July 17, 1879] 



NATURE 



263 



from the Inquisition, but passes over in silence Galileo's 

 perfectly explicit declaration that the order in question 

 had come to him through no other person than Cardinal 

 Bellarmine. Any one who knows how different are the 

 parts assigned in the Vatican manuscript to the Cardinal 

 and to the Commissary -will see at a glance the serious 

 nature of this last omission. 



On p. 231 an argument is advanced, the futility of 

 which one would have thought must have been obvious 

 to the possessor of the most elementary knowledge about 

 inquisitional suits in general, and that of Galileo in par- 

 ticular. M. de I'Epinois expresses astonishment that 

 Galileo, if he was really conscious of having been con- 

 demned on a trumped-up charge, should not have left 

 behind him, in letters to his friends, some protest against 

 the abominable act of fraud of which he had been the 

 victim. 



Now, in the first place, it was the regular practice of 

 the Inquisition to exact from those who appeared at its 

 bar an oath of absolute silence, under pain of excom- 

 munication in case of contravention, as to everything 

 which had occurred within the sacred tribunal. We 

 know from the Vatican MS. that this precaution was 

 taken in the case of Galileo. Further, the sentence of 

 1633 menaced him with being treated as a relapsed 

 heretic [i.e. burned alive) if he should venture to treat of 

 his condemned opinion of the earth's motion in any 

 manner whatever. Lest it should be supposed that this 

 was a piece of mere formality, the Inquisitor of Florence, 

 during Galileo's subsequent practical imprisonment in his 

 own villa at Arcetri, threatened him in the most un- 

 mistakable language with immediate incarceration in the 

 actual dungeons of the Roman Inquisition if he should 

 dare to propagate in conversation the Copernican doctrine. 

 It requires, then, little prophetic gift to foresee what 

 would have befallen Gahleo had he been detected setting 

 in circulation a charge of the blackest fraud against the 

 supreme tribunal of the Inquisition. His silence on the 

 subject can cause those who believe in the reality of this 

 fraud no astonishment whatever. The only surprise they 

 are likely to experience is that a writer so exceptionally 

 acquainted with the details of Galileo's case as is M. de 

 I'Epinois, should have esteemed an argument of this 

 kind worthy of a place in his pages. 



I cannot think that M. de I'Epinois is more successful 

 in setting up a positive theory of his own than he is in 

 demolishing that of Wohlwill. He maintains a thesis 

 favourable to the Roman authorities, but it is based on 

 efforts to explain away, or assert away, palpable contra- 

 dictions, and on gratuitous and mutually destructive 

 assumptions. In short, his whole treatment of the issue 

 essentially in dispute is both superficial and unsatis- 

 factory. 



Father Desjardins, of the Society of Jesus, tells the 

 world that, inspired with sacred boldness {de saintes 

 audaces), he has torn from the hands of the Church's 

 enemies a weapon of which they had made sinister use, 

 by restoring to the incident of Galileo so long travestied 

 by ignorance and bad faith, its veritable physiognomy. 

 His preface concludes with the following piece of advice 

 to such of his readers as may be disposed to criticise the 

 acts and institutions of the Roman Church in this or any 

 other case ; — 



"Approve everything without hesitation, and soon 

 philosophic examination will reward your confidence by 

 presenting to you a complete demonstration of all these 

 things!" 



Such a maxim is so little likely to find favour with 

 readers of Nature that I shall trouble them no further 

 with the magniloquent Jesuit's production which is as 

 superficial, arrogant, and inconclusive as its pompous 

 exordium would lead one to expect. 



In terminating this notice it may be as well to remark 

 that the question whether Galileo was or was not fraudu- 

 lently convicted and condemned remains still undecided. 

 The Roman authorities have not as yet taken the one step 

 which offers some chance of settling, and could hardly 

 fail essentially to narrow, the issue. This consists in 

 allowing free access to, and facsimile reproduction from, 

 all and every portion of the Vatican MS., instead of 

 restricting, as appears hitherto to have been done, this 

 privilege to members of the Roman Church supported by 

 ambassadorial or episcopal recommendations.' 



Sedley Taylor 



THE MANUFACTURE OF SULPHURIC ACID 

 AND ALKALI 



A Theoretical and Practical Treatise on the Manufacture 

 of Sulphuric Acid and Alkali with the Collateral 

 Branch. By George Lunge, Ph.D., F.C.S., Professor 

 of Technical Chemistry at the Federal Polytechnic 

 School, Zurich (formerly Manager of the Tyne Alkali 

 Works, South Shields). Vol. i. (John van Voorst, 

 1879.) 

 XA/'^ heartily welcome Prof. Lunge's volume on the 

 » * manufacture of sulphuric acid. It is the result 

 of a rare combination of thorough knowledge of scien- 

 tific theory with that intimate experience of the practical 

 manufacture which can only be gained by those who 

 come into daily contact with the problems presenting 

 themselves in dealing with chemical operations on a large 

 scale. 



In his preface our author distinctly states the object he 

 has in view, and very modestly but clearly indicates the 

 claims upon which he founds his right to speak : " The 

 present treatise," he says, "is intended to supply various 

 wants, and accordingly appeals to various classes of 

 readers. In the first place, it gives a scientific descrip- 

 tion of all the substances occurring in the manufacture 

 of sulphuric acid, alkali, and bleaching powder, either 

 as raw materials or finished products, according to the 

 most recent statements. Secondly, it is intended as an 

 aid in the study of technical chemistry by giving a com- 

 plete description, both technical and theoretical, of all the 

 processes occurring in this series of manufactures. Its 

 third and principal object is to give to practical manu- 

 facturers both complete and reliable information upon all 

 the apparatus and processes which have come under the 

 author's notice. . . . Much space is taken up by the dis- 

 cussion of the innumerable publications in English, 

 German, and French, referring to this industry, but even 

 more space was required for the faithful rendering of the 

 author's personal observations and experiences. His own 

 practice of eleven years in the north of England has been 



' Wolynski. Nucvi dccumenii inediti del ProctiEO di Galileo Galilei 

 Fircnze, 1878, p. 13. 



