BERNHARD STUDER. 377 



on Solar Physics. It was natural that his labors as director of a meteo- 

 rological observatory should attract his atteutiou to even geological 

 speculation, and we rind several papers by him on Geology. In a late 

 article in the Philosophical Magazine, he discusses the various theories 

 which have been propounded to account for the magnetism of the earth, 

 and puts forth the theory that it may be due to electrical currents circu- 

 lating in the upper regions of the atmosphere, — the phenomena of the 

 aurora being the discharge from the earth to the upper regions, or the 

 discharge from the upper regions to the earth, — thus giving evidence 

 of electrical currents. His paper in conjunction with Tait upon the 

 heating of a disk of metal or ebonite by rapid rotation in vacuo is very 

 suggestive in reference to the motion of heavenly bodies through space, 

 and seems to afford color to the hypothesis of the dissipation of energy. 



The closing period of his life was marked by that indulgence in 

 peculiar physical speculations which were perhaps the outcome of a 

 Scotch theological and philosophical environment. In " The Unseen 

 Universe," and in the " Paradoxical Philosophy," both of which were 

 written in conjunction with Professor Tait, we find an interesting ex- 

 pression of the thoughts which labors in a laboratory cannot fail to 

 excite in a physicist's mind. The Unseen Universe is a valuable con- 

 tribution to modern theological speculation, and affords the believer in 

 miracles and the resurrection grounds for his belief, in the facts and 

 great hypotheses of physical science. The evidence thus presented for 

 a belief is especially interesting when compared with the historical evi- 

 dences. The authors affirm, " As one result of this inquiry, we are led 

 by strict reasoning on purely scientific grounds to the probable conclu- 

 sion that a life for the unseen, through the unseen, is to be regarded as 

 the only perfect life." 



It is curious to reflect that the country which has produced a Reid 

 and a Dugald Stewart now expresses its highest philosophical thought, 

 not in metaphysics, but in physics. The student can find ample illustra- 

 tion of this in the writings of James Clerk Maxwell, of Sir William 

 Thomson, and of Balfour Stewart. 



BERNHARD STUDER. 



Professor Bernhard Studer was born at Buren, near Bern, in 

 August, 1794, and died at the ripe old age of ninety-three in the city of 

 Bern, Switzerland, on the 2d of May, 1887. 



He was educated as a clergyman, but never entered the ministry. 

 After studying at the University of Gbttiugen, Studer became so in- 



