AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 455 



And so the common miml is dull, 



And sees not while it sees, 

 Till science, like a glass reveals, 



In manifest degrees 



The wonders of the hidden powers. 



The powers of sense and sight, 

 Showing a world where all was void. 



And making darkness light. 



Mr. Seeley. — As to theory — telescope and microscope alike. The eye 

 glass magnifies the object transmitted by the object glass ; the microscope 

 is much the most interesting and useful — ten dollars will buy the one 

 and thousands of dollars the other. 



Mr. Griscom. — The globules of blood, as man's, recently an evidence of 

 the utility of microscope. 



Mr. Seeley. — Blood of animals, diiFerent from human blood. 



Prof. Gyrus Mason. — It is somewhat mortifying that the useful labor of 

 this club is without a report, while at another place the rich are devising an 

 expenditure of $200,000 for an observatory, not at all wanted, for astrono- 

 my has made no important advance for a long time. My able and excel- 

 lent friend Mitchell, is entertaining the crowd well — all the guesses as to 

 the planetary population, do not maintain the Lock Moon Hoax, and we 

 are acquiring nothing at all new. Far more do I hope from the univer- 

 sally useful knowledge opened up to us by the power of the microscope. If 

 I had millions of dollars I would set thousands of proper observers at work 

 with its marvellous power of displaying the great secrets of animal and ve- 

 getable existence — the detection of those tremendous but invisible poisons 

 in miasm, in cholera, in all diseases, in certain localities, now shrouded in 

 utter darkness, and the true nature of remedies. I want to have the alka- 

 loids investigated. I found cholera on places apparently as pure as oth- 

 ers, under which miasma was covered ; from places, the undi'ained under- 

 ground gave cholera. If we could see the elements of the disease, we could 

 at least fly from it if we could not cure it. Homoeopathy is quackery ; we 

 talk of atoms infinitessimal like parrots ; we know nothing about it. I 

 read Moses ! and believe in him, so does my friend Mitchell ! 



I have seen hundreds die of cholera ; they died easily and without pain. 

 With a view to more knowledge of disease, we should sustain a system of 

 examination by all the means in our power ; by analysis long and rigid, 

 looking alone to facts, not so much to theory. In the microscope as we 

 have it, or as by improvement we may have it, great developments, of the 

 highst import to men may be expected. The doctors, allooM homeopathic, 

 wish as we do, that they knew enough to meet disease face to face and to 

 conquer it, instead of dodgi?ig it or flying away from it. We ought to 

 have here, and well read too (which we do not, in matters of science,) the 

 modern work, " Yearbook of Science ;" it has superior merit. 



Prof. Hedrick. — It is published in Grerman and translated into English ; 

 it deserves all that Prof. Mason has said of it. If we had time, I would 

 speak of Hassall's chemical analyses of foods and drugs lately ; they have 



