, or sun's path, were divided into
twelve signs, each supposed to preside over a particular part of
the body, as Aries the head, Taurus the neck, and so on. In
this circuit of the heavens were also distributed life and death,
marriage and children, riches and honors, friends and ememies,
and the entire catalogue of human interests and affections.
Then that star of zodiac which rose in the east at the moment of
the birth of any child, became the controlling influence of that
life, and predictions were made for it in all after time according
to the approach of this, its " first house," to the influences of any
planet, the sun or moon.
Through the long night of the middle ages the only observer
in the unexplored realms of nature was the astrologer, who cata-
logued the stars only to fill a fortune-teller's tables, who calculated
the intricate problems of siderial time and the precession of
the equinoxes only to cast back the horoscope, who configured
the mazy paths of the planets only to forecast their influence on
some " star of destiny/' Yet so fascinating were the pretensions
of judicial astrology, so sweeping its generalities, and so vague
its proofs, that it held captive the strongest minds of the age.
Roger Bacon, Kepler, and Francis Bacon consulted its divinations;
Tycho Brahe was extremely credulous of its presages ; and
Cardan, the great algebraist, died to accomplish an astrological
prediction.
In experimental science, the only workers of the middle ages
were the alchemists. In dark and smoky cells, retired or hidden
from the sight of men, untold numbers of these so called chem-
ists wore out their lives at the furnace and smelter. With the
simple furnishment of mortar and crucible, of alembic and
aludel, of quick-silver and amalgams, of aqua fortis and aqua
regia, the old alchemist experimented with untiring iteration for
the three phantoms of the gold-seeker- — the grand alkahest or
universal solvent, the philosopher's stone or the quintessence of
the metals, and the grand elixir or the universal panicea. With
the solvent all the baser metals were to be reduced to their primal
CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE. 191
constituents. With the philosopher's stone the contaminating
elements were to be separated out, until gold the refined and sub-
tle essence of matter remained as the residuum. The grand
elixir was to conquer infirmity and confer upon its imbibers the
immortal youth. On these lofty but futile abstractions the old
enthusiast labored until he was borne from the laboratory to the
cemetery — from the grave of his genius to the grave of the tomb.
So numerous were the votaries who squandered their fortunes
and devoted their lives in these absurd vagaries, that the Catholic
Church found it necessary to fulminate its bulls, and the State to
enact penal statutes against them.
The few mysterious truths of the universe which the astrolo-
gers had discovered, and the few secrets of nature which the
alchemists had elaborated, strange, isolated, and inexplicable,
made even the learned of the dark ages credulous of almost any-
thing. Physical science was magic; and chemistry especially
seemed to have an elective attraction for all that was illusory and
mystical. It was the ghost-time of philosophy ; and all nature
seemed wrapped in a weird portentous shadow. Hence sprung
the dreamy tenets of the Cabalists, the arrogant pretensions of
the Eosicrusians, and the pantheism of the Theosophers.
The first feeble light of science that appeared in the gloom of
the middle ages was Roger Bacon, who figured during the last
half of the thirteenth century. He was acquainted with the
composition of gunpowder, and treated of the wonderful pro-
perties of lenses. He was however accused of having fabricated
a brazen head according to the prescriptions of occult philosophy,
which uttered oracles to him when consulted by magical incan-
tation. He used his new powder to such noisy purpose and his
dark arts with such fearful effect that he became the terror of the
community. He worked also in alchemy, and supposed he had
discovered the great medicine which was to carry him over the
centuries; but at the age of seventy he was poisoned by his
brother Gray-friars, and the grand elixir proved to be a failure.
However, notwithstanding this tinge of folly and superstition,
Roger Bacon had many of the elements of the true philosopher.
He was learned in the languages and in all the physical know-
192 CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE.
ledge of the day. He dared to appeal from the authority of the
schools, from the dicta of Plato and Aristotle, to the guidance
of nature and of reason. For this and his denunciation of their
immorality, he drew upon himself the hostility of the monks
and clergy. On an accusation of studying and practicing magic
he was summoned before a^high Council of the church, his writ-
ings were condemned, and he was sentenced to ten years confine-
ment in his cell.
Roger Bacon was the first to declare that observation and
experiment must be at the foundation of all science, that from
facts we must reason up to principles, a doctrine which was dia-
metrically opposed to all the reasonings and practice of scholastic
philosophy. And it was not until four hundred years later that
these canons of inductive science were successfully established
by his more fortunate and illustrious name-sake, Francis Bacon.
But had the times been ripe for the truth, it is more than prob-
able that the friar would have superceded the chancellor.
Two centuries later in a Benedictine cell the child-worker in
chemistry, Basil Valentine, was experimenting in search of that
fifth element which was to decompose and transmute all the
metals into gold. But while he toiled his life out over this great
delusion he seems to have discovered some of the most import-
ant medicines and chemicals of the early pharmacy. His chief
exultation however was in what he called " the triumphal car of
antimony" — anti-moines — the anti-monk medicine. Tartar
emetic is one of the preparations; and it was said that the old
Doctor once experimented on a convent of monks, and that he
left not a shaven crown of them all. No wonder they thought
that antimony did not exactly agree with monks.
Early in the sixteenth century Bombastes Paracelsus, the last
of the alchemists, was called to a professorship of chemistry in
the University of Bale — a strange erratic man, whose genius
like a meteor flashed across the morning sky — a man of extremes,
on the one hand so learned and eloquent that he carried his aud-
iences whither he would, on the other so vain and boastful that
the word "bombast" has been derived from one of his high
sounding names. His success as a physician bordered on magic,
CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE. 193
liis insolence as a professor bordered on madness. He did not
stop with contemning the time-honored authorities in learning,
but he harangued his crowds of hustling students around fires
that were fed with the books of the schoolmen. With an unspar-
ing hand he laid bare the tricks of pharmacy, the delusions of
astrology, and many assumptions of alchemy. With an insight
as clear as Chancellor Bacon's, he exposed the sophistries of
scholasticism, the futile methods of inquiry, and the utter emp-
tiness of all the philosophy that had gone before. But high
above his practice of physic, his experiments in science, and his
criticisms of the school systems, there seems ever to have flitted
that vague wild conception of something yet unattained — some
potent, dark-hidden essence of matter, which once found would
compel nature to deliver over her riches.
Such was the man who for a time, with his fascinating
eloquence, his inane egotism, and his mad pranks, kept up such
a storm in poor little Bale that the magistrates were forced to
banish him from his chair. Having soon after abandoned him-
self to vice, he sank into infamy, and died wretched and forsaken
at an obscure tavern in Salzburg. But his work was done ; his
errand as a public agitator was accomplished. He was the lump
of acid thrown into the crucible of alkali that had been filling
up for a thousand years, and which ceased not to effervesce till
all was neutralized and purified.
As we approach the dividing line between the old-school and
the new-school philosophers, it will be well to understand fully
the difference between the principles and the modes of thought
that characterized each. We will therefore for a moment com-
pare and contrast the new or inductive method with the old or
deductive system.
It is now well understood that there is but one true way of
prosecuting physical research. Facts, observations and experi-
ments must first of all be gathered together and classified.
From these, conclusions may be formed such as explain or com-
prise each different class of phenomena. From these conclusions,
more general principles may be predicated ; and from these
principles we may step, it may be, to the one law that binds them
194 CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE.
all in harmony. This is the great secret of induction, of the
a-posteriori reasoning, from facts up to general principles.
The opposite method is deduction, or a-priori reasoning, from
general principles down to particular things.
To this latter method the ancients obstinately clung. It is
true that the old Greek mathematicians, reasoning from a few
axioms and general truths, proving each proposition by more
simple demonstrations that had gone before, had deduced a
perfect system of Geometry. But there the utility of the method
ended ; and so far as science is concerned there might just as
well have been a blank from Euclid to Kepler, from Archimedes
to Galileo. Yet who has not read in his classics how those
vaunted philosophers of old labored and struggled to discover
the great axioms of nature, by which to explain the phenomena
of the world about them, on ,which to build their Geometry of
common life ? One makes " fire " the essential matter and origin
of the universe ; another " air ; " a third discovers the key to
every difficulty in the " infinitude of things ; " while a fourth
can invent nothing more unintelligible than " entity and non-
entity." At length came the great authority which was to sway
the opinions of men for two thousand years. Aristotle constructs
his universe on " matter, form, and privation ; " and the phenom-
ena which he cannot bring under this senseless triad of words
are handed over to " occult causes," about which it is forbidden
us to reason. The highest efforts of deductive philosophy served
only to raise standards of profitless phrases, about which argu-
ment and disputation continually revolved. It was the dizzy
dance of error and delusion, in which those who entered, ended
where they began.
In order to show how different was the result when inductive
philosophy was installed in the place of the ancient, allow me to
unfold a few of the steps by which one of the early and most
important discoveries of science was reached, the fact and the
law of the attraction of gravitation. Scarcely two hundred
years ago, Sir Isaac Newton in his garden,* watched with
* During his retirement to Woolsthorpe in 1666, where he went to avoid the
plague.
CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE. 195
thoughtful eye the fall of apples from the tree. Objects fall in
the same manner from the highest elevations on earth, and
meteors fall from unknown heights in the sky. Why then may
not this gravity be a tendency which reaches beyond the earth,
even to the moon ? A stone attached to a string and whirled in
the air, is kept from flying off by the tension of the string.
Why may not gravity be the chain that holds the moon in its
sweep of thousands of miles? Light which emanates from a
central point was known to decrease in intensity in the inverse
proportion of the square of the distance. Analogy would teach
that gravity if it reached out into space would be in accordance
with the same law. If now he could know accurately the moon's
distance and how much it weighed, he could easily figure out the
force which was necessary to hold it in its orbit ; and if it was
the same that the known mass of the earth would exert at that
distance, then his hypothesis would be a proved fact. It was some
years before accurate estimates were made on the elements of his
problem. But ultimately his figures realized his most sanguine
expectations ; and thus was seated on the throne of science the
most potent ruler of the world of facts.
It would be ungenerous to pass on to the child-workers in
science without paying our tribute to the illustrious father of
inductive philosophy. The Novum Organon of Francis Bacon,*
I do not hesitate to say, contains more original thought than any
other book that ever sprung from the genius of man. The world
of literature at the time when he wrote, less than three hundred
years ago, was a dreary waste ; yet this lonely traveler, unaided,
with scarce a finger-board to point his way, has given us the
guide-book of knowledge from that day to this.
With a boldness that startled those rude ages he declared that
philosophy had been going wrong from the foundation of letters ;
that men had sought to make a world from their own conceptions,
and to draw from their own minds the materials which they em-
ployed. They had totally disregarded the facts of nature, and
without any intermediate steps had leaped at once to the most
sweeping and absurd generalizations. The way that promises
* Born in 1561— Died, 1626.
196 CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE.
success, said he, is the reverse of this. It requires that we gen-
eralize slowly, going from particular things to those that are but
one step more general, from those to others of still greater
extent, and so on to such as are universal. He then points out
the various methods of inductive reasoning, their comparative
importance, and the manner in which they are to be used. Not
only does he thus new-create his philosophy, but he is compelled
to originate the examples which illustrate and make it intelligible,
to start in their onward paths the very sciences, then unknown,
whose manual of discovery he was writing. He is as it were the
inventor of some intricate and wonderful machine, but totally
useless until he shall also have discovered materials and commod-
ities on which to set it at work.
The Novum Organon was the work of a life-time. Through-
out a busy and illustrious career of high professional, literary,
and political successes, it was the ever recurring subject of the
author's thought and labor. Revised and rewritten twelve times,
it received year by year the increments of his maturing and
creative mind. It was the work of a seer, of one who forecasted
the future. The founder of the new philosophy wrote for ages
that were to come. He did not expect to be appreciated or
understood -in his own time; neither was he. The king said it
was a book past understanding. Another said it was such a work
as a fool could not write and a wise man would not. Sir Edward
Coke wrote this distich on the title page of his copy :
"It deserveth not to be read in schools,
But only to ballast a ship of fools."
Such a reception of his most labored effort called out that touch-
ing expression in Lord Bacon's will : " I bequeathe my name to
posterity after some time be passed over."
A hundred years before science had its great expounder, away
on the banks of the then lonely Vistula, a young Polish student
was poring over the astronomical system of Ptolemy. The
problem which Copernicus* had set before himself was one of
peculiar difficulty. It was none other than to rearrange the
wheel-work of the stars, to bring order and symmetry into the
* Born in 1473— Died, 1543.
CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE. 197
jumble of machinery and clashing spheres which the ancients
had piled up in the heavens.
According to this labored and complex system, the starry vault
was arched over by a series of spheres of the clearest crystal,
sliding one upon another in grooves or furrows parallel, serpen-
tine, or spiral. No less than twelve of these spheres, or deferents
as they were called, thus spanned the firmament. The outermost
one, the blue empyreal realm of the gods, was the "primiim
mobile" or the chief mover, within which the others grated,
slid, or clashed according to the requirements of the motions
they were set to produce. The fixed stars twinkled in one of
the furthest spheres. Saturn had one all to himself ; so Jupiter
and Mars. The sun was borne onward in another, and the moon
appropriated the lowest. But after all this comfortable arrange-
ment it was found that the planets would not keep their places
in the circles. The sun was much nearer to the earth in winter
than in summer; and the moon strayed into all manner of
devious paths. To arrange for these irregularities, other circles
were framed into the spheres, and the planets and luminaries re-
volved, each its own way, on epicycles whose centers were
carried forward in the deferents. Again, as new variations were
discovered, other wheel-work was added, new grooves were
notched in the solid arches, cycle on epicycle, centric on eccentric
were piled, until the heavens were such an orderless mass of
running gear as would have put to shame the genius of any
modern wheel-wright. Yet this was the time-honored astronomy
of the early centuries, the fondling of philosophy and the dogma
of the church.
On it Copernicus, a traveled and accomplished scholar, labored
for fifteen years, till only getting confusion worse confounded he
finally abandoned the entire system of Ptolemy, fixed the sun in
the center of the universe, and set the other worlds revolving
about it. He gave to the earth the double motion of rotating on
its axis and following the other planets in almost inconceivable
distance and rapidity about the central luminary. It was a bold
and startling hypothesis ; so far beyond all conception that it did
not even disturb the watchful censors of the church of Rome.
198 CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE.
The work which expounded the new doctrine, the " De Revolu-
tionibus," lay unpublished in the study of its author for thirty-
six years ; and even then remained unnoticed for more than fifty
years longer. The fact was, the theory of Copernicus was only
an hypothesis. It could lay no claim to being an inductive dis-
covery, and, until Galileo took hold of it, was no more a proved
fact than were the absurdities of Ptolemy's Almagest. The dis-
coverer himself, so said Kepler, did not seem to know the worth
or extent of his own discovery. He gave the earth's axis an
extra revolution to maintain its parallelism among the fixed stars.
He retained the cumbrous notion of epicycles and eccentrics ;
and only differed from the old masters in idealizing their solid
superstructures, in removing the center of operations and enlarg-
ing their boundaries. He took great credit to himself for so
arranging his running gear as to do away with one set of
Ptolemy's balancing wheels known as the equants. Evidently
the time had not yet arrived for the new school of science.
Fifty years after the death of Copernicus, Kepler* had com-
menced his Herculean labors. Through a mass of figures that
would have terrified a score of other men, he brought to light the
three primary laws of planetary motion. Seemingly simple and
easy of discovery, these laws, which have been of such inesti-
mable service in the advance of knowledge, were yet arrived at
through severer toil and more disheartening failures than have
characterized the establishment of whole sciences since that time.
The only method of calculation that Kepler knew anything
about was, like the process of the school-boy ciphering by " trial
and error," to guess at the answer and then work out the sum as
if it were the true one, then guess again, mayhap a little nearer
correct. Thus did this man of indomitable perseverance, but of
moderate mathematical talents, erect for himself a most stupen-
dous monument of figures and of errors. Thirty ponderous
volumes record his blunders arid their proof. A few choice
pages establish the most fortunate discoveries of science.
And in this I would not be understood to say anything derog-
atory of the remarkable genius of Kepler ; but simply to imply
* Born in 1571— Died, 1630. Wiirtemburg, Germany.
CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE. 199
that he failed to grasp the true, method of discovery. The time
had not then arrived for the systematic researches of induction.
The great school-master of the new system was not yet abroad.
However we cannot but admire the frank unresting mind, the
great honest heart, and the fiery questioning spirit of this medi-
eval philosopher. His writings tell us the whole story of his
mistakes and his successes, his troubles and his rejoicings, his
struggles with thought and his struggles with hunger ; for a life
of bitter want and disappointment had fallen to the lot of this
devoted disciple of learning. " If God stand by me," would he
say, " and look to the victuals, I hope to perform something yet."
His treatise on the perturbations of Mars reveals greater pertur-
bations in his domestic economy. While he searches in vain for
the laws of dependence between the planets and their great
parent the sun, he bemoans equally the feeble dependence
between himself and the numerous little satellites that revolved
about him. His great work, " The Harmonies of the World,"
showed far more the harmonies of a noble spirit that, over the
hardships of poverty, the mortifications of failure, and the
persecutions of the Wiirtemburg doctors, could look calmly and
cheerfully to the glorious meed which posterity would award to
his labors if successful.
Kepler seems to have had a Heaven-born intuition that there
was some law of harmony regulating the movements of the
solar system. But what was the nature of it, or how he came
by the notion, he had no more idea than he had of Newton's
Calculus. Yet he set himself to testing by actual figures and
trial every conceivable relation that a genius peculiarly fertile in
hypotheses could suggest. From Tycho Brahe's observations he
calculated the path of Mars through seven oppositions, figuring
out each ten times. In the absence of logarithms and the aids
of algebra the figures of each calculation covered ten folio pages,
making seven hundred pages in all ; an enormous labor in itself,
but it was only the first step in his tentative process. His object
being to discover what device or complication of curves would
agree with the true observed places of Mars, he tested the circle
in every possible variation of eccentric and epicycle. But none
200 CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE.
of them would give him the true place within eight minutes.
Ten of the best years of Kepler's life were thus spent in trying
to reconcile the planetary motions to the mystic and divine prop-
erties of the circle. At last, from the simple circumstance of
his happening to use the ellipse to facilitate his calculations,
came his first great discovery, that the planets all revolve in
elliptical orbits, witli the sun in one of the foci or centers.
The second law of planetary motion discovered by Kepler,
which is, that a line connecting the sun with any planet would
pass over equal areas in equal time, was rather in the nature of a
mathematical corollary from the first law, and therefore did not
require much time or eifort for its discovery.
But the intuitions, the almost inspirations of Kepler's mind,
that there were definite relations between the distances from the
sun and the periods of revolution of the planets, were not yet
realized ; and so long as those "harmonies of the universe" were
unascertained, he accounted all his other discoveries as nothing.
He therefore commenced at once and over again his dreary wan-
derings in the fields of conjecture. He followed up each
shadowy indication of a relation, till hope was exhausted in that
direction, then turned off to another with the simple regret that
the last had been such a sad thief of his time. He ran down to
their farthest absurdity the vague conjectures of Greek philoso-
phy, dozed with Plato and dreamed with Aristotle. For a long
time he held by the numerical harmonies of Pythagoras ; then
by the five regular geometrical solids of Plato. But his longest,
dreariest wanderings were in the endeavor to fix the musical
gamut in the skies, to guage the motions of the planets by some
relations of concords of sounds.
Over twenty years were thus spent in these baffled efforts, till
at last it occurred to him to compare the various powers as the
square and cube of the planetary elements. He eventually hit
upon the very relation which afterward became the law. But
this time, with his usual ill-luck, the poor man made a mistake
in his figures, and was again tossing on the sea of uncertainty.
Months afterwards, however, he was induced to recur to the same
figures, namely, the ratio of the squares of the periodic times
CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE. 201
and the cubes of the mean distances of the planets. That is,
taking, for instance, the earth's revolution about the sun as one
(year), and the distance from the sun as one (radius), the square
and cube of which are still one ;• then, as the periodical time, say
of Saturn, is about 29|- years, one is to the square of 29J as one
is to the cube of Saturn's distance from the sun in radii of the
earth's orbit. The sum worked out gives 9|- radii for Saturn's
distance ; that is, Saturn should be 9^ times further from the sun
than the earth is. In this second trial, Kepler found to his infi-
nite satisfaction and delight that the rule would hold exactly true
in the case of all the planets. It was in reality a capital discov-
ery ; for it was the one column on which was constructed the
whole science of celestial mechanics. It was the foundation of
all of Newton's demonstrations ; for it gave the only absolute
proof of universal gravitation. It was the germ from which
have sprung more physical truths than from any other discovery
that has ever been made. Yet at the time when it was made I
can hardly conceive how it should have been regarded as more
than a curious relation, a freak of the Great Artificer. At least
so thought those who came after Kepler ; and seventy years
passed before the Principia of Newton gave to the world the
first sign of its true importance.. Yet Kepler, with a scientific
instinct, a sublime, inexplicable foresight, records the 8th of May,
1618, as the day of the most important discovery of his life and
of the age ; and he bursts forth in that ever memorable rhapsody :
" Nothing holds me. I will indulge in my sacred fury. I will
triumph over mankind by the honest confession that I have
stolen the golden vases of the Egyptians to build up a tabernacle
for my God far away from the confines of Egypt. If you for-
give me, I rejoice. If you are angry, I can bear it. The die is
cast ; the book is written, to be read either now or by posterity ;
I care not which. It may well wait a century for a reader, as
God has waited six thousand years for an observer."
The last and the greatest name I have to mention is that of
Galileo the Florentine, who in the year 1600 and at the age of
36, had just commenced his eventful career as the first experi-
mental philosopher and the sturdy creed-questioner. Up to this
202 CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE.
time the crudest and vaguest notions had existed on the subject
of motion and force. Aristotle had divided all motion into
natural and violent, and had taught that it was a kind of disposi-
tion residing in arid exercised by the moving body. If it fell
towards the earth, that was natural motion, and in accordance
with its disposition. All other motion was unnatural and soon
exhausted itself. Levity or lightness was supposed to be just as
much a property of substances as color or density. Thus smoke
ascended because it was endued with absolute levity. Air did
not press or gravitate on water because it was in its proper place
above it ; but stones and earth sank in water because their proper
place was beneath it. Water rose in a pump or siphon because
nature abhorred a vacuum ; but very unaccountably it abhorred
it only thirty-two feet. It was taught that two pounds of lead
would fall twice as far in a minute as one pound would ; and
that a body would fall twice as far in two minutes as in one. In
short, the whole school philosophy was but another name for
error and confusion of ideas ; to dispel which Galileo enunciated
his three laws of motion, the laws of fluids, of falling bodies,
of pneumatics, in a word the established science of mechanics.
But far less for these discoveries than for the wit and argument
with wrhich he combatted the errors of scholasticism and the
inveterate opposition of the church, is he entitled to the tribute
of the greatest champion of science. Aristotle had taught and
the sacred scriptures implied that the earth was the fixed center
about which the heavens and the celestial bodies revolved. The
hierarchy of Koine had staked its infalibility on the geocentric
hypothesis, and the dreaded inquisition had arrayed its terrors
against the heresy of disbelief. Yet Galileo had the hardihood
and the genius, at a time when but little was known of the laws
of motion, and nothing of the revelations of the telescope, to
declare himself the supporter of the Copernican system, and
prepared to prove it against all the world. Its opponents argued
that if the vast earth rotated daily on its axis, everything mov-
able on its surface would be hurled into space like water from
the rim of a revolving wheel. Galileo replied that they had
entirely mistaken the nature of gravity, which was nothing more
CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE. 203
than the balance of opposing forces, the surplus of the attraction
of the earth over the centrifugal force from its rotation. But,
said he, if you see an objection in the centrifugal force on the
surface of the earth, what is going to become of your own sys-
tem when that force is carried out to the distance of the sun and
moon and stars? What conceivable power can hold them in
a daily revolution about the earth? The school-men again
declared that the amazing rapidity of the flight 'of the earth
through space, a thousand miles in a single breath, would soon
leave its fragments strewed in its wake like the wreck of a storm-
driven ship. Galileo objected to this the inertia of matter, the
first great law of motion. If a body is once set in motion it will
continue in that motion until stopped by some other force. Thus
we as safely ride the flying world as the flying chariot. Again
they said, and it was the argument most strenuously insisted
upon, that if the earth wras in motion from west to east then a
ball dropped from a high tower should fall, not at its base, but
to the westward of it, which was not the case. It was taught in
their books that an object let fall from the mast-head of a vessel
in motion would strike the deck at a certain distance behind the
foot of the mast. Much more then should the ball from the
tower fall away from the base. To this Galileo replied that
their quoted experiment would give no such result as was
.claimed. The object while falling from the mast-head would
continue to have the same forward motion that the ship had, and
would drop exactly at the foot of the mast ; and to convince
them that this was so, the experiment was actually tried on a
vessel in the harbor of Marseilles.
Thus did this sturdy philosopher, while establishing the funda-
mental principles of mechanics, at the same time uproot the
errors of scholasticism and overthrow the dogmas of creed phil-
osophy. But in all this time he was gradually arousing against
himself the implacable enmity of that power which for a thous-
and years had been dealing out law to kings and creeds to states,
and had furnished as well opinions for the high as indulgences
for the low. Already he had been ordered to desist from his
bold teachings. But for the unresting mind of Galileo to cease
204 CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE.
its work was as much an impossibility as for the sun to hold back
its rajs. Come what might in the bitter end, his call was to
think, to experiment, and to teach.
It was in the year 1609 that a report came to Galileo that
Metius, a Dutch optician, had succeeded in so combining two
lenses as to make distant objects seem near. More was not told,
nor needed. The next day Galileo had a telescope that tripled
the breadth of objects ; and in a few weeks he had constructed
one which magnified thirty-two diameters. This wonderful tube
he first pointed to the moon ; and with what amazement he saw
for the first time those rugged mountains and chasms, those deep
fissures and lava streams sweep across the field of view, you who
have ever sat down to the sight may faintly conceive. Here was
another world like the one we tread on, vast and mountain-girt,
circling on in its unsustained flight about the earth, at once the
long desired analogy to the earth revolving about the sun, and a
final answer to the old dogma of the schools that the heavenly
bodies were divine and therefore beyond the sphere of reasoning
or of causation. What could be more unspiritual than mountain
chains and crater vortices?
Again he turned his magnifying gaze to Venus, and with a
joy that was well nigh ecstacy he beheld the horns and the cres-
cent, as Copernicus had predicted a hundred years before they
should appear to an enlarged vision. Could he longer doubt that^
Yenus was one of the children of the sun ? Pushing still out-
ward his gaze he saw for the first time the four moons that wheel
obedient to the influence of Jupiter. Might he not call them
the grand-children of the same great parent of light and of life?
Mars in his telescope waxed and waned as the moon in full quar-
ters. While Saturn with its rings seemed like three vast worlds
^
overlapping each other. Is it strange then that this great world-
discoverer should arise each night from his sublime disclosures
more and more convinced of the comparative littleness of this
globe of ours, of the insufficiency and the arrogance of that
philosophy which made it the center of the universe and the sole
object of creation ? Is it a wonder that his mind was exalted
above the bigotry of a creed-bound faith to the worship of that
CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE. 205
majestic God to whose power neither vastness-nor space nor time
present the shadow of a limit.
But a still greater surprise awaited Galileo when he turned his
telescope to the fixed stars. Expecting to find them greatly en-
larged as all the planetary stars had been, he was startled to
behold them the same glistening points of light that greet our
eyes each cloudless night, brighter yet still of no sensible magni-
tude. But where to the naked eye a few only could be discerned,
there burst upon his lens-eyes tier upon tier of twinkling orbs,
countless and unending ; so deep set in the limitless void, so infi-
nite in distance, that no breadth of vision could in the least
enlarge them. Could it be possible they were also so immeasur-
ably remote that even the diameter of the earth's orbit formed
no sensible angle with them ? The Ptolemaists had been hither-
to unanswered in this their last argument, that the earth's axis,
being always unchanged in direction, should, by the new system,
in a revolution whose diameter was near two hundred million
miles, point successively to a circle of stars in the northern sky,
instead of pointing to that single Pole star the whole year round.
Yes, Galileo could now answer back that it was no longer an un-
certain hypothesis that the North Star was so vastly remote that
it would not seem to have changed its place by a hair's breadth,
though viewed from opposite bounds of the earth's stupendous
journey.
Thus did this single-handed philosopher beat back his oppon-
ents step by step; and Dialogue succeeded Dialogue as new
truths were to be established or further errors combatted. He is
now an old man of seventy years. His hairs are blanched by
study and watchings and benefits to mankind. He is already
preparing for the rest of the faithful servant whose work has
been well done, when a summons reaches him to appear before
the tribunal of the Inquisition and answer to charges of heresy
and blasphemy. In the dark chambers of that secret court, with
all the insignia of intolerant power and the appliances of torture
before him, the old man is solemnly called upon to renounce the
great truth which his whole life has been consecrated to reveal
and maintain, " the motion through space of the earth and planets
206 CHILDHOOD OF SCIENCE.
around the sun." Then came the sentence of the tribunal,
banning and anathematizing the doctrine that the sun is the
center of the system " as a tenet philosophically false and formally
heretical." And then they sentenced that old and infirm philos-
opher— this band of infallibles ! They bade him abjure and
detest the said errors and heresies. They decreed his book to the
flames, and they condemned him for life to the dungeons of the
Inquisition.
And did Galileo yield at last? Broken down by age and
infirmity, importuned by friends more alarmed than himself at
the terrors of that merciless tribunal, he signed his abjuration,
yielded all his judges demanded, echoed their curse or ban as
their superstition or their hate required. He is not the martyr
of science. But as he arose from the floor on which while kneel-
ing he had pronounced his great perjury, a spark of the old fire
of his manhood came back to him, and he stamped his foot and
exclaimed to those about him, " e pur si muove " — " and yet it
does move." Yes, thou wronged and persecuted philosopher, it
moves — it will move till the eternal day. And each rotation
that lifts the bright sun in the east, each revo)ution that brings
again the glad spring, shall attest thy sturdy but over-tried faith,
and bring honor to thy venerable name. It was the last of the
old man's teachings. Thenceforth he made haste to the bourne
which divides us from care.
THE HUNS OF ATTILA/
Only a few seasons have passed since tidings reached us of
commotion and conflict on the far off banks of the Danube ; and
the tale of the wrongs of Hungary aroused a lively interest in
every land.f Then came the stirring news of battle and carnage.
The brave Magyars had stood forth to breast the tide of leagued
oppression, had nobly and for a time successfully striven in the
fight for liberty. Every liberal heart throbbed with pride and
sympathy in those manly aspirations and gallant struggles. But
soon came the sad accounts of disaster and defeat. Again the
nations mourned another Poland fallen — buried beneath the
crushing weight of Cossack tyranny.
Two years later, a war-steamer, floating a strange banner of
stripes and stars, steamed up the Strait of Bosphorus to the seat
of the Moslem empire, and presented to the Sultan an order from
the civilized nations of the world for the release of the Hungar-
ian refugees from Turkish prisons.^ The patriot exiles, who
were at once a burden and a menace to the effete monarchies of
the old world, received a glad welcome in our last born of
nations. Soon in all our temples was heard the voice that had
been the soul and center of the Hungarian struggle, sounding
forth witli thrilling magic, though in a tongue but recently
acquired, the thoughts that kindle and the words that burn. The
patriot of his father-land toiled while among us, with all the
*A Lecture written and first delivered at Skaneateles, N. Y. , in 1852.
f The last Hungarian Revolution and struggle against Austria and Russia,
with Kossuth, Gorgey, and Bern, as leaders, occurred in 1849.
^ The steamer Mississippi was sent to Constantinople in the Fall of 1851,
and brought away Louis Kossuth, his family and friends to our country as
the guests of the United States Government.
208 THE HUNS OF ATTILA.
power of a mighty genius, for aid in tlie cause of his down-
trodden country. Doubtless it was inexpedient for us to adopt
the measures he advocated. Yet for his unfaltering honesty I
respect the man ; for his giant intellect I honor him ; for his
devoted patriotism I revere him. He failed ; but steadfast in
his purpose, he now awaits on the borders of Europe the awaken-
ing of the oppressed. While to those in whom his hopes have
been disappointed, he sends the significant message that his days
of declaiming are ended, that the only speech he has yet to
make is, " Up, soldiers, and follow me."
These national events and the presence of its great chieftain
and champion among us, have given to whatever relates to Hun-
gary an especial interest. Even the legendary stories of the
early founders of this nation, comprising the long and eventful
wanderings of the hordes of the Huns and the achievements of
Attila their first known king, sufficiently interesting in them-
selves, will impress us the more vividly that now the voice of
him who was wont to glory in such rude ancestry has scarce yet
lost its echo on our shores, and the memory is yet fresh of the
desperate strife for independence of those who claim to be
descended from those barbarians, and "ambitiously insert the
name of Attila among their native kings."
Of the doubts of some historians respecting this martial gene-
alogy, we need not stop here to consider. It is sufficient to know
that even in the time of Attila* the Huns had given their
name to Hungary ; and when, four centuries later, Arpad with
another body of Huns came down from northern Europe he was
joined by the descendants of the Huns of Attila, and these were
the undoubted ancestors of the Magyars who constitute the chief
part of the population of Hungary.
If one should seek by the dim light of ancient history and
tradition the spot from which diverged the first migrations of the
tribes of human kind, he would always be led by undeviating
lines to the lofty table lands of Central Asia. Thither are
merged and lost the earliest traces of the swarming tribes that
in ancient times successively peopled or overspread the eastern
*Attila fought the great battle of Chalons in A. D. 451.
THE HUNS OF ATTILA. 209
continents. As we shall soon find this to be the native land
of the Huns, it will be interesting for a few moments to look in
upon these rugged home-lands of races, and to search out the in-
fluence which they have had on the destinies of the world.
Stretching centrally across the immense continent of Asia from
west to east is a wide belt of uneven table-lands, averaging
between one and two miles in height above the level of the sea.
It is about five hundred miles in width and perhaps three
thousand in length. On the north side are the lofty ranges of
the Altai mountains and the sources of the great Siberian rivers.
