prayer-book. Professor Müller supposes that the work of collecting the prayers for the different classes of priests, and of adding new hymns and formulas for purely sacrificial purposes, belonged to the tenth century B.C., and that three generations more would be required to account for the various readings adopted in the prayer-books by different sects, and invested with a kind of sacred authority previously to the composition of even the earliest among the Brahmanas. If therefore the years from about 1000 to 800 B.C. are assigned to this collective age, the time before 1000 B.C. must be set apart for the free and natural growth of what was then national and religious, but not yet sacred and sacrificial poetry. How far back this period extends it is impossible to tell; it is enough if the hymns of the Rig Veda can be traced to 1000 B.C. Much in the chronological arrangement of the three periods of Vedic literature that are supposed to have followed after that of the original growth of the hymns must of necessity be hypothetical, and has been put forward rather to invite than to silence criticism. In order to discover truth, the speaker remarked, we must be truthful ourselves, and must welcome those who point out our errors as heartily as those who approve and confirm our discoveries. What seems, however, to speak strongly in favour of the historical character of the three periods of Vedic literature is the uniformity of style which marks the productions of each. In modern literature we find, at one and the same time, different styles of prose and poetry cultivated by one and the same author. A Goethe writes tragedy, comedy, satire, lyrical poetry, and scientific prose; but we find nothing like this in primitive literature. The individual is there much less prominent, and the poet's character disappears in the general character of the layer of literature to which he belongs. It is the discovery of such large layers of literature following each other in regular succession which inspires the critical historian with confidence in the truly historical character of the successive literary productions of ancient India. As in Greece there is an epic age of literature, where we should look in vain for prose or dramatic poetry; as in that country we never meet with real elegiac poetry before the end of the eighth century, nor with iambics before the same date; as even in more modern times rhymed heroic poetry sets in in England with the Norman conquest, and in Germany the Minnesänger rise and set with the Swabian dynasty-so, only in a much more decided manner, we see in the ancient and spontaneous literature of India, an age of poets followed by an age of collectors and imitators, that age to be succeeded by an age of theological prose writers, and this last by an age of writers of scientific manuals. New wants produced new supplies, and nothing sprang up or was allowed to live, in prose or poetry, except what was really wanted. If the works of poets, collectors, imitators, theologians, and teachers were all mixed up together-if the Brahmanas quoted the Sútras, and the hymns alluded to the Brahmanas—an historical restoration of the Vedic literature of India would be almost an impossibility. We should suspect artificial influences, and look with small confidence on the historical character of such a literary agglomerate. The exact age of the Veda may be scarcely less difficult to determine than that of the jawbone of Abbeville; but he who would question its antiquity must explain how the layers of literature were formed that are super-imposed over the original stratum of the poetry of the Rishis; he who would suspect a literary forgery must show how, when, and for what purpose the 1000 hymns of the Rig- Veda could have been forged, and have become the basis of the religious, moral, political, and literary life of the ancient inhabitants of India. Professor Müller concluded by reading some extracts from the Rig Veda, and referred his audience to the second edition of his History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature for further information on the subject. He pointed out that the work of translating, or rather deciphering, the whole of the Rig- Veda would require many more years, and could only be achieved by the active co-operation of many scholars. The chief results hitherto obtained from the discovery of the Vedic literature of India consist in the new and unexpected light which has suddenly been shed on the earliest and darkest periods in the growth of the human mind. The true and natural sources of religious faith have been laid bare; and the original character of polytheism, and the spread of mythological phraseology among the ancestors of the Aryan race, have ceased to be matters of mere speculation, and have entered into the domain of historical research. As a relic of this earliest age in the history of language and religion, the Veda stands unparalleled in the literature of the whole Aryan race. What in Homer and Hesiod appears as a distant past is here still present, and the childhood of our race is revealed to our eyes once more in clear and simple outlines. A result still more important is the help which missionaries in India have derived from the publication of the Veda in their intercourse with the most learned and most influential among the Brahmans. As long as the Veda was unpublished, the Brahmans maintained that whatever the missionaries told them was contained in their Vedas. Now, the missionary can ask for chapter and verse, and refute the Brahmans from their own bible. To attack Brahmanism without a knowledge of the Veda was like attacking Mohammedanism without a knowledge of the Koran. The speaker finished by expressing his conviction that no country is so ripe for the introduction of genuine Christianity as India. There are many things in the Veda which, if properly explained, the Brahmans should be allowed, nay encouraged, to hold fast. But the present state of popular religion in India is a mere anachronism, and an insult to the memory of the great religious teachers whom India produced in the days of her greatness. The most earnest and thoughtful among the Brahmans have themselves begun to feel this; and the conversion of one such man as the excellent Nilakantha Goreh, the son of one of the most influential Brahmans at Benares-a man who sacrificed everything for the sake of Christ is a sign of the times that ought to be as encouraging to our missionaries abroad and their friends at home as the conversion of Saul and the sufferings of the early Martyrs. [M. M.] GENERAL MONTHLY MEETING. Monday, June 1, 1863. WILLIAM POLE, Esq. M.A. F.R.S. Treasurer and Vice-President, in the Chair. His Royal Highness the Prince LOUIS of HESSE, was unanimously elected an Honorary Member of the Royal Institution. William Barnet, Esq. Joseph Goulden, Esq. George Prevost, Esq. George Henry Strutt, Esq. were elected Members of the Royal Institution. John Graham, M.D. John Hogg, Esq. M.A. F.R.S. and were admitted Members of the Royal Institution. The PRESENTS received since the last Meeting were laid on the table, and the thanks of the Members returned for the same: viz.