motion, which travels rapidly from end to end the mass is conveying an electric current. The atoms of silver, still retaining their elliptical motion, now assume a peculiar helicoidal motion in varying planes: the mass is under the influence of a magnet. The oculus then goes outside again and stations itself near the base of one of the shining silver mountains; it looks up at the bright lustrous sides, and sees the etherwaves dashing down upon them from infinite space; it notices also that the motion of the waves differs from that of the atoms-they cannot assimilate it. Consequently the ether-waves are dashed back, like great sea-waves dashing on a rock-bound coast; in a word, they are reflected, and to some extent scattered, as ether-foam.

Once again, the ingot of silver is placed in a Cyclopæan melting-pot, together with some sulphur: the oculus places itself at the bottom of the mass, and diligently watches. The meltingpot is placed in a furnace; motion is rapidly assimilated by the atoms, more quickly by the sulphur than by the silver; at length a white atom of sulphur and two black atoms of silver are seen to coalesce, separate from the rest of the mass and sink to the bottom as a molecule of sulphide of silver. The molecule continues the motion of heat which the individual atoms had before possessed, but the three coalesced atoms now act as one. The motion is observed to differ altogether, both in kind and velocity, from that of the single atoms; and the oculus no longer recognizes either the sulphur or the silver as separate bodies the compound molecule now forms indeed a new substance. The individual atoms of the molecule also move relatively to each other. The combination of the two atoms of silver with one atom of sulphur continues until the whole mass of silver has become a new substance. A few million atoms of sulphur remain in the melting-pot in excess; they move more and more rapidly as the heating continues, and ultimately float away and are seen no

more.

Here ends our first voyage with the oculus. We have seen some actions which are fairly familiar to many of us. We have endeavoured to visualize the assumption of heat by a mass of melted metal; the continued assumption resulting in fusion and vaporization; the subsequent condensation of the vapour; the conveyance of an electric current by the metallic mass s; the action of a magnet upon it; the reflection of light from its polished surface; and finally, its union with sulphur under the influence of the force of chemical affinity.

Whither shall we travel now? To the fiery maelströms of the sun? To the zone of Saturn? To a cloud of planetary matter condensing into new worlds? Or shall we float with the light of Arcturus and a Lyræ into the spectroscope of Mr. Huggins? Since we have attempted to visualize the infinitely little, let us now transport the oculus to the infinitely great, and place it in the midst of a new solar system about to be formed.

The oculus speeds through space; it sees an earth-lit moon; it reaches Mars during mid-winter, it examines the belt of Saturn with interest, and it gains some entirely new ideas about space of four dimensions. It passes the region

"where eldest Night

And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand."

At length, far out of sight of our solar system, it comes to a firmamental desert, and sees beneath it an extended nebulous mass, some ten trillion miles in extent; the mass is hazy and cloud-like, and is gradually contracting its limits, until at length it condenses into a semi-solid spherical mass, intensely radiant, in fact still white-hot. The sphere assumes rotatory motion, and as the motion augments it bulges out more and more in the direction of its motion; then some dozens of masses of molten matter of different sizes are given off from the circumference of the rotating mass. These fly out in orbits more or less eccentric, and revolve around the great

great central mass, now the sun of a vast system, keeps his attendant worlds n order; the greater number revolve about him with regularity. But one of the worlds, a few times larger than our moon, has by the velocity of its impulse been projected into a large and very elliptical orbit, which brings it within the sphere of attraction of a distant, but enormous, sun. Then, as a ship is drawn into a whirlpool, is the errant world drawn to its destruction. It circulates about the greater body, not in a curved path which returns into itself, but in an ever-narrowing spiral. At last comes the final crash: it rushes into the sun with a velocity of more than a million miles a second, and the heat generated by the collision volatilizes the destroyed planet. A thin fiery cloud is now all that remains of what had a short time before been a world. All this, and much more, the oculus perceives, and then returns to earth.

With our organ of observation we might now visit those profound depths of the ocean, of which the Challenger is telling us so much; we might swim through a di-electric subject to electrostatic induction; we might inhabit a Geissler's tube, or bury ourselves in a slice of tourmaline, about the time when a high-priest of Nature cries Fiat experimentum in the matter of polarized light. Let us rather visit with the oculus those obscure regions in which perception itself originates. Let us float with a sound-wave into the ear, and with an ether-wave enter the portals of the brain itself.

