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bound by his burning eloquence. Philosophers, poets, painters, 

 generals, and actors we have by the hundred, all excellent, all 

 celebrated, but not the intellectual giants of a by-gone day. 



The same monotony has now reigned for some years in the 

 scientific world. Past are the days when mankind was awakened 

 and regenerated by such startling inventions as the steam engine 

 and the electric telegraph. Not long ago we had quite a crop of 

 new inventions, such as the telephone, the microphone, and the 

 phonograph ; but these were rather novel applications of well- 

 known principles, than really new dis-^overies, and had been fostered 

 into rapid growth by the warm breath of popular encouragement, 

 and the munificent favour now extended to practical science. 

 The world has at last awakened to the commercial value of 

 scientific attainments, and scientists can no longer complain 

 of any lack of appreciation or reward. But although during the 

 past year science has taken none of the gigantic leaps or bounds 

 which from time to time startle the world, there has been no dearth 

 of the intellectual work now so universally carried on, at the highest 

 pressure, by numberless workers. Experiments, observations, and 

 calculations are being incessantly made, re-made and verified ; one 

 day, doubtless, to be worked up by some master mind into inven- 

 tions which will again electrify mankind. 



Scientific photography especially has made great advances, for, 

 wonderful as it sounds, photographic plates are now rendered so 

 sensitive as to record impressions imperceptible to the human eye ; 

 and experts are enabled to perform the apparently impossible feat 

 of photographing the invisible. A curious instance of this has 

 been recorded in which a child, with an apparently clear com- 

 plexion, was photographed, and the negative showed plainly a 

 number of spots on the face. In ten days afterwards these spots 

 were visible on the child's face as an eruption of small-pox. The 

 same thing was also observed in the case of a child with measles. 

 Messrs. Henry, of the Paris Observatory, have been doing good work 

 there with the large new photographic apparatus, and have suc- 

 ceeded in photographing the group of stars called the Pleiades, show- 

 ing no less than 1421 distinct stars, as well as a spiral nebula never 

 before seen. Absolutely correct photographic maps of the heavens 

 can now be produced showing hundreds of thousands of stars only 

 perceptible with the most powerful instruments, and many others 

 literally invisible to the human eye. Admiral Monchez says in his 

 report : " Astronomers will now be able to leave to their successors 

 not merely fanciful drawings, but the absolute position in the sky 

 of between 20 and 30 millions of stars " The observations taken 

 during the total eclipse of the 29th August last, which was care- 

 fully watched from the West Indies, have not apparently done 



