wild and unearthly scene that would thus be presented to our gaze, we must search for it in the recollection of some fearful dream. That such a state of things does exist in the Moon we have no reason whatever to doubt, if we may be permitted to judge from inferences reasonably and legitimately deduced from the phenomena on its surface revealed by the telescope; neither can there be a question as to the presence there of the same brilliant tints and hues which accompany volcanic phenomena in terrestrial craters, and which must lend additional effect to the aspect of lunar scenery. Nor must we omit, whilst touching upon the scene that would meet the eye of one placed on the Moon's surface, the wonderful appearance that would be presented by our globe, viewed from the side of the Moon which faces earthward. Possessing sixteen times the superficial area, or four times the diameter, which the Moon exhibits to us, situated high up in the lunar heavens, passing through all the phases of a mighty moon, its external aspect ever changing rapidly as it revolves upon its axis in the brief space of four-and-twenty hours, what a glorious orb it would appear! Whilst its atmospheric phenomena, due to its alternating seasons, and the varying states of the weather, would afford a constant source of interest. But, alas! there can be none to witness all these glories, for if ever man was justified in forming a conclusion which possesses the elements of certainty, it is that there can be no organized form of life, animal or vegetable, of which we have any cognizance, that would be able to exist upon the Moon. Every condition essential to vitality, with which we are conversant, appears to be wanting. No air, no water, but a glaring sun, which pours its fierce burning rays without any modifying influence for fourteen days unceasingly upon the surface, until the resulting temperature may be estimated to have reached fully 212°; and no sooner has that set on any portion of the lunar periphery than a withering cold supervenes; the "cold of space" itself, which must cause the temperature to sink, in all probability, to 250° below zero. What plant, what animal could possibly survive such alternations of heat and cold recurring every fourteen days, or the accompanying climatic conditions? But let us not suppose, because the Moon is thus unfitted for animal or vegetable existence as known to us, that it is necessarily a useless waste of extinct volcanoes. Apart from its value as "a lamp to the earth," it has a noble task to perform in preventing the stagnation that would otherwise. take place in our ocean, which would, without its influence, be one vast stagnant pool, but is now maintained in constant, healthy activity, through the agency of the tides that sweep our shores every four-and-twenty hours, bearing away with them to sea, all that decaying refuse which would otherwise accumulate at the mouths of rivers, there to corrupt, and spread death and pestilence around. This evil, then, the Moon arrests effectively, and with the tides for a mighty broom, it daily sweeps and purifies our coasts of all that might be dangerous or offensive. VOL. IV. (No. 40.) Y But there is still another duty that she fulfils-namely, in performing the work of a "tug" in bringing vessels up our tidal rivers. Dwellers in seaports, or those who reside in towns situated up our tidal streams, have excellent opportunities of observing and appreciating her value in her towing capacity; and, indeed, it may with truth be said that no small portion of the corn with which we are nourished, and of the coal that glows in our firesides, is brought almost up to our very doors by the direct agency of the Moon. [J. N.] WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, Friday, May 27, 1864. HENRY BENCE JONES, M.D. F.R.S. Hon. Secretary, and VicePresident, in the Chair. REGINALD STUART POOLE, Esq. BRITISH MUSEUM. On Greek Coins as illustrating Greek Art. 1. Introduction.-It has been long known that Greek coins are important monuments of Greek art. K. O. Müller constantly cites them in his great work on the Archæology of Art (Archäologie der Kunst), and had he been able thoroughly to study a large collection, he would have rendered the present attempt needless. Yet, notwithstanding the general agreement and this illustrious example, Greek coins have not yet been the subject of an essay defining their place as documents in the history of art. 2. Definitions. Under the term art, sculpture and painting are here intended, with the intermediate province of bas-relief, to which coins, as reliefs in miniature, belong. Sculpture represents character; painting, expression. Character is the general and permanent aspect of the face and body as denoting the dominant quality. We can trace in the features and form the effect of study, or of idleness, of pride, or of humility. Expression is the transient but intense effect of some sudden feeling, such as love or hatred, daring or terror. It is illustrative of this distinction that we feel that whereas we look at a sculptured face of the best style, a face in a fine picture seems to look at us. Basrelief partakes sometimes of the characteristics of sculpture, sometimes of those of painting.-(Comp. Müller, Arch. der Kunst, § 27.) 3. Our Knowledge of Greek Art.-Our present knowledge of Greek art, apart from that derived from coins, is extremely scanty. Of sculpture, under which bas-relief may here be included, we have incomplete and uncertain information. Literature gives us the names of the chief artists and some idea of their styles. In the works that remain we recognize the characteristics pointed out by literature. But of all the famous names of ancient sculpture, only works of Phidias, and of Scopas and his fellow-artists at Halicarnassus, are known to us. The noble architectural sculptures from the Parthenon and the Mausoleum, happily united at our national museum, acquaint us thoroughly with the styles of these masters; but when we look for a work of Praxiteles or Lysippus, we look in vain. In the museums of Europe there are a few statues of such surpassing excellence that they must be works of the greatest sculptors, but it has been impossible to guess their authors. The majority of famous statues forms but a Græco-Roman gallery of inferior and even corrupted copies, made to suit the taste of Roman collectors by artists who could not invent, and wanted the honesty or the skill to copy accurately. Our knowledge of Greek painting scarcely deserves the name. The information of literature, necessarily more vague than in the case of the sister art, is wholly unsupported by any remains. It would be an insult to Greek painting to cite the feeble frescoes of Pompeii. The only glimmer of evidence is derived from bas-reliefs and vase-paintings. The former are sometimes pictorial, but as they have lost what colouring, at least of background, they had, they only show us design and arrangement, not the essential characteristic of painting, the representation of light. The latter are monuments of the skill of the Greeks in drawing, though they fail in exactly the same manner, for they are of the most rudimentary kind of designs, and from their necessarily hasty execution, could never have attained any higher character. 