236 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



paltriest and meanest of human ends, would seem to have divided a 

 people of accredited shrewdness into the two classes of rogues and 

 dupes. But, as we have seen, we, too, have been singed at the same 

 tire. There are, moreover, other if minor superstitions in our midst 

 that suggest the propriety of beginning the task of reformation at 

 home. An occasional glance, for instance, at the stock advertise- 

 ments of leading journals, will convince any one how wide-spread is 

 the infatuation that believes in spurious offers of advantageous em- 

 'ployment. Some of these have, under our own observation, been re- 

 peated with little variation for more than twenty years ; and we have 

 no doubt that the wily advertisers are able to calculate to a fraction 

 the number and gullibility of their dupes. We have from time to time 

 drawn attention to swindles of this class, as well as to those tempting 

 offers of " Money to lend," which appear with equal regularity in 

 newspaper columns. We are afraid, however, that friendly warning 

 and experience are alike unavailing to stem the mischief. The spread 

 of education itself would appear unable to outstrip the spread of im- 

 posture or the eager credulity that supports it; for superstition merely 

 shifts its ground from time to time, without losing appreciably its 

 original dominion over the human mind. Chambers's Journal. 



SKETCH OF PROFESSOR RANKINE. 



PROF. W. J. MACQUORN RAKKINE was born in Edinburgh, 

 July 5, 1820, and on Christmas-eve, in 1872, he died, before he 

 had completed his fifty-third year; but in that comparatively short 

 life he had won higher distinction and done more good work than it 

 falls to the lot of most men to compass. 



He pursued his ordinary school studies in the Burgh Academy of 

 the town of Ayr, the high-school of Glasgow. When very young he 

 entered the University of Edinburgh, where he devoted himself to 

 natural philosophy and natural history, including zoology, geology, 

 mineralogy, and botany. He was a born mathematician, and received 

 little aid from professional instruction in the branch of science in 

 which he subsequently displayed such great genius. Throughout his 

 educational course he received valuable aid from his father, who was 

 a retired lieutenant of the British Army. 



His powers were developed at an early age. Before he was 

 twenty he had written two essays on subjects in pure physics. At 

 eighteen he adopted the profession of civil engineering, and was the 

 pupil of Sir John Macneil for three or four years, a great part of 

 which was spent on engineering works in Ireland. Subsequently, he 

 was employed for several years on railways and similar works in 



