2o8 NOTES ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 



January. The temperature was above the average in the Metropolis on 213 

 days during the year, and below the average on 152 days. There were as 

 many as 29 warm days in August and 20 or more in January, July, September, 

 and November. May, October, and December were the coldest months, 

 there being in each of these 20 or more cold days." 

 MISCELLANEA. 



Waltham Bells. — In the extract from Mr. Bramley's paper, " Walton's 

 Favourite River," quoted on page 140 ante, is a sentence which perhaps should 

 be corrected. 



Robert Fuller, the last Abbot (who surrendered the abbey and all it s 

 possessions on March 23rd, 1540) was not the author of the saying about 

 Waltham bells. Thomas Fuller, curate of Waltham, in his History of 

 Waltham Abby in Essex, 1655 (p. 14), noted sundry payments made in the year 



1542- 



" Item. Paid to the Ringers at the coming of the King's Grace, sixpence." 



To this Thomas Fuller adds : — 

 " Yet Wriltham BAh tald no tales every turn King Henry came hither, having a small 

 house in Ronieland to which he is said oft privately to retire, for his pleasure." 



I. C. Gould, Loughton, Jan., igoo. 



The Hopefulness of Science. — " Looking back, then, in this last year 

 of the eighteen hundreds, on the century which is drawing to its close, while 

 we may see in the history of scientific inquiry much which, telling the man of 

 science of his shortcomings and his weakness, bids him be humble, we also 

 see much, perhaps more, which gives him hope. Hope is indeed one of the 

 watchwords of science. In the latter-day writings of some who know not 

 science, inuch may be read which shows that the writer is losing or has lost 

 hope in the future of mankind. There are not a few of these ; their repeated 

 utterances make a sign of the times. Seeing in matters lying outside science 

 few marks of progress and many tokens of decline and decay, recognising in 

 science its material benefits only, such men have thoughts of despair when 

 they look forward to the times to come. But if there be any truth in what I 

 have attempted to urge to-night, if the intellectual, if the moral influences of 

 science are no less marked than her material benefits, if, moreover, that 

 which she has done is but the earnest of that which jhe shall do, such men 

 may pluck up courage and gather strength by laying hold of her garment- 

 We men of science, at least, need not share their views or their fears. Our 

 feet are set, not on the shifting sands of the opinions and of the fancies of the 

 day, but on a solid foundation of verified truth, which by the labours of each 

 succeeding age is made broader and more firm. To us the past is a thing to 

 look back upon, not with regret, not as something which has been lost never 

 to be regained, but with content, as something whose influence is with us 

 still, helping us on our further way. With us, indeed, the past points not to 

 itself, but to the future ; the golden age is in front of us, not behind us; that 

 which we do know is a lamp wliose brightest beams are shed into the 

 unknown before us, showing us how much there is in front and lighting up 

 the way to reach it. We are confident in the advance, because, as each one 0^ 

 us feels that any step forward which he may make is not ordered by himself 

 alone and is not the result of his own sole efforts in the present, but is, and 

 that in large measure, the outcome of the labours of others in the past, so 

 each one of us has the sure and certain hope that as the past has helped him^ 

 so his eftorts, be they great or be they small, will be a help to those to come.' 

 Sir Michael Foster, Address to British Association at Dover, 1899. 