4. Value of Coins.-Greek coins are of every age of Greek art, and of every city of the Greek world-of every age from the period of its long infancy before the Persian War, until its destruction under the Roman rule-of every city from Thasos to Cyrene, from Marseilles to Tarsus. Every Greek city was constantly sending forth coins bearing types varied in accordance with the rich power of invention of the Greek mind. From such a mass of evidence, it must be possible to obtain some valuable generalizations. For a correct induction, we require not only a large number of instances, but the means of classing them. Greek sculpture fulfils only the first condition; Greek coins fulfil both. Without induction, the bases of not a single science have been laid down; and what has been done since Bacon's discovery, first in natural science and then in learning, still remains to be effected in the archæology of art. 5. Local Character of Greek Art.-The speaker claimed to have discovered that Greek coins fall into classes representing great local schools. This might have been expected, as all art shows the same characteristic. This was illustrated by the cases of the modern schools of painting, and of Gothic as well as Arab architecture. That the same law obtained in Greek art, K. O. Müller has incidentally suggested the coins prove it. : The date of the best examples of art in the coins is from B.c. 450 to B.C. 350, from not long after the repulse of the Persians to the overthrow of the liberties of Greece by Philip, the age of the highest political, literary, scientific, and artistic excellence of the nation. 6. The Schools.-The chief and leading school-the term school being used in its geographical sense as distinguished from style, which is the effect produced upon art by a leading artist-was that of Greece itself, including Macedon and Thrace. Its works are eminently sculpture-like (Greece produced the great sculptors); they may be enlarged; the forms are compact; they represent character instead of expression, and are marked by repose and truthfulness. The favourite material is silver. The west coast of Asia-Minor produced the Ionian school, the pictorial style of which reminds us that the three greatest names in the list of Greek painters, Zeuxis, Parrhasius, and Apelles, were of natives of this country. The works of this school may be enlarged; its forms are free and flowing, dishevelled hair and streaming drapery; it delights in representing expression instead of character, the transient instead of the constant. The favourite materials were the warmer metal gold, and what is but pale gold, electrum. In Sicily and Italy a school flourished which combined the highest execution with a lower kind of design. Unaided by the influence of sculpture or painting, neither of which owes a single name of celebrity to the western colonies, it lived upon repeating itself, and so fell into a mannered and eclectic style. Its works cannot be enlarged without injury, on account of the exaggeration of form. The style is usually compact, but occasionally indulges in a timid freedom. It represents neither character nor expression, unless we are to admit, for instance, but one character for all female heads. In place of either it puts manner. It displays a certain hardness and cramped drawing that indicate a limitation to one kind of material and to minute work. Intermediate between the schools of Greece and Ionia is the school of Crete, which, copying nature rather than following sculpture or painting, goes half-way from the gravity of the Greek ideal to the expressiveness of the Ionian. It is picturesque without being pictorial, if a distinction drawn from usage may be allowed. It oscillates between character never strong, and expression never intense. Its want of strength is relieved by its love of nature. It excels in the portrayal of animal and vegetable subjects, and delights in perspective and foreshortening. Far in the East, where Greek civilization struggled in vain against the destructive influence of Oriental formalism, art could never emancipate itself from a dependence on architecture. The Asiatic school is architectural; the forms are hard and straight; they are never developed. We may distinguish these schools by assigning to each its most marked characteristic. The school of Greece is sculpture-like; the school of Ionia picture-like; the school of Sicily and Italy gem-like; the school of Crete picturesque; and the school of Asia architectural. The distinctive characteristics of the schools were then illustrated by a comparison and separate criticism of some of their best works, represented by enlarged copies. It is unfortunately impossible to repeat these observations in the present abstract, as without drawings corresponding to the diagrams, they would not only be difficult to understand, but might even convey ideas essentially different from those intended. It was observed that the discovery of schools to which were due the differences in the coins, would tend to render more definite our knowledge of Greek art in general. Not only did sculpture and painting flourish most where the coins most showed their influence, but in the case of sculpture it was remarked that classification would be aided by a knowledge of the various treatments of bas-relief, and that thus it would be shown that the schools extended throughout the range of the kindred arts. Thus a new basis might be laid down for the archæology of art. The speaker concluded with some general remarks on the national value of the study of art, on the prospects of art in England, and on the assistance that the critical knowledge of Greek works would give to those wishing to promote the growth of art in this country. [R. S. P.] WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, Friday, June 3, 1864. SIR HENRY HOLLAND, Bart. M.D. F.R.S. Vice-President, in the Chair. EDWARD FRANKLAND, Esq. F.R.S. PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY, ROYAL INSTITUTION. On Recent Chemical Researches in the Royal Institution. AMONGST the branches of inquiry that have engaged the attention of chemists during the past fifteen years, there can scarcely be two opinions as to the paramount importance of those investigations, which have had for their object the discovery of the internal structure of chemical compounds, and especially of organic compounds; for it is by thus studying the architecture of these bodies, that we become acquainted with the plans according to which nature herself constructs them under the influence of what we term vitality, and that we are |