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seconds or so in spite of the darkness. This, however, may be persistence of impression, but it is quite possible that it is due to the paper giving up the light which it has absorbed.

The photography of substances embedded in the hand or knee by means of the "x" rays has now become quite a common accomplishment, affording an aid-although it must be confessed a limited aid-to surgical exploration with the view of extracting foreign bodies. Several well authenticated cases of the sort were reported this week at home and abroad. But it is evident that the conditions of the experiment must be vastly improved before the "x" rays can be brought successfully to bear upon surgical operations. Some means of concentrating the rays are wanted, and the time of exposure is necessarily and inconveniently long, according to the degree of thickness of the part operated upon. During this time the Crookes's tube frequently breaks down, and the exposure of a patient keeping perfectly still for, say, three hours is almost an impossible ordeal. We do not despair, however, that the method will undergo improvement which will bring greater convenience to the operator and comfort to the patient. We referred last week to the discovery of Professor Salvioni of the University of Perugia, who, it is reported, has been able to make directly visible the bones of the hand by means of the "x" rays. His procedure appears to be to interpose the object between the source of the rays and a screen capable of being made to phosphoresce, so that the rays which get through actuate the screen to emit light while where the rays are absorbed or stopped as by the bones a clear and true shadow is produced. Such a substance apparently is the platino-cyanide of barium. How the screen is conveniently viewed is, however, not quite clear, but we apprehend that further details will be soon forthcoming in regard to the construction of this apparatus, which has received the name of "cryptoscope." It is in this direction, we think, in which the application of the "x" rays may become of signal ser

vice. In the mean time it is pretty clear that our views of the nature of light must soon undergo considerable modification. There seems little doubt, however, that the new phenomenon belongs to electricity rather than to light.

From The World. SCIENTIFIC INQUISITORS. There is some soul of goodness in things evil-even in a thing so uncompromisingly evil as the imminent deadly camera which is now threatening to render privacy a mere tradition of an unscientific past. The new discovery. even in its experimental stages, has already performed a distinct service to society. Its recorded achievements. and the future possibilities they have shadowed forth, have brought people face to face with that prospect of perpetual and unescapable publicity towards which the resources of science and the conditions of modern life have been together tending to hasten them within recent years. About the bare idea of being photographically spied upon through the very walls of one's own house, or of having the contents of one's pockets or one's private pigeonholes "taken" surreptitiously for the benefit of all whom they may or may not concern, there is a suggestion of positive outrage that strikes the inagination with peculiarly unpleasant force. And it is well that it is so, since the time has surely come for a recoil from the modern spirit that favors the transfer of private life from the house to the housetop. Science, it must be owned, has done not a little to destroy the old conception of privacy. With the telephone to pursue business men into their libraries and "ring them up" in the very bosom of their families, and with the phonograph capable of being applied to the purpose of registering and reproducing the most intimate of domestic confidences, it cannot be pre tended that this crowning menace to any haven of refuge from the world of outside affairs has not been led up to

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by the insatiable pioneers of scientific | "Peeping invention.

It is surely not necessary, however, to wait for the evolution of a new and irresistible system of scientific thoughtreading, and for the social cataclysm that it would bring in its train, in order to protest against that sacrifice of physical privacy which threatens to become complete in the very near future. If the truth must be told, the traditions of what was once understood as private life have had other enemies besides those mechanical ones for which misapplied scientific invention has been responsible. The passion for notoriety at all costs, which nowadays afflicts the most completely insignificant people, impels them to seek the recognition they are otherwise incapable of securing through the medium of promiscuous and well-advertised entertainment. Reckless of the essential difference between themselves and persons of distinction, whose lives are of legitimate public interest, they endeavor to force themselves into prominence by converting their dwellings into public showrooms, and inviting all and sundry to come in, that the house may be full, and its proprietor's "artistic rooms" and "delightful old-world garden" may pro- | cure him the notice which he could hope in no other way to achieve. The epidemic of unwholesome craving for personal "réclame" which has raged so mischievously in recent years has done more for the overthrow of the old conception of private life than all that the fiendish engines of scientific inquisitiveness have as yet been able to accomplish.

Still, it may well be that the new menace directed against what remains of privacy-certainly the most alarming that science has yet uttered-may prove the last straw, and may suggest to some practical purpose the necessity of making a stand against the modern doctrine that nothing is to be held sacred from intrusion which inventive ingenuity can find a means of discovering, or which the necessities of vulgar self-advertisement render it expedient to parade before the crowd. The

Tom" of the up-to-date

camera, who is preparing to bore through every wall, to turn his electric rays into every secret drawer, and to pluck out the heart of every mystery, would be an insufferable enemy of society if he could bring his infernal machine to perfection and were permitted to pursue his course without restraint. Apart from more vital considerations, we want sometimes to be off our guard-to escape, so to speak, from our society uniform, and revel in moral as well as material "undress."

