Sune 8, 1871] 
and x the state of civilisation, we obtain the following 
equation— 
3 Ss 
le te 
and thus moral philosophy is brought within the reach of 
the mathematician, But there is another test which is, I 
think, even safer than soap, that is, the current literature 
of the nation, and more especially its periodical literature. 
The readers of Reynolds's Weekly Newspaper and the 
Sporting Life diverge so widely from the subscribers to 
NATURE, that their differences almost come within the 
reach of ethnological specification, and I believe that the 
direction of the growth of Young Italy may best be 
determined by watching the progress of its periodical 
and general literature. 
It is a very interesting and promising fact that during 
the last two years the proportion of purely scientific works 
to those of light literature has been greater in Italy than 
in either England, France, or Germany. This refers only 
to original Italian works, and does not include transla- 
tions. The periodicals named at the head of this article 
are good examples of the progress of the highest kind of 
intellectual culture in Italy. The first is published at 
Rome, the second and third at Milan. “The Transac- 
tions of the Pontifical Academy of the New Lynxes ” does 
not belong to Young Italy, as the fasciculi before me are 
for the twenty-second year of the Academy, and the new 
Lynceans claim Pontifical patronage, and announce it in 
their name, which of course is derived from the old clas- 
sical society of the Lynx-eyed Philosophers of the middle 
ages ; a title which, in spite of its fanciful character 
presented one of the earliest formal recognitions of the 
paramount importance of laborious observation, as op- 
posed to the speculative and disputatious spirit of con- 
temporary philosophy.* 
The papers of Father Secchi and Prof. Respighi, on 
their spectroscopic and telescopic observations on the 
sun and stars, occupy a considerable portion of these 
Transactions. Father Secchi’s observations are tolerably 
well known to English readers, but I doubt whether such 
is the case with Respighi’s spectroscopic researches on 
“ Stellar scintillation,” the results of which were stated in 
papers read at the Lyncean meetings of May 10, 1868, and 
February 14,1869. ‘Thesecond papersupplemented the first 
and embraces 720 observations, extending from October 
4 to February 12. The primary results obtained by Prof. 
Respighi were that in the spectrum of a star near the 
horizon, dark lines and bright bands travel along the spec- 
trum, most frequently from the red to the violet, but some- 
times in the contrary direction, and occasionally oscillate 
from one colour to the other. The nearer to the horizon, 
the more distinct and definite are these moving lines and 
bands, and the more slow and regular their movements. 
The bright moving bands are more rare and less regular 
* The original Academia Lincea was founded in Rome by Federigo Cesi, the 
Marchese di Monticelli, in 1603. Cesi was the first president, and Baptista 
Porta the Neapolitan vice-president. Galileo became amember in i611. It 
preceded our Royal Society and the French Academy by about half acentury, 
and combined the functions of these societies with a scheme of philosophical 
brotherhood and affiliated lodges, somewhat resembling the masonic organisa-~ 
tion. Its members were required to be “ philosophers eager for real know- 
ledge, who will give themselves to the study of nature, and especially to ma- 
thematics.” They were to waste no time in “recitations and declamatory 
assemblies,” and to ‘“‘pass over in silence all political controversies and 
quarrels of every kind, and wordy disputes, especially gratuitous ones.” 
They are commended to “‘ Let the first fruits of wisdom be love; and so let 
the Lynceans love each other as if united by the strictest ties, nor suffer any 
interruption of this sincere bend of love and faith, emanating from the source 
of virtue and philosophy,” 
NATURE 


29 

than the dark lines, and are only seen when the star is 
very near the horizon, Further observations brought out 
the law that in the normal condition of the atmosphere 
their motion is from the red to the violet in the spectrum 
of all stars on the west, and from the violet to the red 
when the star is in the east ; while near the meridian, 
whether on the north or south horizon, the motion is 
generally an oscillation from one colour to the other ; and 
sometimes the lines appear stationary, or traverse only a 
portion of the spectrum. In abnormal states of the at- 
mosphere the moving lines are weaker and more irregular 
in form and motion; this is especially the case during 
strong winds, which sometimes reduce the movements on 
the spectrum to mere variations of brilliancy, even in stars 
very near to the horizon. 
Prof. Respighi observes that these appearances are not 
due to an oscillation of the characteristic spectrum of the 
star, and that there is no superposition of its colours due 
to any sensible movement of the image of the star in the 
normal states of the atmosphere, though he does not deny 
that there may be such sensible oscillation and super- 
position, under conditions of abnormal atmospheric dis- 
turbance. He has observed that when the moving lines 
are regular in form and motion, there is usually a con- 
tinuance of fine weather, and that the phenomena of 
scintillation are most marked and decided on those nights 
when there is much humidity in the atmosphere. He 
believes that by careful study of these phenomena the 
spectroscope may become an important meteorological 
instrument. 
It would occupy too much space to follow Prof. 
Respighi through his theoretical reflections on these 
phenomena, which he attributes to irregularities in the 
temperature, and distribution of aqueous vapour, &c., in 
the earth’s atmosphere, and the effects of its rotatory 
movementiwith the earth, which carries it across the direc- 
tion of the radiation of the light from the stars. 
Besides the above-named, there are some very interest- 
ing papers on electro-static induction, and electrical in- 
duction or influence in rarefied gases, by Prof. Volpicelli. 
The four first numbers of the present year of the 
Reports of the Royal Institution of Lombardy are re- 
markably rich in interesting papers, extending over a wide 
range of subjects. Buccellati on Military Punishment, 
Lambrosi on the Italian Races, and Ciavarini on the 
Laws of Human Progress, are the chief essays in the 
Department of the Moral and Political Sciences. In the 
Department of the ‘ Mathematical and Natural Sciences” 
the subjects of the papers are more varied, including, 
Rovida on the Pulse of the Veins, Barbieri on the Utility 
of Statistics of Hernia in Italy, Experimental Researches 
on the Origin of Fibrin, and a new Theory of the Cause of 
the Coagulation of the Blood, by Mantegazza, and Serpieri 
on the Probable Relation between the Luminous Cones 
(fennacch?) of the Solar Corona, and the Positions of the 
Planets. 
The author of this paper supposes that the corona 
is an electrical phenomenon identical with that of our 
terrestrial aurora borealis, that the sun and all the planets 
mutually act and react upon each other inductively ; that 
the cones of rays which stretch out from the corona are 
electrical streamers pointing towards one of the planets ; 
that the curved lines and rays which have been observed 