— FROM American Philosophical Society-Transactions. New Series. Vol. XII. Part 3. 4to. 1863. Anthropological Society-The Anthropological Review, No. I. 8vo. 1863. Astronomical Society, Royal-Monthly Notices, No. 6. 8vo. 1863. Asiatic Society, Royal-Journal, Vol. XX. Part 2. 8vo. 1863. Author, The The New Testament and the Pentateuch, with Remarks upon the Inspiration of the Bible, occasioned by the Colenso Controversy. 16to. 1863. British Meteorological Society-Proceedings, No. 7. 8vo. 1863. Chambers, George F. Esq. M.R.I.-Working of the New Beer Act (of 1854). (K 89) 8vo. 1863. Chemical Society-Quarterly Journal, New Series, No. 5. 8vo. 1863. Civil Engineers, Institution of-Proceedings, May, 1863. 8vo. Dublin Society, Royal-Journal, No. 29. 8vo. 1863. Editors-American Journal of Science, by B. Silliman, &c. for 1862. 8vo. 4to. Editors (continued)—Horological Journal, No. 37. 4to. 8vo. Practical Mechanics' Journal for May, 1863. 4to. Technologist for May, 1863. 8vo. Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania-Journal, No. 448. 8vo. 1863. Geological Institute, Vienna-General Register to Band 1-10 of the Jahrbuch. 4to. 1863. Geological Society-Quarterly Journal, No. 74. 8vo. 1863. 8vo. Holland, Sir Henry, Burt. M.D. F.R.S. M.R.I.-Documents relative to the History of the State of New York, procured in Holland, England, and France. (With Index.) 11 vols. 4to. 1856-8. Jevons, W. S. Esq. (the Author)-A Serious Fall in the Value of Gold ascertained. (K 89) 8vo. 1863. Jones, Sir Willoughby, Bart. M.R.I. (the Author)—Christianity and Common Sense. 8vo. 1863. Leighton, John, Esq. F.S.A. M.R.I. (the Author) - On Japanese Art. fol. 1863. Linnean Society-Proceedings, No. 26. 8vo. 1863. Newton, Messrs.-London Journal (New Series) for May, 1863. 8vo. Petermann, A. Esq. (the Editor)-Mittheilungen aus dem Gesammtgebiete der Geographie. 1863. No. 4. 4to. United States Naval Observatory, Washington-Astronomical aud Meteorological Observations in 1861. 4to. 1862. Yates, James, Esq. F.R.S.—The Rev. J. Kerr: The Metric System: its Prospects in this Country. (K 89) 8vo. 1863. 4to. 8vo. Zoological Society of London-Transactions, Vol. IV. Part 7. Vol. V. Parts 1 and 2. 1862-3. Proceedings: 1861, Part 3. 1862, Parts 1, 2, 3. Crookes, William, Esq.-Ingot of Thallium. Hills, T. H. Esq.-Piece of Wood containing Teredo Worms. WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, Friday, June 5, 1863. SIR HENRY HOLLAND, Bart. M.D. D.C.L. F.R.S. Vice-President, in the Chair. JOHN RUSKIN, Esq. On the Forms of the Stratified Alps of Savoy. THE purpose of the discourse was to trace some of the influences which have produced the present external forms of the stratified mountains of Savoy, and the probable extent and results of the future operation of such influences. The subject was arranged under three heads :- II. The Mode of their Formation. III. The Mode of their subsequent Sculpture. I. Their Materials.-The investigation was limited to those Alps which consist, in whole or in part, either of Jura limestone, of Neocomian beds, or of the Hippurite limestone, and include no important masses of other formations. All these rocks are marine deposits; and the first question to be considered with respect to the development of mountains out of them, is the kind of change they must undergo in being dried. Whether prolonged through vast periods of time, or hastened by heat and pressure, the drying and solidification of such rocks involved their contraction, and usually, in consequence, their being traversed throughout by minute fissures. Under certain conditions of pressure, these fissures take the aspect of slaty cleavage; under others, they become irregular cracks, dividing all the substance of the stone. If these are not filled, the rock would become a mere heap of debris, and be incapable of establishing itself in any bold form. This is provided against by a metamorphic action, which either arranges the particles of the rock, throughout, in new and more crystalline conditions, or else causes some of them to separate from the rest, to traverse the body of the rock, and arrange themselves in its fissures; thus forming a cement, usually of finer and purer substance than the rest of the stone. In either case the action tends continually to the purification and segregation of the elements of the stone. The energy of such action depends on accidental circumstances. First, on the attractions of the component elements among themselves; secondly, on every change of external temperature and relation. So that mountains are at different periods in different stages of health (so to call it) or disease. We have mountains of a languid temperament, mountains with checked circulations, mountains in nervous fevers, mountains in atrophy and decline. This change in the structure of existing rocks is traceable through continuous gradations, so that a black mud or calcareous slime is imperceptibly modified into a magnificently hard and crystalline substance, enclosing nests of beryl, topaz, and sapphire, and veined with gold. But it cannot be determined how far, or in what localities, these changes are yet arrested; in the plurality of instances they are evidently yet in progress. It appears rational to suppose that as each rock approaches to its perfect type the change becomes slower; its perfection being continually neared, but never reached; its change being liable also to interruption or reversal by new geological phenomena. In the process of this change, rocks expand or contract; and, in portions, their multitudinous fissures give them a ductility or viscosity like that of glacierice on a larger scale. So that many formations are best to be conceived as glaciers, or frozen fields of crag, whose depth is to be measured in miles instead of fathoms; whose crevasses are filled with solvent |