On the south side are the stupendous peaks of the Himalayas,
from which arise the sacred rivers of India and China. But the
mountain-locked valleys between have no water outlets in any
direction. Large streams and even rivers run down through
them, emptying into salt lakes and basins, and there end.
Evaporation is the only known discharge. Over the eastern
half of this singular belt extends the great desert of Gobi, the
most inclement and desolate tract on the face of the globe. Yet
in all times, and to-day, along the streams and oases of this bleak
and storm-beaten desert, roving tribes of Mongolians pitch their
tents of felt, and pasture their thriving herds. The western half,
known as the great Steppes of Tartary, abounds in rich grazing
lands, in fertile valleys, and in hunting forests. The climate,
although somewhat rigorous in winter, is yet of surpassing
healthf ulness ; and there seems to be, in all the surroundings of
these romantic regions, just that element of ruggedness and hard-
ship that brings forth the most, restless, daring, and prolific races
of mankind.
" These inaccessible regions," says Gibbon, " were the ancient
residence of a powerful and civilized nation which ascends by a
probable tradition above forty centuries." There is no doubt
that these mountain highlands have been overflowing with
nomadic races, of various states of culture, from times beyond
the reach of tradition or mythology. They have supplied the
dynasties and the ruling caste to the races of southern Asia since
oriental nations have had an existence. From thence have issued
the innumerable hordes of the Tartars which in the earliest times
210 THE HUNS OF ATTILA.
so often ravaged the plains of the south. Here were produced
the prolific swarms of the Calrnucks, or Black Huns, that men-
aced and overran the Chinese borders from a period of twelve
centuries before the birth of Christ. From the high regions of
the north came also the White Huns in later times, a polite but
warlike people, whose monuments of victory dotted the plains
from the Caspian Sea to the mouth of the Indus.
Beneath the metalline mountains of the Altai, the race of
the Turks forged at their anvils, the basest slaves of the great
Khan of the Moguls. About the middle of the sixth century of
our era, it suddenly came into the minds of these stalwart smiths
that they might just as well use the weapons they were forging,
as to hand them over to their task-masters to use. And there-
upon they rose up against their oppressors, established themselves
in their place, and forthwith commenced a series of conquests
which ended in the founding of the grandest empire of the
middle ages.
In the twelfth century the terrible Zengis Khan led from these
Highlands the myriads of the Moguls, and w^e are told that the
crowded hosts of the Southrons were mown like hemp before
his conquering blades. A world of shepherd barbarians bowed
to his sway, and the Mogul dynasties were seated on the thrones
of Asia.
But we return to the race that has been styled the Black Huns
of Tartary, whose character and wanderings and conquests we
have undertaken to present before you this evening. Perched
then on their mountain-girt uplands, twelve centuries before the
Christian era, we find this rugged and untamed race becoming
the terror and the despoilers of Asia. A nation of herdsmen,
they subsisted almost entirely on the milk and flesh of their
flocks and herds, as also of their horses. Their habitations were
rude tents, or at best small huts which might easily be mounted
on wagons, always ready, whenever choice or necessity bade
them, to move to other pasture grounds. Their sports were the
boldest feats of horsemanship or the dangerous chase of the bear
and the boar. Constant practice had seated them so firmly on
horseback that rider and horse seemed to have grown into one
THE HUNS OF ATTILA. 211
animal ; and the old Greek historians related that they ate and
slept and lived on the backs of their steeds. Every circumstance
of their habits and surroundings contributed to make them bold
in battle and rapid on the march.
The earlier chieftains of the Huns had extended their con-
quests and dominions so widely that, at the time when they
became formidable to the empire of China, they were found to
be the rulers of the entire northern part of Asia. On the one
side the Pacific Ocean, and on the other the Ural Mountains, had
stayed their conquests. On the south they were bounded by the
empires of China and Persia ; while on the north their arms had
pierced the frozen regions of Siberia as far as it were glory to
conquer or resistance had been met with.
In the third century before the Christian era (B. C. 215) the
incessant forages and incursions of the Huns had come to be such
a terror to the timorous Chinamen that it entered into their wise
little heads to build a high wall of defense from the sea to the
farthest mountains of the west. So they set to work, and for
fifteen hundred miles, over hills and ranges and every obstacle,
they reared a cemented wall of brick and stone, 20 feet high and
23 feet broad, with towers and parapets and a highway for armies
on the top, the most stupendous work ever accomplished by
human hands. But it was a vain and delusive security. The
myriads of the horsemen of the north, w4iose impetuous march
had never been stayed by the chasms and precipices of their
mountain land, found but a feeble barrier in the Chinamen's
rampart of stone. It seemed rather to invite attack than to
repel invasion ; for we read that within a few years after its
construction the stately armies of the empire had all been sur-
rounded, cut off, or defeated, by the restless and resistless cavalry
of the Huns.* For more than a century then did the rude
warriors of the mountains levy their tribute on the luxury and
handicraft of the foremost nation of antiquity. Not only bales
of silks and embroideries, but bevies of fair maidens from the
south, found their way yearly to the rude and unaccustomed
service of border chieftains.
* In the reign of the Chinese Emperor Kaoti. B. C. 201.
212 THE HUNS OF ATTILA.
At length there came to the throne of China an emperor who
proved himself able to cope successfully with these barbarian
conquerors.* He bought over some wrild Tartar tribes of the
north, and recruiting his army with these hardy mountaineers,
he sent it out to hunt up and give battle to the unsuspecting
Huns. This army pierced many hundred miles into the northern
wilderness, and at the dead of the night, while the stupor of riot
and drunkenness was brooding on the camp of the Huns, sur-
prised them in their tents and left fifteen thousand slain as the
mark of their victory. Though the Hunish chieftain bravely
cut his way through their murderous army and escaped, it was
only to renew the contest with the same bloody issue and disas-
trous result. From that ill-fated night the power of the Huns
in Asia began to wane. Long years they struggled against their
fate. But at last the time came when they were forced to bow
to the yoke of their ancient tributaries. With stern and haughty
reluctance were they whose Tanjous had reigned for thirteen
hundred years the sovereign lords of Upper Asia, compelled to
draw the bow and rein the steed with the mouthing soldiers of
China. The spirit of freedom that was fostered by the wild life
of the herdsman and huntsman, could not long brook a servitude
like that. With these rovers it must be absolute independence
at home, or a lawless and nomadic life in other lands.
In the one hundredth year of our era the spirit of migration
broke out on the Highlands of Asia. The wild and unknown
regions of the west were open to nomadic adventure or conquest ;
and westward trended the wanderings of the greater portion of
the Huns, till they were lost on the tablets of history and their
journeyings were noted only by their results. For as in their
relentless march they expelled one tribe of barbarians from their
ancestral pasture grounds, these drove out a neighboring tribe,
who in their turn pressed upon another, till Europe received the
mighty impulse, and the world of barbarism was set in westward
motion. Tribe after tribe rolled on along the frontiers of the
Roman Empire, or pealed their war-songs at the gates of the city
that from its seven hills had ruled the world. The dismal bell
*The Chinese Emperor Vouti, of the Dynasty of Han. B. C. 90.
THE HUNS OF ATTILA. 213
of fate which then was ringing in the clang of passing millions,
tolled out to old Home the periods of the progress of the Huns.
The first of the tribes whose movements startled the quiet of
those early ages, was the Franks, a confederacy of the clans that
in their wild independence had roamed unmolested amidst the
Black Forests of Lower Germany. The dictator Caesar had
found them there and vainly attempted to track them in their
inaccessible wilderness ; and there they had continued to defy
the Roman legions. But now (about 175 A. D.), driven out
from this retreat by some resistless impulse from the regions
beyond, the Franks made haste to spread their desolating warfare
and plant their name on the plains of France.
Next came down the tribes of upper or northern Germany,
confederated under the name of Alemanni — all-men — that is,
men of all races, and all fighting men. These with incredible
swiftness and in overwhelming numbers, overspread the northern
provinces of Italy, and celebrated their barbaric orgies almost in
sight of Rome. The city itself was preserved only by the most
energetic measures. The aged senators rushed to arms ; the
artisans and the populace hastened with one accord to swell the
unaccustomed army, and the tide of this appalling irruption wras
rolled back on the forests of the north. For many years the
Alemanni hovered on the confines of the Roman territory, the
defeated of many a bloody battle, till at last they were scattered
and merged among the Franks of Gaul.
Following hard upon these, came the ruthless Goths, the jnost
wide-spread and far-famed of the barbarians of the north. They
issued from the regions of the Baltic, and suddenly their count-
less hordes confronted the Romans on the banks of the Danube.
What may have been the original impulse of this eventful
migration, we are now unable to say. It may have been a
famine or a pestilence ; or more likely it may have been some
terrible defeat inflicted by. the on-pressing myriads of the north
on some battle field now hidden beneath the gloomy forests of
Russia. For it must have been about this time, near the year
250, that the Black Huns of Tartary poured down the Ural
mountains into Europe ; and through the chain of the tribes of
214 THE HUNS OF ATTILA.
Sarmatia the shock may have been communicated to the dwellers
on the Baltic.
How strange and grand on the chronicles of the past are these
nomadic irruptions! A nation with its unnumbered millions
starts up by one common impulse, and moves on over mountains
and deserts and river barriers, from one climate to another, from
continent to continent. Without a regret or a backward look,
they leave the familiar scenes of home and of country, the spot
where lie their buried dead, and carelessly roam, they know not
whither. We look upon such movements with amazement, who
have been wont to witness the never dying attachment of our
own aborigines to the home of their childhood, the land of their
fathers. And nothing more clearly disproves their common
origin with the wild Tartars of upper Asia, than these diverse
instincts of their natures. The Indian, whose all of future hope
and religion lies centered in the earth-mound where, with his
tomahawk and scalping . knife by his side, his blanket and his
trophies around him, he shall rest from the toil of the hunts and
the dances of the spirit land, turns with a longing stronger than
the instinct of life to the hillocks in the forest which he has
reared for burial mounds. But the Celt or the Tartar cared little
where bleached the bones of his ancestors, or where over his own
unheeded body the carrion beasts should hold their revel. His
religion taught him to dread only the death of the coward and
the craven — that only the souls of the brave are the care of their
gods.
These rude nomads tilled no soil and gathered in no harvests.
Their sustenance was their flocks and herds, their only domestic
arts the cure of meats and the preparations of milk. Their
dwellings were tents and wagons, a perpetual encampment,
within which were nightly gathered their numerous animals.
For amusement they hunted the hare, the deer, the stag, and the
elk. But no chase was so welcome as to rouse the angry boar, to
grapple with the hungry bear, or to encounter the fierce tiger of
the northern forests. They worshiped only the god of war and
him whose voice was in the thunder. And for these stern
divinities the altars often, reeked with the blood of human
THE HUNS OF ATTILA. 215
victims. In each succeeding year as summer approached, these
herdsmen and shepherds were wont to seek fresher pastures on
the hill-sides in the distant northv Again, as winter drew near,
they sought the protected valleys of the south, ordinarily herd-
ing back and forth by the beaten tracks of former seasons. But
anon, as the herd-boy's call sounds on the eventide to gather in
his flocks, a rumor is borne to the startled camp, that tribe after
tribe, in the far reaches of the east and the north, on the war-
horse and the car, are sweeping on in the course of the setting
sun. Sharp and hasty sounds the note of preparation to the
bustling throng; and ere the morning dawns the warrior
mounts his steed, the women and the children scramble to their
seats on the w^agon, the oxen are inspanned, the flocks and the
herds are started on, and the driver whoops his shrill cry for the
march. Thus,
"Oft o'er the trembling nations from afar,
Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of war;
And where the deluge burst, with sweeping sway,
Their arms, their kings, their gods, were rolled away,
As oft have issued, host impelling host,
The blue-eyed myriads of the Baltic coast.
The prostrate south to the destroyer yields
Her boasted titles and her golden fields.
With grim delight the brood of winter view
A brighter day and heavens of azure hue,
Scent the new fragrance of the blushing rose,
And quaff the pendant vintage as it grows."*
Four hundred years had passed away since the wise men of
the east had hailed the rising star of the Babe of Bethlehem.
Christianity from its feeble beginning had come to be a religion
of state. The pontiffs of Rome then ruled in temporal matters,
and the mandates of the church went forth to curb and to unseat
kings. The tribes of Gaul (or France) had become Christianized
and were the allies of Christian Rome. The empire itself had
lost as yet but little of its nominal power, though governed by
two emperors, the one having his seat in the east on the Bos-
phorus and the other in the ancient capitol on the Tiber. But in
* From a fragment of a poem by Thomas Gray. Mason's Life of Gray, p. 196.
216 THE HUNS OF ATTILA.
the mind of the Roman there were strange forebodings of
coming evil. The twelve centuries of the duration of Roman
sovereignty, foretold in the twelve vultures that appeared to
Romulus, and which had ever been regarded as a prophecy of
destiny to Rome, were now near to their eventful close. An
earthquake of more than usual terror had recently sent the sea
careering high up into the land, had toppled down stately castles,
and caused wide-spread desolation among the sons of the south.
This to Roman superstition had betokened some direful calamity.
All southern Europe was at this time anxiously scanning the
horizon for some signs of alarm ; when lo, . on the far off bounds
of its geography, there suddenly loomed up the dark masses of
the Huns. Their coming was heralded from en,d to end of
Europe; and rumor catching up their ferocious habits and un-
gainly proportions, magnified them into odious monsters sprung
of " midnight foul and hideous hags." With a shrill piercing
voice, uncouth in mien and gesture, with beardless face and
sunken but flashing eyes, with a massive head crowded between
broad brawny shoulders, well might they be hailed as savages by
barbarians of other worlds than their own.
But little time however was given for fright or fables. Like
a tempest the Huns swept onward, deluging the land with
indiscriminate slaughter, or drawing into the vortex the tribes
which stood in their way. On the banks of the Tanais they en-
countered and vanquished the wide-spread Alani. The Ostrogoths,
who held sway from the the Euxine to the Baltic, bowed to the
storm. The Visigoths, who came next in turn, fled frightened
and trembling upon the tribes of the west and south, and ere
long, 'cowering on the summits of the Alps, stood gazing on the
majesty of Italy.
The chieftain of these now driven and fugitive Goths, the
renowned Alaric, had once, upon some occasion of defeat, like
Hannibal of Carthage, sworn upon the altar of his gods eternal
enmity to Rome. And now, six hundred years later and in the
very track of the mighty African, he was leading the desperate
myriads of the north in one of the grandest irruptions of ancient
times, either to retrieve his fortunes or bury his name and his
THE HUNS OF ATTILA. 217
race beneath the walls of the "Eternal City." Host upon host
of Gothic clans poured down on the plains of the Po ; arid
almost before the rumor of the approaching deluge had reached
the capitol, its roar was heard from the watch-towers, and Rome,
whose sacred walls had never known till now the unhallowed
contact of barbarism, looked out upon a raging sea of north-men.
Cut off from all supplies, the besieged were soon reduced to the
vilest extremity of famine and pestilence, and were compelled
to purchase the retreat of the barbarians at the price of tons of
gold and silver and silks and spices. But in the absence of
impending danger, the old Roman haughtiness returned, and the
revolting conditions of the truce were spurned. Again Alaric
stood at its gates and summoned the proud city to surrender.
Again he dictated the terms of capitulation and retired, having
seated on the imperial throne a Roman of his own choosing.
He was soon however recalled again by another, the last faint
nickering of a flame that had once blazed brightly on a universe.
For the third time the stern Alaric sat down before the gates of
the queen of cities, his anger aroused by the childs-play of his
fickle enemies. Treachery speedily opened the gates to his army ;
and at the still hour of midnight, suddenly the clang of barbarian
arms rang out on the silent streets, and the lurid glare of confla-
gration burst on the appalled city. For six days was the seat of
ancient wealth and classic beauty given over to the licentious
pillage of the hordes of the northern forests ; and the track was
now broadly beaten, in which, as shortly closed its twelfth
century, the last vestige of the might and majesty of old Rome
was trampled out beneath the iron tread of barbarism.
In the fifty years which succeeded their first appearance, the
Huns had become the masters of northern and eastern Europe,
as of old they had been of northern Asia. The Russian and the
Finn brought down to them their furs ; the Eastern Empire sent
tribute of its wines and its money ; and the hardy warriors of
Germany and Scandinavia bore the bow and the battle-ax in their
lines. It was then, as the chieftain of these savage hordes, that
Attila appeared, a leader courageous, resolute and relentless
218 THE HUNS OF ATTILA.
beyond any whose deeds have been recorded in history. His
appearance is well described in these lines of Herbert :
"Terrific was his semblance, in no mould
Of beautiful proportion cast; his limbs
Nothing exalted, but with sinews braced
Of Chalybean temper, agile, lithe,
And swifter than the roe ; his ample chest
Was overbrowed by a gigantic head,
With eyes keen, deeply sunk, and small, that gleamed
Strangely in wrath, as though some spirit unclean,
Within that corporal tenement installed,
Looked from its windows, but with tempered fire
Beamed mildly on the unresisting. Thin
His beard and hoary; his flat nostrils crowned
A cicatrized swart visage. But withal
That questionable shape such glory wore
That mortals quailed beneath him."
It was the great absorbing desire of this ambitious man to
make of all Europe, from the midland sea to the frozen ocean,
one wide domain of anti-Christ, and himself the barbaric mon-
arch. To this purpose bent all his aims and his energies. He
styled himself " The scourge of God ; " and with Heaven-daring
zeal he strove to make good the impious appellation. His pre-
decessors had achieved for him the conquest of all but the
western Roman Empire, with Gallic France and the Peninsula.
For the subjugation of France then did Attila gather together
his clans and his native armies, swelled by the accretion of
numberless tribes and levies ; and westward again swept on the
flood of irruption. The track of the Huns as heretofore was
one broad scene of havoc and slaughter,1 until in the heart
of France they laid siege to the city of Orleans. But the
unexpected appearance of the allied armies of Italy and of
Gaul compelled them to raise the siege and for a time to retreat.
One midsummer day, in the year 451, on the banks of a little
rivulet in the north-eastern part of France, a traveler paused to
rest him on his journey and to look out on the broad plains of
Chalons. Through all this champaign country, extending a
hundred miles around, which was in later years to be beautified
by countless vineyards, could now be seen only the desolate waste
left by the barbarian armies in their recent passage southward.
THE HUNS OF ATTILA. 219
But now not a sound stirred the air ; not a moving thing relieved
the monotony of ruin. Again the wayfarer looked ; and far on
the western horizon a low dark shadow seemed rolling up from
the space beyond. Could it be a cloud mounting so clear a sky,
and betokening a coming storm ? Again he looked ; and lo, as far
as the eye could see, there darkened against the setting sun the
living masses of innumerable cavalry. Startled from his rest,
the traveler sped frightened over the plain ; and soon where he
had stood beside that brook the war-horse of Attila pawed the
ground. Poising a javelin above his head, the chieftain sent it
whirling through the air, till far in the distance it quivered
in the sod. " Thus far," said he, " retreats the monarch of the
Huns. Pitch there my tent ; for here will we stay yon proud
Roman, or leave our bones to whiten on these plains."
In a circle of many miles circumference, the cumbrous wagons
of the Huns were interlocked with each other in double lines,
forming a strong fortification, and having one only opening in
the front. Within this enclosure were soon collected a million
horses and a countless swarm of human beings. Close upon their
rear came the Roman general Aetius, with his Gothic ally The-
odoric, who had followed the Huns from the siege of Orleans,
and now encamped on the opposite side of the brook. There
within the compass of a few leagues were assembled the nations
of all Europe ; on the one side the barbarians of the east and
the north, arid all who hated Rome and Christianity alike with
an intolerant hatred ; on the other side the legions of the Roman
Empire with the vast armies of the Christianized Visigoths and
the tribes of Gaul. Heathenism and Christianity, barbarism and
civilization, had there met for deadly and exterminating conflict.
Night came ; but with it came no quiet to that vast multitude
preparing for the coming battle. The sound of the sledge and
hammer, the clanking of arms and armor, the wild blast of the
trumpet, the loud and startling laugh, and the native war-songs
shouted in savage dissonance, the clatter of thousands hurrying
to and fro, the voices of sentinels and officers rung out in many
a discordant tongue, all raised on the air of night so hideous a
din, that naught was noted beyond the passing sight. An
accidental encounter of some divisions of either army occurred
220 THE HUNS OF ATTILA.
within half a mile of the Hunish camp for the possession of a
ridge which would command the flank of either side in the
coming battle. But in the uproar of the night it was unheard
or unheeded, although fifteen thousand were left dead on the
hill-side before Torismund, the valiant son of Theodoric, had
occupied the eminence for the Roman army.
It was well past the mid-hour of the following day, when all
preparations were completed, and the two vast armies were
arrayed against each other on opposite sides of the little rivulet.
On one side Attila at the head of his brave and faithful Huns
occupied in person the center of his line. These grim-looking
warriors, dark and hard-featured, mounted on wild unbridled
horses, with the bow and quiver slung at their shoulders and in
their hands the huge naked sword, presented by far the most
terrific appearance in all that line of battle. While far away on
their right and their left, stretched the myriad tribes and nations
of the barbarous north. There were the Gepidse, the Heruli,
the Geloni, the Scyrri, the Rugians, Burgundians, Thuringians,
and Belonoti, and the thousand hordes that roamed the wilderness
from the Rhine to the Volga. On the extreme left were posted
the tall commanding Ostrogoths, next to the low ridge which
here extended along the ranks. On the other side of the stream,
Aetius commanded the left flank. The center was filled with
tribes of doubtful constancy or valor, the robust Alan, the sturdy
Armorican, and the gaudy Frank. While on the right, and
opposed to the Ostrogoths, were stationed the blue-eyed light-
haired Visigoths, led on by their aged king Theodoric.
On this battle field of the early ages, were thus gathered one
and a half millions of warriors. It was the grandest and
completest armament that the world of those times could furnish.
The trained and selected fighters of a continent were facing each
other on that day of destiny. The Roman legions, skilled in all
the tactics of antiquity, the Scythian archers, the most noted
marksmen of all times, the dexterous spearmen of Gaul, the
powerful wielders of the Gothic battle-ax, and the Hunish horse-
men, beyond question the most daring riders in the world,
swelled the squadrons of a field the most momentous in the
annals of history.
THE HUNS OF ATTILA. 221
The charge to the conflict was given by Attila, who ordered
Yalimer, the giant king of the Ostrogoths, to seize on the
eminence occupied by the Visigoths. And by the rancorous
struggle of these rival tribes of Goths was commenced the san-
guinary battle of Chalons. Not an uplifted arm was stayed by
the ties of brotherhood ; not an arrow shunned its mark for
kindly memories of the olden time. Fierce and remorseless was
the contest, as is always the warfare of kindred tribes or nations.
For a time the remainder of either army paused motionless at
sight of such deadly strife. T3ut not long could the warriors
be restrained, now panting for the carnage. No longer could the
restless chargers be curbed, as they snuffed the battle afar off.
On came the Romans and their Gallic allies. On swept the Huns
and their Scythian horsemen. A cloud of arrows darkened the
sky and fell pattering like a storm of hail. At length the long
spears reached opposing spears ; swords clashed against swords ;
and all were mingled in one vast melee of carnage.
In the action we have undertaken to describe, there was little
of military skill or generalship to relieve the story of blood,
since the battle was decided by the blind impetuosity of bar-
barians. The Huns, "almost with their first charge, pierced
through the ranks of the Alans and Sicambres, and wheeling by
a rapid movement to the left, encountered the Visigoths. While
the Romans, cut off from their right wing, were left almost alone
in conflict with the barbarians of Attila's right. Although they
bore themselves bravely that day, and the gallant Aetius was
seen riding the foremost wherever the strife was the fiercest or
danger the most imminent, yet night closed on the scene while the
issue on this side was still undecided. The main interest there-
fore, as well as the decision of the battle, rested with the opposite
extreme of the armies, where the Huns and the Goths side by
side were toiling up that low hill, a task made difficult by the
disadvantage of the ground and the ferocious obstinacy of the
Visigoths who defended it. Again and again the dark masses of
warriors charged up the ascent ; again and again they rolled back
as they met the resistless tide from above. Yet still the fight
waxed fiercer, and deeds of single handed daring and brutal
passion were there enacted which the chroniclers even were loth
222 THE HUNS OF ATTILA.
to tell. The riderless horses, it was said, of these gipsies of the
orient were seen dashing away into the ranks of the enemy, and
there with more than human ferocity fighting and tramping
among the dense columns, till at last their dying shriek told the
tale of both horse and rider. A Him and a Goth on the hill-side,
wounded to the death, crawled on to each other, and with their
teeth in their expiring agonies tore each other's flesh till life
went out in this horrid death strife. Such was the animosity in
battle of man and beast among these savage hordes.
The closing hours of the day thus passed, while still the battle
raged and the carnage was unabated. The sun was already
sinking below the western sky, and Attila was now almost exult-
ing in the victory. The old man Theodoric, his white hair
streaming on the wind, was riding heedless of danger before his
warriors and urging them on to yet another charge, when in
mid-career he was struck by a javelin from a noble Ostrogoth,
and falling from his horse, was trampled beneath the feet of his
own cavalry. The youthful Torismund from the hill-top beheld
the brave chieftain, his father, borne to the ground; and with a
wild cry of anguish he rushed down with his followers on the
Huns, like an avalanche started from its fastness by some wind
gust of the Alps. It was not a charge, nor any species of human
warfare, but the savage onslaught of wild beasts. They fought
hand to hand, without mercy asked or quarter given. Each blow
of the battle-ax felled some victim to the ground. Each plunge
of the steed trampled out some luckless life. The hill-side
became clogged arid hideous with its burden of the slain; and
the stream below flowed sluggish with its swollen current of
blood.
But the boldest champion of that fearful struggle was the
leader Attila, who everywhere conspicuous on his powerful black
charger, seemed to court every danger and to know no fear.
The spirit of battle now possessed him. Over his brow there
darkened that hideous scowl, and from his eyes shot forth the
living fire of the demon of war. Before his gaze the bravest
cowered, and by his resistless arm the foe were leveled like grain
before the reaper. He seemed, like Ajax, to carry the battle on
his own gigantic shoulders. But all in vain the hero fought.
THE HUNS OF ATTILA. 223
No will or might of man could resist the fateful doom. For the
decree had gone forth ; and by the side of young Torismund
there was a spirit mightier than man's which guided the closing
struggle.
At length, as night drew over the scene its thickening veil,
Attila commanded the trumpets to sound a retreat. And soon,
defeated and pursued, his weary warriors gathered within the
circle of their wagons. Torismund and the Roman too retired
from the field ; and darkness spread its gloomy pall above the
ghastliest scene on earth.
The number of killed in the battle of Chalons has been
variously estimated by historians from 162,000 to 300,000,
according as they have included those left dead on the field of
battle, or those who died of their wounds, or were otherwise
missing. But it was a sufficient number in any case to show
that this engagement was the most sanguinary that the world has
ever witnessed. As the chronicler of the time has most quaintly
remarked, " There was nothing to be compared with it in all the
annals of antiquity ; and it shows how the madness of kings
may thus in a few hours sweep away whole generations of men."
During the night Attila caused a huge funereal pile to be
erected of the wooden saddles of his cavalry, on which he placed
all his trophies and his captures, resolved that if the Romans
stormed the camp on the following morning they should fail of
their most coveted prize, the person of the barbarian king. But
for unknown, or at least unrecorded reasons, Aetius chose to
allow the now desperate remnant of his enemy to retire without
further worrying. He may have thought the wounded lion more
dangerous than in fresh and open fight ; or he may rather have
thought that another such a victory as he had already won would
be enough to 'ruin any army or any cause. At all events the
Huns soon broke their encampment and retired unmolested to
the dark forests of Hungary. And when two years after, on the
death of Attila, his wide empire was dismembered and dissolved,
Christianity drew a long breath of relief, and rested for a time
from the perils that had so closely beset it.
Had the " Scourge of God " been victorious on the Catalaunian
plains, who will estimate the influence it would have exerted on
224 THE HUNS OF ATTILA.
the destiny of tlie world ? From the merciless and exterminating
warfare of the Huns, and their inveterate hatred of the Roman's
new religion, it is but reasonable to suppose that the Bible had
been buried beneath the chaos of barbarian riot ; that none had
been left to repeat the story of the prophets and the apostles, or
to worship any spiritual God. On the valleys and hill-sides of
Europe had gloarned the increasing darkness of heathenism.
The soothsayer, on every mountain top, had scraped the bones of
animals slain, to divine the presages of futurity ; and the altar,
reeking with the blood of human victims, had sent its odious
incense up to an angry Heaven. The sun it may be had risen
and set on a hemisphere, and again had risen and set on another,
but had looked in all his round only on benighted millions of
paganism.
But this dismal panorama was never to be unrolled on earth.
The arm of the arrogant Attila w^as stayed in the moment of
victory ; and lo, along the paths of pagan conquest the lights of
Christianity blazed forth. The Holy Book, the germ from
which was to spring the giant oak of civilization, was scattered
on the farthest wilds of Europe. Refinement sprung out on the
rude impress of barbarism. Sage wisdom stepped forth from
the turmoil of savage passion. Wealth, at the Midas touch,
poured its full horn into the lap of diligence. Science began to
dawn on the night of ages. Invention teemed with its multiform
enginery. And the elements bowed down at the bidding of man.
In>every dell where rises the hamlet of the husbandman, the
sound of the school-call gathers in the truant and the student ; and
from every hill-side rings the echo of the church-going bell. On
every land of the white man there are loud cries for liberty and
self-government. While on all the lands of the dark races the
voice of the preacher is heard amidst the jargon of idolatry.
The heart of every freeman swells with the proud boast of
civilization's heritage, of the glories of his father-land, and of
the endearing ties of home. And still sweeps on this majestic
tide of prosperity, whose tiny source lies in the far distant past,
when the champions of progression and of retrogression stood
marshaled on the plains of Chalons, and for the first time the brawny
arm of old might fell palsied before the power of the right.
PREFACE TO LECTURE ON ANCIENT
PAINTING.*
The old and the new! Words that sum up all there is of
human achievement in the world. The old are the memorials of
the grand struggle of man's development. The new are the
achieved results of all past efforts.
It has always seemed to me that the works and discoveries which
have marked the stages of the world's progress ought to be sub-
jects of interest to every one. But mine is not the universal
conclusion. There are many who look upon the accomplish-
ments of the past as vain and wasted efforts, because they do not
equal the splendid results of the present. The world of observers
is clearly divided between those who take interest in the old and
the antiquated, and those who care for none of these things.
In the latter category is perhaps the majority of the enlight-
ened classes of our own country. In America our growth and
wealth are mainly of the present generation. A man's family
dates no further back than his father and mother, and his
fortune scarcely ever as far back as that. Every thing in our
habits and culture leads us to value only what runs with the cur-
rent of our immediate and absorbing pursuits. Those of our
people who travel abroad, where there is only the old to show,
are quite often discontented and disappointed tourists. They
have the restless longing to put life into the lifeless, and novelty
into the antiquated. If they could have their way, they would
u mighty soon clear out the old rubbish, and slick up things gener-
ally." One may hear, almost any day, in presence of some
*A Lecture written in 1878, and delivered before the Rochester Art Society,
and on various other occasions.
226 PREFACE TO LECTURE ON ANCIENT PAINTING.
noted relic of the past, sucli characteristic remarks as these :
"How very, very clever! Now isn't it?" "(Test magnifique !
Mon Dieu, c'est un ouvrage splendide ! " " Well now, I can't see
anything there to make a fuss about." This last speaker has
somehow gotten the name abroad of being excessively practical,
of reducing everything right down to its present value of merit
or utility. He is pointed out as the " cui bono " man — the one
who is forever asking, u What is it good for ? "
Now, my friends, there is a world of interest and of attraction
in things that are good for nothing — in old castles and ruins, in
old statues and paintings, in old histories and legends. It is in
the endeavor to make this appear to you, that I am to speak
to-night of things long since passed aw^ay — of the Rise and Fall
of an Empire of Art more wonderful and impressive than the
Empire of Arms which Gibbon has immortalized.
I have had the opportunity and the pleasure to give my disser-
tation on the more modern art of painting, in the Catalogue of
the Gallery in our City, which the liberality, aided by the gifted
taste, of one of our foremost citizens, has already made the
richest collection of the Fine Arts in America. But further
back than anything there shown — more ancient than the old,
grander than the grandeur of artistic Italy — there is another
realm of art dimly rising out of the dawn of nations and of
languages. In this cloud-region of the classics I have gathered
this evening's subject, which is uAncient Painting as among the
Lost Arts."
ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE
LOST ARTS.
It would seem as if the world's progress had always been made
by starts and sudden bounds. The Genius of cultivation has
visited the earth like the rare and uncertain returns of a comet.
After each appearance it has departed again for unknown regions ;
and when or how or where it w^ould return from its roaming, no
man could tell. Who could have foretold or supposed that the
spirit of letters and literature would have made its first appear-
ance on the rugged sea-girt peninsula and islands of Greece?
Then, five hundred years later, on the classic hills of the capitol
that boasted to rule the world ? And again, after a dreary
absence of fifteen hundred years, to have alighted on the islands
of Britain, afar in the Northern Seas ? Sometime, away back in
the ages, science has come very near dawning upon the earth.
We have no certain knowledge when or where, for we only know
of the fact by the fragments that have been left. The races of
Eastern Asia have, for all historic time, known how to calculate
eclipses, to figure the revolutions of the planets, to divide and
measure the seasons and years, together with many other elements
of knowledge implying an intimate acquaintance with astronomy.
They have made gunpowder, used the magnetic needle, created
power by steam, and printed with types, for thousands of years.
But as they never made any worthy use of this information and
these discoveries, we must suppose them to be the relics of a lost
civilization.
So also the beautiful arts, as painting and sculpture, have been
twice discovered, and twice have grown independently, and by
almost identical stages, to a remarkable state of perfection. First
228 ANCIENT TAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST AKTS.
in the small Republics of Greece, about 400 j^ears before Christ;
and last in the States of Italy, and 1,500 years after Christ. But
between the two periods every trace of the first era had entirely
disappeared. Painting was for more than a thousand years one
of the Lost Arts.
