June 22, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



301 



to the advance of human culture. The ear, as well as, and even 

 more readily than, the eye, becomes the avenue by which ecstasy is 

 approached ; and the wonderful effects of martial strains, or the 

 deeply touching notes of the human voice, have always been among 

 the poet's favorite themes. Ecstasies of thought, of contempla- 

 tion, are vouchsafed to the few. Kant declared that nothing so 

 filled him with awe as the starry heavens above and the moral law 

 within, thus indicating two approaches to ecstasy. The flights of 

 poetic imagination, creating worlds harmonious and beautiful, are 

 of a kindred nature. The swaying of the masses by the eloquence 

 of a born orator, who forgets himself and his hearers and feels 

 himself inspired for the occasion, is another phase of this same 

 ecstasy. The intoxication of power that so often leads to its abuse, 

 and has given rise to the phrase ' insanity of power,' is again a 

 type of ecstasy. Finally, all those moments of fruitful discovery 

 when the mysteries of nature are glimpsed, a new contribution to 

 human knowledge made, a novel train of thought begun, are mo- 

 ments of creative ecstasy. In every field of human activity there 

 are possibilities of greatness; and all these have a common 

 element, just as the views from all high mountain-peaks present a 

 close similarity. From the study of these ecstasies, we return with 

 a fuller appreciation of their grandeur and their value, with a reali- 

 zation of their dangers when diverted into morbid channels ; we 

 realize, too, what a great 7-ole they have played in human history ; 

 and they suggest that man cannot be more aptly described than by 

 defining him as an inspirable animal. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



D. C. Heath & Co. will publish shortly a translation of Paolo 

 Mantegazza's ' Testa, a Book for Boys.' It is a companion book 

 to De Amicis' 'Cuore.' The translation will be made under the 

 supervision of Prof. L. D. Ventura of Boston, and of the Sauveur 



Summer School of Languages. Cassell & Co. have nearly 



ready a second edition of ' Yachts and Yachting.' The original 

 work consisted of four papers, — ' A History of American Yacht- 

 ing,' by Capt. R. F. Coffin ; ' The Mayflower and Galatea Races of 

 1886,' by C.E.Clay; 'American Steam-Yachting,' by E. S. Jaf- 

 fray ; and ' British Yachting,' by C. J. C. McAllister. These pa- 

 pers had one hundred and ten illustrations by F. S. Cozzens, com- 

 prising pictures of all the famous yachts of recent times. C. E. 

 Clay has now covered the subject from 1886 to date, and Mr. Coz- 

 zens has provided sixteen new cuts. The J. B. Lippincott Com- 

 pany have in press 'An Elementary Treatise on Human Anatomy,' 

 by Joseph Leidy ; 'A Cyclopedia of Diseases of Children,' by Dr. 

 J. M. Keating ; 'Animal Life of the Seashore,' by Angelo Heilprin 

 in the International Scientific Series ; and 'A Popular History of 

 Music,' by James E. Matthew, with one hundred and fifty illustra- 

 tions, consisting of portraits, musical instruments, facsimiles of rare 



and early musical typography, etc. Frederick Warne & Co. 



have in preparation 'A Pictorial Natural History Library,' in three 

 volumes, which will teach with more than a thousand illustrated pic- 

 tures the facts that children devour so greedily. W. B. Clarke 



& Co. (successors to Clarke & Carruth), 340 Washington Street, 

 Boston, will publish shortly 'Among the Theologies," by Hiram 

 Orcutt, LL.D. Ginn & Co. have just ready Benjamin Frank- 

 lin's autobiography, with notes and a continuation of his life, by D. 

 H. Montgomery; 'Topics in Ancient History,' by Miss C. W. 

 Wood of Holyoke Seminary ; 'Arabian Nights,' in their series of 

 Classics for Children ; ' Caesar's Army,' a study of the military art 

 of the Romans in the last days of the Republic, by Harry Pratt 

 Judson of the University of Minnesota ; ' Descriptive Geometry,' 

 by Linus Faunce of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; 

 'Entrance Examination Papers,' compiled by Dr. John S. White 

 of the Berkeley (New York) School ; and questions prepared to 

 accompany Fiske-Irving's ' Washington and His Country,' as a help 



to teachers using this as a text-book of United States history. 



Scribner & Welford have just ready a volume entitled ' Princeto- 

 niana — Charles and A. A. Hodge, with Class and Table Talk of 

 Hodge the Younger,' by a Scottish Princetonian, the Rev. C. A. 

