Cha] AND SYMBOLS. 41 



Tests of Character. 



There are tests by which the character of rock may be under- 

 stood. The presence of carbonate of lime in a rock may be 

 ascertained by applying to the surface a small drop of diluted 

 sulphuric, nitric, or muriatic acids, or strong vinegar; for the 

 lime, having a greater chemical affinity for any one of these 

 acids than for the carbonic, unites immediately with them to 

 form new compounds, thereby becoming a sulphate, nitrate, 

 or muriate of lime. The carbonic acid, when thus liberated 

 from its union with the lime, escapes in a gaseous form, and 

 froths up or effervesces as it makes its way in small bubbles 

 through the drop of liquid. This effervescence is brisk or feeble 

 in proportion as the limestone is pure or impure ; or, in other 

 words, according to the quantity of foreign matter mixed with 

 the carbonate of lime. Without the aid of this test, the most 

 experienced eye cannot always detect the presence of carbonate 

 of lime in rocks. It does not do to rely upon mere appearances 

 either in the geological world or the social world. In neither 

 sphere is it wise to assume that things are exactly what they 

 seem. In the one world we test with acids, and in the other 

 with questions. The chemical test, as we have seen, tells us the 

 quality of our rocks ; and the second enables us to ascertain 

 how much manhood is in human bipeds. This moral test con- 

 sists of questions directed with a view to ascertain how an 

 individual is affected by vice, virtue, misery, nobility, and the 

 like ; and according to the effects produced upon him by these 

 test problems depends the character which we assign to him. 

 Goethe intimates that one capital way of testing a man's true 

 character is by ascertaining what are the things which he con- 

 siders to be ridiculous. E. 



Character Defacement. 



The late George Newport, F.K.S., showed clearly by many 

 experiments that if insects were injured accidentally or inten- 

 tionally in their larval or chrysalidal states these insects showed 

 traces of the injury in their perfect state. For instance, if a 

 foot was injured in a grub, or the place where the wing or 



