On the reader's inquisitive approach to the issued the first volume of The Decline and Fall of unicorns and tailed men,' he finds them retir- the Roman Republic. Commencing with the deing into the doubtful records of the fourteenth struction of Carthage, the author proposes to conand fifteenth centuries. And, finally, of the tinue the narrative to the end of the Civil Wars. 'Negro' we do not learn any thing new, except "It is probable," he tells us, "that the second volsome very capital stories. The book is written in ume will contain the history of the same number of a lively, smart, not to say fast style, representing years as the first, and thus the two volumes will Africa as it appeared in the eyes of a London ex- comprehend a period for which the evidence is quisite and club lounger. As a young man of acute-deficient and also of little value." The portion of ness, education, means, leisure, and a taste for time included in the first volume is about fortyAfrican travel, Mr. Reade had a splendid chance, eight years-namely, from B.C. 154 to B.C. 106; and-missed it. When he avows that he traveled from the memorable epoch marked by the overin such a region with no special object, but to throw of the great rival power already mentioned, flâner in the virgin forest, to flirt with pretty to the close of the war with Jugurtha. Such a savages, and to smoke his cigar among cannibals,' period, in itself rich in interest, is rendered addiwhat can we do more than congratulate him on the tionally so by independent research and original perfect success of his enterprise? But there is discussion. In Mr. Long we have no rhetorical evidence that Mr. Reade has not done himself jus- narrator or prepossessed system-monger, but one tice; he can write something better than this, which who, not content to follow the leading of modern is a mere sowing of literary wild oats, to be followed, historians, and feeling strong enough to handle the we doubt not, by other sowings and crops well original authorities, has, while availing himself of worth the garnering." the labors of other historians and critics, reëxamined evidence, carefully thought out his views, and boldly recorded his opinions. The two most important topics treated in this volume are the slaverising in Sicily and the reforms of the Gracchi. A amount social importance as that of masters and perennial interest attaches to a subject of such parslaves, that of patrician proprietors and plebeian lackalls. In our own age, the great problem that baulked the statesmanship of Rome demands with growing_importunity its solution from that of modern Europe. The account of the slave-war in the ninth chapter of Mr. Long's first volume is very well done. Here, as always, Mr. Long produces an adequate impression, not by highly-colored de scriptions, but by a simple statement of facts, and emphatic economy of language. After the Roman conquest of Sicily, the vacant lands stimulated the cupidity of the wealthy occupiers. The demand for labor was great, the market open, and "the demand brought the supply from all nations." Tho condition of the slaves thus imported was deplorable. "All of them had hard service, and their masters supplied them scantily with food and clothing. They cared little about their slaves; they worked them while they were able to work, and the losses by death were replaced by fresh purchases." At last their sufferings drove them into a conspiracy against their masters. The outbreak began with the slaves of the cruel Demophilus and his wife Megallis, who was "as bad as himself." The numbers of the rebels reached, it is said, 200,000. A very large number, at any rate, joined in the insurrection, till the slaves became masters of nearly the whole island. They were ultimately reduced by the consul P. Rupilius. Expecting no mercy from a Roman, at Taurominium "they held out till they were compelled to feed on human flesh

