238 



EECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



particular intervention, of the Higher Power, 

 Xrith a view to the future, — then how vastly 

 future, — development of man. No bird, nor 

 beast, nor living thing wants Fibe, but Man ; 

 no other creature can make it, or use it, and 

 f we admit design at all in the case of coal- 

 formation, that design, that forethought must 

 be solely for the human race, or there is no 

 design at all. 



As questions are commonly asked, and 

 not always lucidly answered, as to the cha- 

 racteristic differences between the various 

 kinds of coal, and other bituminous sub- 

 stances, we may briefly remark in this place, 

 that cannel coal is a muddy coal, formed, pro- 

 bably, of a thin muddy wash of peaty mat- 

 ter ; while common coal is chiefly composed of 



sigillarise, and other ordinary carboniferous 

 plants and trees, flattened and compressed 

 together, and subjected to the bituminous dis- 

 tillation-process we have above described. 

 Anthracite is coal divested of its hydrogen, 

 which by some means, or by various pro- 

 cesses, has been driven off. 



Brown coal is a tertiary, and not a paleo- 

 zoic deposit, and is in condition somewhat in- 

 termediate, perhaps, between peat and coal ; 

 as it retains very commonly so much of the 

 woody structure and fibre as to be used, in 

 Switzerland and other places on the Conti- 

 nent where it occurs, for beams, rafters, and 

 other building-purposes, it might be concisely 

 designated as bituminized wood. 



S. J. Mackie. 



STUDIES OF COLOUE. 



In that suggestive fancy about putting the 

 violet into a crucible, we read the apt expres- 

 sion of a poetic and naturally religious mind, 

 and perceive its repugnance to anything like 

 analysis of those matters which are supposed 

 to lie within the province of " the beautiful." 

 The poet's impatience of dogma was a part of 

 that instinct which impelled him to declare 

 that the ethereal graces of Nature are not fit 

 subjects for the apparatus of the chemist. 

 Investigation is, nevertheless, our sole way of 

 fipproaching the knowledge of any kind of 

 truth whatever; and though we may wisely be 

 assured that there are mysteries lying deeper 

 than the nerves and filaments, and ducts and 

 valves, which form the mechanism of a smile 

 or a tear — ^mysteries of sorrow and of joy 

 which wholly elude the dissecting-knife of 

 the anatomist — our reverential regard of the 

 hidden cause need not interfere with the most 

 scrutinizing and exact study of material 

 agencies. Distinct and yet dependent phases 

 of human thought are involved in the con- 

 sideration of all obj ects . There are the j oists 



and beams of the temple ; there is the har 

 monious proportion of the Builder's design ; 

 there is the faith which these things all sub- 

 serve in their degree, and which bids us enter 

 and adore. 



In times when the division of employ- 

 ments had not been recognized as a principle, 

 still less constructed into a system, art en- 

 gaged the studious attention alike of the 

 priest and the philosopher. Science and re- 

 ligion entered into the artist-life of those 

 days. Questions which are now left to the 

 arbitration of indefinite taste were formerly 

 resolved by undeviating law. Such a ques- 

 tion, for instance, as the arrangement of 

 colours in a picture, or in an ornamental 

 design, would have been referred to a 

 standard from the decision of which there 

 could be no appeal. The artisan — a term, by 

 the by, which could never have been origi- 

 nated except in such days as we speak of— 

 the artisan had constantly in view a surer 

 guide than the few traditionary rules which 

 are observed by modern workmen. Efforts 



