Eye] AND SYMBOLS. 115 



chairs. Water pipes are fitted to one another by means of tele- 

 scopic joints, which allow room for expansion. In every depart- 

 ment there must be provision made for expansion. EL. 



The Love for Extremes. 



The force'of attraction varies in different parts of the magnet ; 

 it is strongest at the two ends, and is totally wanting in the 

 middle. This may be seen very clearly when a magnetic bar 

 is placed in iron filings ; these become arranged round the ends 

 of the bar in feathery tufts, which decrease towards the middle 

 of the bar, where there are none. That part of the surface of 

 the bar where there is no visible magnetic force is the neutral 

 line, and the points near the ends of the barsAvhere the attrac- 

 tion is greatest are the poles. Men are often like these iron \JJ/ 

 filings on the magnet. They shun the neutral line, and rush 

 to one or other of the opposite poles of thought. In nearly all 

 departments of thought and action, and amongst all religionists 

 and politicians, we see the masses attracted by some extremes. 

 In times of passion and excitement it seems of little service to 

 point out to men that experience teaches that truth often resides 

 between the extremes. The attractive force of that abstract 

 fact is not enough for them. The magnetism of the extreme 

 view is all-powerful ; and thus the partisans draw off, not only 

 as far as possible from each other, but also a very long way from 

 the truth itself, which, though they heed it not, remains like a 

 neutral line drawn between them both. EL. 



The Eye not Infallible. 



One of the most curious mirage effects is to be seen on the 

 Wash during hot summer weather. The mirage is there known 

 as the " looming of the land," and when it is about it is im- 

 possible at moments to distinguish the sand and weed-banks 

 from the sea, while the distortion, both perpendicular and 

 horizontal, of ship-masts, &c., is ludicrous. In one case a 

 herd of seals on a sand-bank seemed transformed into a row of 

 long-legged monsters, wading in water, or rather rooted by their 

 long legs to the legs of a similar row of monsters below them, 

 which was their distorted reflection in wet mud. NAT. 