"It is also marked by such intelligence of the true issues at stake in the present conflict in America, and by such thorough study of the state of parties there, that it deserves the attention of a much wider public than is usually attracted by books of the kind. It is the best account we have seen of the condition of public opinion in America, and, what is still more valuable, it reflects the views of the more educated classes. It may perhaps be objected that the author necessarily fell into the hands of the republican party, and was forwarded from one to another of their partisans, and thus allowed to see only through their eyes; but this objection will not maintain itself after a full attention to his statements, nor is it at all supported by any of those partisan excesses, either of tone or statement, which would otherwise, in such a case, be sure to betray their origin. The evidence which he brings forward of the growth of American opinion on the subject in which he was most interested is overwhelming, and of the most satisfactory kind. Another point in which we do not think he exaggerates the usefulness of his mission is, the effect produced by his personal addresses in all the chief towns of the Union, in showing his audiences that there is a large party in England who do not share in the distorted views of the most influential of the daily papers, and of many of the weekly ones. This is a service that many who now scorn it may before long be grateful for. "We can not too strongly recommend Dr. Mas--first on children, then on the women, and last on sie's book to many who would not otherwise expect one another." The insurrection ended in the impovto find in a mission-journal the good sense, intelli- erishment of the rich, not in the amelioration of the gence, and accurate political information for which poor man's lot; and Mr. Long, in relating how the it is remarkable." disorderly band of Eunous destroyed the very industry by which he and his men were supported, gen eralizes the lesson when he remarks that "the history of all servile insurrections and of people as ignorant as slaves shows that if they were not checked, such men would destroy the accumulated savings of ages without ever thinking of producing, and would finally perish amid the waste that they had made." From the specimens we have given of

MANY of our readers will recollect the recent visit of Dr. MASSIE to this country on a mission of sympathy and observation. The Westminster Review thus speaks of his book, just published by John

Snow, London:

THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC.
By GEORGE LONG. Vol. I. London: Bell and
Daldy. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell and Co.

1864.

MR. GEORGE LONG, whose matured scholarship and balanced intellect admirably qualify him to undertake the task of historical investigation, has

SCIENCE.

Mr. Long's treatment of this question, it will be |
seen that he is led away by no mere indignation-
feelings to take the part of the oppressed against
the oppressor. Where he does not think the policy
of the reforming party likely to promote the end
which it is meant to reach, no sympathy with the
people seduces him into acquiescence with or pal-
liation of error. To our mind there is something
very beautiful, and, so to say, Christian, in what is
told of Tiberius Gracchus and his devotion to the
popular cause; but Mr. Long, while giving him
credit for good intentions, and acknowledging the
tyranny and avarice of the Roman aristocracy,
considers his object-the restoration of the old
Italian system-to have been impracticable, and
his conduct, in one instance at least the deposition The White Limestone of Jamaica is described by
of his colleague Octavius-to have been illegal. Mr. A. Lennox as including a basement series of
Moreover, he gives free expression to his opinions, sandstones and shells, a hard white limestone, a
even when he has to do so in opposition to an yellowish limestone, and an uppermost member
authority no less distinguished than Niebuhr, who consisting of dark-red marl; it is estimated to be
holds that (in the case of Octavius) the people had at least 2500 feet thick. At the junction of the
a right to take away a commission from a man to calcareous rocks with the granite the former is often
whom they had given it. For the reforms of Caius more or less altered, and thus affords good proof that
Gracchus, again, Mr. Long seems to have no more
the latter is of Tertiary age. Mr. Lennox considers
admiration than for those of his murdered broth- that the diagrammatic section of the rocks of
er. Possibly Mr. Long's estimate is correct; but Jamaica, prepared by the late Mr. Barret, is erro-
granting that it is, and allowing that the Gracchi neous, for the following reasons: 1st. There is no
were political Quixotes, we may still see in the section in Jamaica in which the relation of the
policy of Tiberius, whose sympathies were not only white limestone to the Hippurite limestone is seen.
with the Romans, but with the Italians, and who 2d. The white limestone is, in his opinion, of Mio-
endeavored to improve by an agrarian law the cene age; and 3d, the shelly and sandy beds rep-
miserable condition of the Italian cultivators, a fore-resented in the section as overlying the white
shadowing of a more statesmanly policy, which on limestone are, he believes, in quite the opposito
certain conditions shall insure to the employed the position. On physical and paleontological grounds,
ability to earn an adequate subsistence, as we may Mr. Lennox states his belief that the white lime
see in that of his equally ill-fated brother, whose stone is of Miocene date, and was probably deposit-
Lex frumentaria was "a kind of poor-law," and ed slowly in a tranquil sea.-The Geologist, June,
whose senatorial reform was an extension of the full 1864.
rights of Roman citizenship to the Latins, or per-
haps to all the Italians—an adumbration of modern
attempts for the improvement of the laborer's con-
dition and the amelioration of representative gov-ical
ernment. On the other hand, Mr. Long's strictures
on the turbulence, the incapacity, and ambition of
the Gracchi ought to be read with no less attention
than his animadversions on the odious tyranny of
the greedy nobles, and of a senate "whose conduct
after the defeat of the insurgents is a proof that
they were animated by a spirit of vengeance and
a resolution to destroy a political party." Among
the chapters in the present volume that deserve
to be especially studied are the two that deal with
the question of the public land and the opposition
betweeen the patricians and the plebeians. In the
arrangement of his narrative, Mr. Long has fol-
lowed the order observed by Livy, but has not,
like the author of the "Supplement," crowded the
events of each year together. By maintaining
this historical continuity, the author has gained
for the transactions which he thus recounts un-
usual clearness and distinctness, as in the chapters
on the insurrection in Sicily, the tribunates of the
Gracchi, and the war with Viriathus, the great
commander, who for fourteen years resisted the
progress of Roman conquest in Spain.- Westmins-
ter Review.
DRAMATIS PERSONE. BY ROBERT BROWNING. Chap-
man & Hall.