The causes that brought about this total extinction of one of
the brightest lights in human progress, will be that of which we
will discourse mainly to-night. But first we must tell the story
of Grecian Art, in as few words as possible, and gather from the
scattered accounts given in the old authors, as clear and correct
an idea as we can of the process, materials, and varieties of Gre-
cian painting.
It must be borne in mind that all we know of these things
comes from the incidental allusions of ancient writers, who had
not the remotest thought that their works would outlast the
beautiful specimens they were praising, or that the time would
ever come when their writings would be searched to find out
what was that mysterious handicraft called Grecian painting.
Therefore it never occurred to them to say, whether their artists
used canvas or wood, oil paints or water colors, brushes or sponge
or stylus, colors or sketches or outline. ~No more would a travel-
ing correspondent in Europe at the present time think to tell the
same things about the pictures he saw. Why, every one knows
that paintings are made on cloth, with brush and oil paints and
all varieties of colors. But unfortunately these are the very
things that we are most in doubt about, that we cannot reconcile,
in regard to ancient art. The more one studies, the more is he
convinced that the modes and materials of picture making in the
olden times were essentially different from those of the present,
that the process of Grecian painting is to this day a Lost Art.
It is probable that for portable pictures the Greeks painted
mainly on wood. In the early stages of the art the wooden tab-
let was stained black or white, a covering of wax was spread
over the surface, the picture was drawn in outline with a stylus
or pen, and then burnt in. Afterwards colors mixed with wax
and oil were put on with a brush or sponge, and then burnt in.
All tabular pictures on wood were what was called encaustic.
ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS. 229
that is, the wood was made in some way by heat to absorb the
color vehicle, thus blending the colors and softening the outlines,
producing what from all accounts must be conceded to be a
marvelous attainment in painting. But this art, whatever it may
have been, has never been rediscovered. There was also, without
doubt, a method of painting on canvas. The colors, dissolved in
water, were thickened with glue and put on with brushes. When
the painting was dry it was heavily varnished with a mixture of
warm Punic wax and oil. This was called "distemper."
Mural paintings were in part, like those of modern times, in
fresco. That is, water-colors were used on fresh walls, or on a
coating of mortar not yet dry, the plaster thus taking up the
paint and rendering it very permanent. But as lime destroys
many colors, which consequently cannot be used in fresco, the
ancients adopted another and a peculiar practice for wall paint-
ings. As fast as the picture was made on any dry wall, with
water colors mixed with some kind of gum or glue, it was
varnished with Punic wax and oil, heated by fire from a chafing
dish "usque ad sudorem," up to a sweat, when it was rubbed
with wax candles and polished with white napkins. In this
way the wall paintings had all the beauty of finish, the har-
mony and tone of amalgamated outlines, and the splendid
varieties of coloring, of the tabular pictures ; and more than all,
they were as enduring as the walls themselves. The frescoes of
Pompeii are mostly, if not all, of the kind we have just des-
cribed. None others would have lasted as they have done,
preserving their freshness of color and distinctness of outline
through a burial of nearly eighteen hundred years in damp and
destructive earths. This method of painting is also another
instance of ancient discoveries passing forever from the role of
the Arts.
With these remarks on the materials and processes, we can
now relate what were the accomplishments of ancient art. Five
hundred years before Christ, painting was in a very rude and
primitive state in Greece. According to one author, it was the
custom as well as a. necessity for an artist to write under his pro-
ductions: "This is a bull;" "This is a horse;" "This is a
230 ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST AKTS.
tree." Shortly after this time, Cimon, the Cleonian, is mentioned
as being able to paint the sexes so that they could be distin-
guished, and faces looking side ways or up or down, and could
make folds in drapery, and show the veins and muscles. He was
the first one apparently who could dispense with the labels on
his works.
Then followed Paneenus, the brother of the great sculptor
Phidias, who painted the battle of Marathon, and introduced the
portraits of the chief leaders on both sides, so well executed that
they could be recognized by those who had ever seen them
living.
Polygnotus was the first who painted writh more than one
color. He used four, red, yellow, blue and black. He flourished
about 450 B. C. ; and his great triumph was that he put expres-
sion in the face, and kindled up the fire of life and passion in
the human form. He was the Prometheus of art. Under his
hand the bright smile of beauty, and the lovely form of woman,
veiled with flowing or transparent drapery, first appeared on the
painter's tablets.
We have now reached the time when the famous pictures of
antiquity began to be produced. We will mention and describe
some of them, in order to show the high advance in art.
Apollodorus painted Ajax defying the lightning. On the
night of the downfall of Troy, Cassandra, priestess and daughter
of Priam, fled for protection to the temple of Minerva. But
despite the sacredness of the place, she was there exposed to the
brutality of Ajax, the boldest and the rudest of the Grecian
chieftains. To punish him for this sacrilege, Minerva borrowed
the thunderbolts of Jupiter, and pursued him returning to his
home. His vessel was wrecked in one of the wildest of storms ;
but he swam to a solitary rock in the sea, and there in his wrath
defied all the lightnings of Heaven. Minerva carried him off in
a whirlwind. We are told, and may well believe, that this was a
magnificent painting.
Zeuxis painted the infant Hercules strangling the serpents.
This valorous demi-god was the son of Jupiter and Alcmena.
Juno, always jealous of these side issues, sent two serpents to
ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS. 231
destroy the infant while he was yet in his cradle. But nothing
daunted, the child seized them in both his hands, and squeezed
them to. death. The terror of the mother and the fright of the
attendants, contrasted with the fearlessness of the infant prodigy,
made this a long noted painting. Zeuxis also represented
Jupiter seated on his Olympian throne, and all the other gods
doing him reverence. It was as grand a subject as some of the
gorgeous scenes of Paul Veronese. A Helen, a Penelope, and
an Alcmena, were some of the minor works of this same master.
There was once a contest between him and Parrhasius, which
should produce the most life-like picture. The two brought
their productions — Zeuxis, a vine and some clusters of grapes, so
perfectly natural that when exposed the birds flew and pecked at
them for genuine fruit. Elated with his success, he called to his
rival to remove the curtain from before his picture. But when
lie found that this curtain was only a painting, he acknowledged
himself fairly beaten; for. he had only deceived the birds,
whereas Parrhasius had deceived an experienced artist.
Zeuxis once painted a boy carrying a basket of grapes. The
birds also in this instance, when they saw it, flew to the basket
for the fruit. The painter, exulting in his triumph, was however
a good deal mortified when his rivals reminded him that the boy
had not deceived the birds, else they never would have dared to
fly to his basket.
Parrhasius is acknowledged to have made notable advances in
what was always the great aim and strife of the classic painters
and sculptors, that is to endow the forms of their gods with such
a perfection of human excellence, each in some one direction of
development, as clearly to show them superhuman. He it was
who could prescribe the limits of variation from the ordinary
type of mortals, that heros and gods might take on both in
picture and statue. His canon of proportions was the law for
all subsequent artists. As one instance, it is mentioned that he
gave to Jupiter that peculiar inclination of the head, a certain
higher elevation of the neck behind, a bolder protrusion of the
front, and an increased perpendicular of the. profile, so that he
seemed actually to be giving the awful nod which shook the uni-
verse, and made gods and men alike to tremble.
232 ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS.
Parrliasius painted an allegorical representation of the Athen-
ian demos, or democracy, which Pliny said expressed at the same
time all the good and bad qualities of this versatile people. One
might trace there, he says, at once the changeable, the irritable,
the kind, the unjust, the forgiving, the vain glorious, the proud,
the humble, the fierce, the timid. Just how all this could be got
into one painting, it is impossible for us to conceive. But the
ancients certainly had a gift for doing these things. We never
could have believed that the whole story of the Nile could be
told in one piece of statuary, if we had not actually seen it.*
Timanthes, one of the most gifted masters of Greece, was
most noted as the painter of the Sacrifice of Iphigeriia. On the
way to the siege of Troy, the Grecian fleet was detained at Aulis
by adverse winds. At this place, Agamemnon the leader hav-
ing in some way offended the goddess Diana (by killing her
favorite deer, I think), he was informed through Calchas, the
soothsayer, that he could appease the divine huntress, and raise
the wind embargo, in no other way than by the sacrifice of his
beloved daughter Ipliigenia. Reluctantly he sent for her, and
she was placed for the immolation, when by some legerdemain
human or divine, the girl was snatched away, and a hind was left
in her place. What wTas most remarkable about this painting
was, that after exhausting all the expressions of grief that he
could invent 011 the countenances of those present, the artist had
not yet touched that of Agamemnon. Then, as if to signify the
utter inadequacy of human power to represent the father's
anguish, he covered that face with a mantle, and there left it.
Singularly enough this famous painting was found copied on the
walls of the House of the Poet in Pompeii.
Timanthes seems to have been skilled in ingenious expedients
to represent his ideas. In a painting of ordinary dimensions,
where he wished to show the enormous size of a sleeping Cyclops,
*This colossal group is in the Vatican Museum at Rome. The giant figure
of the god of the Nile is partly reclining and leaning against the Egyptian
Sphinx. Sixteen cupids are climbing up on him, or sporting with ichneu-
mons and crocodiles, representing the sixteen cubits of annual overflow of
the Nile. There are also humorous battles of the pigmies with crocodiles and
hippopotami. This piece of sculpture was found in the excavations of an
old temple of Minerva near the Church of Santa Maria in Rome, in A.D. 1518.
ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS. 233
lie introduces a group of satyrs trying to measure Iris thumb with
a common walking staff.
We come now to Apelles, a painter in the age of Alexander
the Great (B. C. 330), and exalted by the united testimony of all
antiquity to the highest rank in his profession. One of the most
celebrated of his paintings was the Venus Anadyomene — Yenus
rising from the waves — born from the foam of the sea. It was
in after ages carried to Rome, and still existed in the time of
Nero. Another famous painting represented Alexander grasping
a thunderbolt. And Pliny says that the fingers which held the
bolt, as well as the bolt itself, seemed to project from the canvas.
This picture sold in its time, and in that age of dear money, for
what represented over $200,000. In a grand contest for the
prize in paintings of horses, Apelles, seeing that favoritism was
going to rule against him, demanded that all the paintings should
be exhibited before a troop of live horses. And these animals,
disregarding the others, neighed as they passed before his own
picture of their kind. This impartial judgment could not be
got over.
These things do seem almost incredible, and I would not
wonder if there should be some skeptics here. But I think that
these and similar stories are related too often and too seriously in
the old authors for that there should not be some grains of truth
in them.
Cotemporary with Apelles was Protogenes, also famous in the
art. He spent seven years in finishing a great national painting,
a hunting scene, which was to commemorate alike the founder
arid the founding of his native City of Rhodes. He had oc-
casion to represent in the picture a dog panting, and the froth
running from his mouth. But he never could paint, with any
satisfaction to himself, the foam at the mouth. Finally out of
all patience, he threw his sponge at the dog's head, and then
found to his surprise, that he had by this act painted exactly
what he wanted. Whatever a sponge has to do with painting, is
one of those inexplicable things that we are continually meeting
in the stories that have come down to us descriptive of ancient
art. There is another mystery connected with this same paint-
234 ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS.
ing. Pliny says that Protogenes painted this picture with four
layers of colors, in such a way that, when one was destroyed by
the hand of time, the layer underneath would reproduce the
piece in all its original freshness and beauty. This is entirely
incomprehensible to us, and we must revert again to our theory
of Lost Arts.
It was between Protogenes and Apelles that occurred that re-
markable trial of skill in sketching, which gives us some ideas of
Grecian Art not otherwise obtainable. Apelles, who was an
Athenian, having heard much of Protogenes who lived on the
island of Rhodes, bethought him at one time to make the voyage,
and thus to form his rival's acquaintance. Arriving, he called at
the house of Protogenes, and learned that he was absent. Being
shown into the studio, and finding a canvas and brushes placed
as if for work, he took the liberty to draw a figure thereon, and
then left. Protogenes returning saw the sketch, and at once said
that no one but Apelles could have done that. But he immedi-
ately took the brush and drew a figure over the first, correcting
or bettering some of the outlines. He then directed his house-
keeper that, if the stranger came back, she was to show him
again into the studio. It happened as he foresaw, and Apelles
seeing himself outdone in the second trial, seized the brush and
over all drew a third figure, still more perfect than either, and
cutting both. Protogenes now confessed himself vanquished.
He ran to the harbor, sought out his rival, and the two became
thereafter the warmest of friends. Now, that this trial brought
out some extraordinary results, is shown by the fact that the
canvas containing it became highly prized, and at a later day was
taken to Rome and preserved in the Palace of the Caesars. Art
writers, both ancient and modern, have had much to say about it.
Michael Angelo thought without doubt that the figures were
outlines of the human form, and that they embodied some of
those exquisite perfections which make the Grecian statues,
which have been dug out of Italian ruins in the last few cen-
turies, objects of study and wonder to all who see them.
To illustrate this fact, and to show wherein consists that excel-
lence, allow me to relate an incident connected with our own
most distinguished countryman and artist, Benjamin West.
ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS. 235
A little more than a hundred years ago this young painter
went to Home for the purpose of perfecting himself in his art.
There was great curiosity among the acquaintances he had made
on his arrival, to see what would 'be the first impressions of the
qnaker artist on beholding the renowned statues of the Yatican.
So there was quite a company who attended him on his first visit
to that museum. When brought before the Apollo Belvidere,
he at once exclaimed, " My God ! how like it is to a young
Mohawk warrior." Well, the Roman friends were a good deal
astonished to hear their most famous statue compared to an
Indian savage. But there was a truth and a praise there which
they little realized, as a few words of explanation will show.
For unknown ages previous to their contact with civilization,
the Indian tribes of North America had been almost constantly
in active hostilities with each other. Every man's life was every
day in peril, and he only who was the swiftest of foot, the
quickest of sight, and the most enduring on the war path, stood
any chance of arriving at man's estate, and transmitting his
powers and prowess to a line of descendants. It was preemi-
nently the survival of the fittest. And we may rest assured that
all that nature could do to endow that Mohawk warrior with
fleetness, acuteness, and endurance, with the exact muscles, and
sinews, and weight, and length of limbs, and prominence of sense
organs, necessary to the highest display of agility, of quickness,
and of vital force, had been given him. What praise then could
be greater for the nameless sculptor of this relic of Grecian art,
found four hundred years ago in the ruins of Antium, than to
say that he had formed the god of the bow, the god of all high
feats and adventure, the god that was the embodiment of manly
beauty, courage, sagacity, and strength, on the same model that
nature was using for her hero and Apollo in the forests by the
Great Lakes?
I have now placed before you, in brief outline, a few of the
many noted examples of ancient painting, which the classic
authors are unanimous in praising to the full extent of the
powers of language. But they do not praise them more than at
the same time they extol the beauty and the excellence of the
236 ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS.
statiies which adorned their temples and public halls. They all
unite in saying that the arts of painting and sculpture were
equally advanced. They had no more occasion or motive to
deceive in ,the one case than in the other. For they never could
have imagined that the time would come when sculpture would
be represented by some of their most beautiful and wonderful
specimens, while the sister art of painting would be represented
by absolutely nothing. Therefore if we find that they told the
truth in one case, we are bound to believe that they did so in the
other.
Now what are the facts in regard to Greek sculpture ? Leaving
out of the question all the rest of Greece, we will only take
notice of the small island of Rhodes, some forty miles long by
fifteen wide. When the Romans took it, in the year 42 before
Christ, they carried away 3,000 statues, among which, mere
chance preservations we must suppose, were those remarkable
groups of the Laocoon and the Farnese Bull. If there were
many of them like these, what a proof of the amazing richness
of art in the ancient times ! There is not, in all the realm of
sculpture, a more elaborate and splendid work, than that called
the Farnese Bull, found among the ruins in the Baths of Cari-
calla at Rome, and now in the Museum of Naples. It is carved
out of one solid block of the purest white marble, and contains
four life-size figures, besides the wild animal to the horns of
which Dirce is attached and dragged by her long hair. It repre-
sents the pitiless vengeance that one woman can take upon another
for wrongs endured. Antiope, the mother of the two youths
who are holding the plunging bull, had been persecuted, and for
a long time confined by her relatives, because her early affections
had not chanced to run in the line of family interest. But now,
by a turn of fortune, she has in her power the chief instigator of
her persecutions; and she stands there as cold as the marble, to
witness the most atrocious vengeance that ever yet was executed.
The Laocoon, also according to the testimony of Pliny, from
one block of marble, was found in 1506, beneath a vineyard in
the ruins of the Baths of Titus, and is now in the Vatican col-
lection. Laocoon, the priest of Neptune, had strongly urged the
ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS. 237
Trojans not to admit into their city the huge wooden horse which
the Greeks had offered them on the eve of their pretended de-
parture. And for tin's, Minerva is fabled to have sent two
enormous serpents from the sea, which folded and crushed in
their horrible embrace the priest and his two sons. For agonized
expressions, as well as anatomical contortions, this is justly con-
sidered the great masterpiece of sculpture. These two examples,
if there had been no others found in the ruins of Rome, would
have been sufficient to establish the fact of Grecian superiority
in the line of statuary, over all nations and times, ancient or
modern.
The art of painting involves the same principles, the same
knowledge of form and proportions, and the same skilled hand
and eye, that sculpture does. It is impossible to imagine the
successful cultivation of the one, without that of the other. For
these reasons I think we cannot avoid the conclusion that the
painter's art has never since, not even in the palmiest days of art
in Italy, arrived at such a state of perfection as in the flourishing
periods of ancient Greece.
And for this superiority there was necessary exactly the con-
dition of things which we find in Grecian culture and civilization.
Here was a nation of hero worshipers, of refined idolators,
whose religion was the adoration of the beautiful, whose highest
aspirations were to represent their divinities under the most per-
fect of human forms. Was it the chaste Diana, the goddess of
hunting ? Then her resemblance must be that which, not one
life, but generations of huntresses would develop. Was it a
Hercules to be represented ? His type can by no means be made
up from ordinary wrestlers and pugilists. It must be the out-
come of a line of warrior athletes, whose very existence for
generations may have depended on their power to carry the
weightiest armor and to wield the heaviest battle-ax. It will
never answer for a criticism, to say we never saw such length and
slenderness of limbs, together with such fullness of the vital
organs, as the old artists have given to their Apollos and Dianas ;
nor such swollen and knotted muscles as seem almost to disfigure
the Farnese Hercules. We may be sure that their models have
238 ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS.
existed, or might exist under favoring circumstances. Benjamin
West found the Apollo in the Mohawk warrior of a hundred
years ago. The fabled Amazons might have had a Diana for their
Queen. And I have no doubt that the brawny Saxons, in their
early fighting days, have had a veritable Hercules for a King.
These then are the lines in which ancient delineators were im-
measurably superior to the modern. And in so far their art and
genius have passed away.
Before closing the account of ancient art attainments, I should
perhaps say a few more words in regard to the wall paintings
that have been uncovered, within the past 120 years, in Pompeii.
Previous to the year 79 of our era, when it was suddenly buried
by a shower of ashes and gravel from the first recorded eruption
of Vesuvius, Pompeii was merely a small provincial city, with
never more than 30,000 inhabitants. But from its delightful
situation, near the Bay of Naples, and on the fertile slopes of the
extinct volcano, it had come to be somewhat of a resort for
Romans of moderate means. There was in it however nothing
of special elegance or pretension, its best house belonging to one
of its wine merchants ; and it was as far from being an art center
as probably Sorento is at the present day. That it should have
contained any specimens of the fine arts, is a wonder. That it
did have so many and such remarkable ones, is a most striking
evidence of the inseparable connection of the arts with all the
tastes and necessities of ancient every-day life. The houses of
Pompeii were in reality profusely adorned by decorative artists
and painters imported from Greece. There was an almost infi-
nite variety of subjects and scenes illustrated on their walls,
from flowers and fruits to dancing genii and floating nymphs,
from representations of homely and comic life to heroic legends
and the myths of the gods. In fact we have here a most charm-
ing and complete illustrated journal of the first century of the
Christian era.
Many of the prominent pictures, we know, were copies of
more ancient ones ; and it is probable that none of them evince
a higher grade of talent than that of the copyist. There is really
no good reason to suppose that the decorations of this retired
ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS. 239
city compared more favorably with original works of the great
masters of Greece, than the frescoes of the hotels and villas of
Nice compare with the Stanzas of Raphael in the Vatican or
the ceilings of the Sixtlne Chapel. Yet there are in these frag-
ments, as it were, of another world of art, elements of beauty
and form and color that have made and always will make them
the study and admiration and wonder of all lovers of the beauti-
ful. Another thought. Here are wall-paintings that have pre-
served their fresh and lively colors for two thousand years ; while
those of the old Italian masters of 250 years ago have had to be
retouched and repainted to keep them from becoming unrecog-
nizable. Could there be a more convincing proof that, not only
the modes and the skill, but the color materials, the pigments, of
the ancient painters are among the Lost Arts ?
Rome succeeded Greece as the depository, but never as the
creator of the wealth of the fine arts. Rome conquered the
whole known world, and gathered in the spoils of conquest to
beautify or encumber the masses of bricks and stones which
made her capitol. The quantity of art material that was brought
over from the neighboring peninsula of Greece was perfectly
overwhelming. The despoiling commenced in the time of Julius
Csesar, was continued under Augustus, Caligula, Nero, in fact as
long as there was anything to carry off.
If now we seek the causes which destroyed or buried the art
treasures of antiquity, and which finally wiped out from the face
of the earth all knowledge of practical art, we come directly
upon the causes which made of Rome a heap of ruins, which in a
thousand years reduced a proud city of two million souls to a
miserable huddle of twenty thousand, and which buried alike the
trophies and the aspirations of a mighty civilization.
In the first rank of destructive elements we must enumerate
that of fire. And, as the conflagration most disastrous to art, we
may mention that of the year of our Lord 64. Nero, desiring
to clear off a space on the Palatine Hill for a golden palace that he
had in his mind, set fire to the interiors of the marble structures
which Augustus had reared there. But the work of the incen-
diary did not stop where he intended it should. It soon passed
240 ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS.
all control, and raged for nine days. When it was over, the
greater part of Rome was in ashes ; and it is probable that half
the art specimens brought from Greece were destroyed in those
few fatal days.
Another cause, which has served perhaps more than all others
to bury the marble and stone works of Rome, is the inundations
of the Tiber. This is one of the rivers that come directly down
from the Appenines, and like all mountain streams is peculiarly
liable to overflow. Repeatedly has the Tiber spread itself
through all the lower parts of the city, and swept or dissolved
into ruins every building that was not on a hill or the sides of a
hill. All the valleys, and the bed of the river itself, have been
filled up and actually raised from twenty to thirty feet. Visitors
to day go down into an excavation of at least twenty-five feet to
get to the old floor of the Forum and the paved streets of
ancient days.
The famous hills of Rome have been raised to nearly the same
extent by successive layers of ruins, arising in this case from
alternations of periods of destruction and decay, writh those of
activity and reconstruction. On the Palatine, one descends first
into the marble palaces of the Caesars, then underneath to the
plainer brick structures of the ancient Republic, and finally down
to the tufa-stone foundations of the original " Roma Qnadrata."
The great and wealthy city and center of Christian civilization
offered tempting rewards to the hungry and rude barbarians who
swarmed on the northern confines of the Empire in the early
centuries. In the year 410 of our era the Goths, under Alaric,
besieged and took possession of the city, pillaging it for five
days. Forty-five years later, the Yandals, under Genseric, plun-
dered and ravaged it for fifteen days. Again in 546, the Goths,
under Totila, starved the city into surrender, and then enforced
the extremest extortions. It is said that in some of these sieges,
the broken arms and limbs of statues were hurled at the enemy
from the walls like any other rubbish.
But worse than all the barbarians, as the iconoclasts of art,
were the Christians themselves. When from poor and persecuted
hiders in caves and catacombs, they could at length proclaim
ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS. 241
themselves masters, what could be more natural than that they
should hold the objects of desire or worship that belonged to
their enemies, or pertained to the old idolatry, in hate and abomi-
nation ? No decree of a time-serving or Christian Emperor was
more welcome to a fanatic populace, than one giving license to
destroy the art remains of heathenism. We read that the early
converts used to put ropes around the necks of marble Apollos
and Yenuses, and try them publicly as criminals. Of course
they found them guilty, and then they pounded them to dust.
Eusebius informs us that in the early and rapid spread of Christ-
ianity, whole towns arose and destroyed the temples in which
they had just worshiped. The air echoed with the noise of
hammers, the crashing of pediments, the breaking of pillars, and
the shouts of a maddened and frenzied populace. The finest
works of Phidias and Praxiteles, and all that were left of Polyg-
notus, Apelles, and Zeuxis were demolished or burned, and their
ashes were danced upon with fanatic exultation. So great had
been the destruction that when, in the year 400, Arcadius and
Honorius issued a fresh edict to go on destroying, they added, as
well they might, " if any pictures or statues are still left."
After foreign enemies had destroyed or carried off everything
that could any longer attract them, the Romans themselves, as if
struck with the madness of destroying demons, began fighting
and ravaging in civil wars and domestic contentions. For five
hundred years in the midst of the dark ages, Rome was perpet-
ually torn and wasted by the sanguinary quarrels of the nobles
and the people, the Guelphs and Ghibbelines, and the factions of
the Colonna and Ursini families. From one time to another, all
the massive structures of the old city have been transformed into
fortifications — the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the mausoleums of
Hadrian and of Augustus, and the enormous Baths; while
towers and strongholds were erected in every part, to serve the
purpose of robber chieftains or lawless factions. The venerable
ruins were recklessly plundered of all that could be used in
masonry or fortification, while the marble of columns and statues
and costly ornaments were burned in lime-kilns to supply the
materials for mortar.
242 ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS.
Then famine and pestilence took hold on the doomed city, and
the malaria of the marshes, from neglect of drainage, crept up
from the low grounds, and seized the stragglers of the ever con-
tracting populace, until from the proud and teeming capitol of a
world, it came at last to contain only the miserable remnant of
twenty thousand inhabitants. In this fact alone is largely
explained the vast and wonderful ruins of Rome. For ages
there were not inhabitants enough to occupy the hundredth part
of the buildings that had been reared. Of course they fell into
decay. The falling roofs and walls of the upper half buried
and preserved the lower. The work of time and decay leveled
the surface and disintegrated the soft materials, till eventually
the needy descendants of Roman conquerors planted their vine-
yards or herded their cattle over the ruins of Forums and Palaces.
Like many another pilgrim to the great cemetery of a past
civilization, I have followed the tourist's track to the ruins of
Rome. I have wandered among the gloomy and wasting remains
of a power and a culture that flourished nineteen centuries
before. I have gone down into the excavations, and seen marble
relics disentombed from beneath thirty feet of the accumulated
debris of ages. I have groped my way under ground through
dark and dripping passages that were once the gay and airy halls
of a palace. But I must confess to you that I have failed to be
impressed as I ought with the mighty changes, the awful de-
struction which these ruins would indicate. They are so encom-
passed and crowded upon by modern improvements, so carefully
repaired and abutted by recent masonry, so evidently kept for
showT, that my imagination could not get beyond the eager lives
and the begging hands that are ever reaching down from the
New Rome into the Old Rome. I do not say this to find fault.
It is commendable to preserve, by all means and at any sacrifice,
treasures as unique as these. But it is none the less true that
the modern surroundings and appliances, and papal tablets, and
the devices of the artful showmen, destroy the illusion of
antiquity and the impression of overwhelming vicissitudes.
To get away from this influence, I have climbed the Capitol
Hill, and stood on the brow of the lonely Tarpeian ledge, the
ANCIENT PAINTING AS AMONG THE LOST ARTS. 243
only spot that has remained unchanged through all the mutations
of Roman fortune. And I have there endeavored to transport
myself five hundred years into the past, to see before me only
the wide and mournful scene of desolation which was there un-
folded in the gloomiest hour of the night of ages. On all the
seven hills, that once sustained the seat of an empire that
seemed as eternal as their foundations, there could then be seen
only the specters of ruin, grim and unrelieved. Half buried in
wild and brambly commons, were the massive piles of the Baths
of Diocletian, of Titus, and of Caricalla, the dismantled Colis-
seum, the triumphal arches, the dilapidated columns of some
heathen temples, and innumerable mounds and monuments that
had long ceased to commemorate anything. Over the Palatine
Hill, where were buried one under the other, the remains of
three periods of national architecture, were then only vineyards
and gardens. On the valley within the amphitheater of the
hills, enclosures for swine and buffaloes occupied the ground
beneath which, deeply buried, were the pavements of the Yia
Sacra and the floors of the Comitium of the Roman people, where
their Scipios had brought the trophies and received the appella-
tions of conquered continents. Such was the desolate grave from
which the new culture was soon to arise — such the mournful
spectacle which preceded the Renaissance of Art.
SKETCHES OF THE "OLD MASTERS" IN
PAINTING.*
There is every reason to believe that the art of painting was
carried to a high degree of perfection by the ancient Greeks.
We cannot judge of this by any specimen paintings that have
been preserved, for these are things that do not endure. But the
ancient writers say that Grecian art was equally advanced in
painting and sculpture ; and in regard to the latter there have
been found in late years, buried in the debris of cities and villas,
statues and groups in marble that would substantiate the most
extravagant claims. We are authorized to conclude therefore
that their claims in regard to painting were not exaggerated.
In further corroboration there is the remarkable, almost mirac-
ulous, preservation of the frescoes of Pompeii. This was a
small provincial town of Italy, a place little likely to have even
a fair sample of ancient art ; yet there have been opened up in
this buried city frescoes and wall paintings that have been studies
and models for painters from the day they were discovered.
But with the incursions of the northern barbarians and the
closing in of the dark ages, all art culture absolutely died out,
and until about the year 1300 painting was one of the lost arts.
It had to be re-discovered and worked up again to perfection by
slow and toilsome labors, as much as if it had never existed. We
can best point out this growth by sketching, though ever so
briefly, the lives and work of those who have been laborers in
this field ; and first we must mention,
Giotto. — GIOTTO DI BORDONE was born near Florence in 1276.
His occupation as a boy was to tend sheep. When ten years old
* Written in 1875 for the Catalogue of Powers Art Gallery, Rochester, N. Y.
246 SKETCHES OF THE OLD MASTERS.
lie was noticed sketching one of his flock on a stone. His genius
was appreciated, and kind patrons gave him instruction in all that
was then known of art. It was not long before he led all his
instructors. These were the times when they made those rigid
expressionless Christs and Virgins and Saints, with their heads
surrounded by hoops, arid painted on wood, usually the inside of
case doors, which priests threw open on occasions of great devo-
tional exercises. Giotto made the first faces that had life in them
—the first Christ on the cross that looked at all like a suffering
Saviour. He lived in the time of the poet Dante, and was his
friend and companion. Each one has in his own way made the
portrait of the other ; and both pictures are of the kind that are
immortal. When he died in Florence, in 1336, and was buried
with great pomp in the Cathedral, it was recognized that the poor
shepherd boy had become a power and a leader among men. He
was without question the father of painting and of the mosaic
art. Some of the oldest frescoes in the Cainpo Santo of Pisa
are by his hand. The mosaic of the Disciples in the storm,
called " Navicella," in the portico of St. Peter's, is his. His
works were very numerous and his pupils were very many ; so
that his influence was carried down for many generations. But
the next great advance in painting was made more than a hun-
dred years later and in the time of
Leonardo da Vinci ( Vin-che). — He was born at the castle
of the Yinci, near Florence, in 1452 ; was the natural son of
Pietro da Yinci, but brought up with all the advantages of wealth
and of the best instruction. He had a wonderful and versatile
genius — was a poet, musician, mathematician, mechanic, sculptor
and painter. As an artist, he introduced the element of the
ideal into painting. Grandeur of design, harmony of expression,
united with the minutest finish — the poetry of the art — may be
said to have originated with Leonardo. He is best known by his
fresco paintings ; and the best of these is " The Last Supper,"
in the convent of Maria delle Grazie, in Milan. This lias long
been in a bad state of preservation from the fact that the artist
was experimenting in the use of oil paints instead of the usual
water colors for wall paintings. Leonardo, although brilliant and
SKETCHES OF THE OLD MASTERS. 247
the most attractive man of his age, yet lacked application — the
concentration of his energies on any one line of effort. He was
therefore the inferior of the younger and rising genius, Michael
Angelo, with whom he was often brought into rivalry and
jealousy.
Michael Angelo Buonarotti, was born also near Florence,
in 1494, was from an influential family, and received all the
advantages of education. His marvelous talent for both painting
and sculpture was early developed. When it is considered that
throughout his long life of nearly ninety years he was patient,
laborious, virtuous and indefatigable, his great influence on his
age, on the arts and on all who came after him, is easily accounted
for. Michael Angelo lived in troublesome times, when political
changes were sudden and violent, and states were continually
passing from one hungry possessor to another. This ablest of
men had not however the continence or the wisdom to keep
aloof from political entanglements ; so was he continually flying
from one city to another, now basking in favor, and now hiding
himself from his pursuers. He was never married, and was past
sixty years old before he met the first woman who seems to have
exercised an influence over him. The accomplished and high-
born Victoria Colonna gave him her friendship, and the poems
and sonnets that passed between this elderly pair were at one
time the amusement of all Italy. During the last twenty years
of his life he was the architect of St. Peter's church ; he made
all the plans, but did not live to see it completed. He died in
Rome in 1564 ; his body was taken to Florence, and buried with
unusual honors in the church of Santa Croce. Sculpture seemed
to have been his preference, and numerous works, especially his
David in Florence and his Moses in Rome, attest for him the
highest place in the art. It was with great reluctance that he
undertook the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. The ceiling,
which is the most complete and wonderful series of Biblical
illustrations that ever was painted, was accomplished by his own
hand in twenty months, and when the artist was thirty-five years
old. The Last Judgment was executed twenty years later and
was the labor of six years. These monuments of painting have
248 SKETCHES OF THE OLD MASTEES.
placed the name of Michael Angelo at the head of the list of
perspective painters.
