1871.] 219 [ Field. 
papers on Optics; 28 on Astronomy ; 10, Pure Mathematics, on Geol- 
ogy ; on Photography ; on Chemistry ; on Natural Philosophy. 
“The Encyclopedia Britannica boasts of excellent articles on Light and 
Sound, and Meteorology, now published separately.”’ 
A Manual of Scientific Enquiry, published by the Admiralty. 
The Philosophical Transactions contain many of his valuable re- 
searches, especially those read before the Royal Society, 19 Nov., 1863, 
which will ever show his energy and perseverance in spite of the infirmi- 
ties of his advancing age. In fact, turn where you may, light, emanating 
from Sir John, seems to cast its beams on almost every department of 
Science. 
It may not be out of place to give an extract from his work ‘‘ Outlines 
of Astronomy,’ a book which fills the student’s mind with enraptured 
interest in the marvels which he reveals in plain and perspicuous lan- 
guage ; for example: 
“There is no Science which, more than Astronomy, draws more largely 
on that intellectual liberality which is ready to adopt whatever is demon- 
strated, or concede whatever is rendered highly probable, however new 
and uncommon the points of view may be, in which objects the most fa- 
miliar may thereby become placed. Almost all the conclusions stand in 
open and striking contradiction with those of superficial and vulgar ob- 
servation, and with what appears to every one until he has understood 
and weighed the proofs to the contrary, the most positive evidence of his 
senses. Thus, the earth on which he stands, and which has served for 
ages as the unshaken foundation of the firmest structures, either of art 
or nature, is divested by the Astronomer, of its attribute of fixity ; and 
conceived by him as turning swiftly on its centre, and at the same time 
moying onwards through space with great rapidity. The sun and the moon, 
which appear, to untaught eyes, round bodies of no very considerable size, 
become enlarged on his imagination into vast globes : the one approach- 
ing in magnitude to the earth itself; the other immensely surpassing it. 
The planets which appear only as stars, somewhat brighter than the rest, 
are to him spacious, elaborate and habitable worlds; several of them 
much greater and far more curiously furnished than the earth he inhabits, 
as there are also others less so; and the stars themselves, properly so- 
called, which to ordinary apprehension present only lucid sparks or 
brilliant atoms, are to him suns of various and transcendent glory, ef- 
fulgent centres of life and light to myriads of unseen worlds. So that, 
when after dilating his thoughts to comprehend the grandeur of those 
ideas his calculations have called up, and exhausting his imagination and 
the powers of his language to devise similes and metaphors illustrative of 
the immensity of the scale on which his universe is constructed, he 
shrinks back to his native sphere; he finds it, in comparison, a mere 
point ; so lost, even in the minute system to which it belongs, as to be 
invisible and unsuspected from some of its principal and remote members.”’ 
Without fatiguing the Society, I think the following paragraph on the 
study of Natural Philosophy, will be its own apology for insertion. 