Ir would require some space to say all we think about this volume of poems. They evince an extraordinary subtlety of thought and of expression.

The genius of the poet is every where in them; but it is the genius of a poet moulded by art rather than fired by nature. Such poetry may be greatly admired, but it can never be popular. The conditions necessary to a full appreciation of the skill and beauty to be traced in it are rare even among the educated. Where the meaning is a puzzle, pleasure is impeded, if not impossible. But Mr. Browning, like Mr. Tennyson, is not to be deterred by such considerations from following his bent.— British Quarterly.

The Fossilization of West Indian Corals.-A most valuable paper upon the process of fossilization of corals was presented by Dr. Duncan to the Geolog

Society at one of its late meetings. The results of this process, as seen in the West Indian fossil corals, being very remarkable, and having much obscured their specific characters, thus rendering their determination extremely difficult, Dr. Duncan found it necessary to thoroughly examine their different varieties of mineralization, and to compare their present condition with the different stages in the decay and fossilization of recent fossils as seen now in progress. By this means he was enabled to show the connection between the destruction of the minuter structures by decompos ing membranes, and certain forms of fossilization in which those structures are imperfectly preserv ed. It appears from his researches that the filling up of the interspaces by granular carbonate of lime and other substances, as well as the indu ration of certain species, during a pre-fossil and post-mortem period, gives rise to certain varieties of fossilization, and that the results of these operations are perpetuated in a fossil state. Dr. Duncan describes no less than eight distinct forms of mineralization, namely, calcareous, siliceous, sileceous and crystalline, siliceous and destructive, siliceous casts, calcareo-siliceous and destructive, and calcareosiliceous casts. In describing these forms, especial reference was made to those in which the structures were more or less destroyed during the replacement (by silica) of the carbonate of lime which filled the interspaces, and during that of the ordinary hard parts of the coral.-Popular Science Review.

duce their flowers and fruit. The flora approaches the alpine type in character, doubtless because of the pecu iar external conditions.-Do.

