2 The Work of the Year. 



cultivators of physical science. The majority of results are like 

 grafting's upon old stocks ; if every graft grows with vigour, 

 they must be traced to the root that gives them life, ere we can 

 determine the age and value of the tree. The latest improve- 

 ment in telegraphs may be but a new graft upon the stock 

 planted by Franklin; and in the improved chemical nomen- 

 clature on the basis of the theory of equivalents we must recur 

 mentally to John Dalton, who believed he had attained to the 

 ultimate atomic constitution of matter — doubly unconscious that 

 as his first idea would in time begin to refute itself, yet in doing 

 so it would acquire a practical value to which it is impossible to 

 assign limits. 



We must judge the year 1861 by what it has done to 

 ripen into facts the suggestions of preceding years; we must 

 judge it too by what it has actually added to the cumula- 

 tive power of scientific thought ; we must (if we can) judge it 

 yet further by the nature of the work it has cut out for pos- 

 terity. Divisions of time are altogether artificial, as compared 

 with the activities of the human mind; and therefore, in sketch- 

 ing the history of science during the past year, we are, as 

 it were, cutting out a portion from the woof of the continu- 

 ous fabric which indicates only the nature of the pattern with- 

 out affording any very definite hints of either its beginning 

 or its end. 



Among the astronomical events of last year, the great comet 

 of June and July must have first place. Unlike Donates, which 

 emerged from the depths of space as a mere speck, and rapidly 

 expanded into vast proportions in its speed towards the sun, 

 this, first seen by Mr. Burden, of Clifton, acquired almost 

 immediately its full proportions as a phenomenon in its peri- 

 helion passage, and then dwindled away as it sped into the far 

 and mysterious regions of its aphelion. This comet played the 

 sphynx as imperturbably as its gigantic predecessor. Unlike 

 Donates, which was photographed in seven seconds, it refused 

 to impress its image on the most sensitive plates, and its 

 elements were not correctly determined until after it had 

 vanished from our view. Then it was we found ourselves in 

 possession of two items of possible knowledge in regard to it: 

 first, that it was doubtless identical with the comet of 1684; 

 second, that the earth had passed through its tail, experiencing 

 no other effect than the auroral glare described by Mr. Lowe 

 and Mr. Hind, as characteristic of the atmosphere on the 30th 

 of June. The transit of Mercury on the 13th of November, 

 and the eclipses of the sun and moon in December, were each, 

 of necessity, so imperfectly seen in these islands, that the re- 

 cords of the occurrences have no conspicuous place in the 

 annals of science. Though we must wait till 1865 for an 