Titian. — TITIAN YECELLIO, (born near Venice in 1477, died at
Venice in 1576), began at the early age of ten to show indications
of the surprising talent that was in him. He lived a long and
active life, and was a life-long painter. It is not strange there-
fore that his always beautiful productions abound in every old
collection. It is hard to specify his best, since everything from
his hand is so highly prized. His loving countrymen have
selected and carved in relief on his tomb " The Assumption of
the Virgin," and on each side the martyrdoms of St. Lawrence
and St. Peter. The last is the one which is generally considered
his best work. The Venetian School is noted for its mastery in
colors, but is accused of being faulty in design. Titian as a
colorist is unexcelled. As the delineator and painter of the
human form he is matchless. His portraits are perfectly mag-
nificent. Those that go by the name of " Titian's Mistress," as
the Flora in the Uffizi and La Bella di Tiziano in the Pitti, are
masterly productions. At the age of thirty-four he married a
Venetian lady, by whom he had three children. He lived to be
almost a hundred years old, and then may be said to have died
before his time, for he was carried off in the midst of his work
by the pestilence that has so often ravaged Italian cities. Those
who died of this disease were not allowed the honors of burial,
but an exception was made in his case, and he was buried in the
church of the Franciscans in Venice. His monument is one of
the finest works in marble that has ever been made.
Raphael. — RAPHAEL SANTI was born at Urbino, a city on the
opposite side of Italy from Florence, in 1483, and died in Rome
in 1520. Like nearly all the geniuses of painting he developed
very early, his father teaching him in the art before he was ten
years old, and at sixteen he was filling orders. He entered the
Vatican at twenty-five and died twelve years after. His time
was short, but he accomplished a glorious work and left an
undying name. He was unquestionably the first of the Italian
painters, and withal so gentle and lovely in his character as to
make only friends wherever he went ; as Vasari said of him,
SKETCHES OF THE OLD MASTERS. 249
" He was full of the might of a noble nature." Raphael was
never married, but during the last ten years of his life his labors
were lightened and his genius stimulated by the love of " La
Fornarina," whose picture is the gem of the Barbarini Palace in
Rome, and for whom he provided liberally in his will. He was
buried, according to his own singular desire, in the Pantheon of
Rome, and with magnificent ceremonies. The power of Raphael
as a painter lay in his perfect mastery of the passions. There
was no shade of emotion or thought that he could not portray on
his canvas. Every face and every scene tells its own story better
than words can express it. The Sistine Madonna at Dresden, is
a marvel of spiritual power and sublimity. But the Transfigura-
tion of Christ on the Mount is now thought to be the finest
painting in the world. It was unfinished when the great painter
died, and when they laid out his body in state, they placed this
picture, such as it was, beside it, as the saddest evidence of the
untimely work that death had made.
Andrea del Sarto — so called from his father's trade, that of
a tailor, his real name being ANDREA VANUCCHI — was born in
Florence in 1487, wrhere also he died of the plague in 1531. He
earned a great reputation, both in oil and fresco, and was called
" the faultless." He is best known by his frescoes in the convent
of the Annunciata, in Florence ; the Madonna del Sacco being
the best. He was led into many errors of character and even
into a serious embezzlement by an unworthy wife. But he
bitterly repented, and it is charitably supposed that evil was not
in his nature.
Correggio. — ANTONIO ALLEGRI — called Correggio from his
birthplace, a small town between Modena and Parma — was born
in 1494, and died of a fever in his native place in 1534. But
little is known of his life beyond the fact that he was one of
those men who are always in need, no matter how much money
they earn. It is probable that he died in poverty and on account
of privations. The greater part of his work was done at Parma.
There are those wonderful paintings in the domes of San
Giovanni and the Cathedral, which show the extreme effects of
foreshortening, an art in which this painter has the highest rep-
250 SKETCHES OF THE OLD MASTERS.
utation. He was asked what he expected to do with those
myriads of frogs up there. But when seen in the right light
and position, the Assumption of the Virgin in the cupola of the
Cathedral is one of the grandest scenes that was ever painted.
Apparently all the heavenly hosts are there ; and no words can
convey the richness and boundlessness of the effect. Correggio
is the greatest master of what is called chiaro-scuro, the grading
of light and dark shades into each other. His management of
light was certainly wonderful. In this it may be said that he was
the founder of his own style, for nothing went before him that
was at all like him. In his pictures all is life and motion, poetry
and grace. Some of his best are " La Notte " or the adoration
of the Shepherds at night, and the reclining Magdalene, in Dres-
den, also the madonnas Delia Scala and Delia Scodella, at Parma.
"La Zingarella" (the Gipsy), so called from the turban worn by
the Virgin, is the portrait of his gentle and lovely wife, who
died shortly before him.
Tintoretto — so called from the trade of his father, who was
a dyer, his real name being JACOPO ROBUST: — was born at Venice
in 1512, where also he died in 1594. When young he was for a
few days a pupil of Titian ; but for some unaccountable reason
he was summarily dismissed. It has been said that Titian discov-
ered his genius and feared his rivalry ; but we can hardly believe
that. At any rate this rebuff did not discourage the young
learner. He became an indefatigable worker and has left some
canvas paintings that are perfectly astounding for their magni-
tude and the amount of work upon them. His Paradise, in the
grand hall of the Ducal Palace, is the largest oil painting in the
world, being 74 by 30 feet. His best work, " The Great Cruci-
fixion," in the School of St. Roch in Venice, has fifty-seven
different personages, in every conceivable position and expression,
some on horseback, many of life size and bearing the likeness of
men then living, as Bassano, Paul Veronese, Titian, &c. It is a
magnificent theatrical representation ; and if it did not take place
as represented, we can only say that it would have been a splen-
did pageantry for the occasion.
SKETCHES OF THE OLD MASTERS. 251
Paul Veronese — PAOLO CAGLIARI — was born at Verona in
1528, and died at Venice in 1588. This always pleasing painter
excelled in the representation of grand architecture, gorgeous
draperies, varied costumes, and generally in imposing scenes and
striking effects. He had a most noble fancy and the utmost fer-
tility of invention. Whatever he undertook became a master-
piece in its way, and he executed a great number of oil paintings.
No collection seemed complete without some of the large and
splendid works of this great painter. There is the Adoration of
the Kings in the Dresden Gallery, the Feast of the Levite in the
Venice Academy, the Marriage at Cana in the Louvre of Paris.
This last is perhaps the best and most elaborate of his works. It
is a colossal painting 32 by 21 feet, and contains one hundred
and twenty figures, many of them portraits of distinguished
persons of the time, Queens, Emperors, and Painters. It is a
wonderful instance of executive power. But after all it is only
a Venetian feast. Instead of the scene being transported to
Galilee, Christ is brought down to Venice and the sixteenth
century.
Caracci. — ANNIBALE CARACCI, was born in Bologna in 1560,
died in Rome in 1609, and was buried in the Pantheon near
Raphael. He was the painter of the remarkable mythological
frescoes in the Farnese Palace in Rome. He, with his brother
Agostino, and uncle Ludovico, formed the celebrated Caracci
school, which was the middle link between two great lines of
painters. Raphael, Michael Angelo, Titian and Correggio pre-
ceded, and were coruscations of genius. What they accomplished
for art seemed in no wise dependent on labor. The Caracci,
while they were extraordinary men, were nevertheless great only
as their predecessors were great. With them all was labor and
imitation. But they were the teachers of a new race of painters
who were to carry the glory of Italy to its second culminating
point. The most distinguished of the pupils was
Guido Reni (Gwe-do JRd-ne). — Born near Bologna in 1575,
died at the same place in 1642. He has left about three hundred
paintings to testify to his ability and application, and they are
scattered through all the galleries of Europe. The Crucifixion
252 SKETCHES OF THE OLD MASTERS.
of St. Peter with his head downwards, which is in the Vatican,
is called one of the best of his oil paintings. The fresco of
Aurora strewing flowers before the chariot of the sun, is much
the finest ceiling work of this master. The aim which Guido
set before himself in early life, was to rescue and elevate art
from the decline into which it had fallen under Caravaggio and
the Naturalistic School, by which is meant the selection of sub-
jects from common life, or as it has been called, " The Poetry of
the Repulsive." Guido, on the contrary, brought into his repre-
sentations the highest order of grace and beauty. But it was a
standard drawn entirely from his own ideals. As he said of his
St. Michael, "it was in vain for me to search for his resemblance
here below ; so that I was forced to make an introspection into
my own mind and into the idea of beauty which I have formed
in my own imagination." Therefore, as a very natural conse-
quence, all his personages are in a great measure repetitions of
the same ideal. Whether it be a St. John, or Niobe, or Paris, or
Christ, or Cleopatra, there is the same general resemblance.
Guido Reni must have been at one time in receipt of a princely
income from his works ; but all great men have their failings,
and singularly enough that of this man was gambling. He was
reduced to such distresses for money to feed his ruling passion
that he used to sell his time by the hour for the manufacture of
Madonnas, and of pictures unworthy of his genius. Poverty
and debt at last brought on the fever of which he died.
Albani. — FRANCISCO ALBANI, son of a silk merchant, was born
at Bologna in 1578, and died at the same place in 1660. He was
a fellow pupil and friend of Guido Reni, whom he followed to
Rome. There in the Borghese Palace are his most famous
pictures, "The Four Seasons"- — landscapes with mythological
accessories. His excellence was in mythological and fanciful
subjects. Lanzi thus compares Albani as a painter, to Anacreon
as a poet. "Like that poet with his short odes, so Albani with
his small pictures acquired great reputation, and as the one sings
of Yenus and the Loves, and maids and boys, so does the artist
hold up to the eye the same delicate and graceful subjects." His
pictures would seem to be but the repetition of his home life ; a
SKETCHES OF THE OLD MASTERS. 253
lovely and sightly villa, presided over by his beautiful wife, who
bore him twelve children, so lovely that they were sought for as
models in sculpture and painting. Another friend of Albani was
Domenichino (pronounced keno), real name DOMENICO ZAM-
PIERI. He was born at Bologna in 1581, and died at Naples in
1640. He was a man of eminent genius, but timid, dependent,
and ill-fitted to make his way against the rivalries that raged in
his time among artists. He left Rome and went to Naples, to
avoid the persecutions of rivals ; and there he is supposed to have
been poisoned at the instigation of three painters, notoriously
known as the cabal of Naples. He excelled in design, in compo-
sition, and in expression. His masterpieces are quite numerous,
but the best is his "Last Communion of St. Jerome" in the
Vatican ; this is generally called the second best painting in the
world, and was executed for the pitiful sum of about fifty dollars.
Guercino (Gurcheno), so called from his squinting, his real
name being GIOVANNI FRANCISCO BARBIERI, was born at Cento,
near Bologna, in 1590, and died in Bologna 1666. He was of
very humble origin, and when a boy had to take care of his
father's cart, as he delivered wood and faggots about the town.
Almost the only one of the great painters who was self-taught
and self-made, he yet arrived, by force of an original and com-
manding ability, to great distinction and affluence. There is a
grandeur, life-likeness, and brilliancy of coloring in his works,
which, after Raphael, and with a century between them, formed
the second crowning point of Italian art. Guercino painted two
hundred and fifty large pictures, besides his frescoes and numer-
ous smaller works. His best production is probably the famous
Saint Petronilla in the Capitol Gallery in Rome. It was painted
for one of the chapels of St. Peter's where there is now a mosaic
of it. The saint is being held up in her tomb to be seen by
Flaccus, her betrothed.
Carlo Dolci (Dol-che), a native of Florence, was born in 1616,
and died in 1686. His best works were those of a devotional
character, Madonnas and penitent saints. To these subjects he
gave great beauty and grace ; and among the enthusiasts of sacred
pictures this painter has many passionate admirers. His Mater
254: SKETCHES OF THE OLD MASTEES.
Dolorosa, his Ecce Homo, his Magdalene, his St. John sleeping,
are all beautiful, and have been many times copied and imitated.
Carlo Maratti-^Was born at Camerino, up in the mountains
from Ancona, in 1625, and died at Rome in 1713. He was a
very pleasing painter, but not a very original genius. Having
had the good fortune to secure the favor of the Popes of his
time, he became very popular in Rome, and has been called the
u Last of the Romans." His best works, like those of all the
last painters, were Madonnas and Holy Families.
Here ends the list of the old masters in Italy. We have men-
tioned all those who have any claims to originality and inborn
genius. They have had no successors among their countrymen.
Outside of Italy we have occasion to mention, for the purpose
of completing the list, only one name, that of
Murillo — born at Seville, in Spain, in 1617, where also he died
in 1682. In his early life he was harassed by poverty, and his
pictures were frequently sold for what they would bring on the
street. But at the age of thirty he married a rich and noble
wife, and from this time he took rank among the first in Seville.
His earlier works were largely from common life, as beggar boys,
peasants, &c. Later he painted almost exclusively religious sub-
jects. In this field he is probably without a rival. Although
it was said that he had covered more canvas than any other
painter, yet in all the vast number of his paintings there is no
sameness, no tiresomeness. Every repetition of the sainted
Mary has that in it of varied beauty and tenderness and purity,
that touches even the unsuperstitious heart, and that, in those
days of saint worship, must have stirred the very depths of
religious emotion.
It is often a matter of great surprise to visitors of foreign
galleries to see such countless numbers of Madonnas, and scenes
from the life of the Virgin Mary. The truth is that these paint-
ings have all been at one time objects of worship in some church
or private chapel. In Catholic countries the votaries kneel down
and say their prayers before pictures of the Blessed Virgin. A
beautiful painting, from which the Mother of God looked down
upon the worshipers with the ineffable sweetness or the mournful
SKETCHES OF THE OLD MASTERS. 255
sorrow of Murillo's Madonnas, inspired transports of devotion
in those who believed that she was the great intercessor between
them and the more august and unapproachable personages of the
Godhead. There was then, through all the years when art flour-
ished, a constant demand for these devotional paintings. They
were almost the only remunerative subjects. And it is a sad truth
that too many of the gifted masters were compelled to exhaust
the wealth of their genius on altar-pieces which have now lost
their peculiar significance, and are attractive only as they are
beautiful pictures.
THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS/
REBECCA AT THE WELL.
She is admiring the presents that have been given to her by
Eliezer. Original, supposed to be by TINTORETTO (1512-1594),
is in the Gallery at Parma. Abraham, when quite a young man,
emigrated to the west, and became very rich. But he was among
strangers and did not desire his boy Isaac, who had now come to
the marriageable age of forty, to take him a wife not of his kin-
dred ; so he loaded up ten of his camels with valuable presents,
and told his chief steward to go down into Mesopotamia among
his relatives, and look up a wife for the lad. After a journey of
about a thousand miles the old servant arrived near his destination
and stopped by the well where the family of Nahor, who was
Abraham's brother, were wont to go for water ; and he said to
himself, — the first damsel that comes and who, when I ask to
drink, shall offer to draw also for the camels, shall be the one
whom the Lord has chosen ; and while he was yet speaking,
there came out a damsel very fair to look upon, and went down
to the well and filled her pitcher. Then he ran to her and asked
her for some water to drink, and she made haste to give him to
drink and also to draw for the camels. And it came to pass as
the camels had done drinking that the man took a golden earring,
of half a shekel weight (a shekel is about half an ounce), and
two bracelets for her arms, of ten shekels weight of gold ; and
he said — " Whose daughter art thou ? Tell me I pray thee ;" and
she said, " the daughter of Bethuel, Nahor's son, whom Milcah
bare unto him ;" and he put the earrings upon her face and the
bracelets upon her arms. Is there need to say, after this, that
when those camels returned to the land of Canaan, they carried
back the fair Rebekah and her damsels ?
Written in 1875 for the Catalogue of Powers Art Gallery, Rochester, N. Y.
258 THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS.
THE SHOWER, OF GOLD.
By PIETRO LIBERI (born at Padua in 1605, died 1687). Away
back in the dateless periods of ancient Greece, as the fable runs,
a certain King of Argos, seeing no signs of a son to succeed
him, consulted the oracle thereon, and was told that he himself
would have no male issue, but that his daughter Danae would
bear a son who would one day kill and succeed his grandfather.
To prevent this unpleasant contingency the king locked up his
daughter in a brazen tower and kept her there for years. But
the cry of a little four year old at last opened the prison doors,
and the startled king demanded whose child that was. Danae
said that Jupiter had descended to her in a shower of gold, and
that she had borne the semi-divine offspring. The king, who
was evidently a wholly irreligious man, refused to believe any
such story. He boxed up the mother and child and pushed
them out to sea. They were carried by the winds and waves to
a certain island, where they were found and hospitably received,
and Perseus grew up to manhood. He went through adventures
too numerous to mention, till at last, being engaged in the public
games in some distant place, he accidentally pitched a quoit into
an old man and ended his days. This old man proved to be
Acrisius, his grandfather. Moral — (according to the Greek
narrator) — It is in vain for man to fight against the gods.
ST. CECILIA.
By EAPHAEL — (born 1483, died 1520). St. Cecilia, with a
" regal " in her hands, is listening to the heavenly music in an
ecstatic trance. She is surrounded by the four patron saints of
Bologna, (commencing on the left) St. Paul, St. John, St.
Augustine and Mary Magdalene. There are many who think
this the finest painting in the world, and it would be hard to
prove them much in error. St. Cecilia lived in the third century,
and was the daughter of a noble and wealthy Roman who, with
his family, secretly embraced Christianity. Her husband was
beheaded on account of his faith, and she, being also suspected,
was ordered to worship Jupiter. On her refusal she was con-
THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS. 259
demiied to be thrown into a bath of boiling water. The story
relates that this did not hurt her at all, and an executioner was
sent to slay her with the sword. His hand trembled so that he
inflicted three wounds on her neck and breast, and yet did not
kill her. She lingered three days. She gave her money to the
poor, and desired that her house should be made a church. She
died sweetly singing, and was buried beside her husband. The
Church of St. Cecilia-in-Trastevere, in Rome, consecrates the
place where she suffered martyrdom, and contains the treasured
remains of herself and her husband St. Valerian, as well as other
martyrs.
THE THREE FATES.
By MICHAEL ANGELO — (born 1475, died 1564). In the old
mythology the Fates or Farcae were the daughters of Erebus and
Nox, and were supposed to preside over the birth, life, and death
of mortals. Clotho, as the arbiter of births, holds in her hands
a distaff, from which the thread commences to run. Lachesis,
disposer of the events and actions of human life, twists the
thread between her fingers. And Atropos, the inevitable destiny,
holds herself ready to cut it off with her scissors. They were
considered powerful godesses, and were worshiped with great
solemnity.
MARY MAGDALENE.
By TITIAN— (born 1477, died 1576). Mary Magdalene, the
most interesting of the women of Bible history, the loving sister
of Lazarus, she of whom the Saviour said, " She has chosen that
good part which shall not be taken away from her," she who
bathed the feet of the Lord at the feast of Simon, she who was
first at the sepulchre on the morning of the Resurrection — this
was the favored name under which the painters, each and all of
them, lavished the wealth of their genius in depicting all that
was tender and loving in woman.*
* In describing the paintings of this subject by the old masters it is appro-
priate and even necessary to follow the legends of the church, which make
Mary Magdalene and Mary the sister of Lazarus one and the same person.
The beautiful pictures of the Magdalene in a cave (see the story following)
would have no meaning on any other supposition. Modern commentators,
however, make two distinct persons of these scripture Marys. There is
nothing in the Bible to contradict either of the hypotheses.
260 THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS.
THE PENITENT MAGDALENE; OB, THE MAGDALENE
IN A CAVE.
By POMPEO BATTONI — (born at Lucca 1708, died at Rome,
1788). The original is in the Royal Gallery of Dresden. The
legends of the primitive church form a sequel to the New Testa-
ment, which has influenced catholic worship and Christian art
almost as much as the sacred narrative itself. According to those
legends, Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary, and the blind
man who was restored to sight, and two others, were set adrift
on the Mediterranean, shortly after the crucifixion of Christ, in
a boat without sails, or oars, or rudder. They were wafted at the
sport of the winds and waves, till finally they were driven into
the harbor of Marseilles. Here they preached to the heathen
and did miraculous works, until a little church was started, over
which Lazarus became bishop. But Mary, always bewailing the
sins of her early life, retired to a cave between Marseilles and
Toulon, where in her need she was ministered to by angels, and
from which, after many years of solitude and expiation, she was
carried to Heaven by the same ministering hands. Some of the
loveliest scenes in all the realm of painting are those which pre-
sent this fair penitent in her solitary cave life.
DAVID WITH THE HEAD OF GOLIATH, MEETING THE
DAUGHTERS OF SAUL.
By ANDREA DAL FRISO — (born 1551, died 1611). Of all the
champions of the Philistines, that most persistent and prolific
enemy of ancient Israel, Goliath of Gath seems to have been
the most remarkable and terrible. He was near 12 feet in height,
his coat of mail weighed 150 pounds, his spear " was like a
weaver's beam" and carried a 20 pound point of iron. The
engagement which brought this monster to the front was one of
forty days duration ; and morning and evening of each day he
had come out between the hosts defying any man of the Israelites
to single combat. It happened on the last day that young David,
who had been taken from his flocks to be sent to the army with
provisions for his elder brethren, heard the challenge and offered
at once to go out against him. The offer, unequal as it was, was
THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS. 261
only too gladly accepted by his terror-stricken countrymen ; and
David, armed only with his staff and sling, met the mail-clad
giant in mortal combat. At the first throw the practiced slinger
felled his foe with a stone well implanted in his forehead. On
his way to Saul bearing the trophy of the bloody head, he met
the king's daughters, singing " Saul lias slain his thousands and
David his ten thousands."
CLEOPATRA.
By GUIDO RENI — (born 1575, died 1642). Cleopatra, the
Queen of Egypt, and the last of the royal race of the Ptolemies,
killed herself, it is supposed, by the bite of a small but exceed-
ingly poisonous serpent, called the aspic. After the famous
naval battle of Actium, B. C. 31, the city of Alexandrea fell
into the hands of the Romans. Marc Anthony, who for the love
of this fatal woman had been fighting on her side against his
country and kindred, on receiving a false rumor that the Queen
had committed suicide, fell on his sword with a like purpose ;
but had, after all, the mortifying consolation of dying in her
arms. Cleopatra then tried to cast the spell of her charms over
the new Roman conquerer, Augustus, as she had so often done on
other occasions ; but failing in this, and seeing all empire lost,
this most fascinating woman perhaps that ever lived, at the age
of thirty-nine, enclosing herself alone in her castle, thus died the
painless death of the asp-poisoned, to avoid the humiliation of
being taken to Rome to grace the triumphal procession of Caesar
Augustus.
THE ANGEL REFUSING THE GIFTS OF TOBIT.
By GIOVANNI BILIVERTI— (born at Florence in 1576, died 1644).
The story of Tobit is told in one of the Apocryphal books of the
Old Testament. He was a rich Jew who, with his wife Sara
and his son Tobias, was carried into captivity by the Assyrians.
He lived a just life and gave freely of his goods to help his
brethren. In one way and another his misfortunes were increased,
and he became blind, and nothing was left to him but his wife
and son. In this strait the angel Raphael was sent to him, who,
262 THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS.
in the guise of a servant and a guide working for stipulated
wages, brought him by various devices out of his poverty, restored
to him his sight, and obtained for his son a fair and wealthy wife.
When, however, they called Eaphael before them to pay him his
wages, and further to give him the half of all the wealth he had
helped them to obtain, the angel refused the gifts, pointed them
to God as the source, and informed them that he was "one of the
seven angels who go in and out before the glory of the Holy
One." " Then were they troubled and fell upon their faces, for
they feared. But he said unto them, fear not, for it shall go well
with you. Praise God therefore. Arid after a few more words
he vanished, and when they arose they could see no one."
THE RAPE OF ETTROPA.
By PAUL VERONESE — (born at Verona, 1528, died at Venice,
1588). The original is in the Gallery of Paintings in the Palace
of the Conservator]', at the Capitol in Rome (No. 224). There
are also paintings of the same subject by the same master, very
similar in composition if not copies, in the Ducal Palace at
Venice, and in the National Gallery in London. Europa has
just seated herself upon the bull, who has lain down to receive
her ; her attendant women are arranging her dress. She is
again represented in the middle ground as going down to the
sea ; and in the extreme distance the bull is swimming with her
towards the island.
A very ancient legend relates that Europa was the daughter
of Phoenix, the founder of Tyre, and first king of Phoenicia in
Asia Minor. Jupiter, becoming enamored of her, changed him-
self into a beautiful white bull, and approached her, "breathing
saffron from his mouth," as she was gathering flowers with her
companions in a field near the sea-shore. Europa, delighted with
the tameness and beauty of the animal, caressed him, crowned
him with flowers, and at length ventured to mount on his back.
The disguised god immediately made off with his lovely burden,
plunged into the sea, and swam with her to the Island of Crete,
where he resumed his own form, and under a plane tree made
love to the trembling maid.
THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS. 263
THE HOSPITALITY OF ST. JULIAN.
By CHRISTOFANO ALLORI — (called il Bronzino — born at Flo-
rence in 1577, died in 1621). St. Julian "the Hospitaler" (died
A. D. 313), was of noble family, and when young given only to
hunting and feasting. One day as he was chasing a deer, it
turned on him and said, "Thou who pursuest me to the death
shalt cause the death of thy father and mother." Affrighted,
and to avoid fulfilling the prophecy, he fled from his home to a
far country, where he married and established himself. After a
time his father and mother, led by a strange fatality, set out to
find their son. They arrived at his house in his absence, were
received with all kindness by his wife, and put in her own room
and bed to sleep. The husband coming back in the early morn-
ing, and entering his chamber, saw in the dim light two persons
in his bed, and one of them a bearded man. In a transport of
jealousy he drew his sword and slew them both. When imme-
diately the truth was made known to him, in despair he fled
again from his home ; and to expiate his crime he built a hospital
at the ferry of a dangerous mountain torrent, and devoted him-
self, without reward, to the succor and safety of passing pilgrims.
At length one winter day of storm and swollen waters, there was
brought over at great risk a poor leprous youth almost dead from
cold and exhaustion. In spite of the disease he took him in, and
he and his good wife tended him until morning. Then the leper
rose up, and his face was transformed into that of an angel, and
he said, "Julian, the Lord hath sent me to thee, for thy penitence
is accepted, and thy rest is near at hand ; " and he vanished
from sight. Then Julian and his wife fell down and praised
God for his mercies ; and soon they died, for they were old and
full of good works.
LINDA OF CHAMOUNIX.
By FERRARI. The original is in a private collection in England.
She was a beautiful Savoyard girl, and her home was among the
highest peaks of the Alps. Like many another, she had the
irresistible longing for something better — for dress and city life
and luxury. Secretly she left her mountain village arid found
264 THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS..
her way to Paris. Her father soon followed after her, and in the
guise of a beggar, sought her from door to door. At last he
found her as the richly attired mistress of a young nobleman.
They recognized each other at the door, and she offered him a
purse of gold which he refused, but besought her to go back
with him. When he found that it was in vain for him to urge,
lie returned to his home, and sent back in his place the young
lover of Linda. This one sings under her windows the beautiful
songs of Savoy and of the early love, till every home instinct is
stirred in her heart and the old ties lead her back to duty and
repentance. This story has been wrought into one of the most
interesting of the French operas, in which the wanderer, having
lost her reason, is led by the power and associations of music all
the long way back to her home and friends. The painting shows
the handsome Savoyard thus conducting her, and they are
"almost there."
LUCRETIA, THE ROMAN.
By GUIDO RENI — (born 1575, died 1642). The original is in
the Capitoline Gallery of paintings in Rome. The story of
Lucretia is told by Livy in manner as follows : Now it happened,
in the year of Rome 242 (510 B. C.), that Sextus, the eldest son
of King Tarquin the Proud, was seized with a wicked passion
for Lucretia, the wife of his cousin, Tarquin of Collatia ; and
one night while her husband was away to the wars, he gained
entrance to her room and by cowardly threats compelled her to
submit to him. Immediately that she was at liberty. Lucretia
sent in haste to Rome for her father, and to the camp for her
husband ; and when they came she told them of the wicked deed
of Sextus, and she said, " If ye be men avenge it." And they
swore to her that they would avenge it. Then she said again,
" I am not guilty, yet must I too share in the punishment of
this deed, lest any should think that they may be false to their
husbands and live." And she drew a knife from her bosom and
stabbed herself to the heart. From this affecting tragedy sprang
the revolution which banished the last tyrant from Rome and
made Junius Brutus and Tarquin, the husband of Lucretia, the
first Consuls of the new Republic.
THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS. 265
RUTH GLEANING.
Supposed to be by TITIAN. The original is in the Palazzo
Commnnale, Bologna. In the middle of the Old Testament^ in
the very midst of the wars, and the laws, and the genealogies of
that stern old race of Israelites, comes the little book of Ruth,
telling one of the most delightful episodes of family life and
love that ever was written. The story is too long and too well
known to be related here. It is only necessary to say that Ruth,
being a fair young widow, but a stranger in the land, being of
the race of the Moabites, and being restricted by the severe
customs of the Jews to marrying only the nearest of kin to her
husband who would or could take her to wife, found herself
obliged to resort to certain ruses in order to excite the attention
of her relatives. This gleaning in the barley fields, then, was
only one of the innocent devices that she practiced to bring her-
self to the notice of the rich uncle Boaz, who was gathering in
his harvests there, and who was seemingly a very good party for
the beautiful widow if he only could be awakened to a sense of
his duty in the matter. It is hardly needful to add that Ruth,
assisted by her mother-in-law, Naomi, succeeded in every point.
BEATRICE CENCI IN PRISON.
The portrait of Beatrice Cenci (Bd-a-tre-cha Ch&n-che) is from
the original of Guroo RENI (born 1575, died 1642), in the Bar-
berini Palace in Rome ; bat the combination is the original of a
young and promising artist now living, ACHILLE LEONARDI — 52
Via Babuino, Rome. The beautiful girl having been imprisoned
in the Castle of St. Angelo and forbidden all intercourse, the
young Guido has been obliged to steal into the cell, concealed by
the Judge's robe, and to take his sketch from this almost back
view. Beatrice Cenci was beheaded in Rome September llth,
1599. Her father, Count Cenci, was notorious for his crimes,
his violence and cruelty. He had purchased pardons of the
Papal priesthood so often and by such enormous sums that he
was called " a certain and copious source of revenue." He had a
walled and moated castle called " Petrella," in a most desolate
region on the Neapolitan frontier, to which he retired during the
266 THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS.
summer with his family, three children and a second wife, and
where lie indulged in every species of wanton cruelty with im-
punity. Here the surpassing beauty of Beatrice excited his
unnatural desires ; and to violence and barbarity was added the
crime of incest. These accumulated villainies finally aroused his
wife to conspire with the steward and others to destroy their
common tyrant. He was assassinated and his bod}7 thrown from
the wall. Suspicions were excited ; the family were thrown into
prison ; Beatrice was particularly persecuted, was hung up by
the hair, and finally forced to say that she committed the murder.
Family rivalries and property considerations incited the persecu-
tion. She was condemned to death by Pope Clement VIII, was
beheaded, and buried in San Petro-in-Montorio, in Rome, before
the High Altar. Her portrait was taken by Guido Eeni just
before her execution.
THE SAMIAN SIBYL.
By GUERCINO — (born 1590, died 1666). In an open book, on
which the Sibyl places her hands, one reads this Latin verse :
"Salve casta syon perrnulta que passa puella" — welcome, Virgin
divine, who hast passed through many trials ! The Sibyls were
ancient Greek prophetesses, who, as the early Fathers claimed,
foretold the coming of Christ to the Gentiles, as the prophets
did to the Jews. They were consulted as oracles, were regarded
as holy virgins, and lived in caves and grottoes. Varro, a Latin
author, B. C. 100, mentions ten of them, named from the locali-
ties of their habitations, of whom the Samian Sibyl was the
sixth. She is supposed to have lived about the time of Isaiah,
and to have prophesied to the Greeks who came to see her on
the Island of Samos.
CUM-ffiAN SIBYL.
By ROMANELLI, a. painter of the Bolognese School, and of the
17th century. Original in the National Museum at Naples. The
Sibyl has in her left hand a book with the inscription, " Ut non
confundar" — Let me not be confounded, or misunderstood.
The Cumaean is the most ancient and most celebrated of all
the Sibyls. The legend is that Apollo fell in love with her, and
THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS. 267
offered her anything she was minded to ask for. She immediately
picked up a handful of sand and demanded to live as many years
as there were grains of sand in it. But it was a boon which
brought no good to either party ; for she refused in any way to
favor his suit ; and he refused to add continued youth to the
gift. So the prophetess kept on growing old and withered, till
when the allotted time of some thirteen centuries had passed,
there was nothing left of her to die but her voice. " Vox pre-
terea nihil." She had lived one hundred years when ^Eneas
came into Italy, whom, according to Virgil, she conducted into
the infernal regions. Three hundred and fifty years later she
appeared to Tarquin, the last King of Ancient Rome, with nine
books of prophecy which she desired to sell. But he treated the
matter lightly, and she went away and destroyed three of them ;
then she came back and demanded the same price for the six re-
maining. He still refusing, she went away and destroyed three
more. When last she came back demanding the same sum for
the three that were left, surprise and curiosity induced the king
to look into them ; and he was then only too glad to take them
at any price, and to preserve them as among the most precious
archives of Rome. She never afterwards appeared in history or
fable. The painters, with a very excusable license, have always
represented this Sibyl as young — not more than fifteen years old.
She is believed to have foretold the event of the birth of Christ
in a stable in Judea.
THE MADONNA BELLA SEDIA.
By RAPHAEL — (born 1483, died 1520). Original in the Pitti
Gallery, Florence, No. 79. This painting is of the exact size of
the original ; and the beautiful circular frame is the exact copy
of the one which frames the original picture.
