MUSICAL SENSATIONS. 225 



in the terrestrial atmosphere, and Captain Abney has found by his 

 new photometric method that absorption due to hydrocarbons takes 

 place somewhere between the solar and terrestrial atmosphere ; in 

 order to test this interesting result still further, he has lately taken his 

 apparatus to the top of the Riffel with a view of diminishing the amount 

 of terrestrial atmospheric air between it and the sun, and intends to bring 

 a paper on this subject before Section A. Stellar space filled with such 

 matter as hydrocarbon and aqueous vapor would establish a material 

 continuity between the sun and his planets, and between the innu- 

 merable solar systems of which the universe is composed. If chemical 

 action and reaction can further be admitted, we may be able to trace 

 certain conditions of thermal dependence and maintenance, in which 

 we may recognize principles of high perfection, applicable also to com- 

 paratively humble purposes of human life. 



We shall thus find that, in the great workshop of Nature, there are 

 no lines of demarkation to be drawn between the most exalted specu- 

 lation and commonplace practice, and that all knowledge must lead up 

 to one great result, that of an intelligent recognition of the Creator 

 through his works. So, then, we members of the British Association 

 and fellow-workers in every branch of science may exhort one another 

 in the words of the American bard who has so lately departed from 



anions: us 



" Let us then be up and doing, 

 With a heart for any fate ; 

 Still achieving, still pursuing, 

 Learn to labor and to wait." 



MUSICAL SENSATIONS. 



Br M. HiniCOUKT. 



IT is common, in defining music, to compare it with some other art, 

 painting, for instance, and say it is to the ear what that is to the 

 eye ; that it is the representation of the ideal by a means especially 

 adapted to the organ to which it is addressed, or by the combination 

 of sounds. Is that all that it is ? Do we not forget, when we simply 

 put it on a par with other arts, the exceptional part it plays in the life 

 of men ? The universal adaptation of music to all degrees of civili- 

 zation, the peculiar charm of which it is the source, and the extraor- 

 dinary power it exercises, are so many reasons for believing that it 

 is connected with our organization by a more intimate tie than that 

 which binds other arts to it, and that it is the manifestation of a 

 more general faculty. "When Fetis wrote, in 1837, the idea prevailed 

 that music originated in the imitation of the sonsrs of birds. He 



VOL, XXII. 15 



