PREFACE. 



-oo^c 



IFTEEN years is a long period in the life of a 

 man, and a relatively longer one in the existence 

 of a magazine. It is time enough to have given 

 a fair trial to any scheme, or to have proved 

 a raison d'etre for any institution. We are re- 

 minded of this in prefacing a few lines to the 

 Fifteenth Volume of SCIENCE-GOSSIP. And it 

 is with no small pleasure, as we take a mental 

 review of our situation, that we find ourselves 



surrounded with more numerous friends, and even abler 



contributors than ever. 



The domain of Natural Science extends in widening 

 circles every year. New and more complex organic relation- 

 ships are discovered the more we look for them. We bear 

 the highest of unconscious testimony to the Supreme Intelli- 

 gence which governs the universe, when we require the facts 

 of Science to be subordinated to intelligible laws ; and 

 there is a higher mental pleasure in finding out the laws 

 which govern these facts, than in discovering the facts them- 

 selves. But as the circle of the Known increases in its 

 circumference, we perceive the larger periphery of the Un- 

 known which circumscribes it. Within this infinitely little 

 circle, there is light as in the land of Goshen, but outside, darkness 

 like that of Egypt ! The attitude of the scientific mind, therefore, 

 ought more than ever to be the reverse of dictatorial. 



During the past year we have opened our columns to the dis- 

 cussion of one of the most interesting of the many biological side-paths 