Natural Selection.-In a paper read before the Anthropological Society by Mr. A. R. Wallace, the following statements occur, which help to account for the variation and transmutation of species: The Fossils of the Bruniquel Cave.-It is satis(1.) Peculiarities of every kind are more or less factory to know that the remains from this grotto hereditary. (2.) The offspring, of every animal have been purchased by the authorities of the vary more or less in all parts of their organiza- British Museum. In January last Prof. Owen protion. (3.) The universe in which these animals ceeded to the cavern, and having examined it and live is not absolutely invariable. (4.) The ani- observed the splendid collection of human and mals in any country (those at least which are other bones which it contained, proceeded to barnot dying out) must at each successive period be gain with the proprietors for the contents. The brought into harmony with the surrounding condi- news of the professor's visit having reached the ears tions. These are all the elements required for of the French authorities, MM. Milne Edwards and change of form and structure in animals, keeping Lartet were dispatched on a commission of inspecexact pace with changes of whatever nature in tion. They also recognized the value of the discovthe surrounding universe. Such changes must be ery, and an offer was made from the French governslow, for the changes in the universe must be veryment outbidding that made by Prof. Owen, under slow; but just as these slow changes become im- the necessary reserve of approval by the trustees. portant, when we look at results, after long periods The proprietor, however, honorably adhered to his of action, as we do when we perceive the altera- verbal treaty with the professor, who telegraphed tions of the earth's surface during geological the assent of the trustees. This magnificent colepochs: so the parallel changes in animal form lection of fossils-some fifteen hundred, many still become more and more striking, according as the embedded in the calcified mould of mud in which time they have been going on is great, as we see they were found, beneath the stalagmite—is now when we compare our living animals with those deposited in the British Museum. It would appear, which we disentomb from each successively older from the communication which Prof. Owen made to geological formation.-Anthropological Review, May. the Royal Society upon the subject, that some of Testing of Chain Cables.—An interesting paper the human remains stand high in the scale of oron this subject was read by Mr. F. A. Paget, C.E.,ganization. The skull cap which he found did not at the Society of Arts. The average tenacity of present the large frontal sinuses so remarkable in the bars of which the links are made is stated to that from Neanderthal, nor did it exhibit any feabe twenty-four tons per square inch; of this 28.75 tures of an inferior or transitional type. We hope per cent. is lost in the finished link, in consequence that geologists generally may investigate this matof (1) the geometrical form of the link, (2) the ter, and throw as much light upon it as has been crushing stress undergone by the inside of the already thrown upon the discovery of the Moulincrowns, (3) the deterioration of the iron in bend- quignon jawbone.—Do. ing, and (4) the loss of strength at the welds. As to the proper tests of the cable, Mr. Paget suggests the breaking of a portion by hydraulic pressure as affording the surest guide to the quality of the iron employed, testing the entire cable to a fixed proof strain, and finally, by blows or impacts, as specially adapted for the discovery of false welds. The apparent increase of strength of bars repeatedly broken, first exhibited in the experiments of Mr. Lloyd, is shown to be due to increase of hardness, or of the difficulty of the gliding to and fro of the particles, so that whilst the resistance to purely passive loads is increased, the resistance to impulsive forces is enormously diminished at each fracture. The value of the government hydraulic test of 11.46 tons per square inch is discussed, and the permanent set under this strain is stated to be 1-22 to 1-15 of the length. While believing that a single application of this test does not materially injure the cable if good, Mr. Paget deprecates any attempt to make the test more severe.-Popular Science Review. Vegetation of the Kilkee Cliffs.-In a paper read before the Botanical Society of Edinburgh some time ago, Mr. James Robertson gave a sketch of the botanical features of the Kilkee sea-cliffs. This part of the Irish coast-line is exposed to the full violence of the Atlantic winds and waves, and thus a rock two hundred feet above high water is so copiously supplied with saline spray as to afford sustenance to a colony of periwinkles which fringe its summit. Notwithstanding this, the marine plants which are found at heights varying from 150 to 400 feet, and which grow in a very stunted manner, illustrate in a striking way the physiological law that if plants can do nothing else, they must pro