From The Sunday Magazine. LACHISH DISCOVERIES.

Before he compelled the mound to yield up its great secret, Dr. Bliss was rewarded with many "finds." He unearthed many jars, and all sorts of implements, a wine-press, heaps of burnt barley, idols, etc. He also laid bare a hot-blast furnace, containing iron ore and slag. It thus seems that, 1400 or 1500 years before Christ, the Amorites knew how to use the hot airblast instead of cold air; and that they anticipated the modern improvement in iron manufacture due to Nelson, and patented in 1828! At the bottom of the Tell, Dr. Bliss laid bare what he believed to be the foundations of the old Amorite city. Its mud-brick walls were thirteen feet thick and twenty-eight feet high. On May 14, 1892, he found, in a great ash-bed, a coffee-colored stone with wedge-shaped inscriptions on both sides. This discovery marks a new epoch in the history of exploration in Bible lands. This tablet contains letters from the governors of Lachish to the Pharaohs of Egypt, and there is no doubt about the exact date. In 1887 a peasant woman had discovered similar tablets at Tell-elAmarna in Egypt, about one hundred and eighty miles south of Cairo. These tablets contained one hundred and seventy letters from Palestine, and the names of kings who were contemporary with Joshua, and they confirm

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the historical accuracy of the Book of Joshua. Some of the letters in the Tell-el-Amarna tablets are from Lachish, and, both in style and contents, they agree with the tablet discovered by Dr. Bliss. The two sides of the tally have thus been brought together, and the veracity and date of both have been established. This double discovery created a great sensation among the learned, and the story of it claims a foremost place in the romance of exploration. The Lachish tablet is the first written record of pre-Israelite times that has yet been found on the soil of Palestine. The Lachish letters are in entire harmony with the measureless egotism and vanity which are revealed, by picture, sculpture, hieroglyph, upon miles of the surviving Egyptian monuments. They show that Pharaoh demanded even from his chief rulers the most abject and preposterous flattery. Zimridi, the governor of Lachish, thus addresses his overlord of Egypt: "To the king, my lord, my god, my sun-god, the sun-god who is from heaven, thus writes Zimridi, the governor of the city of Lachish, thy servant, the dust of thy feet, at the feet of the king, my lord, the sun-god from heaven, bows himself seven times seven. I have very diligently listened to the words of the messenger whom the king, my lord, has sent to me," etc.

Many passages in these letters read like extracts from the Book of Genesis.

The Moabite stone is said to date from 890 to 900 B.C., and authentic history on the monuments of Egypt does not go much further back; but a scarab or seal of Amenhotep III. fixes the date of the Lachish tablets as not later than 1400 B.C. The writing is perfect in its kind, and very beautiful. It reveals a high degree of literary culture. A specimen of it is given in the quarterly statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund for January, 1893. These tablets have upset some theories in Biblical Criticism. In solving antiquarian and Biblical problems, the spade has often proved mightier than the pen. Some critics of the School of Wellhausen used to maintain that the books of Moses could not have been written at the dates assigned, as writing was not known in Palestine till the eighth or ninth century before Christ. It is not possible to hold such a theory, as it has been demonstrated that the Israelites, both in Egypt and Canaan, were surrounded by literary nations, who had carried the art of writing to a surprising perfection. It cannot now be held that the early records of the Old Testament must have been derived from mere tradition.

Architectural Discoveries at Westminster Abbey. - Canon Wilberforce has found several relics of great importance, and amongst these a beautiful vaulted chamber which had been walled up since the time of monastic dissolution under Henry VIII. The chamber dated back to 1362, and at one time was part of the ancient ambulatory associated with the devoted labors of Abbot Litlington. Nothing can be more simple and beautiful than the design, the piers and capitals being exceeding graceful and light in appearance. This unique portion of the

abbey, exhumed and restored by the new canon, has become his dining-room, all its adjuncts being of the most harmonious character. Frescoes were also discovered at the same time in an upper room. These wall paintings were probably executed at the end of the fourteenth century, and were the work of Venetians. The designs, grotesque, weird, and full of artistic skill, notably in the royal arms and feline supporters, will have special interest for one of the orders of high Masons, as the pictures most likely symbolized the wor ship of Astarte.

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