 Salmond, which contains a full biography of Rev. Dr. Charles 

 Hodge (1797-1878), and of his son, the Rev. Dr. A. A. Hodge. 

 Excellent portraits of the two professors, as well as one of Dr. 



McCosh, contribute to the attraction of this volume. They have 

 also just ready a volume on ' Tropical Africa,' by Henry Drum- 

 mond, who gives a remarkably interesting account of his recent 

 travels in Central Africa, with one or two chapters of natural his- 

 tory, and notes regarding the latest phases of the slave-trade and 

 African politics generally. They will shortly issue ' The Letters of 

 Frederica Sophia Wilhelmine, Margravine of Baireuth, and Voltaire.' 



Harper & Brothers published on the 15th inst. ' Stepniak's ' 



last book, ' The Russian Peasantry,' for which it is claimed that it 

 is the most instructive and interesting work that has been produced 

 by this remarkable writer, and is written evidently with self-restraint. 

 They will soon issue in book form the practical house-keeping ar- 

 ticles which have been contributed to Harper's Bazar by Christine 



Terhune Herrick, a daughter of Marion Harland. The Chan- 



tauquan for July gives the location of forty-three summer assem- 

 blies modelled after the original one at Chautauqua, N.Y., and an 

 outline of the work done in each. Of these assemblies, forty-one 

 are located in twenty-one different States and Territories of the 

 United States, one is in Canada, and one in England. The sessions 



vary in length from three days to two months. In John Bogart's 



article on ' Railway Engineering Feats,' in the July Scribner s, will 

 be a full account of life in a pneumatic caisson, far below the sur- 

 face of the water, during the construction of bridge foundations. 



— Nature states that the following were elected foreign mem- 

 bers of the Royal Society on Thursday, May 31: Prof. Edmund 

 Becquerel of Paris, distinguished for his researches on the effects 

 of light on bodies, especially with reference to phosphorescence ; 

 Prof. Hermann Kopp of Heidelberg, for his researches on atomic 

 volumes and boiling-points; Prof. Eduard F. W. Pfliiger of Bonn, 

 for his researches in physiology, especially in relation to irritability 

 of nerves, respiration, and animal heat ; and Prof. Julius Sachs of 

 Wiirzburg, for his researches in botany, especially vegetable physi- 

 ology. 



— A despatch from Brussels dated June 18 states that the Kon- 

 go officials here think that the report received from a messenger 

 from the Aruvimi was due to confusion regarding Ward's journey. 

 Still they are anxious as to Stanley's fate, chiefly because Emin Bey 

 had heard nothing of Ward, and had received almost positive con- 

 firmation of the hostility of tribes between the Aruvimi and Wadelai 

 from officers who had journeyed there. Several Belgian explorers 

 offer to go in search of Stanley, but only by the Kongo route and 

 with a caravan of at most twenty men. 



— The House Committee on Appropriations proposes to reduce 

 the field force of the Coast and Geodetic Survey from sixty-two to. 

 fifty-eight men. 



— The commissioner of fish and fisheries has asked for an ap- 

 propriation of thirteen thousand dollars for the establishment and 

 maintenance of a fish-cultural station, under the United States Fish 

 Commission, in the Ozark region in south-western Missouri. The 

 commissioner says that the neighborhood of Neosho. Newton 

 County, Mo., affords favorable conditions for the establishment of 

 such a station. 



— Mr. William Walter Phelps has introduced into Congress a. 

 bill to purchase from Stephen Vail of Morristown, N.J., the original 

 telegraphic instrument, or recording receiver, invented by his father, 

 Alfred Vail, and used upon the first telegraphic line ever con- 

 structed, — that between Washington and Baltimore, — and to 

 transmit the first message ever sent : " What hath God wrought } " 

 The purchase of this instrument is strongly recommended by the 

 officers of the Smithsonian Institution. The price is ten thousand 

 dollars. 



— In Science oi March 26, 1886, our Vienna correspondent re- 

 ferred to the then newly invented gas-lamp of Dr. Auer of Wels- 

 bach, Austria. The principle of Dr. Auer's lamp is no new one. 

 Every one knows the Drummond light, in which a cylinder of lime 

 is brought to incandescence by a burning mixture of hydrogen and 

 oxygen. But all lights of that character have failed to come into 

 commercial use, because the material to be acted on by the heat 

 has always been present in considerable mass, and has required 

 gas under pressure and a very high temperature to bring the mass. 



