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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gentlemen in Albany, Jersey City, and Phila- 

 delphia, and in which Prof. Mather, Mr. 

 Briggs, and myself shared. Tnese lands 

 were known to be underlaid by coal and to 

 be within the limit of the productive iron 

 belt of that part of the country, being sub- 

 sequently the great resource in the establish- 

 ment of the city of Ironton. Subsequently, 

 and after the suspension of the Ohio survey, 

 Prof. Mather did purchase a tract of land 

 upon which he established a furnace. In 



this venture Prof. Mitchell, the astronomer, 

 of Cincinnati, was associated with Prof. 

 Mather. I never had any interest in the 

 project in any way, and when selling my 

 lands to Mr. Campbell, of the association 

 which founded Ironton, I refused to have 

 any connection whatever with the business 

 enterprise, preferring to part with my prop- 

 erty for a moderate price rather than to be 

 connected with any business operation. 



Very truly yours, JAMES HALL. 



" CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" AND SCIENCE. 



IT seems as if every age must have 

 its fad, and perhaps we should 

 not disquiet ourselves too much 

 about it. Long ago the question was 

 asked why the heathen raged and 

 the people imagined a vain thing. 

 The question, especially the latter 

 part of it, is equally pertinent to-day ; 

 and the answer we venture to sug- 

 gest is, because they like it. It is 

 very sweet to the un regenerate mind 

 to be able, or seem to be able, to fly 

 in the face of facts. Just as there 

 are persons so constituted morally 

 that they are unable to conceive of 

 liberty except as defiance of law, 

 and who, therefore, when they want 

 to feel particularly free, resort to 

 disorderly conduct of one kind or 

 another, so there are those in much 

 greater number to whom natural 

 law seems an intellectual tyranny 

 from which any escape is welcome. 

 This we take to be the philosophy of 

 so-called "Christian science," a de- 

 lusion which to-day is playing havoc 

 with the intellects of thousands of 

 presumably sane and well-meaning 

 persons. 



The great beauty and merit of 

 Christian science in the eyes of its 

 devotees is that it affirms the thing 

 that is not and denies the thing that 

 is. It has to make grudging conces- 



sions to the law of gravitation and a 

 few other primary conditions of ex- 

 istence. In a kind of a way it admits 

 that certain injuries to the bodily 

 frame may impair activity and even 

 destroy life. That a man can not 

 walk without legs or do much useful 

 thinking without his head are propo- 

 sitions which it has not yet seen its 

 way to combat; but it takes its re- 

 venge on the system of visible things 

 by comprehensive denials in a host 

 of matters only a little less indis- 

 putable. It scornfully refuses to 

 recognize pain or functional irregu- 

 larities of any kind. Fevers, indi- 

 gestions, inflammations, and the 

 whole tribe of maladies which chal- 

 lenge the physician's art have no 

 foundation in reality, and only need 

 to be suitably ignored in order to be 

 pat to flight. If Job of old could 

 only have planted himself at the 

 Christian-science point of view, he 

 could have got rid of his boils 

 in short order, and perhaps saved 

 himself from the interminable and 

 not overcheerful discourses of his 

 friends. The great remedy, as rec- 

 ommended to-day in Christian sci- 

 ence circles, is not to think about 

 these things at all, and in case you 

 can not think hard enough, to send 

 for a Christian -science adept to help 

 you. The adept will then, with 



