86z 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Strathpeffer in Scotland, and Bally nali inch 

 and Lisdoonvarna in Ireland. But these 

 places are now not so much in fashion or 

 60 attractive as the Continental resorts, and 

 afford, as Dr. Yeo has pointed out, an in- 

 ferior variety of advantages. The great 

 variableness of English seasons is, how- 

 ever, very embarrassing in the case of 

 consumptive patients, although there are 

 places among the milder resorts where 

 benefit is derived in favorable seasons. 

 Great Britain is, however, wholly without 

 places where the rarefied air of great alti- 

 tudes can be applied to cures, as at Davos 

 Platz, and will probably never have them, 

 for the British winter presents meteoro- 

 logical conditions diametrically opposed to 

 the brilliant sunshine and intense dryness 

 to which the climate of the upper Alps 

 owes a large part of its efficacy. 



The Inconveniences of Law-Codes.— Mr. 



E. T. Merrick, in a letter to David Dudley 

 Field and others, committee on the delay 

 and uncertainty of judicial administration, 

 objects to the formation of codes, as tend- 

 ing to give laws too rigid a character. Ac- 

 cording to his reading and observation, 

 " the transition from the elastic system of 

 principles, resting on pure reason, to a sys- 

 tem of positive law, is marked at first by a 

 liberal interpretation corresponding more 

 to the equity of the older system. But, lit- 

 tle by little, from veneration or some other 

 motive or cause, the words of the statute 

 law are considered of more sanctity and 

 come to be more rigorously executed, until 

 at last it is thought that it is of more im- 

 portance that the law should be strictly ob- 

 served than that equity should be done. How 

 often have the judges felt constrained to 

 enforce statutory laws, against which their 

 sense of justice revolted ! " It would be 

 much better, in Mr. Merrick's view, to leave 

 it to wise judges "to select from the great 

 storehouse of principles, which admit of an 

 infinitude of exceptions, such as are fitting 

 the new subjects brought for their deter- 

 mination, than to leave it to less experienced 

 men who happen to have the power as leg- 

 islators to freeze principles into rigidity." 

 Codes may be a matter of necessity under 

 some circumstances, but room should be 

 left in every system of laws for adaptation 



of judicial construction to special conditions 

 and contingencies, "for it seems presumpt- 

 uous in any body of men to attempt to 

 regulate, by absolute terms, future affairs 

 and rights respecting things the existence 

 and relations of which they can not possi- 

 bly foresee." Provision for giving flexibil- 

 ity to the English common law is afforded 

 by chancery ; and in the United States, the 

 opinions of the courts of every State are 

 exerting more or less of influence on the 

 courts of every other State, on all questions 

 arising under the common law, whereby the 

 judges of all the States are building up one 

 homogeneous system. 



Meerschaum. — Meerschaum ranks among 

 the most important mineral products of the 

 Turkish Empire. It is a magnesite or hy- 

 dro-silicate of magnesia, and is found in 

 extensive masses in the lower transition 

 beds, in the Crimea and the Island of Ne- 

 gropont, but most abundantly in Asia Minor. 

 The center of the principal district where it 

 is mined is at Eski-Sheir, the ancient Dory- 

 laion, a town of nine thousand inhabitants, 

 situated in a valley watered by the Thym- 

 bres River, in a district famous for its 

 thermal waters. Most of the meerschaum 

 mined here is exported by way of Brusa 

 to Vienna, while the waste is bought by 

 the North-German manufacturers of pipe- 

 bowls and mouth-pieces, whose chief cen- 

 ter is at Rubla, in the Grand-duchy of 

 Saxe- Weimar. Some twenty beds of the 

 magnesite are worked near Eski-Sheir. 

 They belong to the Turkish Government, 

 but are farmed out to European companies, 

 some of which have been on the ground for 

 more than twenty years. The companies 

 employ some four thousand workmen, who 

 come chiefly from Germany and Italy. 

 Magnesite earths are also found at Valle- 

 cas, near Madrid, in Spain, under salifcr- 

 ous clays, at Salinelle, in the department 

 of the Garo, and at Saint-Oucn and Cou- 

 lommiers, France, where they occur in fresh- 

 water beds under the gypsum. 



A Fruit-Evaporator for the Public— 



The Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Associa- 

 tion of the United States, at its meeting in 

 Columbus, Ohio, gave especial consideration 

 to the question of the best methods of pre 



