THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS. 601 



every wave in course of formation is composed of portions the 

 speeds of which are greatest toward the top. In a violent wind 

 the acceleration produces on each wave a crest that becomes more 

 and more protuberant, and at length is disintegrated, or breaks. 

 It follows that any agent capable of preventing the washing of 

 the superficial slices over one another will constitute an obstacle 

 to the progressive increase of the living force of the liquid 

 masses. 



Such an agent is found in oil when it covers a sufficient extent 

 of the surface of the sea. By virtue of its specific levity it keeps 

 on the surface and prevents the washing of one layer of water 

 over another. Thus is explained the soothing action, which ap- 

 pears so mysterious at first sight, of oils upon rough seas. Sus- 

 ceptible of being spread out into laminae of the incredible thin- 

 ness of to'oVo-o or ^oovirFo °^ a millimetre, a small quantity of oil 

 is efficacious to cover and prevent overwashing of waves upon a 

 large surface. When this is done, the formation of the crests or 

 breaking waves, so dangerous to ships, can not take place, and 

 the terrible breaker is converted into a harmless swell. 



•»♦» 



THE VALUE OF WITNESS TO THE MIRACULOUS. 



By Prof. T. H. HUXLEY, F. E. S. 



CHARLES, or, more properly, Karl, King of the Franks, con- 

 secrated Roman emperor in St. Peter's, on Christmas day, 

 a. d. 800, and known to posterity as the Great (chiefly by his 

 agglutinative Gallicized denomination of Charlemagne), was a 

 man great in all ways, physically and mentally. Within a couple 

 of centuries after his death Charlemagne became the center of 

 innumerable legends ; and the myth -making process does not 

 seem to have been sensibly interfered with by the existence of 

 sober and truthful histories of the emperor and of the times 

 which immediately preceded and followed his reign, by a con- 

 temporary writer who occupied a high and confidential position 

 in his court, and in that of his successor. This was one Eginhard, 

 or Einhard, who appears to have been born about a. d. 770, and 

 spent his youth at the court, being educated along with Charles's 

 sons. There is excellent contemporary testimony not only to 

 Eginhard's existence, but to his abilities, and to the place which 

 he occupied in the circle of the intimate friends of the great ruler 

 whose life he subsequently wrote. In fact, there is as good evi- 

 dence of Eginhard's existence, of his official position, and of his 

 being the author of the chief works attributed to him, as can rea- 

 sonably be expected in the case of a man who lived more than 