"C

Minute Geologic Evidence.- Mr. Edward Blyth has recently pointed out the existence of two very distinct forms of deposit, which are occasionally found on the teeth of fossil herbivora. By an examination of these the geologist is, to some extent, enabled to determine whether an animal has been in the wild or domesticated condition. There is a small particular or character which generally distinguishes a wild herbivorous animal from a tame one: and this is a certain incrustation of brown tartar upon the teeth." This deposit he did not find upon the porcine relics at the Wrekin, but he fancied, at first, that he detected it upon the teeth of the fossil bovine remains in Ireland. However, after examining the latter more carefully, he noticed a ferruginous deposit from the peat, which might easily be mistaken for the incrustation of brown tartar. "In the one case there would be traces of parasitic life under the microscope-not so in the other case. The incrustation from the peat covered the whole tooth, at least as much of it as was not of the bony alveolus; whereas the tartar incrustation was only upon that portion of the tooth that had not been embedded in the gum. The latter was conspicuously present in sundry teeth of Megaceros hibernicus and of Cervus elaphus." We presume that for this reason Mr. Blyth regards these species as belonging to the category of domesticated animals, but we wish the evidence was a little more convincing.

Dublin Quarterly Journal of Science. Peculiar Form of Hailstones.-At a recent sitting of the French Academy, M. J. A. Barral reported some interesting meteorological facts observed in Paris on the 29th of March last. There had been snow and rain from eight in the morning till ten,

ex

and then from that till noon it rained and hailed, | title of the International Ocean Telegraphic Comthere was thunder at one, and at three P.M. a very pany, which proposes to establish telegraph comsingular form of hail fell in heavy showers, differ- munication between Europe and America by a ent from what has heretofore been described by route which, it is contended, presents fewer diffinatural philosophers. Ordinary hail-stones are culties than those met with in the course taken by generally flattened or round, and frequently more the Atlantic Telegraph Company. Mr. W. Rowor less angular, and present concentric layers sur- ett, one of the directors of the company, attended rounding a nucleus. That which fell on the 29th of at the Underwriters' Rooms recently to March was of a very different character. The plain the nature of the project. The proposed stones were quite conical in form, being slightly starting-point of the line is Brest: thence it will concave at the base; the surfaces were covered be carried across the Bay of Biscay to Cape Finisover with little projecting six-sided pyramids of terre; thence to the Azores, touching either at a transparent character, and a few of a similar Terceira or Flores; and finally, skirting the form were observed in the concave portion of the southern edge of the great bank of Newfoundland, base. They were about eight or ten millimetres to St. Pierre, one of the Miquelon group of islands wide, and from ten to thirteen millimetres in belonging to the French. The whole length of length. They weighed, in various instances, from the line will be about two thousand three hundred one hundred and eighty to two hundred and fifty miles, but the longest section-that between the milligrammes, and seemed to be formed by the Azores and Newfoundland-will not be more than adhesion of several minute pyramids, leaving a eight hundred miles in extent. The distance cavity in the center. They fell point downwards. across the Bay of Biscay is three hundred and -Comptes Rendus, April 4th. sixty miles, and from Cape Finisterre to Azores about seven hundred and eighty miles. The deep

Chemical Preservation of Statues.-This may be achieved by following the processes lately describ-est ed at the French Academy. One of these methods is that of M. Dalemagne, who thinks that coating such objects with silica is quite sufficient to insure their preservation. In proof of this he calls attention to the circumstance that certain busts which were submitted to the process of silicatization ten years ago are now in a state of perfect preservation, while others of the same age placed under the ordinary conditions of the atmosphere, and even to which considerable attention had been paid, are now in a state of more or less marked decay.

Relation of Periodic Times.-Mr. Finlayson, of Dover, points out the following singular proportion: The period of rotation of the earth on its axis is in the same proportion to the periodic time of the moon round the earth as that of the period of rotation of the sun on its axis is to the periodic time of Mars round the sun.

