This morning has been anxiously spent | pendent upon the whole phenomena of and marked by bad news. Miss Allen sent nature. & messenger to inform me that by telegraph the news came of Kenyon's death. It was expected. He was a prosperous and a mu nificent man. In more recent years several other friends have made this locale a place of memories. Mr. and Mrs. Gwyn Jeffreys lived here, and some of the most agreeable scientific and social gatherings that I can recall at this time were at their house. As an authority in natural history Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys is best known by his work on "British Conchology." He was another example of the early age at which a taste for natural history is manifested. Like Edward Forbes he began his collections at the age of seven. At nineteen he contributed a paper to the Linnæan Society, containing the results of some important researches on a certain group of mollusca. I remember Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys telling me that when at Upsala in Sweden he met a grandson of Von Linné who expressed surprise at our calling his grandfather "Linnæus," which was the Latinized form of the name till he was ennobled. Mr. Spence told me that his collaborator, Mr. Kirby, always wrote and spoke of Von Linné, as he is styled abroad, and as his name appears on the title-p e-pages of his botanical works. The deep-sea explorations which Dr. Carpenter and Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys carried out in H.M. surveying ship Porcupine in 1869 and 1870 resulted not only in a distinct gain to marine zoology, but led to highly important observations on the temperature, salinity, and the undercurrents of the ocean. As we learn more and more of the secrets of the sea, we find how the minutest and apparently most isolated fact may touch upon every science that circles out into cosmic law. All the 'ologies must help together in explanation of the wonderful balance which renders the existence of this complex word possible. We might say in other terms what Terence said of the kinship of humanity, and advance as an axiom, that there is no fact in nature which is not interde It was Maury, the American, who began his "Physical Geography of the Sea" with the sentence, "There is a river in the ocean "" - going on to remark that the indigo-blue waters of the Gulf Stream are so marked that the line of junction with the common sea-water may be traced by the eye. The color it would seem is intensified if not entirely due to the agency of suspended particles in the water. From Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys I learnt that Dr. Carpenter and himself had arrived independently at the sare conclusion as Professor Tyndall on this point, in reference to the beautiful blue of the lake of Geneva and the Mediterranean. The fact seems to have important geological and biological relations. Captain Maury was the first to suggest the theory of a normal and general interchange of water between the Equator and the Poles. I was told by Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys that his own researches on the subject of oceanic circulation tended to confirm the hypothesis, which, says the physicists, "would result from a difference of specific gravity caused inter alia by difference of temperature." Tyndall speaks of the rhythmic motions of force, and truly the story of the earth, and of the waters under the earth, is in itself a poem ! In the spring of 1863 I had met Captain Maury at the house of Lady Millicent, and Dr. Bence Jones. Admiral Fitzroy, Sir Rodney Mundy, and Sir George Back, were guests on the same occasion-quite a naval dinner. Maury, who was an American of the Southern States, was looking very downcast. I heard that he was anxious about the safety of two of his daughters who were on the war trail. Sir George Back gave me a very interesting account of ice storms in high latitudes. He was rather surprised to hear that on the Quantock Hills, in Somersetshire, we had come in for a somewhat similar experience. A fog of great density and non-electric had pervaded the whole district for miles round throughout one winter night. A sudden fall in the temperature had taken place, with the In the decade of the sixties there was i was more frequently on men's lips than that of Sir Charles Wheatstone. One met him everywhere, and personally I was often at their house in Park Crescent, his eldest daughter being an intimate friend of mine. In London I had result that by the morning everything was covered with a thick coating of ice. | hardly any man of science whose name The air was perfectly still, when the light revealed the strange scene of a world made of opaque glass. The overburdened boughs and leading branches of the trees came crashing down under the sheer weight of ice; our neighbors, as well as ourselves, lost more orna- generally heard Wheatstone speak on mental timber than we had done in the his own special subject; he was very worst wind-storm of many former years. accessible