444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



for tbe endowment of physical research. Unquestionably, the abstract 

 proposition that science is worthy of national support must be ad- 

 mitted as just. We may agree with Sir John Herschel in feeling 

 "prepared to advocate or defend" (on abstract princijiles) " a very 

 large and liberal devotion indeed of the public means to setting on 

 foot undertakings and maintaining establishments in which the in- 

 vestigation of physical laws and data should be the avowed and pii- 

 mary object, and practical application the secondary, incidental, and 

 collateral one." It is hardly necessary for me to say that I recognize 

 the full weight of those considerations which have been urged in favor 

 of wide schemes of endowment. Such schemes have, indeed, had few 

 warmer advocates than myself, nor has any one been more outspoken 

 in their support. But jjractical experience has taught me, I must con- 

 fess, that dangers and serious ones surround them. Even while 

 as yet they were in their infancy, mischievous tendencies began to 

 show themselves which had certainly not been anticipated by those 

 earnest students of science who first supported the general principle 

 that science deserves the recognition of the state. Greedy hands were 

 stretched out for the promised prizes. Jobbery began its accustomed 

 work ; and those who sought to check its progress were abused and 

 vilified. If this happened when schemes for endowment were but 

 mentioned, what evil consequences might not be looked for if those 

 schemes succeeded ? Deterred by the consequences of the first few 

 steps they had taken in the direction of endowment, many of the most 

 zealous workers in science now stand aloof. Before long, however, 

 the real position of affairs will be known. If the present desire for the 

 endowment of research is prompted by genuine zeal for science, we 

 shall find that the wartnest advocates of the scheme are not those who 

 would themselves profit by it. But if, on the other hand, it should 

 appear that the persons who now speak most earnestly about the en- 

 dowment of science are in reality eager chiefly for their own prefer- 

 ment, or desire to secure posts of emolument for personal friends and 

 adherents, then every real lover of science must desire the failure of 

 such schemes, seeing that the cause of science could not fail to suffer, 

 nor Science herself to be degraded, should they prove successful. 

 Conteinporary Meview. 



THE PYEOPHONE 



By M. DUNANT. 



SOUND is in general, according to natural philosophers, a sensa- 

 tion excited in the organ of hearing by the vibratory movement 

 of ponderable matter, while this movement can be transmitted to the 

 ear by means of an intermediate agent. Sound, properly called musi- 