The Supposed Early Photographs.—The startling claims advanced in support of these photographs have melted into thin air. Based as they were on mere rumors and conjectures, little else indeed could have been expected; and yet how many were the uplifted hands and wondering eyes, and how loud the exclamations with which such claims were at first received! The impressions on metal appear to be comparatively modern productions by the process of Daguerre, and it is more than suspected that the paper pictures were produced by some clumsy, half-mechanical, half-secret process called in its day the polygraphic, which merely printed outlines previously made by an artist to be aftewards filled in by hand. The Mr. Price, too, whose statements originated all this fuss, has been proved quite unworthy of belief; and has, moreover, absconded to escape the unpleasant results of an imperfect appreciation of "meum et tuum," and the search of the detective police; while in con sequence of the abstracted papers containing certain family secrets, the angry representative of Matthew Boulton-to whose statements we owe our last piece of information concerning Mr. Price-heaps unsparing abuse on the head of Mr. Smith for his undue enthusiasm in the cause of scientific discovery. Sic transit gloria mundi !—Popular Science Review.

Telegraphic Communication with America.-A company has recently been started, under the

It

point of the route is three thousand seven hundred fathoms, and is between the Azores and the Bank. Mr. Rowett produced a specimen of the cable which it is proposed to lay down The telegraph wire is surrounded with a coating of india-rubber, and this is inclosed within a spiral coil of hemp-a mode which Mr. Rowett maintained possessed great advantages over the outer covering of wire rope by which the Atlantic cable was surrounded. Mr. Rowett explained that the great drawback hitherto in the use of india-rubber as an insulator had been that in the process of manufacture it became mixed with foreign ingredients which were speedily acted upon by the salt-water, and the insulation destroyed. Recently, however, a mode had been discovered by which the india-rubber was preserved quite pure, and this would resist the action of the water. was proposed also to preserve the hempen covering from decay by steeping it in a mixture of which Mr. Rowett was himself the inventor, and a testimonial to the efficacy of which he produced from Admiral Elliott. The weight of the cable proposed to be used was stated to be about 3 cwt. per mile, while that employed by the Atlantic Telegraph Company was between 15 cwt. and 16 cwt. Mr. Rowett expected that a superior cable could be constructed upon this plan for about £150 a mile, and the cost of the whole line he did not suppose would exceed £400,000. The company has obtained a treaty from the French government authorizing them to construct the line; and the money is only wanting, the capital required being £500,000, which it is proposed to raise by the issue of twenty-five thousand shares of £20 each.-English paper.

The Forces in Nature. "The concussion of one pound of hydrogen with eight pounds of oxygen is equal, in mechanical value, to the raising of forty-seven million pounds one foot high! I think I did not overrate matters when I said that the force of gravity, as exerted near the earth, was almost a vanishing quantity in comparison with these molecular forces; and bear in mind the distances which separate the atoms before combination-distances so small as to be utterly immeasurable; still it is in passing over these distances that the atoms acquire a velocity sufficient to cause them to clash with the tremendous energy indi

cated by the above numbers. After combination, | themselves in the path of the ice. Even pebbles the substance is in a state of vapor, which sinks to imbedded in masses of pudding-stone, but rising 212 deg., and afterward condenses to water. In sometimes above the level of the general surface, the first instance, the atoms fall together to form often have their northern side polished and the compound; in the next instance, the molecules scratched, while the southern one remains unof the compound fall together to form a liquid. touched.-Atlantic Monthly. The mechanical value of this act is also easily calculated: 9 pounds of steam, in falling to water, generate an amount of heat sufficient to raise 956x9-8703 lbs. of water 1 deg. F. Multiplying this number by 772, we have a product of 6,718,716 foot-pounds [a foot-pound is a pound raiseded one foot high] as the mechanical value of the mere act of condensation. The next great fall of our 9 lbs. of water is from the state of liquid to that of ice, and the mechanical value of this act is equal to 993,564 foot-pounds. Thus our 9 lbs. of water, in its origin and progress, falls down three great precipices: the first fall is equivalent to the descent of a ton weight urged by gravity down precipice 22,320 feet high; the second fall is equal to that of a ton down a precipice 2900 feet high; and the third is equal to the descent of a ton down a precipice 433 feet high. I have seen the wild stone-avalanches of the Alps, which smoke and thunder down the declivities with a vehemence almost sufficient to stun the observer. I have also seen snow-flakes descending so softly as not to hurt the fragile spangles of which they were composed; yet, to produce, from aqueous vapor, a quantity of that tender material which a child could carry, demands an exertion of energy competent to gather up the shattered blocks of the largest stone-avalanche I have ever seen, and pitch them to twice the height from which they fall."-Tyndal on Heat.

