14 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[January, 



II 



humble efforts will permit, we intend 

 to improve it still more by increasing 

 the number of its pages. 



o 



A Humbug and a New System of 

 Physics. — We are quite unable to un- 

 derstand that condition of mind which 

 sometimes leads persons to sacrifice 

 all claims to knowledge and respect, 

 for the sake of ephemeral praise. That 

 a man can deliberately speak and 

 write nonsense for the purpose of ob- 

 taining notoriety, seems incredible ; 

 and yet, we know that persons do 

 sometimes lay the foundations of a 

 good public reputation as men of 

 science, by just such writing. Usually 

 we are content to let those persons 

 enjoy their undeserved favors, know- 

 ing that they will eventually be re- 

 cognized as impostors ; but we have 

 now in mind an instance of a person 

 in this city who has been foisting 

 pseudo-scientific information upon 

 the public for several years, and we 

 deem it but right to express our con- 

 demnation of his course. We refer 

 to Mr. Francis Gerry Fairfield, whom 

 the Editor of Science, referring to 

 a recent lecture of that gentleman, 

 designated as " a person having an 

 unenviable reputation for making ex- 

 travagant assertions on scientific ques- 

 tions." The Editor of Science also 

 remarked : " We notice that a claim 

 is made that the origin of Bacteria 

 and minute forms of life in the atmo- 

 sphere has been discovered by the lec- 

 turer." The utter absurdity of such a 

 claim canncJt be discussed in this Jour- 

 nal. If we could afford space for the 

 report of the lecture, as published in 

 the Herald, it would doubtless prove 

 amusing to our readers. A still more 

 remarkable effusion from the same 

 source was printed last January, in 

 the Post. It was appropriately headed 

 "An Assault upon the Grounds of Evo- 

 lution," and occupied nearly a column 

 of that paper. We cannot waste any 

 efforts in reviewing the lecture, but as 

 an illustration of the fluent and am- 

 biguous style of the writer, we make 

 room for the following quotation 



from the report, which was undoubt- 

 edly written by Prof. Fairfield him- 

 self : " The remainder of Prof. Fair- 

 field's paper rests upon embryological 

 and anatomical researches which 

 cannot be stated in brief, but will 

 fully appear in a monograph now in 

 preparation, the drawings of which 

 with the camera lucida, with the 

 photographing necessary to fullness 

 of illustration, will necessarily take 

 some weeks of severe labor." A year 

 has passed and the " monograph " 

 has not yet appeared — in the interest 

 of science, we hope it never will. Mr. 

 Fairfield is responsible for a number 

 of other articles of a similar character, 

 some of which have appeared in that 

 very ably conducted periodical The 

 Medical Record, where we were surpri- 

 sed to find them; but the most wonder- 

 ful article of all appeared elsewhere, 

 and treats of the structure of blood- 

 corpuscles. A more absurd contribu- 

 tion has never disgraced the pages of 

 a scientific publication. To justify 

 this assertion, it is only necessary to 

 quote the novel principles of physics, 

 upon which the demonstration rests, 

 and which are fully born out by the il- 

 lustration which accompanies the ar- 

 ticle. 



The Fairfieldian system of physics 

 embraces the following principles, so 

 utterly at variance with the most ele- 

 mentary laws of optics, that it is not 

 only surprising that a man would 

 write them, but that an Editor could 

 be found to publish them : " When 

 a ray of light passes from a refracting 

 medium of lesser into one of greater 

 density, it enters the latter at right 

 angles to the plane of its surface. 

 For instance : if a sphere of solid 

 glass is fitted into an aperture in a 

 dark screen, and the light of a gas- 

 jet is directed upon it, each ray is re- 

 fracted towards the centre of the sphere, 

 and as all rays meet at that point, a 

 perfect representation of the jet is pre- 

 sented within the ball." 



This erroneous hypothesis enables 

 Mr. Fairfield to demonstrate that 

 blood-corpuscles are not concave 