A very interesting story is told connected with the inception
of this painting. There was an old hermit, called Father Ber-
nardo, who lived up in the Florentine mountains, and whose
solitary hut was under a great oak tree. Now there was a
Mary, the young daughter of a vine-dresser, who used to visit
the old man, and bring him both presents and kindly words to
268 THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS.
cheer his loneliness ; so that he was wont to say that he had two
daughters, two angels of comfort, the old oak and the lovely
girl. At the breaking up of one terribly severe winter the hermit
found himself surrounded by the mountain floods, and was
obliged to take refuge in his oak tree, where he remained three
days, and was finally rescued, almost perishing, by Mary and her
father, who had come up as soon as they were able, to see how it
had fared with the recluse. Everything that he had was swept
away, and they took the holy man home with them till they
could fit him up another hut in his favorite retreat. Then Father
Bernardo blessed his two daughters, his preservers as he called
them ; and it was ever his prayer that the two might be together
distinguished in some remarkable way. Years passed on ; the
hermit was gathered among the faithful, and the old oak was
made up into wine casks for the vine-dresser. One day as Mary,'
now a wife and a mother, with two beautiful boys, was sitting
near one of these casks, and wondering how the holy man's
blessing could ever be fulfilled, there came along a young man
whose great heavenly eyes seemed to be searching for the beauti-
ful. It was Raphael Sanzio. ' He stopped, and, struck with the
marvelous beauty of the mother and children, he asked to make
them the models of a madonna picture which he had long
desired to paint. He had only his pencil and nothing to draw up-
on. Turning to the smooth head of the cask near by, he sketched
on it the likeness of this lovely family, took it home, and there
brought out the famous Madonna of the Chair, probably the best
known of all the representations of the Virgin Mary.
THE APPIAN WAY.
The Yia Appia was commenced, as a military road, by Appius
Claudius, B. C. 212, and subsequently extended to the south of
Italy. In the vicinity of Rome it is lined, almost encumbered,
with the ruins of ancient tombs. It seems to have been a con-
spicuous and favorite burial place for the old Romans. Pope
Pius IX had it dug out and opened up as a road again, in 1850-3,
as far as the eleventh mile stone, and it is now one of the most
delightful drives out of Rome.
THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS. 269
THE CARNIVAL IN ROME.
By BARTOLOMEO PAGANI, a Roman artist. In all Catholic
countries the week before the commencement of Lent is given
up to all kinds of diversions and follies and masquerades. In
Rome this celebration takes place on the Corso, one of the prin-
cipal streets of the city. Every balcony and window is occupied,
while lines of masqueraders go up and down the street during all
the afternoon and evening. The chief amusement is throwing
bouquets and comfits. These comfits, or confetti in Italian, used
to be small candies mixed with flour, but now they are sifted
gravel of small size and covered with powdered lime. A hand-
ful of this thrown into one's face from a long handled dipper
gives one the peculiar sensation of being shot. The amusements
are varied by horse races — a troop of unbridled horses let loose
and dashing through the street between the crowds on either
side ; and finally, on the last night, by the rudest attempts on
the part of every body to put out each other's lighted candles.
What would be the occasion in any American city of incessant
fights is there only the most innocent and enjoyable fun.
THE HUSSITES BEFORE NAUMBURG, 1431.
By NECHUTREY, of Vienna, the most noted of the pupils of
Kaulbach. John Huss, the great Hungarian Reformer, was
burned at the stake in 1415. His followers took up arms, and
for many years were victorious over all opposition, burning and
destroying innumerable towns throughout Germany. It hap-
pened in this time that Procopius, the Hussite general, halted
his army before the stronghold of Naumburg, and proclaimed
his intention to burn the city and every one in it. The citizens,
in the greatest consternation, as a forlorn hope, got together all
their children and sent them with the key of the citadel to the
stern old warrior, imploring his mercy. Procopius was touched
by this tender appeal, and stayed his avenging hand. This cele-
brated painting vividly portrays the scene, which to this day is
commemorated in the city of Naumburg by a yearly children's
festival.
270 THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS.
THE FESTIVAL OF THE MADONNA DELL' ABCO
AT NAPLES.
By Louis LEOPOLD ROBERT — (born 1794, died 1835). On the
day after Whitsunday, usually in the latter part of May, all
Naples puts on its holiday clothes and gayest ornaments, and re-
pairs to the church of the Madonna dell' Arco, seven miles to
the eastward at the foot of Mt. Somma. The whole intervening
distance is one continuous scene of dancing and merry-making —
men and women crowned with wreaths of flowers or fruits, and
carrying garlands or poles surmounted with branches of fruit or
flowers. It is a perfect Bacchanalian procession ; and it is
pointed to as indicating unmistakably the Greek origin of this
festival loving people.
THE FALCONER.
In the early times of Old England, and down to the reign of
the Georges, hawking was the great national sport. Persons of
rank scarcely appeared outside of their castles without a hawk
on their hands or carried in their train. Great sums of money
were spent on the amusement. As high a sum as $5,000 has
been paid for a cast of hawks. They were trained to fly high in
in the air, and then swoop down on either flying or running
game, striking the object dead with their strong beaks. The
whistle of the falconer recalled them to the perch on his finger.
Hawks of the larger kinds imported from Tartary, were trained
for antelopes, bustards and cranes ; those of the smaller kinds,
natives of Norway, were trained for hares, partridges and pigeons.
THE GIPSIES' HOME.
By C. LAREN, an English artist. If there is a people in the
world that has no home, it is the strolling, vagabond Gipsy race.
Sprung from the degraded caste of pariahs in India, the Gipsies
have now been among civilized people four hundred and fifty
years ; yet they are still precisely the same in race and nature as
when they first intruded themselves into Europe. They are most
numerous in the south of Spain ; and are there compelled by
force of numbers to conform themselves somewhat to civilized
modes of living.
THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS. 271
LE MOIS D'OCTOBBE. (La Becolte des pommes de terre.)
OCTOBER. (THE GATHERING OF THE POTATOES.)
By AUGUSTE HAGBORG (born in Gothenburg, Sweden.) Pupil
of the Academy of Fine Arts of Stockholm, and of Palmarole.
This young and rising artist has given us here a most suggestive
picture of old country peasant life. A wide view of field and
sky serves as relief and contrast to two central life-size figures
which for strong portraiture and perfection of detail are not
excelled in modern painting.
The picture, a study and an ever-growing conception in itself,
derives a further attraction from the fact that it is a representa-
tive painting, the first one brought to this country, of that
peculiar school in France of which Jean Millet was the originator
and master. It seeks to portray and perpetuate all there is of a
nobler life and a higher humanity in the classes that have come
down through centuries of serfdom. Peasant life in Europe is
a sad picture at best ; and there is little promise of a brighter one
in the future. But we on this side of the world know that from
such earnest and self-reliant toilers as stand forth in this picture,
the inheritors of the reserve force of twenty generations, are
born the illustrious men and the fairest women of our rising
republic.
THE PROPHECY OF THE SIBYL.
By ANDREA DAL FRISO — (1551-1611). The early Christian
Fathers relate that the Emperor Augustus Caesar, when the
Roman Senate passed the decree according to him divine honors,
went to the Tiburtine Sibyl at Tivoli, near Rome, and consulted
her whether he ought to receive them. She replied that it better
befitted him whose power was declining to go away and hold his
peace — that a Hebrew child would soon be born who would reign
over all the gods. And she pointed to the heavens where
appeared the Holy Virgin with her child, seated on an altar in
the clouds. The Emperor bowed down and worshiped the
miraculous vision ; and on his return he erected on the Capitoline
Hill an altar to the " First born of God." The church of Santa
Maria in Capitolino now consecrates the ground where this first
Christian altar is said to have been raised.
272 THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS.
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA AND HER TRAIN.
By YENEZIANO BONIFACIO — (born 1494, died 1563). A thou-
sand years before Christ, when Solomon was building his rich
and costly temple, and his trade and his fame had extended
through all the "Land of Ophir," there came up from the
farthest coast of the Red Sea a wealthy Arabian princess, to see
for herself the wisest man in the world. She questioned him
and " found that the half had not been told her." Costly gifts
were passed between them, and she led her princely train back to
her southern home. This is the only record of the Queen of
Sheba, who, but for this impulse of woman's curiosity, would
have left no mark on the ages or inspired no painter's fancy.
AUCTION SALE.
By A. LUBEN, of Munich. It is acknowledged in art circles
that this painting is Luben's master piece. To take an inventory
of a deceased naturalist's collections, and to find customers for
such odds and ends, are no slight test of an artist's ability. Yet
Luben has given us here a most complete picture of the old
books, the specimens, and the queer things that such an enthu-
siast would prize, and of the motley group that has gathered to
bid them down. The moral of it all is that the treasured collec-
tions we often seek so eagerly in life are very apt to come sooner
or later to point the joke of an auctioneer.
CLEOPATRA DRINKING THE DISSOLVED PEARL.
By G. B. TIEPOLO — (born 1697, died 1770). The last of
Cleopatra's lovers was Marc Antony, the celebrated Roman
Triumvir, who for her sake became recreant to his country, his
family and his honor. But their attachment to each other seems
to have been extreme and worthy of a better relation. At one
time when Antony was in the east conquering kingdoms to add
to her empire, he sent, by one of the almost daily messengers
that passed between them, a magnificent oriental pearl which he
said he presented warm with his kisses to the queen of his heart
and of his ambition. The romantic woman had it dissolved in
acids, and drank it as a precious love philter.
THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS. 273
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.
By MURILLO— -(born 1618, died 1682). Original in the Royal
Gallery of Madrid. This is the celebrated painting that gained
for Murillo his proudest distinction. He was called " The
painter of the Conception." It was so superior to everything
else of the kind, that it was scarcely remembered that Guido
Reni and others had painted the same thing, and very beauti-
fully too.
The doctrine that Mary the Mother of Christ was also like him
born without original sin, was for many centuries a point of
sharp controversy in the Catholic church. It was virtually set-
tled in favor of the immaculate conception, about the year 1620,
though not formally promulgated until 1854. From that earlier
time the beautiful ideal of this painting was adopted to express
the sinless origin and divine nature of the Virgin. She was rep-
resented as young — not more than fourteen — robed in white,
with a blue flowing mantle, and beautiful as painting could make
her. The model was taken from the vision in Revelations (12-1),
"And there appeared a great wonder in the heavens ; a woman
clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon
her head a crown of twelve stars."
MARCO POLO.
Was the son of a Venetian merchant, and born about 1250.
He traveled in Asia, chiefly in Chinese Tartary, for 24 years, and
on his return was so besieged to tell his wonderful adventures
and descriptions of strange peoples, that he resolved to tell them
once for all in a book, which has not ceased to be read and to'
give interest, even six hundred years after the events.
CERES AND IASION.
UNKNOWN. As ancient fable relates, the goddess Ceres had a
rustic lover named lasion whom she met in a "thrice-plowed
field " in Crete ; and of the twain was born Plutus, the god of
wealth. It is a rather clumsy allegory of the production of
wealth from rustic toil in the grain fields.
274 THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS.
COBIOLANUS BEFORE ROME.
Bj YENEZIANO BONIFACIO — (1494-1563). In the younger
days of Rome, when she was first experimenting in republican-
ism, one of her chieftains, Caius Marcius, called Coriolanus from
one of his daring exploits, set himself obstinately against the
enfranchisement of the common people. It was of course the
unpopular side, and he at last became so obnoxious to the plebian
element that, to save his life, he had to escape from the country.
He joined its enemies and led them in their wars against the
Romans. He was so successful that eventually Rome itself was
besieged and brought to the last extremity. Deputations of
Senators and of Priests were sent out to him for terms, but all
to no purpose. At last the happy thought struck the besieged
to send their noble women, headed by his own mother, his wife
and his children. Coriolanus could not withstand their entrea-
ties. He yielded to his mother ; but he told her that in saving
her country she had lost her son. And he went off into volun-
tary banishment and there died like an obstinate old Roman, as
he was.
ST. SEBASTIAN.
By AMERIGHI DA CARAVAGGIO — (1569-1609). The subject of
this painting, and of so many other similar ones, was of noble
family, and one of the guards of the Emperor Dioclesian (A. D.
300). Like many Romans in that dangerous time he was secret-
ly a Christian. Two of his converts were accused of belonging
to this proscribed sect and were condemned to the torture. As
they wavered in their courage at the last moment, Sebastian,
regardless of himself, boldly exhorted them to faith and con-
stancy. Thus self -exposed, he too was condemned to death, and
was left for dead, pierced with innumerable arrows. Irene, the
the widow of one of his martyred friends, in going for the body
found him still alive and took him to her house, where, with the
aid of her daughters, she extracted the arrows and restored him
to life. But the spirit of the martyr was still in the Christian
hero, and he shortly paid the penalty of his faithfulness under
the clubs of the heathen executioners.
THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS. 275
. THE TEMPTATATION OF ST. ANTHONY.
By ALEXANDER L. LELOIR, French, recently died. About 300
years after Christ there came out of the Egyptian deserts an old
Hermit of 50 years or more, who told the most marvelous
stories of his conflicts with Satan in the wilderness ; how the old
arch enemy had taken him on every weak side of humanity, and
tempted and tortured him with perfectly diabolical ingenuity.
On reading the story, one would say that the Devil must have
spent pretty much all his time for 30 odd years in devising and
practicing torments on this poor recluse. But St. Anthony lived
50 years longer, and paid the "old fellow" back, in good solid
preaching, for all the fleshly vexations that had been practiced
on him.
THE BIRTH OF LOUIS XIV, in 1638.
By JAQUES LEMAN. " A few days after the birth of the
dauphin, the great dignitaries and gentlemen of the King's
household were admitted to the Queen's room, to pay homage to
the new-born heir of the crown of France."
It is a great undertaking to go back 240 years in the annals of
a country and reproduce a court scene, with all the costumes and
splendor of the times and with accurate portraits of the distin-
guished actors. Yet this is the work here presented, and as such
it is a splendid and wonderful success. The central and most
important figure, though a small one, is the infant son of Louis
XIII and Anne of Austria, born in 1638, and twenty-three years
after the marriage of his parents. He was made King of France
when only five years old, and for the greater part of the seventy-
two years of his reign he filled the role of the grandest monarch
of Europe. The precocious babe in the picture seems already to
realize that he is a late comer, and cannot waste any of his prec-
ious time in babyhood.
The beautiful mother and the happy king will be at once
recognized. On the right, and attended by Cardinal de Retz —
or Father Joseph as he preferred to be called — is the great
Cardinal Duke de Richelieu, Grand Chancellor of the Empire,
and at this time, without doubt, the foremost man in Europe.
276 THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS.
THE TRANSFIGURATION.
By RAPHAEL — (born 1483, died 1520). The original is in the
Vatican at Rome. This is the best work of the greatest master
of Italian painting. It was unfinished at the time of his death ;
still it was thought worthy to be placed beside his body as it was
laid out for public view. There is here represented the mystery
of Christ's transfiguration on Mount Tabor.
"And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, and James, and John,
his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart.
And was transfigured before them ; and his face did shine as
the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.
And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias, talk-
ing with him." — Matthew, 17: 1-3.
As a most striking contrast to this glorious manifestation of
the divinity of the " Son of Man," the artist has introduced be-
neath it the scene of the pitiful attempt and failure of the
disciples to cast out the evil spirit from the demoniac boy.
When Christ was informed of this on coming down from the
mountain he could not resist that bitter cry, " O faithless and
perverse generation, how long shall I be with you ? how long
shall I suffer you ? bring him hither to me."
BATHSHEBA AT HER TOILET.
By ANDREA DAL FKISO — (born 1551, died 1611). One evening
as King David was walking on the roof of his palace, he saw at
a neighboring window " a woman washing herself, and she was
very beautiful to look upon." Now the good king was old
enough to know better than to be disturbed by such a trifling cir-
cumstance. But he really did go and misbehave himself — so
much so that he found her husband, Uriah the Hittite, very
much in his way ; and he had the poor man exposed in the most
dangerous place at the very next battle. The consequence was
that there was another widow in Israel, whom David took as one
of his wives. This was the mother of Solomon — the same Bath-
sheba whom David first saw as in the lovely and luxurious
picture drawn by the nephew and pupil of the great Paul
Veronese.
THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS. 277
JUDITH WITH THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES.
By AUGUST BIEDEL — (horn at Bayreuth in 1800; now living
at Rome. Original is No. 156 in the New Royal Pinakothek, at
Munich. In one of the Old Testament Apocryphal Books there
is related the story of Judith, the rich and beautiful Jewish
widow. Her native city, Bethulia, was once besieged by an
Assyrian army and reduced to the last extremity. When there
seemed no longer a chance of relief, this brave woman offered
herself for its deliverance. She dressed herself in her richest
attire and jewels, and with her waiting wroman, presented her-
self before the tent of Holofernes, the chief captain of the
Assyrians. Her beauty captivated him, and her simple story
quieted his suspicions. He made a feast and was allured into
drinking inordinate quantities of wine. In the drunken sleep
which followed, Judith, shut up alone with him in his tent, cut
off his head with his own sword, and bore it to her countrymen.
In the early morning the Israelites fell upon their enemies while
they were panic-stricken at the slaughter of their leader and
totally routed them. Judith lived to receive the grateful love
of her people till she was one hundred arid five years old. And
long afterward an annual feast commemorated the heroic deed
of the Hebrew widow.
GARIBALDI ESCAPING FROM CAPRERA.
UNKNOWN. This famous Italian patriot was born at Nice in
1807. His life has been filled with perilous adventures and un-
ceasing revolutionary projects. In I860, the small island of
Caprera, lying off the northern coast of Sardinia, was given him
for a residence. It was however impossible for him to keep
quiet, and he was constantly engaged in schemes for Italian unity,
mainly directed against the Papal rule in Rome. In one of these
attempts the Roman government, assisted by the French, thought
to keep him confined to his island by a guard of ships of war ;
but he escaped, and was soon at the head of the insurgents on
the Roman frontier. It was reserved however for a stronger
man than Garibaldi to unite and renovate Italy (Victor Emanuel,
in 1870).
278 THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS.
BRENNTJS IN HOME.
By G. B. TIEPOLO — (born in Venice in 1697, died 1770). The
first of those incursions of northern barbarians, which eventually
destroyed the Roman Empire and culture, occurred in the year
390, B. C., when Brennus came down upon Italy with an army
of 70,000 Gauls. His success was uninterrupted until he had
driven the Romans into their citadel on the Capitoline Hill and
besieged it. Here he remained more than half a year, baffled
and chafing with barbaric impatience. He finally agreed to with-
draw and go back to his northern wilds upon the payment to him
of one thousand pounds weight of gold. As it was being
weighed out, his dishonesty caused a remonstrance on the part
of the Romans, whereupon the savage king threw his sword into
the scale and bade them balance that too. Never was there a
subject, better fitted or better employed to bring out the fierce
and untamed passions of barbarism.
THE WATER GIRL OF VENICE.
By S. DELL A YALLENTINA. As there is no fresh water in
Venice, except what is brought from the mainland in boats or
caught from the rains, great care is taken to collect and filter,
under government inspection, all the water that falls on the
roofs. In the center of the courts of all the large public build-
ings are cisterns or wells for this purpose, which are open and
free to all during certain hours of the day. To these great
numbers of girls resort, each provided with her two pails and
cord and hook ; and for each carrying, if it is for hire, she gets
one sou, equal to one cent.
THE BLUE GROTTO.
This is a spacious cave under the steep and mountainous shore
of the island of Capri, on the south side of the bay of Naples.
It is on a level with the water and the entrance is only large
enough to admit a small boat. The light coming in through the
blue water gives everything inside a tinge of blue, while objects
in the water have a beautiful silvery appearance.
THE 8TORIKS OF NOTED PAINTINGS. 279
MARTYRDOM OF ANGELTJS MERULA, in 1557.
By BAREND WYNVELD, Professor in the Academy of Fine
Arts, at Amsterdam. Philip II of Spain, a cruel and bigoted
supporter of the Inquisition, attempted to force this institution
upon the free-spirited Hollanders, who were at this time the sub-
jects of Spain. He seems to have had the idea that he could
crush out the now rising reform of Calvinism, by hanging or
burning all heretics. But a policy which might be effectual witli
the Latin race would not and did not succeed with the Germanic.
There resulted from it only the famous Revolt of the Nether-
lands, which established their independence, and religious liberty
in the north of Europe.
One of the first victims of King Philip's fanaticism was
Angelus Merula, who was condemned to be tortured and then
burnt alive. When brought, lacerated and bleeding, from the
rack to the stake, the old man said his Jast prayer and died.
They could then only burn the lifeless body — which was done at
Mons, in Belgium, on the 26th of July, 1557.
GALILEO BEFORE THE INQUISITION.
By T. BANTI, of Florence. Galileo is before the Tribunal of
Three called the " Inquisition," in Rome, on the 22d of June,
1633. He is seventy years old, and has been summoned from
Florence to answer to the charge of heresy, and is here compelled
to retract and renounce the theory of the revolutions of the earth
on its axis and about the sun. He is made to repeat the odious
words, " I abjure, curse and detest the error and heresy of the
motion of the earth." But, rising from his knees, the indignant
old man could not help saying, though in an undertone, "E pur
si muovi" ' yet it does move.'
MARRIAGE OF THE SEA, AT VENICE.
After the Canaletto school (about 1750). From the earliest
times of the Venetian Republic, it was the custom to celebrate
the espousal of Yenice to the Adriatic, on ascension day of each
year. With the greatest possible display the ruling Doge was
280 THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS.
taken to the mouth of the harbor where he threw a ring into the
sea. Various and costly state galleys, called Bucentaurs, had
been built for this magnificent ceremony. The last, which is
represented in this painting, was constructed in 1725, the gilding
alone costing more than $40,000. It was destroyed when the
French took possession of Venice in 1797 ; and the custom
ceased with the loss of its two hundred oared galley and at the
same time of its naval power and independence.
JOSEPH AND POTIPHAR'S WIFE.
By Gio. BILIVERTI — (1576-1644). It is called the Joseph of
Biliverti, and is one of the most observed paintings of the Uffizi
Gallery in Florence. This scene reminds us that there are two
sides to every story. Joseph said : "As he went into the house,
she caught him by his garment, and he left the garment in her
hand and fled and got him out." She said : " The Hebrew ser-
vant came in unto me to mock me. And it came to pass as I lifted
up my voice and cried, that he left his garment with me and fled
out." The woman's story, as is generally the case, was believed ;
and Joseph was cast into prison. It would be more orthodox and
no more than fair that the next Bible illustration should repre-
sent Madam e's side of the question.
UNE REPETITION DE LA TRAGEDIE DE MIRIAME CHEZ
LE CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU.
By ADRIEN MOREAU, of Paris. Cardinal Richelieu was the
greatest statesman of his age, perhaps of any age. He aspired
to be thought equally great in literature. In his younger days
he had written two dramas, really quite indifferent productions,
one of which was this tragi-comedy of Miriam, the sister of
Moses. It was the great desire of the Cardinal to make this
piece a public success. He had put it on the stage at his own
expense, but success did not come. The private rehearsal of it
before the aged author and the courtiers and princesses who
formed his court is one of the most suggestive and best executed
subjects of modern painting.
THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS. 281
THE FATHER OF PETRARCH THROWING HIS BOOKS
INTO THE FIRE.
By ACHILLE LEONARDI, of Rome. When Petrarch, the Italian
poet, was a young man of twenty (in the year 1324), all his atten-
tion and study were absorbed in classical literature. His father,
who wanted to make a lawyer of him, and had kept him at much
expense in law schools for five years, became disgusted at his
little progress in law studies. Going to his room one day, he
wound up his complaints by throwing into the fire Petrarch's
precious manuscripts of Cicero, Virgil, and the others. But the
despair and the tears of the young student at this martyrdom of
his authors, were so touching that the father relented and
snatched the books from the flames, telling his son to go on read-
ing his Latin. So a genius was saved to the world, and there
was one less poor lawyer in it.
SAPPHO.
By EDWARD RICHTER, of Paris. The fair subject of this paint-
ing is the loveliest character in classic history. Six hundred years
before Christ, in the very earliest dawn of literature, a young
Greek girl, from the Island of Lesbos, presented herself before
the rude warrior clans of Greece, overflowing with song and
sweetest poetry. She captivated all hearts with her minstrelsy
and her modest virtues. She was revered as a goddess. Her
lovely face was stamped on the ancient coins, with the inscrip-
tion, "The violet-crowned, the pure, and sweetly smiling Sappho."
SPECKBACHER AND HIS SON.
This is a reproduction of the great masterpiece of FRANZ
DEFREGGER in the National Museum of Innspruck. The story
of the scene is this : In the year 1809 happened the famous up-
rising of the Tyrolese under Andreas Hofer against the French
and Bavarians whom Napoleon had quartered upon them. The
women fought by the side of the men, and there was not a hand
that held back. They drove out their oppressors, successively
routed all the armies that the great invader could send against
282 THE STORIES OF NOTED PAINTINGS.
them, and were only beaten in the end by national treaties. It
was at the very commencement of this patriotic outburst that
the young son of Speckbacher, one of the prominent leaders,
joined a company of sharpshooters against his father's will. He
seems very soon to have had the rare fortune to shoot an eagle
on the wing, which, by an old custom of these mountaineers,
made him the " king of the shooters," and gave him a right to
promotion which even his father could not gainsay. With the
eagle's plumes as the trophies of the exploit, he is conducted by
his company into the presence of his father and the other leaders,
at the Boar's Inn of St. Johann. We know that the brave
pleading face of that boy obtained the pardon he sought, for his
name is on many pages of the stirring history of the great up-
rising of the Tyrol.
PROCESS OF PORCELAIN PAINTING.
The plates of Porcelain are made of the finest and purest
clays and materials of stoneware, and are burned for one or two
days in the highest white heat. To fill the pores and to form
a glaze on the surface, a paste made chiefly of powdered quartz
and feldspar is fused or melted on them by a heat a little less
than that originally used. The paints are made of a paste of
powdered glass, variously colored by metallic oxides, which fuses
at a still lower heat. The picture is then painted on the plates
(if a large one, in successive parts), and subjected to a heat suffi-
cient to melt the glass of the paints. If a porcelain plate passes
all these ordeals without fracture or imperfection, it is the most
valuable and enduring, as well as the most beautiful of paintings.
A TRIP TO MEXICO/
It was 1113- mischance to reach Yera Cruz during one of the
"northers," which are the great storm winds of the western
coast of the Gulf of Mexico. They are the north-east trade
winds, deflected into north winds, and increased in their vio-
lence by the lofty chain of the Cordilleras, which rises but a
short distance inland, and presents an effectual barrier to the
further western course of air-currents seeking the equator from
the north-east. The northers are prevalent only during the
winter half of the year; but while they are blowing there is no
communication with any of the ports on this side of Mexico;
for there are no harbors nor any artificial protections against
their violence.
Our steamer came to anchor under the lee of the island and
fortress of San Juan d'Uloa ; and there we lay, within full view
of all that was passing on the shore, and of the breakers dashing
over the piers, for twenty-four hours, before the small boats
could venture to come out to take us to land. This gave us
ample time and occasion to meditate on the inefficiency of this
people who could submit to such a great drawback and danger
to an important commerce during four hundred years. When
we did eventually land the next day, there were few who did not
get a good wetting in the breakers as their welcome to the land
of the tropics.
As there is but little of interest in Vera Cruz, the most of our
passengers took the cars late the same night for the City of
Mexico, 250 miles back in the interior. For a few miles the
* Written in 1876, and read before several Literary Societies.
284 A TRIP TO MEXICO.
railway passes through the sandy regions that line the coast.
Then for a hundred miles, gradually rising, we pass through
regions of the most luxuriant tropical vegetation — palm and
cocoa-nut trees, mangoes and mamey, guava and aguacate, orange
and coffee plantations, banana and pine-apple fields, fruits and
flowers in bewildering profusion and rankness of growth. Ar-
rived at Orizaba, one of the great fruit centers and delightful
stopping places of this route, we are 3,000 feet above the sea.
The snow-capped extinct volcano of the same name rises up on
our right to a height of over 17,000 feet. After leaving Orizaba
and skirting around the grand old peak that blocks our way, we
commence to ascend the valley of Maltrata. The ascent is here
so steep that the railway is laid in a zigzag course, continually
passing from one side to the other of the valley, which it follows
up to the very closing in of its mountainous walls. Then the
track doubles on itself, turns short about and comes back, climb-
ing the precipitous side of the very valley we have been ascend-
ing. There is here one of the most remarkable instances of
railway engineering in the world. To lay a railroad track, with a
uniform ascent of four feet in the hundred, against the steep
craggy sides of a mountain range, to tunnel its projecting cliffs,
to span its gorges with curving iron bridges, to go in and out of
all its defiles, winding and coiling in that slow course to the dizzy
height of 9,000 feet above the level of the sea, is one of those
astounding feats of skill and enterprise which only the Anglo-
Saxon race can accomplish. England built this road, commenced
in 1852, and finished in 1872.
After climbing up the mountain side as we have described,
through a distance of ten miles or more, we can still see from
the car window, 3,000 feet beneath us, the serpentine track of
the road up the valley over which we came two hours before.
But in mounting thus ever upward we have passed out of the
tropical climate and vegetation, into the regions of cloud and
wind, of the pine and the birch tree. We are in another world.
They call it " tierra f ria "—the cold land.
The grade of this road up the mountain, four per cent, is the
steepest of any other simple traction road, except a short one in
A TKIP TO MEXICO. 285
Peru up the Andes, which is in some places five per cent. It is
very near the limit practicable for the passage of ordinary trains
by simple traction. And even for this, it is necessary to make
use of a specially constructed engine, known as the Fairleigh lo-
comotive. It is a long boiler, more than double the usual length,
with a smoke stack at each end, and the fire in the middle.
There are eight drive wheels, and the weight of the huge machine
is seventy tons. For such heavy rolling gear the track and the
bridges must necessarily be of the strongest and most substantial
kind. One is not surprised then to learn that this 250 miles of
railway cost over thirty million dollars, and that it paid the Eng-
lish stockholders no dividend whatever. This, with the millions
of dollars sunk in Mexican bonds and in silver mines, must make
some sorrowful pages in the ledgers of our thrifty cousins.
. But we must come back to our journey. At Boca del Monte,
and about half way over the whole distance, we suddenly emerge
from the mountains and come out on the great Mexican plateau,
about 9,000 feet above the sea. From this point down into the
valley of Mexico, which has an elevation of 7,500 feet, is a long
dusty and rather uninteresting ride. It is the dry season. There
have been no rains for four or five months ; and the whole coun-
try is parched and dried up. The climate of these uplands is
only divided by wet and dry portions of the year. The temper-
ature does not materially vary. Wherever there is water for
irrigation, fruits, vegetables and harvests can be had in any
season that may be desired.
The last sixty miles of the road is through almost continuous
haciendas, or plantations, of maguey. This is the plant from
which the Mexicans obtain their intoxicating drink, called pulque.
The southern races of America, as well as of Europe, devote I
think half of their lands and labor to the production of what
they drink. The maguey is a species of aloes. The exotic cen-
tury-plant is very similar if not identical with it. But in its
native habitat, and in favorable locations, it has an enormous and
magnificent growth. It throws out its thick and spike tipped
leaves ten and twelve feet long. When allowed to do so, it
shoots up, after ten or fifteen years of growth, a straight central
286 A TEIP TO MEXICO.
stem forty to fifty feet high, forming a perfect tree of magnifi-
cent flowers. But when cultivated for pulque, the bud of this
stem must be cut off just at the time of its starting. The cut is
hollowed out in dish-shape, and all the sap, containing the accu-
mulated nutriment and life of the plant, flows into this recepta-
cle, from which it is drawn out and put into goat or hog skins.
One thrifty plant will furnish three or four hundred gallons of
this juice, which in a few days after being gathered ferments and
becomes, without further care or process, the great drink of the
country. To uneducated tastes it is a bad smelling, bad
tasting, sour-milky, and miserable apology for a beverage. But
it is consumed in immense quantities by the Indians and lower
classes. There is a daily train of cars especially for its transpor-
tation to the city called the pulque train. The Iturbe family of
Mexico have one hacienda of maguey, for the rent of which they
are paid $150 a day, over $50,000 a year. It is to me almost
inconceivable where all the money and demand for this intoxica-
ting product come from.
Before arriving at our journey's end, the road skirts around
the northern edge of lake Tezcuco, in which the city of Mexico
was said originally to have been built, but from which it is now
distant at least two miles. It is a salt lake, as are all seas and
lakes from which there are no outlets. Evaporation carries off
all the surplus of water, leaving always the minute traces of
mineral matter brought down by the inlet streams; and the
accumulations of ages make the briny solutions of all un-
drained bodies of water. The shallow margins of this lake" are
divided off into beds by low embankments, and in the rainy sea-
son the salt water flows into them. When the lake falls in the
dry season, there remain in them enclosed bodies of salt water,
which drying leave a crust of salt on the surface. This is care-
fully scraped up, taken away, and cleaned or re-evaporated. From
thence comes the salt supply of this country, both for domestic
purposes and for a certain process in the refining of silver ore.
We are now entering the great Capitol of the Republic, a city
of 250,000 inhabitants, the oldest and most interesting city on
the American continent. It was first seen by white men twenty-
A TRIP TO MEXICO. 287
seven years after the discovery of the New World by Columbus.
A band of Spanish adventurers, scarcely numbering five hundred,
with a daring and prowess unequaled in the world's history, had
fought its way over the mountains to the causeways of this lake
city, then two hundred years old, peopled by half a million
Aztecs, and governed by the richest and most powerful monarch
of the Indian Hemisphere. Cortez entered and took up his
residence in this hostile city without the slightest hesitation. He
shortly after seized the person of Montezurna, threw down the
heathen idols and elevated the Catholic, and commenced a most
desperate struggle against the overwhelming numbers of the
natives, determined to defend their homes and their religion.
Once he was driven out with fearful loss, on that memorable
" noche triste," the gloomy night ; and he gathered the remnants
of his little band, about one hundred and fifty battered and
beaten soldiers, under a huge cypress tree, which still stands,
protected and venerated, on the northern outskirts of the city.
But after a few months, Cortez returned again to the charge ;
and then he destroyed and leveled the city as fast as he conquered
it. Three-fourths of it were thus pulled down and thrown into
the canals, before the remnant submitted and the Spaniards were
the acknowledged masters of Mexico.
On this site was laid out and built the present city, with its
rectangular streets and its solid stone buildings. The houses, as
in many cities of Europe, are constructed with courts, which are
entered from the street through wide passage ways, protected by
strong and massive doors. The home life is almost entirely in
these open courts, which are surrounded by balconies and cor-
ridors.
