Proceedings of Learned Societies. 475 



are beginning to perceive that, where ignorance rubs against 

 ignorance, dulness is the result. Domestic life without ideas is 

 worse than a bottle with no wine in it. When the actual busi- 

 ness of the day is transacted, ignorant people have nothing to in- 

 terchange, and they suffer the disadvantage of solitary confine- 

 ment in a crowd of the same sort. Quarrelling, under such 

 circumstances, is Nature's effort to break a monotony which 

 their constitution cannot endure. The happy home is the in- 

 telligent one, where each member communicates something to 

 the common stock of thought and knowledge, and where the 

 family does not consist of an ill-assorted aggregation of babies 

 great and small, dependent for their amusement upon some 

 rattle of frivolity, or the chance of a stranger tickling them 

 with a fashionable straw. Of such happy homes there are 

 thousands in our country, and we say of their possessors, 

 " May their tribe increase." To them the capture of an insect, 

 the opening of a flower, the skimming of a pond, or the move- 

 ments of a star, furnishes occupation and delight. Nor are 

 human interests forgotten, because all Nature speaks with a 

 million voices, proclaiming truths which the ignorant do not 

 hear. As a rule, the most cultivated families are the most effi- 

 cient workers in every useful direction. They may not choose 

 to go out of doors for purposes of no worth ; but, by making all 

 with whom they come into contact wiser, they augment the 

 forces which are employed in removing evil, and add to the 

 powers which labour effectively for good- 



PEOCEEDINGS OF LEAENED SOCIETIES. 



BY W. B. TEGETMEIEK. 



CHEMICAL SOCIETY.— May 29. 



Action op Mordants in Dyeing. — On May 29th, several interest- 

 ing papers were read. An elaborate memoir by Mr. W. Crura, " On 

 the Action of Mordants in Dyeing," explained, with much detail, 

 the nature of the union between fabric and dyeing materials. Mr. 

 Crum repudiated the idea that any chemical union took place, 

 but regarded the action in some cases as one of adhesion to an 

 extended surface, in others where the colouring matter (or mordant 

 and colouring matter) is in solution, absorption took place. The 

 structure of the fibre bears out this view, for on examining cotton 

 under the microscope it is seen to be composed of flattened tubes 

 with translucent walls, permeable, no doubt, to fluids. When 

 mordants are used they are often deposited within the fibre, and 