Behold, then, the oculus within the dim porches of the ear, tapping upon the tympanum, through which it passes, and entangles itself among those complicated little bones which anatomists call the malleus, the incus, and the stapes. The

tympanum is quivering, and the little bones appear to accept its motion, and to transmit it. As the oculus passes on it sees beneath it what appears to be a deep narrow well-the Eustachian tube; then it looks through the fenestra rotunda, and floats through the fenestra ovalis into the perilymph, a clear liquid mass agitated by waves; then it nearly loses itself in the labyrinth and cochlear, a sort of place like the maze at Hampton Court; escaping from this it swims through the endolymph; and finally comes in sight of the cortian fibres, the scala media, and the ends of the auditory nerves. The oculus fails not to see how each particular fibre vibrates to one particular tone or semitone, and it hears the transmitted vibrations around it; as, standing in the belfry at Bruges, the dreaming listener hears about him, now one bell, now another, bursting into song, and at last a great symphony poured from fifty throats of bronze.

The oculus now returns to the outer world, and makes friends with an atom of luminiferous ether which is about to enter the eye. But before they can join company the oculus has to shrink to a smaller size than ever before. It has now to enter very microscopical channels, to which a particle the size of a grain of sand would be as a cricket-ball to the channel of a small straw. We next find it with the ether-wave dashing upon the outer surface of the eye. It enters the organism by a gate of hornthe cornea-and enters the brain itself by a gate of ivory-the optic foramen. We are a little reminded of Virgil's idea of the two gates :

'Sunt geminæ somni portæ, quarum altera fertur

Cornea.

Altera, candenti perfecta nitens elephanto."

Having passed the aqueous humour, the oculus perceives an increase of resistance as it encounters the lens, and on emerging enters a vaulted chamber filled with a substance as clear as crystal. Impulses are speeding through this with extreme velocity, and delivering their messages to the brain. Of all the wonderful things that the oculus saw in that

crystal chamber, with black walls, and a window, not yet darkened, which looked upon the external world, it would take us too long to tell. It saw there varied images reflected upon the walls, of things distant, and things near; it saw too the movements of the ciliary muscles which cause the front surface of the lens to change its curvature, and much more. It could have lingered there longer, but its guide, the etherwave hurried, it on, till it reached the far end of the chamber, and saw the commencement of the optic nerve. The particles of the nerve were seen to be rapidly vibrating under the influence of the ether-waves, and to be finally yielding up the motion to the particles of the brain. The oculus floats between the nerve fibres into the brain itself. But there it sees no more. In vain it endeavours to comprehend how the delicate impulses of the ether become transmuted into the sensation of light; how the images of the external world are recognized by the centre of percep

tion.

Although now within the most private chambers of the great domed palace, the oculus can understand but little of its inner life. It is reminded somewhat of a central telegraph office, where messages are perpetually being received, and as perpetually being sent; where sometimes a message is retained, carefully copied, and stored away in a safe; where again a message, as soon as received, is sent off by another line of wires; where sometimes the messages originate in the office itself, while at other times clerks rush in breathlessly with messages for instant despatch. The most distant nerves conveyed messages and received back answers, whereupon bodily motions resulted. Thus the will said, "I want to move the arm," and the necessary directions having been given, the arm moved. Or the stomach said, "I am hungry; there is food in the jaws, let them commence operations," and forthwith the jaws began to masticate, and all the auxiliary apparatus of deglutition was simultaneously set in motion. Or the

mind said, "I send you these important facts; copy them carefully, and store them away in a chamber, until I want them." But some of these chambers appeared to have very defective locks, and sometimes broken doors.

Thus it was that messages continued to be received and transmitted by the brain. It was apparently a kind of head-quarters, to which every action. was referred before being executed. No nerve or muscle ventured to act upon its own account without first obtaining leave from head-quarters, which leave, once given, was responded to by the whole mental and bodily system. The heart and the respiratory apparatus were frequent in their demands, and had a vast number of separate telegraph wires for their special use and behoof. Soon the will said, "I want to read aloud," and the brain at once commenced to receive communications, and to issue the necessary instructions. There were the muscles of the arm to be directed, in order that the book might be held at a proper distance from the eyes; and the muscles which cause the eyes to move horizontally from the beginning to the end of a line, and vertically from the top to the bottom of a page; and the vibrations of the particles of the optic nerve conveying the impression of the letters to be received, and then communicated, to the muscles of the larynx, and the muscles of the tongue, and the muscles of the lips, and the respiratory muscles, and their varied auxiliary apparatus ;-all these concurrent causes combined to one end, and thus the words seen by the eye came to be spoken by the mouth, and the organism performed the act of reading aloud.. Now the passage which was read was this "It is likewise certain that, when we approve of any reason which we do not apprehend, we are either deceived, or, if we stumble upon the truth, it is only by chance, and thus we can never possess the assurance that we are not in error. I confess it seldom happens that we judge of a thing when we have observed we do not apprehend it, because it is a dictate of the natural light,