The city of Mexico is so nearly on the level of lake Tezcuco
that it can have no efficient drainage. In fact most of the streets
have only surface drains, and none have them more than from
one to two feet below the surface. Mexico would be an exceed-
ingly unhealthy city if it were not for the rarity and excessive
dryness of the atmosphere. There can be no malarious decay,
for nothing remains moist. As it is, the main diseases are those
which arise from imperfect oxygenation of the blood, bilious and
288 A TRIP TO MEXICO.
dropsical diseases. From the great altitude of this country, a
rnile and a half above the sea-level, the air is very light, the
mercury in the barometer standing at about 23 inches, and for
those unaccustomed to the situation, it is difficult to breathe, or
at least to get air enough into the lungs. One draws many a
long breath; and mounting the long flights to the "first floor,"
one lias often hard work to get the breathing function into com-
fortable working order again. This is no climate for consump-
tives. Whoever has not a full and free expansion of the lungs
will very soon get out of Mexico. I heard men say there was no
satisfaction up there in a good " whisky straight," or any other
of the strong Americanisms. The animal functions cannot keep
up to the tune of such lively stimulants.
But what seemed strangest about this city, was its inhabitants.
It seemed as if we had been landed in a great overgrown Indian
village. Squaws with their pappooses, and half-naked, black-
maned urchins filled all the streets and every opening out of
them. There was every shade of color, from the copper through
all the bronzes to the dirty lead color. But all was Indian, thor-
oughly Indian. If we did not know what toned down the color,
we should certainly think that these mongrel and parti-colored
swarms wrere the genuine aborigines. This people are much
smaller than our northern Indians, but they have the same feat-
ures and motions and habits. They carry their burdens on their
backs with a band around their foreheads. They have the regu-
lar Indian lope when they travel. When at rest they squat on
the ground, and can sit there an indefinite time. The females
carry the unfailing baby slung in a shawl on their backs ; or if
there are two of them, or a burden and a baby, the little one is
in front and the other behind, but both in the folds of the same
long shawl.
The Indians are the traders in cheap and fancy things. The
markets, the street corners, and 'the portalis are crowded with
their little stands, exposing for sale their fruits or their confec-
tions, their tasteful handiwork or their fanciful wares. Every
morning, on the shady side of some of the principal streets,
many native girls who have brought in their flowers from the
A TRIP TO MEXICO. 289
country, sit on the curb stones, making up bouquets. They
learned the art from the French who came over with Maximilian,
and now there is not in any capitol of the world such a display
and profusion of flowers as are offered by these Indian girls in
the streets of Mexico. In a bouquet as large as one's two hands,
that I have bought for a shilling, I have counted over fifty white
roses, with mixture of orange blossoms, carnelias, and I do not
know what not.
At almost every turn some dirty half-breed will hold out to
you a handful of lottery tickets for sale. There are about a
thousand licensed venders of these chance schemes, mostly got-
ten up for the benefit of the churches. The continual cry of
"quartro mil pesos," "vente mil pesos" — four, twenty, thousand
dollars — becomes tiresome and annoying in the extreme. They
come to your room, to your eating table, everywhere, and cannot
understand that you are not tempted by such splendid chances.
In the central portion of the city, notably between the Plaza
and the Alameda, the two places of resort and of promenade, are
found a few pure whites. The Spanish Creoles — that is, those
of Spanish descent and born in the country — some Germans,
with a few English and French, compose the white population,
which I do not think would amount all told to 10,000. There
are no American residents except missionaries and diplomatic
officers.
Of the few large fortunes remaining in Mexico, a small num-
ber took their origin from the silver mines in times past ; though
these are hardly paying expenses now. But the greater number
of fortunes have come from the large haciendas scattered here
and there over the country. The agricultural resources of the
Republic are in reality far greater than the mineral, but have
never been turned to any account beyond supplying home neces-
sities. Corn and wheat can be raised there more cheaply than in
any country I know of. Yet when I was there corn was worth
a dollar and a half, and wheat two dollars and a quarter, a bushel.
Cotton is imported from the United States, in part to supply a
few factories that have started up near some of the cities. Even
potatoes have been brought from the States to the country which
290 A TRIP TO MEXICO.
has the credit of first furnishing to the world this most impor-
tant food staple.
There is nothing in all the line of vegetables, fruits, grains,
luxuries or staples, that cannot be raised somewhere in the Mex-
ican States in the greatest abundance and cheapness. And I have
often asked myself if, in view of all these natural advantages,
this country would be any benefit to the United States, should
the opportunity ever be offered of acquiring it. I have always
decided that it would not be. There is not a land, however rich
and prolific it may be, that is worth the having, if it is encum-
bered with a Spanish speaking people. It is the same with Cuba
as with Mexico. Either one of these would prove to be the
source of never-ending jealousies, intolerance, and insubordina-
tion, until the native element was exterminated, or merged into
something better. And these, as we know, are long and trying
ordeals to go through.
Old travelers say, if you want to travel for comfort or pleasure,
never go where they speak the Spanish language. There are
many reasons for this, and one of them is that you cannot trust
that " Si, Sifior " as you can the " Yes, Sir." There is always in
these countries a feeling of insecurity of person and of property,
an uneasy doubt as to just how long you will be able to hold
your own. Quiet and order are maintained within the city limits
of Mexico, but it is at the cost of a large and military police.
Every night, from sundown to sunrise, at every street crossing,
there is a policeman fully armed with a musket and cutlass. But
whenever our party made excursions into the country we took
with us nothing more valuable than a few silver mounted pistols.
And we should probably have given these up to any strangers we
had met in a lonely part of the way.
It was my misfortune to visit Mexico during the prevalence of
one of its periodic revolutions.* This word sounds terrible, and
has a pretty serious meaning to us. But .there it is only the
usual process of a change of administration. It is the party of
the outs trying to get in, and doing it in the only way it can be
done in Mexico, that is by fighting. Popular suffrage is there
* In the Spring of 1876.
A TRIP TO MEXICO. 291
the merest farce. In most places no one goes to the polls to vote ;
but whichever party has military control of a district, makes a
list, or a pretended list, of the voters in it, and reports them as
having voted to a man for its candidates. So an administration,
if unopposed by armed force, has it in its power to perpetuate
itself indefinitely. I do not think there were any principles in-
volved in the contest that was then waging. Both leaders were
Catholics, and neither professed or promulgated any ideas of
reform or economy or schemes of public welfare. Porfirio Diaz,
the instigator of the revolt, is an Indian, and perhaps carried the
sympathies of the lower classes. While Lerdo, the President of
the Republic, being of Spanish descent and a man of wealth, had
a greater insight and interest in government affairs.
The Mexican Congress assembled while I was there, and was
opened by a speech from President Lerdo. He had been solicited
by all the members to declare in his opening that he would not
be a candidate for re-election. It was regarded that this would
put an end to the revolution and pacify the country. But Lerdo
disappointed any such expectations. He claimed to be able to
put down all opposition, that the revolters were nothing but the
old bands of robbers and offenders against the peace and order of
the country, and that he should not yield to them. I heard it
said on that occasion that his obstinacy had made him a doomed
man. Mexico has already had, since her independence in 1821,
thirty-six successful revolutions. And now we may count the
number increased by one more ; for to-day the proud and weal-
thy Lerdo is an exile ; and Diaz, the soldier of fortune, is
exacting the tribute of his success on tax ridden Mexico.
Our nearest neighbor, the Mexican Republic, is notoriously the
poorest of nations. With all her wealth of mines and silver
veins, with her untold capacity for the production of every com-
modity of commerce, she could not to-day sell her bonds for ten
cents on the dollar. She has no gold, no exchange, no credit.
Her wealthy men can no longer get their wealth out of the
country. There is absolutely nothing into which they can turn
it, to make it available in London or New York. A few words
on the causes which have led to this anomalous state of things
may not be uninteresting.
292 A TRIP TO MEXICO.
In the first place, no European settlers ever went to Mexico
with the intention of making a permanent home and living
there. Spaniard, German, French and English, all went there to
make a fortune and then return to Europe to enjoy it. For. three
hundred years the country was ruled by Viceroys from Spain,
who succeeded each other on an average every four years, that
time being considered long enough for each to reap an ill-gotten
harvest and to get back to his home land again. Thus from the
very outset this ill-fated country has been reaped and raked and
gleaned to make the wealth and fortunes of foreigners. What
was left by grasping tradesmen and rapacious rulers, was gathered
up by swarms of priests, and either sent back to the order at
home in payment for their appointment, or expended in the erec-
tion and costly adornment of myriads of monasteries and cathe-
drals. But these add nothing to the wealth of nations, and the
gains that go abroad make no home improvements. Thus it has
come that a soil once rich and fertile, that easily sustained the
swarming workers of ancient times, is now waste, without pre-
tense of cultivation on three-fourths of it. The richest mineral
veins and surface leads have been worked and wasted out, till
how, under crude and slovenly processes of refining, the silver
mines do not pay expenses.
The native Indians, who have had among them in times past
some men of remarkable sense and judgment, saw this desolation
coming upon their country, over half a century ago. They
attributed it to the rule of the Spaniards ; and in 1821 they suc-
ceeded, as we had done, after a long and trying struggle, in
throwing off the foreign yoke. But prosperity did not come.
It was not sought from the only source whence it can come — from
mother Earth. Within three or four years after their indepen-
dence, they had borrowed in London about forty million dollars.
This kept them afloat some twelve years, when the mania for
mining speculations broke out in England. Again the infatuated
English invested perhaps another forty millions in Mexican silver
mines, the money from which investments kept things moving
there till our southern aristocracy wanted more slave territory,
and we had to go over and fight Mexico for it. This caused us
A TRIP TO MEXICO. 293
to expend in that country, in various ways, some thirty millions ;
all of which was a perfect god-send to this impoverished people.
Then France wanted a hand in the great poor-house, and sent
Maximilian there, and with him a score or more of millions. All
this had been gleaned up and sent away, when the English took
it in their heads to build that splendid railway up the mountains,
and poured thirty million dollars into the needy country that
seems no longer to give back anything. If here are not lessons
enough for us to let this border land of ours alone, I do not
know what lessons are.
I happened to take with me as a kind of guide book, Robert
A. Wilson's Travels in Mexico. Now the late Judge Wilson of
California was the pioneer and authority of those who in late
years have been attempting to throw discredit on the Spanish
accounts of the numbers and power of the ancient Aztecs, and
the story of their conquest which our own Prescott has woven
into such a delightful romance of history. The natural mind
however revolts from having its cherished beliefs attacked. The
confirmed skeptic in history is the same unlovely being with the
open-mouthed skeptic in religion. Who has any sympathy with
the man who tried to make out that Shakspeare never existed, or
that old Homer was a myth ? The very thrill of joy that went
through the land when it was announced that the devoted and
intrepid Schliemann had found at Mycena an Aladin's cave of
Homeric heroes and treasures and evidences, ought to be a sig-
nificant warning to all misbelievers and belittlers of history. So
was I predisposed, both by the instincts of a faithful mind and
the love of the cherished idols of popular belief, to find all the
fault I could with these latter day pessimists.
And first, in regard to the reported numbers of the ancient
Aztecs, which Wilson says must be taken at about one-tenth of
those stated, because the country could not have sustained them
all, I really could see no occasion to di^de them at all. It may
well be that in those days of the unexhausted fertility of a vol-
canic soil, and the easy abundance of an unvarying semi-tropical
climate, it may be, I say, that every Indian soul was there that
was numbered. It takes almost nothing to keep alive those di-
294 A TRIP TO MEXICO.
minutive and lowly organized beings. They live now almost
altogether on black beans, which can be produced in unlimited
quantities. And one may see these natives any day in Mexico,
that have come in from long distances to sell a few cents worth
of produce or of wares, making their dinner on a joint of sugar
cane which they have brought with them. The females are mar-
riageable at an exceedingly early age — I was told at a dozen
years — and they certainly multiply beyond any of the ratios of
Malthus or of mathematics. From the large proportion of old
and shriveled women that are met with there, one might almost
believe what is said of them, that they never die, but dry up and
blow away. I certainly never saw anyone who had ever seen an
Indian's grave. Unquestionably then, a few score good successive
bean seasons might easily have brought out Aztecs enough to fill
the roll of the most extravagant historian.
Wilson says, because he could not find heaps of ruins and
building materials on the sites of the populous Indian cities
spoken of by Cortez, he does not believe they ever existed, nor
the stone built palaces and teocallis. Now nothing is more cer-
tain than that the Aztecs were skillful and extensive workers in
stone. The relics of their quaint and massive stone carvings lie
neglected everywhere in city and in country. They have been
so abundant in times past that the Mexicans of to-day do not be-
gin to realize the riches they have in the unique remains of Aztec
culture. I have seen a sphinx-head carving used for a hitching
block on a country road. And in a court-yard of the Govern-
ment House they feed a peacock on the top of the sacrificial
altar of the great god Mexitli. But go into the undisturbed
wildernesses of southern Mexico, to Uxrnal, Palenque, and Mitlan,
and there you will find the most remarkable ruins in the world,
immense structures, palaces and temples, built of hewn stone,
cemented with mortar, covering acres, and scattered over miles
of territory, with columns, facades and frontings, sculptured and
ornamented as no other ancient remains have ever been found —
and all this the work of Mexican Indians before the use and
knowledge of iron tools. Is it at all probable then that the
Aztecs, alone of those semi-civilized races, lived in mud houses,
and served their proud Montezumas in palaces of adobe ?
A TRIP TO MEXICO. 295
Cortez, in his final capture of the city of Mexico, was obliged
to take it as it were by inches, and to destroy and level every-
thing as far and as fast as he went, until almost the entire city
had disappeared. Then in the rebuilding, which was immedi-
ately commenced and carried on in the most substantial manner,
it may well be that all the building materials accumulated by the
Indians were used up in the new structures. I do not myself
think it at all strange that the visible vestiges of the Aztec sites
and structures have long since vanished from the thickly peopled
and ever changing valley of the Anahuac.
But these industrious natives have left works which could not
be destroyed, and which fully attest the busy swarms of workers
that must once have filled this hive of aboriginal races. These
are enormous mounds, almost mountains of earth material, piled
up in regular pyramids, by the slow and tedious work of human
hands. I have climbed them to the height of hundreds of feet ;
and I have dug up pockets full of arrow heads and idol heads
in the fields about them, wondering all the time how Wilson and
his train would account for these evidences, in their abridgment
of Indian histories.
But I cannot follow further this labyrinth of mazy conjecture.
Suffice it to say that where such careful students and searchers as
Prescott, Eobertson, and Humboldt have not found reason to
hesitate, it is ill-timed and mistaken effort now to raise the dicta
of doubts.
But I must leave this land of delightful scenes and of thrilling
reminiscences ; and I leave it, as I leave these rambling sketches,
with regret. Yet once more before I go I must take a last look
at the lovely valley and its rampart of mountains, from the
heights of Chapultepec. Here, on the fortress which our brave
boys stormed and took in '47, on a standpoint 1,500 feet higher
than the storm beaten summit of Mount Washington, one looks
out on every side upon lakes and groves and hills and vales — the
pleasantest panorama the sun ever shone upon. While, at a dis-
tance of fifty to a hundred miles, there rise on all the horizon,
crests and ridges and mountains, and snow-capped cones of vol-
canoes two miles higher even than this lofty table land. Truly
296 A TRIP TO MEXICO.
nature has prodigaled here her richest scenes, her most startling
contrasts of heights and depths, of soaring peaks and yawning
chasms. The eternal snows of the arctics look down on the
yellowing grain fields of temperate climes, while these in their
turn overhang deep barancas, in which the luscious fruits of the
tropics are ripening.
But over all this scene of wildness and of beauty is cast the
shadow of man's lawlessness. Danger lurks where nature revels.
It is the story of the tropics the world around — lands rich in
nature's gifts, but poor in humanity—
"Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine,
And all save the spirit of man is divine."
i , •( , 'r
mm
SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND/
Whoever would see countries very much different from his
own must make up his mind to cross the oceans. He who says :
" I will see my own country first before I go out exploring foreign
lands," will never know much by personal observation of the
strange varieties of people and culture, or of the wonderful
differences in the vegetable and animal developments that make
this world of ours so diversified and interesting. The oceans are
the great barriers to all interchanges, whether of races or man-
ners or productions. Even cultivated and commercial nations,
on opposite sides of the Atlantic, are widely dissimilar, as every
one knows who has ever traveled in Europe. But in respect of
natural growths and native species, which are more restricted in
their spheres, there is always a far wider difference.
Countries divided off from all others by a great expanse of
waters, will most likely bear no close relation to them in their
stages of advancement. They will probably resemble some by-
gone period in the growth of those more connected. And the
more isolated a region is, the more backward seems to be its state
of development. Thus eastern Australia, separated from all the
rest of the world not more by its oceans than by the parched
and barren wastes of its interior, had developed, when first visited
by white men, only types of animals and plants that were preva-
lent in the northern continents during the earlier Tertiary times ;
such as reptiles and mursupials, the wingless emus and sluggish
parrots, the great tree-ferns, the cycad palms, the araucarian
pines and monstrous gum-trees.
*A Lecture written in 1884, and delivered before the Central Church Society
of Rochester, and other Societies.
298 SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND.
But New Zealand, separated from Australia, the nearest land,
by twelve hundred miles of stormy ocean, was still more back-
ward in the race of life. Fern brakes and lycopod mosses covered
the whole country that was not forest. Grass palms, tall tree-
ferns, and impenetrable jungles of evergreen trees, loaded down
with orchids, climbing ferns, lianas, and every kind of parasitic
growths, silent and gloomy from the almost total absence of
animal life, formed its forest scenery. A few species of the
apteryx (the kiwis) and the giant moas, birds without a trace of
wings, constituted the land fauna of this desolate country. There
were absolutely no quadrupeds, no mammalia, and no reptiles
except a few lizards, that were indigenous to the islands.
A race of Malay Indians, nearest akin to the Sandwich Island-
ers, had in quite recent years found its way to these shores,
bringing with them some dogs and rats, the sweet potato and the
taro, the root from which the Sandwich Islanders make their
"poi." Here was a race of men, a product of the most recent
of the geological eras, stranded on a half developed relic of the
old Carboniferous period, that did not produce a spear of grain,
or an herb, or a tuber, or a fruit, or any vegetable that was really
fit for a man to eat. I suppose it was about the hardest conditi-
ons in the way of getting a living that a colony of emigrants
ever found itself in. Until the dogs and rats and roots which
they brought had increased sufficiently to be levied upon, they
found almost their sole food in the roots of the common fern-
brake, the Pteris esculenta, and in what they could catch of the
great running birds which they found there in large abundance.
At the time when they were first brought to the notice of
Europeans by Capt. Cook, a little over a hundred years ago, they
had eaten up all the moas on the islands, and had begun to eat
up each other, in sheer necessity for fresh meat, as they always
claimed. The Maoris (pronounced Mouries) were unquestion-
ably a race of cannibals; and until about forty years ago, no
white man who set any value on a decent funeral cared much to
go among them. I have seen many an old tattooed chief who,
they said, had eaten his man. I saw at Ohinemutu a still linger-
ing relic of an aged chieftain. He had been a powerful warrior
SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 299
in his day ; thought nothing of picking up a man and heaving
him over the palisades. They claimed that he recollected Capt.
Cook, which would make him considerably over a hundred years
old. It was said that when they talked about missionaries to
him, the old cannibal would waken up and move his withered
lips, as if in dim recollection of some- far away feast. But Capt.
Cook, of blessed memory, at least on the south side of the equa-
tor, had left among them some civilized pigs; and these had
increased and multiplied, and finally took the place of mission-
aries at the fire side.
If there is in all the world a country more rugged and moun-
tainous than another it is New Zealand. Ranges, growing higher
and wilder toward the south, run through the islands from end to
end. And one sailing all around the coast, as I have done, finds
only rock bound shores and cliffs and peaks rising inland as far as
the eye can reach. Of course there are some exceedingly rich
and some wide valleys. But the country is like California, so
nearly all mountain side that valley land from its very scarcity is
almost beyond price.
How this mountainous region ever came to be named after the
low-lying Zealand in Holland, where they have to build walls and
dykes to keep the sea out, is one of the mysteries. The good
old Dutch navigator, Tasman, discovered these islands 240 years
ago. He sent a boat on shore to establish friendly relations with
the natives ; and these took such a liking to the fat Hollanders
that they immediately roasted half a dozen of them. Old Tas-
man was so disgusted that lie at once set sail, and hove back at
them the first name he could think of. It is lucky it was not a
worse one.. It might have been Rotterdam Spuyten Duyvils, or
some other hard name, for he was awful mad. For more than a
century the Cannibal Islands had a fearful letting alone, until
they were rediscovered and taken possession of by Captain Cook,
in 1769.
New Zealand bears evident marks of having been elevated out
of the ocean in recent geological times. Not only its flora and
fauna, but its physical structure shows it to be, in very great part
at least, one of the newest made lands of our globe. Volcanoes,
300 SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND.
mostly extinct, but many still smoking, are found all over the
North Island, while basaltic and other igneous rocks are found as
abundantly in the South Island. Enormous quantities and
depths of diluvium are overlying the whole country, hills, ridges,
and even mountains, in positions where it is impossible to account
for them except as having been deposited on the sea bottom and
then recently elevated. In cuts through the hills, at various ele-
vations inland, I often saw layers of marine shells, sometimes a
foot thick, clear and clean as they had been laid up on the sea
shore. In fact the evidence is so plain that even the natives have
thought it necessary to account for it. So they will gravely tell
you that once on a time their great god Maui went fishing in the
waters that were then overlying the North Island. He had a
hook made out of the jaw bone of one of his ancestors. After
varying luck, he at last caught his hook under a rock, and in try-
ing to pull it out, he lifted the bottom of the ocean right up into
the hills and mountains of New Zealand.
It seems to me that I would interest you more in this lovely
tourists' land, if I told you of my travels, and what I saw and
thought of the people and scenes. It will necessarily bring in a
good many capital " Fs ". But you will in reality, I imagine,
find me but a small factor in the incidents and descriptions that
I will be able to give you so much better in this way. I will
therefore run along through my diary, catching at what I think
will interest you most.
One bright summer morning in January, after a three weeks
steamer voyage, I landed in Auckland, a lovely English built city
of 30,000 inhabitants, as far in the southern hemisphere as Rich-
mond, Virginia, is in the northern. With a company of our
passengers I started off at once up Queen Street for the Prince
Albert Hotel, to get our first breakfast on shore. But what a
disappointment, when we came to see the little cramped and
insignificant hotel ! Why, there is not in any of the large cities
of the southern colonies, a hotel that begins to equal those which
we rank as second class. Our breakfast consisted of splendid
meats, the best you can imagine, with bread and coffee. That
was all. You get magnificent cuts of beef and mutton where
SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 301
Englishmen live ; but yon do not get much of anything else
worth speaking of.
But out of doors the summer foliage and flowers were at their
best ; and it was as good as a feast to the hungry, to wander
through the beautiful parks and gardens of this luxuriant country.
The broad-leaved, fat-armed, India-rubber trees, the Norfolk
Island pines, the most symmetrical trees that grow, the Morton
Bay figs, a species of Banyan with aerial roots, the Nikau palm,
the strange and only palm growth of these islands, and numerous
other tropical productions adorn and diversify the walks and
drives in the vicinity of Auckland.
A favorite excursion is to the top of Mount Eden, an extinct
volcano, some six or eight hundred feet high. There are over
sixty similar cones within ten miles of this city. From this
nearest one the visitor gets a grand panoramic view of a beautiful
city built on hills, of a romantic country dotted with crater
peaks, and of the islands and headlands of two magnificent
harbors situated on either side of the narrow neck of land on
which Auckland is located. One of them opens into the western
ocean, and the other, the one by which we came, opens by various
and distant outlets into the eastern ocean.
In a few days we had gathered together a party of six for the
grand excursion to the Hot Springs and Lakes. One afternoon
we took the little steamer " Glenelg," of about one hundred tons,
and started out for Tauranga, a port on the south-eastern coast.
Our steamer seemed to me rather a cockle shell concern to face
the billows of the great Pacific Ocean. However, with some
considerable tumbling as we rounded the capes, it carried us
through quite comfortably, and we arrived the next morning in
time for breakfast.
Crowds of Maoris, in their gay-colored blankets and paints and
tattoos, were in the streets and all through the hotel, not begging
nor putting themselves in our way, but pleased if they could
shake hands with us, and say : " Me big chief; me fight pakeha ;"
that is the foreigner. For you must know that this is the center of
the fiercest wars between the natives and the English. The
Maoris are savage fighters, perfect devils to stick and hang, and
302 SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND.
never know when they ought to call themselves whipped. The
precise and orderly British troops, who must always have every-
thing " in good form," and who never have learned to fight
behind a tree or in Indian fashion, have been beaten in nearly
every encounter with the natives. And they are to-day absolute-
ly afraid to arouse the war spirit or to even to execute the laws
as against the Maoris. The very day we arrived, there was great
excitement — and they said this was the cause of so many natives
being in town — about a Maori named Tutu, who was out in the
neighboring country somewhere, scouting about with two hun-
dred natives. He had recently with a gang murdered five or six
English families, and the authorities were trying to catch him, if
they could do it in some safe and amicable way. As we were
going right up the country where he was supposed to be, we
made up our minds unamimously to follow the example of
the authorities, and not to see him unless he was out of sight.
After breakfast we took the stage, a three-seated covered spring
wagon with four horses, for Ohinemutu, 54 miles in the interior.
About three miles out we pass the Gate Pah. A Pah is one of
the intrenched villages or strongholds of the natives. This one
in its time was fortified by three ditches or rifle-pits, with pali-
sades and strong hurdle fences on the embankments. Here one
morning, twenty years ago, " General Sir Duncan Cameron," I
quote from history, " with three regiments of infantry, with
sappers and miners and marines, numbering over 4,000 men, with
Armstrong guns and all the appliances of modern warfare, took
up his position before this mysterious fortification." Well, 500
natives, armed with rifles, dodging around in the trenches, and
keeping up sham maneuvers in the rear, made this pompous army
believe that there were thousands of them, and kept it cannon-
ading, and throwing shells at red flags away in the rear till nearly
nightfall. And when at last the English attempted three times
to storm the breaches, the native marksmen picked off with their
rifles nearly all the officers, and sent the troops flying back to the
harbor miserably beaten. I read of their virtues and heroism on
granite monuments in the cemetery of Tauranga — not of the
brave Maoris who were defending their homes — but of the
gallant officers of Her Majesty's 43rd and 68th Regiments.
SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 303
For ten miles after leaving the Gate Pah, we rode through a
rough and rolling country, covered all over with fern-brakes.
The soil of these lands seems to be good and deep, but it is a
fearful job to get rid of this fern. It seeds back and comes up
again and again as fast as the land is plowed and cultivated.
After this we came to the Oropi forest, or "bush" as it is
called in this land of misnomers, eighteen miles of a thick im-
penetrable tangle of fern trees, creepers, climbing vines, and
giant forest trees. These were to me of surpassing interest .; and
I would not have tired studying them if the time had been three
days instead of three hours. The lower forest consists of ferns
of innumerable varieties and growths, from the minute filmy
ferns on the surface, to the tall and splendid tree-ferns 30 to 40
feet high. Through these tower up the majestic pines and
birches, the Rimu, Totara, and Matai, the Rata, Pukatea, and
Kowai, many of them 12 to 15 feet in diameter and two or three
hundred feet high. All these are profusely garlanded with
orchids and parasitic ferns, and festooned with lianas and creepers
away up in their branches as far as the eye can penetrate. But
all the trees and plants are strange and unnatural. The pines
you would not imagine could belong to the Pin us family. They
have no cones nor needle-shaped leaves. Their fruiting is like
berries, and their leaves are flat, from oval to lanceolate, and some
hanging down like the willow. The birches, the laurels, and the
myrtles are these only in name. They have no like species in
all the world besides.
The Rata tree is the great feature of the New Zealand bush.
It is the most unique and intelligent tree that ever — breathed, I
was going to say — for it seems to know as much as some animals.
When it first shoots up from the ground, it appears to look all
around for a Rimu pine. It will not turn out of its way for any
other tree ; but if there is a Rimu pine within reach, it sfarts for
it and climbs straight up the body, without a leaf or branch until
its head is among the upper limbs. Then the Rata sends out
branches like other trees, and at the same time the stalk from
the ground up begins to push out on each side a line of aerial
roots, which gradually creep around the body of the pine until
304 SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND.
they meet on the opposite side. There they grow together, and
all the network of rootlets grows together, forming a complete
case around the doomed pine, which the Rata in time entirely
absorbs and destroys. But if the Rata sprout does not find the
Hi mu in its vicinity, it grows up an independent respectable for-
est tree, which is greatly sought for as a ship timber.
Now if this story of the performance of a tree had been told
me without my having seen anything of it, I most likely should
not have believed it. But I can assure you that I have seen the
Rata tree in every stage of its growth, as a slender vine, as a
stalk with a set of comb-like teeth on each side, then with the
rootlets half way around, then all around and growing together
at all points, and finally as a great hollow tree eight to ten feet
in diameter.
In the middle of the bush is a hostelry, where we stop for a
change of horses and our invariable roast mutton. I took the
opportunity to hunt the jungle for ferns and mosses. It is per-
fectly safe in New Zealand to ramble anywhere, if only one does
not lose his way ; for there is not a snake nor a reptile nor a
harmful animal there, nor a poisonous plant except the Toot
berry, and the natives make their strong drink out of that.
But you will think this is a long journey, as long in telling as
in doing. However we did finally get out of the woods, and
come in sight of the first of the beautiful and romantic lakes
that are scattered through this whole region. The first is Rotoiti ;
then soon after we came upon Rotorua, and saw, away around
on the other side, the little native village of Ohinemutu, to which
we were bound. We arrived about five o'clock, and stopped at
a very comfortable hotel called the Lake House. There is another
and intensely rival establishment there. Two white men, a
Scotchman by the name of Graham, and an Irishman of the
name of Kelly, who hadn't room in all the world to fight it out
elsewhere, have come up here and built two rival hotels, on lands
leased from semi-savages, and on a crust overhanging an active
volcano. The bitterest competition prevails between them.
They run independent stages, have runners on all the route, and
get pamphlets published to put each other down. It is really
the most home-like thing in all this aboriginal country.
SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 305
After supper we went down among the native huts and hot
springs. Everywhere there were ponds and pools of hot water,
streams and brooks of hot water, springs innumerable that were
bubbling and boiling with hot water. From every crevice and
upturned stone the steam was issuing. Some women were put-
ting little bags of potatoes in the steam fumeroles for cooking.
One was covering up a pannikin of bread-dough in an under
ground oven. A lot of men were chattering away, seated on flat
stones that were warmed by subterranean steam. One woman
was taking a late bath in a hot pool, and some boys and girls
were jumping and splashing in a pond that we could hardly bear
a hand in. One had to be very careful to follow the paths, or
the first he knew he would be in hot water himself. One feels
that he is walking on a slender crust that overarches gulfs of
seething and boiling waters ; while the " putrid stench of sul-
phur," as Anthony Trollope cabled it, reminds one that he is a
little nearer Tartarus than sinful mortals care to be.
The next morning I took a walk in another direction, down
by the carved house, meeting house, or Runanga as they call it.
Here was a lively settlement of the natives. As I passed along
the old women and the boys and girls continually asked me for
matches. The matches of the colonies are little cotton wicks,
coated with hard tallow. Well, I gave 'them all the matches I
had ; and when I had no more to give, I handed them out small
money to buy them with ; all the time wondering what they
could possibly want of matches, where they never thought of
lighting a fire. But down in front of the carved house I saw a
bevy of little girls throwing a kind of home-made dice, and wax
matches were what the little gamblers lost or won. Here was
another little feature of foreign society that carried me back to
my own loved home, where other people's fortunes are taken
and played with, as these little tawny skins played my wax
matches.
A little beyond this settlement, on a point of land extending
out into lake Hotorua, is where the natives bury their dead. No
sooner are the bodies put under the ground, than they are acted
upon and rapidly eaten up by the alkaline impregnations of the
306 SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND.
subsoil. Where this point now is, there was, a few years ago, the
extended site of a regular fortified Pah or village. But one day
the greater part of it sank bodily into the lake ; and now only
the tops of the carved posts that were in the palisades are visible
above the waters. I did think when I sat down to contemplate
in this tombless corpseless graveyard, that earthly things were
transitory and unstable.
In the afternoon we again took the stage for Wairoa, twelve
miles further on. This is another Maori village, with only one
hotel and one white man. Here the natives fairly swarmed.
They came and sat on the ground in front of the hotel, and strag-
gled through it as if they owned it. The women brought out
their pappooses strapped to boards ; the men brought out their
best blankets or old coats. We seemed to be in the midst of a
regular Indian pow-wow. In fact these Maoris reminded me
continually of the North American Indians — as we used to see
them here in 'New York, before the spirit of manhood was all
crushed out of them.
These tribes, the Arawas, own all this geyser country, and they
will not give it up, nor sell it, nor submit to any interference from
the English government. They have been so jealous of their
possessions that it is only within a very few years that they have
allowed any strangers to come in except by special permission
from the chiefs.
In the evening we engaged a select party of the natives to give
us the great national dance, the Haka, in the meeting house. In
the middle, a row of sticks driven into the ground answered the
purpose of candle-sticks. On one side was a crowd of natives,
of every age, condition and sex, seated or sprawling over the
ground, all smoking dirty pipes, with half a dozen disgusted
whites wedged in among them. While on the other side was a
row of twenty girls in front, with as many young fellows behind
them, all in the scantiest apparel, and all attempting to go
through the same contortions and howlings as a leader, who
strode up and down before them, shouting and gesticulating with
all his might. It was a wild and savage orgy. The horrid hiss-
ings and ejaculations, the uncouth gestures and distorted faces,
SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 307
the barbarous antics and unnatural contortions of the body, were
fit only for a pandemonium. They kept it up for two hours, at
one time the women in front, at another the men ; during which
time we had to furnish two pails of beer, and sundry bottles of
a stronger beverage. These liquors and their little fee of half a
dollar a head were the sine qua non of the performance. But
they gave us the worth of our money in good, honest diabolism.
They worked like mad, and gave us such an idea of heathen
rage as never could be got elsewhere. The thing as we witnessed
it was in a measure orderly and decent ; but when the tribes have
their great meetings, and the excitement becomes contagious, the
Haka degenerates into the wildest debauch and saturnalia.
