Chase.] 424 [October. 



Tyndall's lectures on "Heat considered as a mode of motion" (First 

 American Edition, p. 446, sqq.), such expressions as the following : 

 '' Every mechanical action on the earth's surface, every manifesta- 

 tion of power, organic and inorganic, vital and physical, is produced 



by the sun He blows the trumpet, he urges the projectile, 



he bursts the bomb. And remember, this is not poetry, but rigid 

 mechanical truth. He rears, as I have said, the whole vegetable 

 world, and through it the animal ; the lilies of the field are his work- 

 manship, the verdure of the meadows, and the cattle upon a thousand 

 hills. He forms the muscle, he urges the blood, he builds the brain. 

 His fleetness is in the lion's foot; he springs in the panther, he 

 soars in the eagle, he slides in the snake. He builds the forest, and 

 hews it down; the power which raised the tree and which wields the 

 axe being one and the same. . . . The sun digs the ore from our 

 mines, he rolls the iron, he rivets the plates, he boils the water, he 

 draws the train. He not only grows the cotton, but he spins the 

 fibre and weaves the web. There is not a hammer raised, a wheel 

 •turned, or a shuttle thrown, that is not raised, and turned, and thrown 

 by the sun." No Chinese Bonze, no Hindoo Brahmin, no Persian 

 Fire-worshipper, no Egyptian, Grecian, or Roman priest, no Indian 

 medicine-man, could have discoursed in more eloquent language of 

 the power of the "Mighty Ka" or "Yau," and none perhaps, with 

 less danger of inculcating the belief, that the mere inert material 

 nature can exert that all-controlling power which is essentially 

 spiritual, and can spring only from a Supreme Intelligence. 



Pending nominations Nos. 525, 526, 527, 528, were read. 

 And the Society was adjourned. 



Stated 3Ieetmg, October 7, 1864. 



Present, sixteen members. 



Dr. Wood, President, in the Chair. 



A letter accepting membership was received from Mr. Jo- 

 seph Harrison, dated Philadelphia, September 24th, 1864. 

 A letter acknowledging the receipt of publications was re- 