to visitors who desired to see I have noticed that Arctic explorers his wonderfully ingenious applications are exceptionally lighthearted, cheerful of electricity. In the autumn of 1871 people. This notion of mine received we chanced to be staying in the same confirmation from a gentleman who had hotel at Lucerne, and it was then a revlived some time in the Tropics, and elation to his listeners to find that Sir later in one of Mr. Leigh Smith's expe- Charles was a man of very wide culture ditions had suffered an imprisonment outside his own subjects. During many of more than a year in the land of snow pleasant excursions by boat or carriage, and ice. He said he had observed that those who were fortunate enough to even under the most trying circum- engage him in conversation had a great stances, cold had an exhilarating effect intellectual treat. It is difficult to bring on the spirits, whereas great heat has a into focus the philosopher's discursive depressing influence. talk suggested by the last news in scientific discovery, or by the topics of the hour. Not unfrequently he took a higher flight, and looking on the beautiful face of nature, he was led to speak of the inner soul of nature, and then the true poetry of science became audible to us. Another, and better-known, side of Sir Charles Wheatstone's intellect was his marvellous power of making out the most carefully constructed ciphers. No doubt the same peculiar ingenuity of mind which led him to turn and twist the magneto-electric force into mechanical uses, led to his facility in deciphering hieroglyphics. His powers In his "Reminiscences," Mr. Mozley in this respect seemed almost uncanny ! mentions that an American said to him, The same order of mind is shown in "Your free trade would have ruined Thomas Young, to whom we owe the you but for the accident of the gold undulating theory of light. He, like discoveries, which cheapened the pre- Wheatstone, was attracted by cryptic cious metals as fast as free trade | writings, and though his claim to the cheapened corn. A propos of this, I remember the same evening, at Dr. Carpenter's, I had a long conversation with Dr. Graham, the master of the mint, who remarked, amongst other things, that the discovery of gold in Australia was the most opportune thing that ever happened, adding, "that it would be hard to say what we should have done without it." The mention of Dr. Carpenter's name recalls the recollection of much pleasant hospitality at his house. One evening he exhibited to his guests, amongst whom Professor Helmholtz was the most distinguished foreigner, a curious optical instrument called a suedescope, which has the power of reversing concavities and convexities. Some experiments with the instrument drew from Dr. Carpenter the remark, that a psychological principle may be deduced, showing how the mind refuses to indorse a false and unnatural impression made on the eye. interpretation of the Egyptian part of the inscription on the Rosetta stone is disallowed by the adherents of Champollion, still the rare faculty for highly ingenious speculation was part and parcel of his intellect. Wheatstone observed to me that he considered the three great discoveries of the age were Young's theory of light, Oersted's discovery of electro-magnet : ism in 1820, and Faraday's process of idea of pre-existence, as expressed in inductive reasoning which led to his his "Ode to Immortality," when Sir conclusive experiments on magneto- Benjamin used these remarkable electricity twelve years later. It has words: "I see no reason against a been remarked that Oersted in his de- belief in pre-existence; I have often tection of the fact of electro-magnetism felt something very like what the poet "tumbled over it by accident," but as describes." Lagrange said of Newton, "such accidents only meet persons who deserve them." The evening was also memorable to me, from the fact of my meeting Dr. Livingstone for the first time. Later I had several opportunities of conversing with the great explorer. Once at dinner - it was at Lady Murchison's - I found myself placed between Dr. Livingstone and Sir Leopold M'Clintock. The one had recently come from the torrid zone, the other from the Arctic regions. I likened myself to the squirrel that is supposed to run up and down the I had the pleasure of conversing recently with that veteran of science, Sir William Grove, and in answer to a remark of mine that electricity had made great advances since the days long ago, when he and my husband used to compare notes, he said, "the applications of electricity are vastly increased, the science itself has not advanced." To return to Sir Charles Wheat- mythological tree yggdrasil, first listenstone's high estimate of "Phenomenon Young," as he was called at Cambridge, I remember his saying that with all his great attainments Young had never been one of the popular names in science, as he rightly deserved to be. Several years before I had heard a similar remark from Sir Benjamin Brodie. ing to the