The next morning early we were off for the terraces, the grand
object of all these excursions. Kate, an interesting and very
fair looking native, or rather half-caste, was our guide. When
the Arawas finally made up their minds to make some money out
of their unique possessions, they found that they had no one who
could speak English. A real full-blooded native never could
learn a foreign language. All business and teaching and books,
with both the Maoris and Kanakas (Sandwich Islanders), have to
be in their own language. So Kate, and another one, Sophie,
both half whites, who had partly mastered the hard language,
were imported from another tribe. They both claimed to be of
chieftain blood, and were stout enough to make good their pre-
tentious to rank and respect from both whites and browns.
We first had a walk from Wairoa of about a mile through the
bush and down a steep hill to the foot of lake Tarawera. There
we took a large whale-boat with six native oarsmen, and were
rowed eight miles to the head of the lake. The country about
lake Tarawera is the most beautiful example of romantic and
varying scenery that I have ever seen. The blending of barren
volcanic peaks and verdure covered hills, the dark green forest
ranges, the isolated clumps of giant Totara pines, the Polmtu-
kawa trees, one part of a tree bright green, and the other part
all scarlet blossoms, the rocky shores drooping with immense fern
clusters, and the lifeless and gloomy silence that brooded over
the whole scene, made this lake-ride one ever to be remembered
by each one of us.
308 SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND.
The boatmen sang or rather chanted their wild and rhythmical
songs in unison with their rowing ; sometimes gently, and again
with a savage impulse that would send the boat aflying. This is
one of the refrains that came in most frequently :
"Waka tana, Kea wheta, Haka tu — u"
And the boat would fairly leap under the emphasis of the
last word. Our boatmen, like many of the Maoris, were great
improvisers. Some one of them would give each of us in turn
some native name ; and then you would hear that name come
out in his song with some other lingo that made them all roar
with laughter. It was very evident their remarks were personal,
and probably not very complimentary. It is rather a ticklish
sensation, I assure you, to hear one's self described in an unknown
tongue, by a parcel of savages who knew, or had often heard
their fathers tell, of the different flavors of the different breeds
of Englishmen.
At the head of lake Tarawera we land at the mouth of the
outlet creek that connects lake Rotomahana with this lake. A
canoe is paddled up this creek with the luggage, but most of us
prefer to walk about a mile through the bush to lake Rotoma-
hana. This celebrated lake with its surroundings is undoubtedly
the greatest natural curiosity in the world. Here is a body of
water a mile long, set in among mountains, out of the sides of
which on every hand are continually pouring innumerable min-
eral and boiling springs of every variety and shade of impregna-
tion— silica, sulphur, iron, lime, magnesia, soda, potash, everything
but pure water. In some places the springs are building up
immense deposits and incrustations ; in others they are dissolving
and crumbling down the solid mountains. No living thing exists
in the lake, and but a scanty vegetation in its vicinity. Its waters
are hot in all parts, and in places, over sunken springs, very
nearly boiling. As we were paddled over these heated and fetid
waters in a rolling log canoe, we called to mind the fabled Stygian
lake, and wondered if Rotomahana would not have made a more
impassable barrier on the borders of Erebus.
We came upon this remarkable region just at the foot of the
White Terraces, « Te Tarata," " The Tattooed " as the natives
SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 309
call them. They are composed of a series of huge semi-circular
steps, rising one back of another until they have reached up the
mountain side to a height of nearly one hundred feet. The
material is a silicious sinter, deposited from surcharged hot
waters, and forming the purest white and most beautiful incrus-
tations. As these chemical solutions are destructive to shoes, we
climb the steps in stocking-feet. The water that trickles over
them grows hotter and hotter as we ascend until we can no longer
bear it, and have to hasten out to the sides. Arrived at the top,
if the wind is blowing the steam away from us, we can stand on
the brink of the huge caldron of boiling and spouting waters.
The chasm is a hundred feet across, and in the midst of the
clouds of steam we can occasionally see great columns of water
thrown up fifteen to twenty feet high. The color of the water
that we can see is an intense brilliant blue, even tinging the steam
clouds above it the same blue color.
The fountain of the "White Terraces is a true intermittent
geyser. The basin is often completely emptied by an explosive
effort that throws the contents to a height of forty feet, inundat-
ing everything about it with scalding waters. It however
ordinarily rapidly fills up again. But the natives say that when
the winds blow strong in a certain direction, the water recedes
entirely from the fountain, and they can look down into it as into
a deep crater. This is certainly a very singular and inexplic-
able phenomenon. I would hardly have believed it if I had
not the evidence of a photograph of the terraces with the water
nearly all drained out of the step-basins.
Yery hot water will take up and hold considerable quantities
of silica in solution ; but as it cools it loses that power, and con-
sequently must leave it deposited. It is owing to this fact that
these remarkable terraces have been built up on this grand scale
and after the thousands of years that this silicated spring has
been pouring out its volumes of water. The pools of hot water
that are found in most of the steps, being continually fed with
hotter water from above, will not of course grow colder, and
consequently will not deposit silicious matter on the bottom or
sides. Therefore the basins never decrease in depth or size. But
310 SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND.
the little outlet streams that trickle over the edge of each basin
are constantly cooling and depositing silicates. Thus they are all
the time slowly building up the edges, and adding to the exquis-
itely beautiful structure of the frontal portions or walls. These
are like cave formations, and have the appearance of the clearest
alabaster, worked into cornices upheld by fretted stalactites. If
these terraces had been carved out of the purest chalcedony,
they could not have been whiter or more graceful. It is as if an
immense and foaming cataract, in tumbling down the mountain
side, had suddenly been transformed into Parian marble.
When we came down from the terraces to the lake, we found
our canoe there, with the provisions, and wre sat down by some
hot springs to have our lunch. Besides some things from the
hotel, we had raw potatoes and a bag of cray-fish, which had
been bought of some natives on our way up. The cray-fish, as
you know, is a small fresh water lobster about as large as one's
thumb. These with the potatoes were cooked in the steam
crevices, and proved to be exceedingly nice eating. All took a
fancy that day to native dishes.
After lunch we climbed by a ravine up to the Devil's Hole, a
steam vent roaring with the noise of twenty engines. Then we
were taken to a wide flat basin among the hills, where apparently
some considerable mountain had been dissolved away by the
chemical waters, leaving a crust which, by the care that Kate
took of us, seemed to be rather dangerous footing. Here were
great numbers of mud springs, or little cones of viscous clay,
through which hot gases were sputtering. From one of these
every native that passes will eat a good round handful. I tried
it and found it rather tasteless, but still very clean and eatable
for mud.
In the same depression are sundry little lakes and pools of
most disgusting and fetid waters — thick, green, greasy, and of
execrable taste. We made up our minds that if the Devil lived
about here, as Kate said he did, this must be one of his summer
watering places — his Saratoga, or his Wiesbaden.
After this we visited, one after another in almost tiresome suc-
cession, geysers, foaming wells, and intermitting springs ; some
SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 311
throwing great columns of water 30 and 40 feet high, others
dashing their boiling waters about their basins as if possessed by
a demon. It was frightful to witness the play of such mighty
forces, and then to think that all this was only the last expiring
manifestation of the tremendous volcanic agencies which once
tossed and tilted this rugged island.
Leaving this side of the lake, we all got into the log canoe,
twelve of us dark and white, and were paddled across to the
Pink Terraces. Some think these are even more beautiful than
the White Terraces. There is the same enormous fountain of
silicated waters, and at about the same elevation above the lake.
The overflow has not spread over as much territory, or pushed its
marble pavement as far into the lake. But there is in the Pink
Terraces more regularity in the great semi-circular steps, while
the embossed sculpture of the frontal walls is tinged with a del-
icate and variegated pink. They are both, the White and the
Pink, among the most exquisite creations in nature. But to
decide between them is like the award of beauty among the
goddesses ; no mortal man could give it arid have any more peace
in life.
Our guide, Kate, had reserved for the last halting place of our
trip, the unsurpassed luxury of a bath in a perfectly extravagant
supply of deliciously warm and medicated waters. The basins
of the higher steps of the Pink Terraces are spacious swimming
pools having a depth of four or five feet. The water is delight-
fully soft, and of course can be chosen of any desired tempera-
ture. It is of an indescribable blue tint, making objects immersed
in it glisten like burnished silver. The basins appear as if they
had been sculptured out of gorgeously tinted carnelian,
and overarched by cornices of mingled rubies and chalcedony.
No such baths ever existed elsewhere, outside of oriental pictures.
Here we all undressed and scrambled into the water, light and
dark together; such a salt and pepper group as would have sea-
soned the richest painting that ever yet was put on canvas.
There is no place in any country where the thermal baths are
quite as enjoyable as in New Zealand. The great abundance of
the hot waters, and their exceeding softness as well as variety of
312 SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND.
mineral constituents, make them a constant delight and invigor-
ation. They are the attractions of hotels and health resorts
throughout a large extent of the country ; and they are assid-
uously advertised for this and that ailment of suffering humanity.
I however knew of them only as luxuries.
This is the end of our excursion in one direction, and I will
not trouble you to return with me, nor to follow me later in cir-
cumnavigating the islands. After giving short accounts of a few
noteworthy things that attract a stranger's curiosity in these
distant lands, I will ask you to stop with me at a few of the
prominent cities and scenery resorts. But my descriptions will
be brief, and I hope your patience will bear with me to the end.
A very singular native bird was one day pointed out to me,
the kea, of the parrot tribe. It has a large head with a muscular
neck and a very strong beak, which it formerly used only in dig-
ging up roots for a livelihood. But after sheep were introduced
on the islands, it got a taste, probably at the offal yards, of the
kidney fat of this much slaughtered animal. Then apparently,
as the supply was not quite regular enough to suit his parrotship,
he commenced to take sly observations of the way in which the
regular butchers opened up this delicious morsel ; and he soon
made up his mind that he could carve mutton as well as another.
So now he alights on the back of a sheep, tangles his claws in
the wool, and during a tearing ride to which he is then treated,
he digs into the flesh with his powerful beak, until the poor
bleeding victim falls exhausted and dying. But the cruel bird
reaches his dainty delicacy, and the crows get the benefit of the
rest of the feast. The kea has become an intolerable nuisance to
sheep-raisers, and very considerable rewards are offered for his
little kit of tools.
It is perfectly surprising to see how foreign weeds and bram-
bles, that have been introduced into this country, have multiplied
and overrun everything. The English gorse, or furze-bush, that
in its native islands is a very well behaved bramble, when taken
to New Zealand for a hedge- plant, soon overleaped all bounds,
and now has to be fought with lire and sword. I saw whole
fields given up to it, perfectly impenetrable tangles. The little
03
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SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 313
water-cress of our streams was taken there and planted in the
colonial streams. It forthwith grew into such luxuriant masses
that it actually choked up the water courses, and some streams
that I saw had been obliged to leave their native beds and seek
other outlets. The dandelion and the dock, so innocuous with
us, are there rampaging weeds, that take everything to them-
selves. The Scotch thistle, a national emblem at home, is there
a national curse. The outlook in many cultivated districts
reminded me of the disheartening prospect which must have
opened out before our unfortunate ancestor, late of the Garden
of Eden, when he saw the ground that had been cursed for his
sake. " In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.
«/ •/
Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee."
Of the national bearing of the rabbit plague I will have some-
what to say later. But in climbing Ben Lomond from Queens-
town on lake Wakatipu, I saw such astonishing numbers of these
little brown pests, that I cannot resist telling something more
about them here. The people informed me that four years
before, there was not a rabbit there ; yet now they overrun the
whole country. They were scampering away before me all the
way up that climb of 6,000 feet ; and I left some figures on the
rocks up there in geometrical progression and the laws of Mal-
thus. Great quantities of these animals are dressed and canned
in the colonies. Rabbit pie was one of the tiresome dishes on
the long home voyage. At some of the sheep ranches the
would-be scientists of another hemisphere have repeated the
German Professor Koch's experiments on rabbits. They have
caught some, inoculated them with tubercular consumption, and
then let them go. In the close underground life they lead, this
disease is communicated from one to another until they die off
by thousands. Since returning home I have seen an account of
the shipment of some hundreds of weasels to New Zealand as
an antidote for rabbits. This is nature's means of killing off a
too prolific race ; and whether it is or not, it seems to me infi-
nitely more merciful than dosing them with tuberculosis, and
making them die off in such an inhumanly human manner.
314 SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND.
I shall never forget the long watchings I have devoted to the
great " wandering albatrosses " off the southern coast of New
Zealand. They are the largest birds that fly, and live only on
the stormy extremes of the Pacific. Their wings are extended
in flight from twelve to fifteen feet. There is one preserved in
the British Museum with eighteen feet of outstretched wings. I
have watched them for hours when the wind was high, without
once observing a motion of the wings that appeared to be made
to aid them in flight. They seemed to ride on their expanded
wings as if it were their simple will alone that buoyed them up ;
now sailing down the wind with a magnificent sweep, then turn-
ing wTith increased momentum and mounting in the face of
the gale.
Ever since the time of Solomon, " the ways of a bird in the
air " have been one of the things that have seemed to be past
understanding. But after observing how often these master nav-
igators were obliged to trim their sails and scud off on a side
wind, as the sailors would say, I began to think I had some little
insight to their tactics. It is well known that an ice yacht, sail-
ing with the wind nearly abeam, can be made to go many times
faster than the wind is blowing. So a sail boat can always make
better speed with a side wind than with a stern wind. The
reason is that with a side wind the full force of it is pressing
against the sails all the time, no matter how fast the boat goes ;
whereas, with an aft wind, the boat is going along with it, and
by just so much the force of the wind against the sails is lessened.
Like the sail-crowded ice boat then, these great birds spread their
enormous wings to as much of a side wind as their steering gear
can hold them to, and when they have attained a speed that is
faster than the wind, they turn to face the blast, and rise to it as
if they mocked its fury. They are the most perfect of sailors,
the most storm-daring of sea-birds, and to me the most absorbing
study of the ocean.
In the museum of Dunedin, among the specimens of the
great albatrosses, there is an unfledged young one, said to be ten
months old. It is absolutely larger than the old birds, and looks
like a huge mass of unsorted down. It is a fact that the young
SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 315
of both the albatross and the penguin are fed so long and kept
so fat by the parent birds that they grow to an enormous size,
and will not attempt to shift for themselves until they are
deserted by the old ones and actually starved into flight and
seeking their own food.
At Wellington, a city of 20,000 inhabitants, situated on Cook's
Strait which divides New Zealand about in the middle, are
located the Parliament and Government House, said to be the
largest wooden building in the world. In this city resides the
Governor, who is usually some titled Englishman ; and the finest
mansion in the land is built and provided for his use.
But that which interested me most in Wellington was its well
kept and most entertaining museum. Its specialties are Maori
curiosities ; and chief among them is a Carved House, or Ru-
nanga, the most perfect one ever constructed by the natives. It
was bought for $500, and has been removed and set up here
entire. Its carvings, which literally cover all parts, ceilings,
sides and front, are exceedingly elaborate, and a marvel of skill
and perseverance, considering that they were all executed with
stone implements. Each plank took a tree to make it, and the
flint axes are shown that hewed and carved it out. The figures
of the carving are elegant traceries and embossings, interspersed
with hideous images, like Japanese idols, with wide open mouths
and three cleft tongues protruding, which the Maoris will tell
you represent their ancestors. Of their and our Darwinian
theories, I think I prefer the monkey forefathers.
Within the Carved House are innumerable trophies of the art
and workmanship of the natives ; the mere, or killing weapon, a
double-edged cleaver worked out of greenstone, the toughest of
all rare minerals ; ear pendants and other ornaments, made of
this same hard stone ; elaborately carved prows of their great
war canoes ; mats and robes of feathers ; cloths and blankets
made from the native flax-plant; and a thousand other things
showing the great ingenuity of this remarkable people.
Christ Church, half way down the east coast of South Island,
is an interesting city of 30,000 inhabitants. It is called the City
of the Plains, and is the only one in the islands built on level
316 SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND.
lands. Here are magnificent parks ; Hagley Park on the Avon,
containing 400 acres, and the Government Domain, of 80 acres,
laid out in walks and in drives and as a botanic garden, with
every variety of tree and shrub and plant and flower that will
grow in a semi-tropical climate. It is really a delightful spot.
What astonishes the American visitor in these far off cities, is
the great amount of care and cost and labor that have been ex-
pended on public and scientific resorts. In every city that he
may visit he finds delightful parks, instructive botanic gardens,
and well furnished museums. This little city of Christ Church,
away on the outer borders of the world, in these respects would
put to shame any city of our own land of ten times its population.
The museum here is the finest and best kept of any in the
colonies. What interested me particularly in this splendid col-
lection was the group of moa skeletons. The moas were wing-
less birds that stood twelve feet high, and probably weighed as
much as a horse. There are fifteen perfect skeletons here,
belonging to half a dozen different species.
Two or three centuries ago these giant birds were numerous
all over New Zealand. They lived on the roots of the fern-brake,
the Pteris esculenta, which they dug up with their powerful feet
and claws. The natives captured them by driving them down
to some large water course or lake, where, as the birds could not
swim and were afraid of the water, they were mercilessly destroyed
with the stone pointed lances. No wonder the clumsy and
defenseless moas did not last long under such easy and destructive
pursuit. And no wonder, when this the only game of the islands
was wasted and gone, the hungry savages began to raid upon each
other, and to devour the bodies of their captives. Hunger has
made wild beasts of far better men than these poor castaways.
I am sorry that I do not have time to stop with you at the
interesting Scotch city of Dunedin, a lesser Edinburgh, and the
largest city in the islands; nor to take you with me into the
grand and stupendous mountain scenery of the southern interior,
where are ranges and peaks and mountain lakes that outvie any-
thing seen in Switzerland or in any other scenery resort.
SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 317
On the south-western coast are numerous sounds or inlets of
the sea, like the fiords of Norway, only that they are on a far
grander scale than their northern competitors. We entered them
from the ocean through narrow gateways between almost perpen-
dicular ledges that towered to six and seven thousand feet. Within
are broad and deep basins, without an anchorage or a shelving
shore, and in which we see only snow-capped peaks, and water
falls that leap out into the air and end in clouds of spray. For
wildness and grandeur there is no scenery like this in the known
world.
One day on my travels by the slow and tedious colonial rail-
ways, I was left over night at Invercargill, the extremest southern
city of South Island, as far in the southern latitudes as St. Johns
in Newfoundland is in the northern. I will ask you for the last
time to listen to a short description from my diary during this
visit.
Last evening I sat at my window admiring the southern con-
stellations. The most conspicuous object was the Cross, composed
of four brilliant stars set in the brightest part of the Milky Way.
At this hour it was lying flat, away up in the heavens, only half
risen and pointing horizontally to the South Pole, about as far
from it as the Dipper is from the North Pole. Two first magni-
tude stars a little below, alpha and beta Centauri, and called the
pointers of the Cross, are interesting as being, one the nearest,
and the other the third nearest stars to us in all the heavens,
respectively twenty and forty million million miles away. Over-
head was the " false cross," and still another cross in Argo. In
the dark vacancy where the South Pole is located, for there are
absolutely no stars in the vicinity of this Pole, are two little
white clouds, like small patches of the Milky Way that had
strayed off and got lost, called the Clouds of Magellan. Just
under the Southern Cross and near the foot star, is a black space
where the telescope reveals not a star nor a nebular haze. The
sailors call it the " Devil's tar pot."
I was up in the night and sat again at my window, the bright
stars and clear night-air keeping me from sleep. The Southern
Cross had climbed to its zenith, almost directly overhead, and
318 SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND.
was now pointing down, or rather was standing in the natural
position of a cross. The stars are not so numerous in the south-
ern heavens as elsewhere, but they are certainly more conspicuous
and interesting, perhaps from the striking contrasts that are
found in the vicinity of the South Pole. The Milky Way is here
the brightest, and the dark vacancies are in deeper shadow and
contrast than in any other portion of the heavens.
This morning when I waked, the wind was blowing a gale
from the south, with a cold and miserable rain. I was told by
some persons, who however did not live about here and perhaps
were prejudiced, that this was just a sample of the summer
weather of southern New Zealand. And I thought that none
but Scotchmen, who never knew what a decent climate was, w^ould
ever have found and settled up such a mountainous bleak and
unpromising country as this.
And now what shall I say of New Zealand as one of the nations
of the earth ? It is a country that tourists delight in and always
will. It has the most remarkable natural wonders and the finest
scenery in the world. Its cities furnish unending attractions to
visitors. It has many noble and generous citizens, as I know,
who have experienced their kindness. But I am obliged to say,
though reluctantly, that it is not the prosperous and promising
country that I hoped to find. Agriculture is not a success ; for
although the yield of wrheat, their only commercial cereal, is
often immense, sometimes eighty bushels to the acre, yet the un-
certainties of the weather in a moist and insular climate, in both
seed time and harvest, makes as many bad years as good ; and the
distance from the markets of the world makes sad inroads in the
final returns. Sheep-raising is not a success ; for the rabbits that
in an unlucky day were imported there without their natural
enemies, have so multiplied and overrun the whole country, that
grazing animals can no longer find a living when running at
large. I passed over ranches on which they told me, one sheep
could not now live, where formerly ten found abundant pasture.
The gold and silver mines are exhausted. No coal of any value
has been found. The government has spent all the money it
could raise on splendid public buildings and improvements, and
SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 319
on rail roads that do not pay expenses. Complaint is loud in the
land that taxes are high, — have nearly passed the point of endur-
ance. And still the government is borrowing, and spending the
money on profitless enterprises. A loan was placed in London
at four per cent while I was in the Colony, and great was the
rejoicing because it was taken at a small premium above par.
The banks are loaning money at twelve to fifteen per cent on all
kinds of real and chattel securities, are declaring large dividends,
and building magnificent banking houses in all the cities. But
outside of these, both city and country are already dotted with
dead and n on -pay ing enterprises.
Now it does not take much of a business eye to see in all this
the elements of a collapse. Sooner or later the time will come
when the government will be able to borrow no more — when
the banks will be called to account for the money they have bor-
rowed and scattered, and then will find themselves loaded down
with depreciated and unsalable properties. .It is the fate of men
and nations that live by borrowing to end in disaster. I am fear-
ful and sorry to think that hard times are in the future for this
lovely and interesting land. But however unfortunate it may
be in national affairs, it will always be rich in natural scenery
and abounding in all that delights the tourist and the lover of
nature.
THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION.
The latest born of all the sciences is that of Religion. It
is a peculiar outgrowth of modern thought. It has arisen because
of the prevalence of free opinions and unrestricted inquiry, and
not in any manner from a spirit of irreverence or atheism. The
time has now fully come when every man must be able to give a
reason for the faith that is in him. If the religion which we
profess is better and truer than those which have gone before it,
we must be able to tell how and wherein it is so.
There has arisen in these latter days a Comparative Theology,
corresponding to the old science of Comparative Anatomy. This
last has brought out the points of excellence and adaptation
which the human form has developed out of that of its old time
progenitors. The other will bring to light the excellence of the
Christian system as compared with the lowlier religions which
preceded it. In no other way than by the searching criticism
and comparison of this new science can the true Faith be made
to stand out prominent among the similar beliefs which anteceded
and heralded its coming. The published volume of the lectures
of Max Miiller on the Science of Religion is a work which
redounds more to the credit of the Christian Faith than all the
labored treatises on Evidence, Church History and Exigesis.
The late Win. Whewell, a distinguished historian of science,
has demonstrated that all scientific discoveries and great advances
have had their preludes, their antecedent periods, in which the
thoughts of philosophers were concentrating on those subjects
and the lights of knowledge were gathering to the focus of those
final disclosures. If I am not mistaken there was the same pre-
lude to that which wTas new and peculiar in the Christian Religion,
antecedent periods when the vain philosophy of the old world
was struggling to the formulation of that grand truth of the
322 THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION.
immortality of the soul, and when other nations outside of
Judea began to perceive the necessity of interposing a Mediator,
a Divine Redeemer, between man and the Infinite God.
It has always been a subject of wonder and astonishment, and
often a weapon of attack with unbelievers, that the Christian
system was brought out at so late a period of the world's progress.
If this scheme was devised for, and was the only means of, the
salvation of men from the most awful penalty that could possibly
be imagined, then surely there were peoples and races of the
older times who at least equally merited and could have appre-
ciated its provisions and benefits. It would be sad, even humil-
iating to think that all the refined and cultivated nations of
antiquity had no part nor lot in the great plan of salvation
merely because they happened to antedate the Christian era.
Rather than entertain so injurious and narrow-minded a conclu-
sion, it would be far better, so it seems to me, to enlarge the
bounds, to throw down the bars, that restrict the efficacy of Faith,
and to hold that a devout and earnest belief in whatever of the
eternal truths of God and of nature had been in any manner
made known to a people, would relieve them from the " Condem-
nation of the Law."
The Christian very appropriately cherishes the expectation of
meeting the Hebrew Patriarchs in the Heaven to which he
aspires. Yet certainly these worthies knew not Christ, either
symbolically or prophetically ; for the symbols or prophecies
which are claimed to indicate a coming Saviour for Israel did not
happen and were not written until many hundred years after
their time. Besides they had no hope nor knowledge of a future
life ; for this tenet had no place in the Jewish theology. The
rewards and punishments of the Mosaic Dispensation were
wholly temporal.* The New Testament expressly claims that
*The learned and pious Bishop Whately writes in his Dissertation on
Christianity (Enc. Brit., vol. I, p. 473, 8th Ed.): " The nation of Israel was,
as we have said, placed under an extraordinary providence, which allotted to
them victory or defeat, — plenty or famine, — and other temporal blessings and
punishments, according to their conduct. And these were the rewards and
punishments that formed the sanction of the Mosaic Law. As for a future
state of retribution in another world, Moses said nothing to the Israelites
about that. This was reserved for a greater than Moses, and for
a more glorious dispensation than his Law."
THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION. 323
" Christ came to bring Life and Immortality to light." But it
also most beautifully and touch ingly says, "And Abraham believed
God, and it was counted unto him for Righteousness." The
simple faith of these righteous men in the one God who ruled
over the House of Israel is justly held to be their passport to
glories they did not anticipate or dream of in their day.
A thousand years before the time of Abraham the Hindoos
worshiped the one god Brahma as " Him who had existed from
all eternity, infinitely wise, infinitely benign, and infinitely pow-
erful." Shall this highest and purest faith of all the ancient
systems be accounted to them for nothing in the great and final
reckoning? All the cultivated nations of antiquity except the
Jews recognized the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
And very many upright men among them, as we know from
the classical studies of our school days, sought the reward of an
everlasting life of happiness in the worship of the gods they
believed in and in the practice of virtue and good works. Shall
their faith and efforts, feeble it may be, but corresponding to the
light that was in them, go for naught in the great and final Day
of the Lord ?
I think we may proceed to search out the antecedents of
Christianity and to gather together whatever there was of good
and Scripture-like in the religions of the olden times, not only
without fear of injuring the cause of the true Faith, but with
the conviction that the more the similitudes and the clearer the
foreshado wings that we may find, the more wrill the Christian
Religion be relieved from the great and radical objection so often
urged against it, that it came only within the last one-third of
the world's historic age, and has not been made known to one in
thousands of those who have lived.
Scattered here and there among the crudities and abstruse
speculations which the ancient philosophers, such as Pythagoras,
Aristotle and Socrates, have sent down to us, there are to be found
a great many precepts and doctrines that read very much like
many tilings we have been accustomed to think were first written
in the manuscript of the New Testament. In order to show this
I will make a few selections from the writings and the accounts
324 THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION.
we have of the Greek philosopher Plato, who was born 429 years
before Christ. He lived 80 years a life of celibacy and of such
pure and exemplary conduct that his memory was held in saintly
regard. He received divine honors after his death, and there
was accorded to him the somewhat common ascription of hero-
worship, that of having been born of a virgin, (authority of
Plutarch and Hieronimus). His writings that have come down
to us are very numerous and almost altogether in Dialogue, so
that it is difficult to ascertain just what Plato believed ; but we
are not so much concerned with his belief as with the great
principles and ideas which he originated or first promulgated.
It is sufficient for us to know that in writings, the finish and
fascination of which have made them a cherished study in
all ages, he has set forth the clearest and grandest conceptions of
the one supreme and omniscient God that have ever been incor-
porated in any uninspired religion.
According to Plato, " God is the Supreme Intelligence, incor-
poreal, without beginning, end or change, and capable of being
perceived only by the mind." But as a being of such exalted
state and majesty as he conceived the great First Cause to be,
could not consistently be himself a worker in the affairs of the
world and of men, Plato inculcated the belief in two other gods,
emanations from and parts of the great Supreme God, a Trinity,
three gods in one. The second person was the Divine Reason,
the acting principle which established the order of the world.
He called this the Logos, the word of God, the second person in
the Godhead. The third emanation was the soul of the universe,
a subordinate nature compounded of intelligence and matter. In
the language of Plato, "The universe being animated by a soul
that proceeds from God, is the Son of God."
Plato was so unorthodox as to believe in the eternity of matter.
In common with all other ancient philosophers he held to the
axiom that from nothing nothing can proceed. Consequently he
could not do otherwise than regard matter as eternally existing.
But its primeval condition was " without form ; " and creation
consisted in bringing order out of this chaos. Matter he regarded
as resisting the will of the Supreme Being, so that lie cannot
THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION. 325
perfectly execute his designs. Hence the mixture of good and
evil which is found in the material world.
Plato taught in express terms the doctrine of the immortality of
the soul ; that the soul of man is derived by emanation from
God, but that this emanation was not immediate but through the
intervention of the soul of the world, that is the Son of God ;
that the soul is a simple indivisible substance, and therefore
incapable of dissolution or corruption ; that the objects to which
it naturally adheres are spiritual and incorruptible, therefore its
nature is so.
Virtue Plato defined to be the imitation of God, or the effort
of man to attain to a resemblance to his original. " True virtue
is really and in effect a purification from all worldly passions."
" Whosoever enters the other world without being initiated and
purified shall be hurled headlong into the vast abyss ; but who-
ever arrives there after due purgation and expiation shall be
lodged in the apartments of the gods." " The soul of man
carries nothing along with it out of this world but its good or
bad actions, its virtues or its vices, which are the cause of its
eternal happiness or misery." "It is said that after the death of
every individual person, the spirit or genius that was partner
with it and conducted it during life, leads it to a certain place
where all the dead are obliged to appear in order to be judged,
and from thence are conducted by a guide to the world below.
When it arrives at that fatal rendezvous of all souls, if it has
been guilty of any impurity, or polluted with murder, or has
committed any of those atrocious crimes that desperate and lost
souls are commonly guilty of, it is abhorred and avoided by all
other souls, and wanders without guides in fearful solitudes and
horrible deserts. Whereas the temperate and pure soul has the
gods themselves for its guides and conductors, and goes to co-
habit with them in the mansions of pleasure prepared for it."
Such extracts from the translations of the Dialogues of Plato
might be made almost ad infinitum. But enough are already
given to show that this old philosopher had very advanced ideas
of the divine attributes and man's duty and destiny. It would
be hard to condemn to everlasting punishment those of the
326 THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION.
ancients who ruled their conduct and belief on the high standard
of Plato's precepts and theology.
The very old religion of Brahma in southern Asia has been
studied and its sacred books translated by such eminent oriental
scholars as Capt. Francis Wilford, Sir Wm. Jones and Dr. Fran-
cis Buchanan ; and their accounts and discoveries have been
published in the volumes of the English magazine entitled
" Asiatic Researches." In my search for antecedents of Christ-
ianity in the ancient system of the Brahmans, I shall make no
claims or quotations that cannot be verified in the writings of
the authorities I have named.
The oldest sacred books of India, the Yedas, claim an antiquity
of at least 3,000 years prior to the Christian era; and as they
contain records of astronomical observations dating as far
back as that, which the distinguished astronomer Bailly and
mathematician Playfair say could only have been taken by actual
observation at the time, it is considered that the claims of Indian
sacred literature to that great age are well founded. In those
oldest books that ever were written is told the story of the dis-
obedience and fall of the first human pair under the names of
Adima and Heva. In their despair at being shut out from the
island paradise in which they were created, they fall down and
pray to Brahma for pardon. "And as they thus spoke there
came a voice from the clouds, saying : I pardon you, but you may
no more return to the abode of delight which I had created for
your happiness. Through your disobedience to my commands
the spirit of evil has obtained possession of the earth. Your
children, reduced to labor and to suffer through your fault, will
become corrupt and forget me. But I will send Vishnu, who
shall incarnate himself in the womb of a woman, and shall bring
to all the hope and the means of recompense in another life, in
praying to me to soften their ills." This Redeemer thus prom-
ised was the god Chrishna whom Brahmans and Buddhists worship
as the divine messenger or mediator from the Deity to mankind.
Of this god the learned and pious Sir Wm. Jones writes : *
* Works of Sir Wm. Jones. London, 1799. Vol. I, p. 265, et seq.
THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION. 327
" That the name of Chrishna and the general outline of his
story were long anterior to the birth of our Saviour, and prob-
ably to the time of Homer, we know very certainly." " The
Buddhists (a sect established one thousand years before Christ)
claim that his incarnation in the womb of a virgin was foretold
several thousand years before it came to pass." " In the Sanscrit
Dictionary, which was compiled more than two thousand years
ago, we have the whole story of the incarnate Deity born of a
virgin and miraculously escaping in his infancy from the reigning
tyrant of his country." "His birth was concealed through fear
of the tyrant Cansa, to whom it had been predicted that one born
at that time and of the royal line of Devaci would destroy him.
At the time of his birth the tyrant ordered all new born males
to be slain ; yet this wonderful babe was preserved by biting the
breast instead of sucking the poisoned nipple of a nurse commis-
sioned in this way to kill him." " He passed a life of a most
extraordinary and incomprehensible nature. He saved multitudes
partly by his arms, and partly by his miraculous powers. He
raised the dead by descending for that purpose to the lowest
regions. Pie was the meekest and best tempered of beings. He
washed the feet of the Brahmans and preached very nobly and
sublimely." a One sect of Hindoos hold that Chrishna was dis-
tinct from all other avatars (divine messengers) and that he was
the person of Vishnu (God) himself in human form." " Chrishna
is the last avatara, or manifestation of the Deity, who according
to their sacred books will reappear a little before the general dis-
solution of the world."
