79 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



they can give it only gratitude and sympathy, and, as some cynic 

 has observed, the "bonds of sympathy bear no coupons. This crit- 

 icism, however, is only a surface truth, for no cause ever failed 

 for lack of funds, if it had enough vital sympathy behind it. 



There is a lake on a mountain-top in Missouri, without visible 

 outlet or inlet, which yet rises and falls several feet. What is 

 the explanation of the mystery ? It is fed by an ebbing and flow- 

 ing underground river. So it is with great enterprises. They 

 are borne on the current of popular enthusiasm — unseen, it may 

 be, but never unfelt. So it is with Hampton. Its success hangs 

 on popular support, and on its success hangs the experiment of 

 industrial education as a solution of the negro problem. 



This is a great national question. It intimately ccmcerns the 

 white population at the South, whose welfare, whether they will 

 or not, is bound up with that of the blacks, so that the sarcastic 

 advice, " Educate your masters ! " becomes literal counsel of the 

 truest and wisest kind. Nor are we of the North indifferent ob- 

 servers. So bound together is this nation by the iron bands of 

 railroads and telegraph wires that the issue of affairs in the most 

 distant South is of vital interest to us. Let it not be said of the 

 thinkers of to-day as of those blind ones who watched the condi- 

 tion of France before the Revolution, that the philosophers were 

 duller than the fribbles. Let us clearly recognize the difficulty 

 and complexity of the problem with which we have to deal, and 

 then let us address ourselves to its solution soberly, earnestly, and 

 unremittingly. 



A discussion has arisen concerning the manner in which the Egyptian touihs 

 may have heen lighted for the execution of the elaborate paintings that are found 

 in them. Any light that would smoke appears to be ruled out, for it could not 

 have failed to leave its mark, which is not there. Mr. Newman, an American 

 artist, who has spent several winters on the Nile, studying and painting tombs 

 and temples, has not been able to suggest any other solution of the problem than 

 the use of the electric light. Mr. W. Flinders Petrie is not yet ready to invoke 

 the electric light, but believes that sunlight was sent into the dark passages by 

 the use of mirrors. He says: "A very small amount of reflected sunshine is 

 enough to work by. I have taken photographs at Gizeh (which require far more 

 light than is needed by a painter or sculptor) by means of four successive reflec- 

 tions of sunshine from common sheets of tin plate, such as biscuit-tin lids. These 

 four reflections sent the light round corners, into what was absolutely dark space, 

 a distance of over thirty feet, and the effect was brilliant to the eye. I feel cer- 

 tain, therefore, that with larger reflectors there would be no difficulty whatever 

 in lighting any part of the Kings' Tombs more brightly than by small lamps." 



An American, Mr. Henry, in Longuyon, France, has constructed a clock en- 

 tirely of paper, which has run regularly for two years, with no greater variation 

 than a minute a month. 



