476 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



deny or disguise the fact that a very serious difficulty must have 

 been created for me by the nature of my tenure. And let it be 

 observed that the temptation, in my case, would have been far 

 slighter than in that of a professor of theology ; whatever bio- 

 logical doctrine I had repudiated, nobody I cared for would have 

 thought the worse of me for so doing. No scientific journals 

 would have howled me down, as the religious newspapers howled 

 down my too honest friend, the late Bishop of Natal ; nor would 

 my colleagues in the Koyal Society have turned their backs upon 

 me, as his episcopal colleagues boycotted him. 



I say these facts are obvious, and that it is wholesome and 

 needful that they should be stated. It is in the interests of the- 

 ology, if it be a science, and it is in the interests of those teachers 

 of theology who desire to be something better than counsel for 

 creeds, that it should be taken to heart. The seeker after theo- 

 logical truth, and that only, will no more suppose that I have 

 insulted him than the prisoner who works in fetters will try to 

 pick a quarrel with me, if I suggest that he would get on better 

 if the fetters were knocked off ; unless, indeed, as it is said does 

 happen in the course of long captivities, that the victim at length 

 ceases to feel the weight of his chains or even takes to hugging 

 them, as if they were honorable ornaments.* — Nineteenth Century. 



■»«»■ 



LIFE IN THE SOLOMON ISLANDS.f 



By C. M. WOODFORD. 



IN October, 1885, I left England with the object of paying a 

 visit to the group of islands known as the " Solomon Islands," 

 for the purpose of making collections of the fauna, and, if pos- 

 sible, penetrating to the mountains of the interior of some of the 

 larger islands, which had not yet been visited by white men. The 

 Solomon Islands are a group lying about five hundred miles to 

 the eastward of New Guinea. They extend for six hundred miles 

 in a northwest and southeast direction, and are situated between 

 the parallels of 5° and 11° south latitude, and the meridians of 154° 

 and 163° east longitude. They were first discovered by Mendana, 

 the Spaniard, in 1567, who gave them the name of the Islands of 

 Solomon, in order that his countrymen, supposing them to be the 



* To-day's " Times " contains a report of a remarkable speech by Prince Bismarck, in 

 which he tells the Reichstag that he has long given up investing in foreign stock, lest 

 so doing should mislead his judgment in his transactions with foreign states. Does this 

 declaration prove that the chancellor accuses himself of being " sordid " and " selfish,' or 

 does it not rather show that, even in dealing with himself, he remains the man of realities ? 



\ From a paper read before the Royal Geographical Society, March 26, 1888. 



