Oct. 5, 1871] 
NATURE 
455 

prises before. The present plan is for Don Raymundo Estrella 
and another commissioner to start from the port of Illapani in 
two large canoes, and make their way by the Urubamba to 
Iquitos, which is the Peruvian naval station on the Amazon, 
This is for the purpose of obtaining such a knowledge of the 
rivers as may fit them to serve as pilots to the steamer which is 
to ascend the Ucayale and explore the Urubamba. They are 
to make their way back about thirty leagues from Cuzco.— 
The daily papers of August 29 contain the latest reports from 
Captain Hall and his steamer Po/avis, in the form of a tele- 
graphic despatch from the United States ship Congress, dated at 
St. John’s, Newfoundland, August 28. It will be remembered 
that this vessel was detailed by the Secretary of the Navy to 
carry supplies of provisions and coal to be stored in Greenland 
for the use of the Arctic expedition. She left St. John’s on her 
outward trip on the 3rd of August, reaching Disco on the roth, 
passing hundreds of immense icebergs on the way. The Polaris 
was found at Disco, having reached that place only six days in 
advance, although she started long before the Congress. Captain 
Hall and his party were in good spirits, and sanguine of success. 
The Congress reports that Captain Hall left Disco on the 17th of 
August for the north, where communication with him will, of 
course, be uncertain for some time to come, unless the object of 
the expedition in reaching the north pole can be accomplished in 
time to return during the present year. It is understood that 
instead of going by way of Jones Sound, as was the original in- 
tention, Captain Hall will proceed along the eastern side of 
Smith Sound. By all accounts the water is much more open 
than for many years past, there being comparatively little drift- 
ice to bar progress. To the surprise of the officers of 
the Congress, the summer temperature of Greenland was 
found to be quite elevated, and there was a luxuriant 
vegetation to be seen around the settlement of Disco.— 
The Panama papers speak of the great success which several 
whaling ships are now meeting with in the Bay of Panama, 
quite a number of whales having been killed there every day for 
some time past. Itis stated that at the time the steamship C/i/e 
passed Payta, a school of small whales had been there in such 
abundance that the boats were afraid to leave the harbour.—We 
have already referred to the hydrographical and other explora- 
tions in Alaska by Mr. William H. Dall, under the patronage of 
the Coast Survey; and we now learn that he left San Fran- 
cisco for the northat the end of August, bound direct to Tiuliuk 
Harbour, Oonalaska, there to go into winter-quarters. It was 
his intention, according to his instructions, to make use of every 
favourable opportunity to survey the vicinity of that port, and in 
March to proceed westward, sounding and surveying as far as 
Kamtchatka, and then turning north and eastward to Cape 
Romanzoff, to return to Oonalaska, and thence proceed home- 
ward, The vessel obtained for the expedition, although small, 
is conyeniently adapted for its purpose, and can carry pro- 
visions for six months ; and it is expected that fresh supplies will 
be forwarded from San Francisco in March next. The party, 
besides Mr. Dall, consists of Prof. Harrington, the astronomer, 
Captain W. G. Hall, sailing-master, with two mates and five men, 

ON THE STUDY OF SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS * 
Il. 
WE now come to the second heading of our discourse, viz.,the 
objects and aims of the experimental sciences, and the reason 
why we study them. Now the main object of science is the 
discovery of new truths, and the destruction of oid errors. The 
human mind, much as it loves truth, has in the course of ages 
given birth to an infinite number of fallacies, specially in regard 
to the operations of Nature. Fallacies handed down by tradition ; 
fallacies elaborated in the mind of dreamers, and theorists, and 
believers in magic ; fallacies founded upon inaccurate observation, 
false experiment, perverted reasoning ; these have ever been the 
barriers which have most retarded the progress of true science ; 
and the earlier natural philosophers had to contend against a 
mass of such pre-existent opinion {and superstition. We can 
scarcely realise in the present day the amount of superstition 
which existed among all classes even two hundred years ago, and 
at an earlier period it was far more prevalent. That same Atha- 
nasius Kircher, who was before mentioned as the author of a book 
on light, and who also wrote on magnetism, gives a detailed ac- 
* Conclusion of a Lecture delivered at Marlborough College as an intro- 
tion tothe commencment of Science teaching, by G, F. Rodwell. 

