136 SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Ore 



to many constitutions, the eggs are both agreeable in flavour 

 and perfectly harmless. IL. 



The Loneliness of the Great. 



Great men, as a rule, are not club men. The thinkers of 

 the world have not been society fractions. In their isolation 

 they remind us of the oak, which is never seen in a crowd, 

 forming what may be properly termed a wood. An oak forest 

 is nothing more than a poetical figure ; for the oak stands 

 alone, or mingled with other trees of different foliage, which it 

 dominates with venerable feudal sovereignty. We have one Dr. 

 Johnson and a number of Bos wells around about him. ST. 



Healthfullness of Great Britain. 



The following is a comparative estimate of the rate of 

 mortality in the European States : One in twenty-eight in the 

 Roman and Venetian states ; one in thirty in Italy in general ; 

 one in thirty in Greece and Turkey ; one in thirty-nine in the 

 Netherlands, France, and Prussia ; one in forty in Switzerland, 

 Austria, Spain, and Portugal j one in forty-four in European 

 Russia and Poland ; one in forty-five in Germany, Denmark, 

 and Sweden ; one in forty-eight in Norway ; one in fifty-three 

 in Ireland ; one in fifty-eight in England ; one in fifty-nine in 

 Scotland and Iceland ; so that we perceive that the duration 

 of life in this country is very great when compared with others, 

 and that whatever foreigners may say about its dull and foggy 

 climate, it is a fact that its inhabitants live much longer than 

 those of the sunny climes of southern Europe. The boasted 

 climate of Italy, with its soft vernal breezes and cloudless 

 skies, gives a mortality of one in thirty, whereas among our 

 Irish bogs it is only one in fifty-three ; while in the Roman 

 and Venetian states more than twice as many out of a given 

 number die as among the bleak districts of the Scotch High- 

 lands. It is, then, perfectly well ascertained that in England, 

 Ireland, and Scotland, the mortality is much lower than in the 

 poetic " lands of the sun," Italy and Greece. s. 