never to judge of what we do not know. But we most frequently err in this, that we presume upon a past knowledge of much to which we give our assent, as to something treasured up in the memory, and perfectly known to us; whereas, in truth, we have no such knowledge." Then the reading ceased, and the will somewhat peremptorily asked the brain the precise meaning of the passage. Whereupon the molecules of the brain -notably the corpuscles of the grey matter-became strangely agitated; they moved with wonderful motions in wonderful planes; they described in their motions space of four dimensions; they moved in vortices which rolled over each other; in a word, the whole organ was in a state of intense molecular

1 Descartes, Principia, Pars 1, 44.

activity. Was this Thought? At all events the will received no answer to its question, and having requested the brain to cudgel itself no more, the subject was dropped, and the reading continued. The oculus was endeavouring to thread its way through the countless corridors and chambers which surrounded it, when it came upon a small cell out of which came the Genius of the place, who conducted it in safety to the frontier.

Our typical man, who says, "I will believe it when I see it," has after all a good deal of reason on his side, for we cannot speak with any certainty of invisible things; we can only say what we believe them to be, or what they may be. It is thus that we must regard the revelations of the oculus.

G. F. RODWELL.

[THE following account was written by Lady Amberley while in Italy during the spring of this year. The statements with regard to matters that could not be the subject of direct observation are given on the authority of the officials connected with the various institutions.

Those whose rare privilege it was to enjoy the happiness of her intimate acquaintance and friendship, alone know how much has been lost to all the highest interests of humanity in the early death of her whose loss to them personally is altogether overwhelming and irreparable.

Her intense sympathy with every form of suffering was of the true kind which spares not itself, and will never be deterred from fearlessly seeking a remedy: while at the same time her active, unclouded intellect would allow her to find comfort in none of the many short-sighted schemes of benevolence. With sad unwillingness she was compelled to trust to the growth of right feeling, and the slow advance of thought and knowledge; and to this great end she was ready to make every sacrifice. Her power of inspiring others to their best efforts was very great; and she had practical plans for the advancement of science and education, to which she had resolved to give her own life and all the material aid she could command.

DOUGLAS A. SPALDING.]

THE great and imposing pile of building which rises on the banks of the Tiber, near the bridge of St. Angelo, known as the Hospital of San Spirito, is one of the many munificent and benevolent bequests of past ages, so benevolent and good in their intention, that we shrink with pain from pointing out the mischief they are doing. If departed spirits continue, as some of us believe, to take an interest in mundane affairs when they have cast off this mortal body, they must grieve indeed to see those who would do them honour clinging to the letter of their bequests, instead of recognizing and making use of the knowledge that succeeding centuries of human labour and research

have added to our little stock of science.

On entering this great hospital, you stand in a square hall facing an altar, with high glass doors on each side opening into halls of grand and gigantic proportions. The great height of the building was immensely in its favour, for the ventilation was complete, and no unpleasant odour could offend the most fastidious visitor. Through the fever wards our guide conducted us without hesitation, with the remark, "No fever is infectious; were it consumption it might be otherwise; that ward we won't take you to." So strong is the Italian prejudice as to the infectiousness of consumption, that only when we insisted that we feared no evil consequences from proximity to that sad complaint, were we allowed to enter the long room set apart for it. Children were in wards by themselves— a bad plan, inasmuch as it is now recognized that mortality is much increased by herding children together; besides, when mixed up with the old, they mutually cheer and amuse one another.

In an inner court of this vast building, we find the largest foundling hospital of Rome now open to our inspection, and we do not remember having ever looked on anything more unpleasant and saddening. Here we

have nothing short of the good intentions of one age becoming the curse of another. Through a well-barred door we were admitted, after much parleying, by a brisk little nun, into a great quadrangle. From a sunny gallery that surrounds this inner court we entered a number of large airy rooms, all too sadly alike in their mournful and forlorn aspect. The material appearance was