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Fune 22,1871 | 
NATURE 
T45 

brotherhood of men of letters; at the best he speaks 
to but a small audience, amuses rarely, excites sometimes 
without intention hopes that are delusive, and requires 
always, in order that he may be fairly understood, a de- 
gree of patience it is vain to expect from the multitude. 
To these difficulties others are added belonging to the 
work he accomplishes. The most original writers on 
science are destroyed constantly by the magnitude and 
overpowering character of the work they have written, and 
by the practical results that spring from the work, In 
other literature the book produced lives as the book, and 
the learner from it, age after age, must go back to the 
fountain head to drink and drink ; in science literature the 
book sinks into the fact it proclaims, and the fact re- 
mains the exclusive master of the field. A> striking 
example of this flashes across my mind at the present 
moment. Every reading man and woman knows that in 
the reign of Queen Elizabeth the book of Shakespeare’s 
plays had its origin, and nearly everyone who has read 
the book (and who has not?) remembers the curious say- 
ing in it, ‘I'll put a girdle round the world in forty 
minutes.’ But how many are there who have read another 
great book of that same reign, entitled ‘De Magnete ;’ or 
are aware that at the time when Shakespeare was writing 
his now-familiar phrases, the author of the book on the 
Magnet, the Queen’s physician, one William Gilbert, when 
his daily toils of waiting upon the sick were over, was 
working with his smith in the laboratory at his furnace, 
needle, and compass, was writing up for the first time the 
word ‘ Electricity,’ and was actually forging the beginnings 
of the very instruments that now, in less than forty 
seconds, put the girdle round the globe? Again, writers 
on science are lost sometimes in the blaze of their own 
success. They raise wonder by what they do, and fall 
beneath it. All knowledge newly born is miracle, but 
by-and-by, as the knowledge becomes familiar, the miracle 
ceases. In this way advances in science become part of 
our lives, while the men who write them down cease tous. 
When the Leyden jar was first described, Europe was 
mentally as well as physically convulsed with the thing ; 
now a Leyden jar is a common object—we all know it; 
but how few know of Mr. Cuneus, who first described this 
instrument of science? The whole civilised world is 
cognisant in this day that communication from one part 
of the world te the -other, by telegraph, is almost 
child’s play; but how many have seen or heard 
of Mr. Cavallo’s original Essay on Electricity as a 
means of communicating intelligence to places distant 
from each other? There is nothing more commonplace, 
in our day, than to know that a living human being can 
be placed in gentle sleep, and, while in blissful oblivion, 
can have performed on him what were once the tortures of 
the surgeon’s art ; but how few have heard or seen Sir 
Humphry Davy’s paperannouncing to mankind this grand 
beneticence! These are some of the difficulties of writers 
on science ; and yet there is another I must name, be it 
ever so lightly. I refer to the desperate struggles of the 
man of science who has nothing but science to carry 
him on in life. None but such as are placed as I am, 
practising as physicians in the metropolis of the world, 
and admitted at the same time, as men of science, 
into some knowledge of the subject upon which I now 
speak, can form a conception of the almost hopelessness 
of the position of the pure scholar of science. On this 
I say no more. I would awaken but not weary your 
sympathy .... muchof the difficulty these writers have 
had to bear I recognise with admiration, as their truest 
glory ; and I see that hope for better worldly prospects is 
near. A profession of science is no doubt organising. 
The world is at last asking men of science to employ 
themselves in teaching the world ; andthe teachers, bend- 
ing to the labour, are, in their turn, willing to suspect that 
they are but as children, or at best youths, in the race 
after knowledge. ‘Thisis most hopeful ; and it is hopeful 


also to find that men who claim to be conservators of a 
knowledge that was matured when science was unborn, 
are listening now to our scholars with an attentive ear, 
and are beginning to accept that the Lord of Nature, 
whether he reveal himself to the ancient law-giver in the 
burning bush that was not consumed, or to the modern 
astronomer in the burning glory of the omnipotent sun, 
is one andthe same Lord. Thus there is hope, I may say 
certainty, in the future for the literature of science ; 
for its poetry, its parables, its facts, nay, even for its 
religion.” 
FEARFUL EARTHQUAKE IN CHINA 
a1, HE American Minister in China, General Lowe, has 
just forwarded to the Secretary of State at Wash- 
ington the following account of the fearful earthquake 
which occurred in the Bathang, in the province of 
Szchuen, on the rith of April, which he has had trans- 
lated from the report of the Chinese Governor General 
of the province in -which it occurred :—* Bathang lies 
on a very elevated spot beyond the province about 200 
miles west of Li-Tang, and about thirty post stations 
from the district town of Ta-tsien, on the high road to 
Thibet. About eleven o’clock on the morning of the 
1th of April, the earth at Bathang trembled so violently 
that the government offices, temples, granaries, stone 
houses, storehouses, and fortifications, with all the 
common dwellings and the temple of Ting-lin, were at 
once overthrown and ruined; the only exception was 
the hall in the temple grounds, called Ta-Chao, which 
stood unharmed in its isolation. A few of the troops and 
people escaped, but most of the inmates were crushed and 
killed under the falling timber and stone. Flames also 
suddenly burst out in four places, which strong winds 
drove about until the heavens were darkened with the 
smoke, and their roaring was mingled with the lamenta- 
tions of the distressed people. On the 16th the flames 
were beaten down, but the rumbling noises were still 
heard under ground like distant thunder, as the earth 
rocked and rolled like a ship ina storm. The multiplied 
miseries of the afflicted inhabitants were increased by a 
thousand fears, but in about ten days matters began to 
grow quiet, and the motion of the earth to cease. The 
grain collector at Bathang says that for several days 
before the earthquake the water had overflowed the dykes, 
but after that the earth cracked in many places, and black, 
foctid water spurted out in a furious manner. If one 
poked the earth the spurting instantly followed, just as is 
the case with the salt wells and fire wells in the eastern 
part of the province ; and this explains how it happened 
that fire followed the earthquake in Bathang. As nearly 
as can be ascertained there were destroyed two large 
temples, the offices of the collector of grain tax, the local 
magistrates’ offices, the Ting-lin temple, and nearly 700 
fathoms of wall around it, and 351 rooms in all inside ; 
six smaller temples, numbering 221 rooms, besides 1849 
rooms and houses of the common people. The number 
of people killed by the crash, including the soldiers, 
was 2,298, among whom were the local magistrate and 
his second in office. The earthquake extended from 
Bathang eastward to Pang-Chahemuth, westward to Nan- 
Tun, on the south to Lintsah-shih, and on the north to 
the salt wells to Atimtoz, a circuit of over 400 miles. 
It occurred simultaneously over the whole of this region. 
In some places steep hills split and sunk into deep 
chasms, in others mounds on level plains became preci- 
pitous cliffs, and the roads and highways were rendered 
impassable by obstructions. The people were beggared 
and scattered like autumn leaves, and this calamity to the 
people of Bathang and the vicinity was really one of the 
most distressing and destructive that has ever occurred 
in China.” 