Capt. Francis Wilford says (Asiatic Researches, vol. 10), " that
long before Christ a renovation of the universe was expected all
over the world, with a Saviour, a king of peace and justice.
This expectation is frequently mentioned in the Puranas. Vishnu
comforts the earth, his consort, and assures mankind that a
Saviour would come to redress their grievances and put an end
to the tyranny of demons, that he would be incarnated in the
body of a shepherd and be born of a virgin. The Brahminical
books declare that these prophecies were fulfilled in the person
of Chrishna ; and they relate that a miraculous star directed the
328 THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION.
holy men who were living in anxious expectation of him, where
to find this heavenly child, and that the Emperor of India, uneasy
at the prophecies which he conceived portended his ruin, sent
emissaries to inquire whether such a child was really born, in
order to destroy him."
Salivahana, another of the avatars or gods born of women, or
else the same as Chrislma under a different name, is thus described
in one of the Puranas : " Great and mighty, the spirit of right-
eousness and justice, whose words are truth itself, free from spite
and envy, and whose empire will extend all over the world and
the people will be gathered unto him, the conveyor of souls to
places of eternal bliss. He was the son of a carpenter. His
conception was miraculous and in the womb of a virgin, and he
was the son of the Great Artist. His birth was equally wonder-
ful ; choirs of angels with the celestial minstrelsy attended on
the occasion. The king of the country hearing of these prodigies
was alarmed and sought in vain to destroy him. He soon sur-
passed his teachers ; and when five years of age he stood before
a most respectable assembly of the doctors of the land and
explained several difficult cases, to their admiration and astonish-
ment." " It was decreed that he should be wretched and perse-
cuted all his life-time, and ultimately that he should die upon a
cross, and that he would be brought to life again. He did not
marry nor had he any offspring." " He proclaimed that he came
for the sole purpose of relieving the distressed, and that whatever
man claimed his protection he would readily grant it to him and
even lay down his life for him. Very many of all descriptions
came accordingly, and among them a thief who being pursued
by the officers of justice claimed his protection, which he readily
granted, and he was really crucified in his stead. He then ascended
into heaven and took the thief along with him. Thick darkness
overspread the face of the world, and the animated creation was
in the utmost distress and consternation. The holy man being
afterward taken down from the cross, descended into hell and
there encountered and overcame death or Yama. Then a general
renovation of the world took place under the inspection of
Brahma." (Capt. Wilford. Asiatic Eesearches. Yol. 10.)
THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION. 329
The four Yedas of the Brahmans, which without doubt were
written before the Biblical date of the Flood, inculcate the
tenet of a Trinity of gods, Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the
Preserver, and Siva the Destroyer, worshiped as one God under
the name of Trimarti. They relate that Vishnu the second person
in the Godhead, in fulfillment of a prophecy, and to become the
Redeemer of his people, took upon himself the nature of a man,
was born of a virgin, and under the name of Chrishna led a life
of good works, healing the sick, raising the dead, and performing
many other miracles ; and finally after an anticipated death from
violence his body was carried by angels up to Heaven.
The account of the transfiguration of Chrishna before his
disciples is given in the following words : " Then abandoning the
mortal form he appeared to their eyes in all the eclat of his di-
vine majesty, his brow encircled with such light that Ardjouna
and his companions, unable to support it, threw themselves on
their faces in the dust, and prayed the Lord to pardon their
unworthy weakness." The second coming of Chrishna is thus
announced in the same sacred books : " Some time before the
destruction of all that exists the struggle between evil and good
must recommence on earth, and the evil spirits who at their first
creation rebelled in Heaven against the authority of Brahma,
will present themselves for a final struggle to dispossess God of
his power and recover their liberty. Then will Chrishna again
come upon earth to overthrow the Prince of the demons, who
under the form of a horse and aided by all evil spirits will cover
the globe with ruin and with carnage."
I might extend these quotations to any length. As Sir William
Jones says, " The prolix accounts of Chrishna's life are filled
with narratives of the most extraordinary kind." But I think
enough has been cited from the sacred books of this oldest of
religions to show that it was not only the precursor and source of
all other enlightened religions, but that it had in it the elements
of a high political and moral culture. It is undoubtedly true
that the followers of Brahma have sadly degenerated in later
ages, and that the faith and precepts which once led up to a high
state of enlightenment are now the heritage of a debased arid
330 THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION.
servile priesthood. The same however was true only four cen-
turies ago of those who were the inheritors of the priceless
treasures of the Christian records. The state of a society does
not always keep up to the standards of morality and culture
which are preserved in its archives. But we must concede, I
think, that the early believers in the ancient Vedas of the Brah-
mans were the predecessors in direct line of the believers in the
Holy Bible of the Christians, and that there descended from the
one system to the other many remarkable theological tenets and
almost identical scripture recitals. Shall we then condemn the
Brahmans merely because they preceded the founding of our
Holy Religion? Shall we say there was no good nor reward in
their faith in a God and a Redeemer so closely outlining those
we worship?
Shortly before the time of the Christian era Alexandrea in
Egypt was the seat of all the learning and culture in the world.
Here was the largest if not the only library of ancient times —
700,000 volumes, all of course in manuscript. It was unfortun-
ately burned or destroyed in later years by Christian or Saracen
fanaticism. A peculiar dialect of the Greek language was in use
here called Hellenistic Greek. The Hebrew Bible was here
translated into it, 270 years B. C. ; and there is no doubt that the
sacred books of other nations were translated into it as well.
All the Books of the New Testament were first brought out
here, as is proved by the fact that they were written in Hellen-
istic Greek, which was a language little used elsewhere and not
at all in Judea. Here was the seat of innumerable sects of all
mariner of philosophies and followings, the home of religion-
makers, kept, boarded, and paid by the Ptolemies to add volumes
to their libraries. It is a matter of history that there were at
this time in Alexandrea well organized societies of men who
made it their life business to select what seemed to them best
from all known systems of philosophy and religion, and to pub-
lish their writings as gospels according to such and such a saint.
In the year 325 of our era, three hundred Bishops in Council at
Nice selected the present Books of the New Testament from at
least 120 different gospels, epistles, acts, and revelations that had
THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION. 331
become inextricably mixed and confounded with the true Scrip-
tures.
Philo, " the Jew," a native of Alexandrea, known to have
been in active public life at the date of the crucifixion, was a
voluminous writer on all the scriptures and religions of his da}7.
He was sent as an emissary to the Emperor Caligula at Rome on
behalf of the Hellenistic Jews at Alexandrea about seven years
after the death of Christ, yet very strangely he appears to have
been wholly ignorant of the great event that gave rise to the
Christian era. Philo has left a number of works on Neo-Plato-
nism and the Jewish Scriptures. He also wrote one on the great
religious school of his day, known as the Essenic or Ascetic
philosophy. This last book has not come down to us entire, but
is fully reported by Eusebius (A. D. 324), the great historian arid
authority of the first three centuries of Christianity.
The society of the Essenes to which Philo belonged, and which
was already an old and flourishing association throughout Egypt
in the time of Christ, was known under all the following names :
Essenes or Therapeuts, signifying healers or doctors; Ascetics,
from their austere discipline and self -mortifications ; Monks, from
their retirement from the world ; Ecclesiastics, from their being
called out, elected, set apart ; and Eclectics, from their selecting
from all systems. The following is the description of them as
given by Eusebius on the authority of Philo, and condensed
from " Ecclesiastical History," Book 2nd, ch. 16 : They had in
every parisli their churches and monasteries in which monks per-
formed the mysteries of the sublime life, also their bishops,
priests and deacons ; they renounced all property and divided up
every thing equally among themselves ; they observed the self
same fastings and grand festivals that the Christians afterwards
observed ; pretended to have had apostolic founders who had
handed down to them holy scriptures ; practiced the very manners
that distinguished the apostles of Christ, " abjuring the pleasures
of the body," " nor would they eat anything that had blood in it ;"
they used scriptures which they believed to be divinely inspired,
and which Eusebius himself believed to be none other than the
substance of our Gospels ; had the same allegorical method of
332 THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION.
interpreting those scriptures, the same order and manner of per-
forming public worship which afterwards were practiced by the
Christians. Eusebins says their psalms and hymns were the very
same that were used in the church in his day. They had mis-
sionary stations or churches in precisely the same places as were
those addressed by St. Paul, as Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, &c.
Eusebius ends his account of them as follows : " That Philo
wrote these tilings with reference to those who were the first
preachers of the discipline which is according to the Gospel and
to the manners first handed down from the apostles, must be
manifest to every man." But Philo wrote this history, and all
the things he described existed, long before there was a word of
the New Testament written. Philo does not in any of his
works mention the name or refer in the remotest manner to
Christ or to Christians. Mosheim the great ecclesiastical histor-
ian says, " It was here (in Egypt) that the Essenes dwelt princi-
pally, long before the coming of Christ : " " that the Ascetic
philosophy was in a flourishing state in Alexandrea when our
Saviour was upon earth." Evidently then these societies were
the forerunners, the antecedents of Christianity. And if their
votaries could not be distinguished from real and true Christians
by an eminent church historian of the fourth century, shall we
of the nineteenth presume to say they had no part in the promises
of the new religion to which they contributed so large a share
of principles and observances ?
If it might be permitted to predicate for religions, as it is for
civilizations and governments, an element of evolution, — that is
of the more perfect following and developing out of the cruder
and less advanced, — then many difficulties might be removed that
now are stumbling blocks. I think' we have shown quite conclu-
sively that the Christian religion was not only a great reform of
the Jewish, but that it adopted in an improved form many of the
tenets, observances and traditions of the classical and oriental
religions that preceded it. Again in the great Reformation of
the 16th century, Knox, Calvin and Luther introduced doctrines
and elements of advance that had never been previously promul-
gated. The Christian religion of to-day is as much superior to
THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION. 333
the Christianity of the early centuries as the Republicanism of
America is in advance of that of old Rome.
Theologians may say what they will about the modern churches
adhering to the strict and rigid doctrines of primitive Christian-
ity, it is nevertheless true that the whole course of Christian
ideas and interpretation of dogmas lias greatly changed from
what it was fifteen to eighteen centuries ago. The following are
instances in point : The material Heaven, the mansions in the
skies, with angels ascending and descending, the excessive and
inconceivable torments reserved for unbelievers, all so vividly
pictured in every part of the New Testament without the least
implication of an allegorical meaning; the scriptural evidences
of conversion, " and these signs shall follow them that believe ;
in my name shall they cast out devils, they shall speak with new
tongues, they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly
thing it shall not hurt them, they shall lay hands on the sick and
they shall recover," (Mark 16 : 17, 18). The working of miracles
through faith, " If ye have faith and doubt not ye shall say unto
this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea,
and it shall be done " (Math. 21 : 21) ; the expected second com-
ing of the Messiah, declared in Luke 21 : 2T-31, and then in verse
32, " verily I say unto yon, this generation shall not pass away
till all be fulfilled ; " the authority of the ministers of Christ to
forgive sins, " whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto
them ; and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained" (John
20 : 23) ; the resurrection of the natural bodies of all mankind
on the last great day. All these and many other doctrines pecu-
liar to the earlier and materialistic stages of the Christian religion
are now either given iip or ignored or passed over to metaphors.
If then religions have been successively and in a measure
evolved out of each other, and have grown with the advancing
ages, there is no point in that growth where it can be said that
previous votaries were condemned by the law, while those subse-
quent to it were relieved from its condemnation. St. Paul, the
great apostle of the Gentiles, says to the Romans (Rom. 2 : 14),
" For when the Gentiles which have not the law, do by nature
the things contained in the law, these having not the law are a
334 THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION.
law unto themselves"; the context showing that they would not
fail of their reward "in the day when God shall judge the
secrets of men by Jesus Christ'' (id. verse 16) ; and again (Rom.
4: 15), "for where no law is, there is no transgression."
The liberal minded and logical St. Paul saw at once that a man
could not be condemned for disobedience who had never had an
intimation of what or whom he was to obey. The sweeping and
effective text, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved;
but he that believeth not shall be damned," could not by any
possibility apply to those who had never been told what to believe,
nor to those who had never been informed as to the process and
necessity of baptism. And even with all the light we have at
the present time on this all important rite of baptism, it is not
yet determined what form of it is the proper one, and whether a
certain form of it is not really a saving ordinance. Just think
for a moment how many good and devout men would be most
wofully disappointed if there should happen to be any mistake
about this simple matter of baptism. I submit therefore whether
it would not be a safer and a better policy for all denominations
to give up all restrictions on future rewards dependent on bap-
tism, sectarianism, regeneration, or any peculiar religious beliefs,
and to hold with St. Peter, the great preacher to the Gentiles,
" That God is no respecter of persons : But in every nation he
that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with
him "(Acts 10: 34).
SKETCHES OF SEA-LIFE/
" Tumble out here, men, and make sail. Be lively — be lively
there." And forth from the " top-gallant forecastle " came reel-
ing and rollicking a score of drunken tars. " Come, bestir your-
selves, you old ruin-soakers. Lay aloft, some of ye, and turn out
that canvas." " Mr. Beattie, overhaul their chests, and bring aft
every drop of liquor you find. I'll know what cargo is aboard
there for'ard." A stirring tune this, captain, you first strike up.
But glad it sounds notwithstanding, for it tells us we soon will
be alone on our broad, free home. Already, from the steamboat
by our side, has been given the order, " Shoremen aboard." And
on her deck are seen many countenances saddened by recent
partings. The word comes to "cast off the lines," and now the
noble " St. Denis," for the first time let loose on an untried ele-
ment, rears its proud head on the waves, and haughtily turns
from its puffing, toiling companion, as in mockery of man's
power. There is a conscious pride in the power to subdue the
wild sport of winds, in which the very ship seems to participate.
And it has a lordly bearing, as it boldly careers through the
mingled battles of air and sea. Man may bolt in the pent-up
forces of steam to speed him on a joyless journey ; may outride,
if he please, old Boreas himself ; but give to me the craft that,
of its own kingly will, can peer into the " wind's eye," or before
a gale can fly untiring and majestic as the eagle.
As the steamer paddled off on its return to port, we were
greeted from it by three long, loud cheers. Immediately work
was suspended, orders unheeded, and many a rope " went by the
* Written in 1847, and published in the Yale College Literary Magazine. A
description of the author's first voyage (to Havre in France) as a sailor " before
the mast," during the summer of that year.
336 SKETCHES OF SEA-LIFE.
run," while amid the toss of sea-caps and tarpaulins there went
up three as hearty responses -as ever were echoed over New York
harbor. Long after, till the boat was lost to view in the forest
of masts which encircles the Empire City, we could see, waving
over many a sylph-like form, the white flag of woman's love.
Heaven smile on the fair who thus bid " God speed " to the lone
mariner, wrestling ever with the perils of the main.
It is hard to sever the last link that binds one to land and to
home ; and the heart sinks low with sadness, in even the bosom
that has buffeted a thousand gales, as the last adieu is waved to
objects of most tender associations. There was one at least among
that rough, hardy crew whose thoughts were cheerless and heavy.
He was a " Freshman of the sea." He was to traverse the three
thousand miles of landless, boisterous ocean, in a narrow tene-
ment, where a single false step or missing grasp might cause to
close over him forever, Nature's vast sepulchre. His vessel too
had never yet tested its sea-powers, or tried its arm with the
fickle twins that rule the deep, and in a luckless hour it might
spring a gaping leak in its uncoppered hull, or under press of
sail careen beyond its balance. Yet it was not fear that weighed
on his spirits, for little did he reck or know of the danger. But
he thought of the changes of the few past weeks ; of the strange
situation into which a restless, roving disposition had led him.
He thought of the strong ties — now probably severed for ever —
which had bound to him as brothers, his generous classmates,
who, as they pealed again their hearty welcomes, after a joyous
spring vacation, would wonder at the freak which had sent so
retiring a student to try the noisy, Jack-tar life of a forecastle.
He thought too of loved friends at home, who soon would read,
with startled, sorrowing eyes, the first intelligence of the errant
course of a son and brother ; and a tear of penitent regret rolled
unbidden down his cheek.
But, heigh-ho ! What a savage gust that was ! How that huge
swell tumbled us about ! The arms of the bay have suddenly
opened, revealing to us a shoreless expanse of waters. While I
had been absorbed in revery, our " Ocean bird " had spread its
broad wings to the breezes, and had lightly flitted through the
Plate XX.— SAILOR BOY "CHARLIE." See Page xx.
SKETCHES OF SEA-LIFE. 337
Narrows. Now with beak pointing toward its destination, the
far-off " Land of the Gaul," it was fast speeding on to the bosom
of the Atlantic. But look ! Ah, woe is me ! The captain's
stern eye is fastened on me. " What are you figuring at there,
boy ? Come ! wake up, and shake the kinks out of your land
legs, you young sodger!" Startled by these uncivil remarks, it
was not long before I was moving. Now stumbling over a surly
tar, and again rolling with another into the ulee rigging," run-
ning here to help "let go a rope," and there tugging on when the
word was "belay," I managed to clear myself at least from the
imputation of inactivity. Yes, Captain Howre, savage master
though you were, it was the last time you ever called me "sodger,"
that most opprobrious epithet in the sailor's vocabulary.
The afternoon on which we left New York was occupied in
setting sails and getting every thing into "ship-shape" for sea.
Toward evening all hands were called on the quarter deck, to be
divided into watches. Against the "lee bulwarks" twenty rug-
ged, stalwart men ranged themselves; their broad, sinewy forms
bearing powerful testimony to the healthiness and hardihood of
the mariner's life ; their countenances portraying the hard marks
of many a winter's blast, and the swarthy hue from many a
scorching calm in the tropics. Come up here, all ye Blue Devils
and Doleful Dumps, ye Phantoms of Hypochondria, and Ghosts
of Consumption. Look on a sight that should shame ye for so
fouling the fair face of earth, and well-nigh blotting from man
the impress of his God. Many a time, when admiring the
brawny, symmetrical proportions, and the noble-hearted nature
of the sailor, have I vowred never again to make my home amid
the wasting ills and the niggard-souled multitude on land. Even
now, as I recall the familiar scenes of the few months of which
I am writing, there is stirring a restless spirit within me, a long-
ing once more for the wild life of the sea; and I cannot all repress
a regret for the accident which deterred me from following longer
my inclinations.
Around the capstan stood four who were the "boys" of the
crew. The eldest of them, a " boy " of over twenty-one years of
age, was a relative of the captain, and .son of a New York mer-
338 SKETCHES OF SEA-LIFE.
chant, and had already been on a voyage to Canton before the
mast. His real name was Lee ; but from the fact of his having
adopted every habit and quality which make up a sailor except
seamanship, the mate gave him the significant title of " Chaw-
tobacco Jack." Another was poor " Jimmy Ducks," of a wealthy
family, but of the utmost personal inefficiency and arrogance.
He had been another Havre voyage before with the same
captain, and of all on board our ship was his only favorite. On
him, by a little art, especially by feigning great ignorance in the
calling of the "prodigal son," I very speedily shifted the
name and duties which an almost universal usage had otherwise
fixed on me. I refer to the care of the pigs and cows that were
on board ship. The third who made out the trio of those whom
the men called "gentlemen's sons," was that same truant from
college and home, already introduced to the reader ; and in de-
fault of an easier name, he went by the self-appropriated one of
"Charlie." But now for "boy Harry," decidedly the most
important personage aboard ship, at once the life and butt of the
crew, and an everlasting plague to the officers — an absolute essen-
tial everywhere, and yet for ever in the way. I have him now
in my mind's eye — his short, chubbed form, and fat, Dutch vis-
age, in which sparkled as keen and roguish a pair of black eyes
as ever a youngster sported ; and then that lisping, Hollandish
tongue of his — how its least movement would set the men laugh-
ing and cursing! yet it never rested. And well I may remember
him, for many is the time we have raced up the rigging together
in strife for the " weather }7ard arm ; " and many is the long
watch hour we have whiled away together with schemes of mis-
chief or in kindly spats. I recollect well when I first saw him.
It was on board, just before we left New York. The captain
chancing to pass him, asked what he was doing there ; lie said,
the mate had hired him for "or'nary theaman ; " he had been to
sea two years. The mate soon after coming up, asked him the
same question ; he answered promptly, that the captain had
engaged him for an " or'nary theaman." And so we had " boy
Harry" in our crew, though he unfortunately failed of getting
ordinary seaman's wages.
SKETCHES OF SEA-LIFE. 339
Well, " old skipper," we are ready for yon now to take your
watch. And witli apparent impartiality lie made a division,
numerically equal. But it did most unaccountably happen that
certain of the smartest, most able-bodied seamen fell into the
starboard watch, which chanced to be his own. Lee and Jimmy
were apportioned to the mate's or larboard watch, and Harry and
myself to the other. Then came the captain's customary address,
and I wonder that each word did not perish on the false tongue
that uttered it. " My hearties, I like your looks lirst rate. You
are a hale set of fellows as I have seen in a crew for a long time,
and its my opinion we're going to have a pleasant voyage, and a
pleasant season for it. Now if you'll do your duty and be faith-
ful, you'll find me a right clever master, and you shall have the
best of usage and the best of fare ; but if you don't, you'll find
I can make this ship a perfect hell for you. Go below, the star-
board watch." And down into the forecastle we bounced in a
trice ; when, after hearing many a hearty curse on the skipper
for abducting sundry well-filled demijohns and bottles, all were
soon rolling about in the hug of Morpheus.
Now that forecas'le was a queer pen at best ; and ours was
probably as good a specimen as any on the waters, being what
w^as scientifically called a " Top-gallant forecastle," or " House on
deck." It was as large, except in height, as a common sized
room ; and around its sides were ranged about twenty-four berths,
upper and lower, single and double, from under which twenty-
four huge chests stuck out half their lengths. In the middle of
the floor was stacked up a promiscuous heap of boots, caps, oil-
cloth jackets, and every sort of sea-accoutrement. Such was the
bedlam confusion in which ate, slept, and lived, by turns or all
together as occasion required, twenty-four persons. Yet in all
this — and I took my full share of discomfort as well as labor — I
was contented, ay, and happy ; and who, with any conform-
ity of disposition, would not be ? Thrown together, as sailors
are,with common interests and common fare, obliged to participate
in common toil and dangers, they speedily lose every vestige of
selfishness — that bane of ordinary society. There is nothing a
sailor will not do for his shipmate — nothing he will not share to
34:0 SKETCHES OF SEA-LIFE.
the last with him. Thus can a rough but hearty generosity, witli
an unvarying round of pleasantry, make of the most dismal quar-
ters an agreeable home.
At midnight we were all roused from a deep sleep by a thunder-
ing rattle against the door, followed immediately by the deafening
call, "Sta— r-b'rd wa— tch, a— h— o— y! Eight bells there!
Hear the news ?" We were soon up and out, giving place to
the sleepy deckers ; and our men in turn, wrapping around them
their pea-jackets, disposed themselves for a little napping on
whatever came convenient — some on a spar, some on water casks,
others in the coil of a rope, and others still on the " soft side of
a board." I tried all these devices, and many others equally in-
viting, but not the least rest could I get, much less sleep. And
moreover feeling a little queer — not sea-sick, for I never was sea-
sick— but a sort of indescribable all-over-ness, as some poet has
written, "All was not right, yet where the wrong?" I came to
the conclusion that there was no use torturing one's self so,
especially as there was nothing in creation to do outside, that I
could see. So in I stole, and crept into bed, where I was forth-
with dreaming as sweetly as ever in my life before. How long
after it was, I do not know, but I was soon brought to conscious-
ness by a severe punching at my sides. Turning over, I saw boy
Harry standing by my bunk. " Vot you thleep for? They hunt
for you all over the thyip. The thecond mate, he be hell on you."
In an instant I was out on the floor, but in the utmost fright and
uncertainty what next to do. " Tell him," says he, " you be
thick — you no can vork." I told Harry to go up slily where the
men were, and not say a word about me. So as soon as I saw
the mate's head turned, I followed up and *< tailed onto " the
rope, on which they were pulling, as if nothing had happened.
Now our " second Dickey " was a gruff, but noble-hearted sailor,
and was liked by the crew in proportion as he was hated by the
captain, which was no small amount. But he was not to be
deceived so easily by a novice in his trade. He had seen " boys"
before. So singling me out shortly after, he asked me " why I
did not obey the call." I answered that " I was sick and couldn't
get out." But that excuse, which had so often before served me
SKETCHES OF SEA-LIFE. 341
as a talisman on similar emergencies at school, he heeded not in
the least. " If I ever catch you," said he, " stowing yourself
away again, I'll haul you out by the ears. Now remember it."
And I did remember it, Mr. White, not only to preserve those
tender organs from the rough tug you threatened, but also to
give no occasion for them to hear more such kind remarks. "And
you, young Dutch chunk," he continued, "if you ever stay
away again half the night, looking him up, I'll lash you by the
ears to the main-mast." " Yeth thir," coolly replied Harry.
At eight bells again, four o'clock — for the bell was struck
every half hour — we had the extreme felicity of yelling at the
forecastle door, "Larbowlines a-hoy." Thus through the twenty-
four hours, except six in the afternoon, we had an alternation of
watches at each " eight bells ; " the " dog watch," of two hours
in the evening, serving to alternate the succession of watches
every other night. On Sundays and stormy days we usually had
"watch and watch" — that is, an alternation of watches through-
out the entire day. A storm never comes amiss to poor Jack ;
for as well as the excitement which he longs for, it brings him
more resting spells.
Let me now present to you, kind reader, our crew at meals.
Around the forecastle sit, each on his own chest, one or both
watches, as may be. Out from among the dirty clothes in his
bunk, each one pulls a basin, quart cup, and spoon. The boys
bring in from the galley and set down in the middle of the floor,
two or three kids of food, out of which all help themselves. At
eight o'clock comes breakfast ; but such a breakfast ! That eter-
nal " scouse ! " — a mushy mess of sea-biscuit or potatoes boiled
up with bits of salt meat. Then each had his "pot" of the
black extract of burnt peas, with a little molasses in it, vulgarly
called coffee. These, without butter, salt, or seasoning of any
kind, for we never had those luxuries, constituted our unvarying
morning repast. At noon we fared a little better, for variety at
least. Twice a week we had molasses with " duff " — a bag of
flour boiled solid in salt water ; twice, vinegar with beans — i. e.
water-gruel with a sprinkling of beans in it ; twice, corn meal
mush ; and for the odd time, boiled potatoes, which relished re-
342 SKETCHES OF SEA-LIFE.
markably seeing that we could get nothing but rock-salt to eat
them with. Supper is easily told. Salt horse-flesh, barley-meal
and saw-dust sea-biscuit, and each man a quart of a decoction of
some villainous herbs, a little " bewitched " with molasses. This,
Captain Howe, was the good living you promised us ! Yet in
New York you were thought to be decently honest ; some even
thought you to be temperate and gentlemanly ; but, alas ! how
speedily does the salt sea wash off a scaly virtue ! Your portly,
manly figure very much belied your moral qualities.
But I must pass over several days, during which we had
steady, fair winds, and were constantly bowling along under all
our canvas, and with every stu'n-sail set. We were now on the
" Banks," groping on through that everlasting fog, which settles
like night on those dark shoals. Oh ! that driving, drizzling,
drenching air ! How many shivering, wretched hours have I
spent in it, so cold and damp ! Nothing is impervious to it.
Often have I cast off three and four dripping duplicates of ordi-
nary garments, and wrapped myself in as many wet blankets, to
enjoy a short oblivion of trouble and discomfort. It was on one
of these dismal nights, while we were on the Banks, just as our
watch, which had gone below wearied with hauling in studding
sails for several hours together, had fallen comfortably to sleep,
that we were suddenly startled by a loud cry at the door — " all
hands ! shorten sail ! " As soon as possible we were out of our
bunks and hastening half dressed to the quarter deck. The wind,
which had risen during the night, was now blowing a gale, driv-
ing fiercely against us mingled sleet and spray. The sea was
capped with foam, and on its whitened surface our ship was
wildly plunging, careening her bulwarks almost to the water's
edge. " Hurry up here ! Hurry up here ! " roared the captain,
who was clinging to the mizzen shrouds to windward. " Clew
up the royals and top-gall'nt-s'ls ! Haul up the courses ! Lay up
and furl ! " And command followed fast on command, answered
ever by the hurried "Ay, ay, sir," till all sound was lost in the
din of flapping canvas and clattering ropes. I had been aloft
several times before ; and was now only awaiting an opportunity
to learn that first and hardest duty on ship-board, to furl a royal.
SKETCHES OF SEA-LIFE. 343
So, heedless of storm and darkness, I soon found myself follow-
ing Lee up the weather main rigging. Over the ratlins we
clambered lustily ; now into the " top," and now upon the "cross-
trees." Here clapping hands and feet to the large " stays," we
"shinned" up to the royal yard. Making up and fastening the
"bunt" in the middle, we each ran out on the "foot-ropes," with
the end of a "gasket" between our teeth, which we wound taut
around both yard and sail, and bringing it in fastened it to the
" tye," when our royal was furled. Thence slipping down again
we were soon on deck.
Often since then have I recalled the peril of that first adven-
ture, when scarce a week at sea, and in a midnight gale, I found
myself swaying and quivering with the blast, in the highest part
of the ship — now forced to cling with all my might to the yard-
arm, and now, in a lull of the wind, passing another turn of the
gasket — at one moment bending with the mast far down towards
the water, and at the next rebounding with feet flying in mid-air.
And I have wondered that I could so carelessly have gazed into
the dark scowling sea beneath, and so recklessly laughed at the
howling storm. Yet such were but common occurrences. To
the sailor, these scenes are the romance of life, the theme of
"yarns," in the leisure hours. As such I too, though young,
enjoyed them ; and nothing ever pleased me more than a frown-
ing sky, and a cresting sea along the distant horizon. When I
reached the deck, I was bare-headed, my oil-jacket as near wrong
side out as possible, my inner raiment flying at loose ends, and
every part of me soaking wet. Finding the sails, except the top-
sails, already stowed, I hastened down to the forecastle ; whither
boy Harry came soon after, in even worse plight than myself.
He was swearing away " how he'd be down on that dam Dimmy
Duckth. The thkippy, he thend him up to the miththen r'yal
mit me. And he don't can do a dam thing. He hide in the
4 top.' " And so indeed it was. Poor Jimmy had not the heart
to make his first essay on such a night; and accordingly had
stopped at the "lubber's hole," leaving Harry to furl his sail
alone.
344 SKETCHES OF SEA-LIFE.
During the next day we set all sail again, and passing off the
Banks, suddenly emerged into pleasant weather. But we were
rolled about most wantonly by a tremendous sea, the relics of the
last night's gale. Thus speedily every thing settled again into
the usual round of day duties, "wash decks" in the morning,
"pump ship, the watch," and "hold the reel, boys," every eight
bells, and "braid sennet," or "make mats for chafing gear,"
when there was nothing else to be done.
It was one afternoon, not many days later than this, as there
was a sly inkling among the younger and lighter portion of the
crew that the remaining part of the day would be devoted to the
peculiarly unpleasant duty of "slushing" the upper masts, when,
lo! and behold! boy Harry was nowhere to be found. Immedi-
ately every nook and cranny of the ship rang to the loud cry—
" Boy Harry ! " " Boy Harry ! " It happened to fall to my lot to
rummage the forecastle for him ; when hunting for some time
all alone, I at last heard a low whisper, issuing out from a heap
of rubbish in the back side of a bunk — "Charley! Charley! The
mate he find me, he athk me vere I thick, vot I tell him ?" " Tell
him," said I, "you are sick to the stomach." "Yerebethe
thtomich?" Pointing out its locality, I hove another blanket
over him, and was forthwith busily engaged again tumbling
chests about, when the chief mate stepped in and commenced
the search for himself. We must now introduce to the reader,
Mr. Beattie, our first mate, a most skillful seaman, but a narrow,
conceited soul ; who dwelt most rigidly on the "minor points of the
law," and seemed to think his reputation depended on his petty
tyranny over the boys. After searching some time, he at last
stumbled on Harry, buried in his dark nest. And out he hauled
him to view rather roughly, asking, with many pretty adjuncts
to his speech, what he was stowed away in there for ? " I'th
thick, thir— Oh! hard thick in my thtomich thir." "That's
your case then, is it ? " said the mate. " I'll soon fix you out."
So aft he hurried, and in a few minutes came back with a wine-
glass nearly filled with castor oil. The instant Harry saw what
the game was to be, he seized the glass from the mate, applied it
to his lips, and quicker than thought, its contents were gone.
SKETCHES OF SEA-LIFE. 345
And the officer, turning about, stalked off in all the pride of
conscious cunning. Ah, Mr. Beattie, if you had had the dilated
pupils of my eyes in that dark corner, you might not have been
quite so well pleased, as you saw your medicine taking rather an
external route to the digestives of that mischievous lad. Of
course it was several days before boy Harry could do any more
work ; and of course he presented a most doleful appearance,
especially when any officer was in sight.
Onward and onward we ploughed through the wide waste, not
once being obliged by contrary winds to turn from our course,
and frequently cleaving the waters at the rapid rate of fifteen
knots an hour. On the evening of the sixteenth day out from
New York, the bold shores of Lizard Point, on the coast of Eng-
land, loomed into view. Passing this almost within the distance
of a stone's cast, we sailed on up the Channel. And when morn-
ing again broke upon us, we were standing, with shortened sail,
off the blue hills of Normandy. Oh ! glorious sight ! For what
though lovely France be now raving in a wild crazy-fit, and with
bloody arm is dealing death to myriads of her sons; her soil
will give us respite from the ceaseless tumble of old ocean, and
we long to look on her beauty. During the morning a French
pilot boarded us, arid we again made sail. Ah ! what a noble
sight do we present, as the gallant St. Denis dashes by the light-
house and along the pier, and a thousand delighted eyes are
fastened on us from the shore. " Starboard the helm ! " " Let
go all halyards !" "Drop the larboard anchor there for'ard!"
" "What ! cable chain parted ? " " Let fly the other ! " And here
we are, safe moored in one of those beautiful basins which inter-
sect the maritime city of " Havre de Grace."
For want of time and space to continue, at present, these
desultory sketches, I must, kind reader, leave you at this part of
the narrative.
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