a

Journeyings of the Rocks.-The mineralogical character of the loose materials forming the American drift leaves no doubt that the whole movement, with the exception of a few local modifications easily accounted for by the lay of the land, was from north to south, all the fragments not belonging to the localities where they occur being readily traced to rocks in situ to the north of their present resting-places. The further one journeys from their origin, the more extraordinary does the presence of these bowlders become. It strikes one strangely to find even in New-England fragments of rock from the shores of Lake Superior; but it is still more impressive to meet with masses of northern rock on the prairies of Illinois or Iowa. One may follow these bowlders to the fortieth degree of latitude, beyond which they become more and more rare, while the finer drift alone extends further south.

It is not only, however, by tracking the bowlders back to their origin in the north that we ascertain the starting-point of the whole mass; we have another kind of evidence to this effect, already alluded to in the description of the roches moutonnees. Wherever the natural surface of any hillhaving a steep southern slope, is exposed, the marks are always found to be very distinct on the northern side and entirely wanting on the south ern one, showing, that, as in the case of many of the roches moutonnees in Switzerland, the mass moved up the northern slope, forcing its way against it, grinding and furrowing the northern face of the hill as it moved over it, but bridging the opposite side in its descent without coming into contact with it. This is true, not only of hills, but of much slighter obstacles which presented

ART.

The Chementi Pictures.-The controversy startby Sir David Brewster concerning these pictures, and which he advanced and argued from as having been executed in the middle of the seventeenth century for stereoscopic purposes, has been recently revived in the pages of the British Journal of Photography by Professor E. Emerson, in reply to a letter from Sir David published in the Philosophical Magazine for January last, which letter was itself a reply to remarks contained in an article in the aforesaid British journal on "The Perception of Relief," written by Professor Emerson. Mr. Emerson states that copies made for him by hand from the photographs of these drawings convey an amount of relief neither greater nor less than that obtained from the photographs themselves, and gives, as illustrative of the ease with which even our much-talked of "own eyes" will deceive us, the fact that he has frequently mounted "two identical or right-eye views of the same scene side by side, and never failed to get a verdict, even from very skillful observers, that they exhibited stereoscopic effect, which was impossible." The Professor says, if Chementi had executed works which must have been such startling novelties, it is neither likely that his discovery would have become lost, nor that only one specimen of it would have been now in existence, although we think both these circumstances might be shown, by historical evidence, to be by no means improbable. The supposed stereoscope, bearing date 1670, advanced in evidence by Sir David Brewster, is asserted to be no stereoscope, and the size of the Chementi drawings, namely, "about 'twelve inches high, by eight and a half broad," is certainly evidence on the side of the Professor. After giving very imperfect wood-cuts of the drawings, and advancing the publicly expressed opinions of various gentlemen in support of his views, Mr. Emerson winds up with a long series of measurements, which, taken in conjunction with the principles governing the perception of solidity, at least show that if these drawings were intentionally stereoscopic, their execution could not have been based on such scientific calcu lations. Our own opinion of this controversy is simply that it is a very useless one, because the evidence on either side is insufficient for the forma tion of any specially useful or important conclusions.-Popular Science Review.

New Method of Taking Portraits.-A new era in portraiture is predicted from the discovery of a Mr. Swan, who presents a solid, life-like likeness of any one inclosed in a cube of crystal. The effect of the new process is to exhibit the subject of the portraiture with life-like verisimilitude, in natural relief. You take up a small case, and look through what appears to be a little window, and there stands or sits before you, in a pleasantlylighted chamber, a marvelous effigy of a lady or gentleman, as the case may be. The projection of the nose, the moulding of the lips, and all the gra