eagle, who sits at the top in the heat of the sun, and then collecting news from the frost giant who lives at the root in the cold land of Hela. а Some years later, it must have been in the spring of 1865, I met Dr. Livingstone at one of those brilliant gatherings given by Sir Roderick Murchison in his character of president of the GeographThe mention of this distinguished ical Society. It was a gay scene, physiologist recalls to my recollection union of fashionable and diplomatic a very memorable evening. I never people, politicians, and other unclassed remember listening to a more delightful elements of a society, often boring and talker than Sir Benjamin Brodie proved bored, with a qualifying admixture of himself on one occasion when I had the scientific and literary men and women, pleasure of sitting next to him at din- many of whom were foreigners. ner. He had already passed the Psalm- Amongst the crowd there was no perist's limit of age by five or six years, but sonality more interesting, I thought, age could not stale the infinite variety than that of Livingstone. His counteand animation of his talk. He was nance wore all its old expression of amusing on the subject of farming, supreme earnestness and of high purwhich he seemed to think ought to en- pose, but I fancied he looked sad and gage the attention of every man towards worn. This emboldened me to say, the close of life. He had tried it, but while regretting that he was again about found the luxury too expensive. Then to leave us for the wilds of Africa, that he went on to say that, "poverty in the I thought he should rest now, having open air may be better than the inher-done more than his share of work. He itance of wealth with too much lithic replied, in these memorable words, so acid in the blood." Of all the physi- simply spoken, so characteristic of the cists I ever met, Sir Benjamin Brodie man: While," said he, "I have life was the most metaphysical. There had and strength, I shall always feel I have been some allusion to Wordsworth's work to do." From Public Opinion. IN the last days of his life, Lamartine, the French poet and statesman, lived in the Bois de Boulogne near Paris, in a little house given him by the nation. Though much tormented by creditors, he lived in comparative comfort, surrounded by five or six greyhounds, to which he was greatly attached, and cultivating roses, cabbages, and little literature. His favorite greyhound was a particularly slender and graceful one named Mademoiselle Finette. The care of her was the first duty of his servants, who were permitted to speak of and to her only in the formal third person. One day, during a fearful rain-storm, Mademoiselle Finette was taken very ill. Lamartine called a maid, who happened to be a green young girl, fresh from Burgundy. "Run and fetch a veterinary surgeon instantly," he commanded; "Mademoiselle Finette is very ill!" "Only three years! Do you think it is the croup, Monsieur de Lamartine;" "The croup? Oh, I think not; but here we are." Lamartine tiptoed into a darkened chamber, the young doctor followed him, impressed and solemn, toward a curtained bed. “Here is our little sufferer," said the great man, with a deep, poetic sigh. "You shall see if I had not ample cause to call you in haste." The girl started off and began inquir-erlet, lay the greyhound. ing for the nearest doctor. 1 He lifted the silk curtain, and there, curled up and shivering on a satin covShe was "What!" exclaimed the doctor, referred to Dr.. Ixe, a young physician" it's a dog! Is Mademoiselle Finette who had lately established himself in a greyhound, sir?" the neighborhood. He had had eight patients, and four of the eight had quickly passed beyond the reach of medical attendance. "Who wants me such a day as this?" said Doctor Ixe sharply, as the girl rung his bell. "Oh, it's Monsieur de Lamartine, sir," she said, "and you must come right off; Mademoiselle Finette is very ill!" 66 Certainly," "said Lamartine; "but "What are you, then ?" a physician, Monsieur de The poet was in fresh alarm, though he could not quite help laughing at the blunder. However, Doctor Ixe volunteered to do what he could for Made"Lamartine ! " The young doctor | moiselle Finette, and his services were was in a flurry. In spite of the weather, accepted. He treated the dog faithhe put on his best frock-coat, his most fully and she recovered. From that resplendent necktie, and his handsomest time the young doctor had a powerful pair of gloves, and hastened to Lamar-friend. He met people of distinction at tine's cottage. What an opportunity! the poet's house; and whenever any Physician to the family of Lamartine; one was ill, Lamartine exclaimed: for-he said to himself — Mademoiselle "Why don't they try Doctor Ixe? He Finette is evidently one of the great cured Finette ! " WESTMINSTER, OCTOBER 12, 1892, . 386 | LORD TENNYSON, PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY 386 TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & CO. Single copies of the LIVING AGE, 18 cents. |