count of an encounter with a dragon in one of the passes of 
the Alps, and illustrates his assertion by an exceedingly bold and 
imaginative woodcut. Metals were believed to be generated in 
the earth by the action of the sun. Gold had a large proportion 
of condensed sunbeams. A mine when exhausted was closed, 
and re-opened after some years in the hope that the metal would 
have been produced in the meanwhile. Many—among them 
Cardanus—believed that metals and minerals possessed a kind of 
life, and that certain changes in them, such as conversion into 
calx, were the result of their death. The air was peopled with 
invisible demons, who wrought all kinds of mischief, raised 
storms and whirlwinds, and warred against the works of man. 
Witches and wizards were in league with them, and could influ- 
ence them, and were hence treated with extreme severity. In 
1487 there was an unusually devastating storm in Switzerland, 
and two old women, who were believed to be witches, were 
arrested on the charge of having caused it. They of course de- 
nied the charge, but during the torment of the rack they con- 
fesssed they had raised the tempest. They were forthwith 
executed—‘‘ Convicta et combusta.” These cases were by no 
means rare. Witches were believed to exist by the hundred and 
thousand, and to produce all kinds of supernatural effects. Pope 
Innocent VIII. issued a manifesto against them in 1488, and 
appointed inquisitors in all countries, armed with powers of ar- 
resting and punishing suspected sorcerors, In Geneva alone, no 
less than 500 persons were bummed in 1515 and 1516. So lateas 
the year 1716, two persons were executed in England for the 
practice of witchcraft. We can understand all this better if we 
bear in mind how much superstition still exists in the 
world. Not to mention those things which appear under 
pseudo-scientific names, we find in many out-of-the-way 
villages, specially in Ireland, a very firm belief among 
the uneducated in the power of charms, and the existence 
of witches. In a village not far removed from the outer 
world, a witch has been pointed out to me, and the laming 
of a horse and other disasters seriously attributed to her charge. 
Gaule, in his ‘‘ Magastromancer,” gives a list of fifty-two forms 
of divination, and he has omitted at least six which are found in 
the works of other writers. Among other forms we have divining 
by ashes, by smoke, by the lees of wine, by cheese, by figs, by 
knives and saws ; you will remember also some of the forms of 
divination practised by the Romans, But perhaps the delusion 
which has most militated against the growth and progress of true 
natural science has been alchemy—a false science which flourished 
for more than 800 years, and which was firmly believed in by 
thousands. The alchemists devoted their lives mainly to the 
search for two palpable impossibilities ; the Elixir Vita, which 
was believed to possess the power of conferring perpetual youth, 
and the Philosopber’s Stone, which was believed to transmute 
everything that it touched into gold. The search for this sub- 
stance, and the endeavours to make it by artificial means, occu- 
pied the attention of many notorious and eminent men. Albertus 
Magnus, who became Bishop of Ratisbon in 1259, and S. 
Thomas Aquinas, were particularly addicted to alchemy and 
magic. We hearmost of their magical powers, although their 
writings on alchemy still remain. Between them they made a 
brazen statue and endowed it with the faculty of speech ; but it 
was so garrulous that one day Thomas Aquinas, who was in 
vain trying to work outa mathematical problem, seized a hammer 
and destroyed it—at least, so say contemporary writers. Albertus 
Magnus once changed a severe winter into a most splendid 
summer within the space of his garden. Detailed accounts exist 
of the transmutation of lead and tin into gold. Raymond 
Lully states in one of his works that he converted 50,000 Ibs. 
weight of quicksilver, lead, and pewter into gold. Pope John 
XXII. was a great alchemist, and had a laboratory at Avignon. 
He wrote a work on the transmutation of metals, and at his death 
left a sum of eighteen millions of florins, the existence of which 
according to contemporary alchemists, proved the possibility of 
transmutation. And thus one might continue to give a long list 
of known men who devoted themselves to these useless pursuits ; 
and the unknown men could be counted by thousands. Here, 
then, we have some of the fallacies which it has been the object 
of science to disprove, and which, so long as they existed in full 
vigour, effectually prevented the progress of science. The dis- 
proval of these could only result in the discovery of new truths. 
There is an intense satisfaction in the discovery of absolute 
truth; truth which stands every opposition, which has been 
weighed in many balances and not found wanting; which has 
been submitted to every process of reasoning and of experiment, 
and has come out uninjured. Taking this discovery of new 
