SUCCESS WITH SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS. 463 



In some experiments which we made last summer, simultaneously 

 with some flashes, we got little sparks from a wire in the air. 



12. So many people suffer so keenly from a kind of nervous 

 alarm during thunderstorms that it is a great pleasure to be able 

 to point out that the danger is vastly overestimated. " Heaven 

 has more thunders to alarm than thunderbolts to punish/ 5 was 

 the old irreverent way of putting it. One who lives to see light- 

 ning need not worry about the results. 



13. The notion that lightning never strikes twice in the same 

 place is erroneous. We have numerous cases disproving this. 



14. If you are near a person who has been struck by lightning, 

 go to work at once to try and restore consciousness. Try to stim- 

 ulate the respiration and circulation, and do not cease in the 

 effort to restore animation for at least one hour. 



SUCCESS WITH SCIENTIFIC AND OTHER MEETINGS. 



By GEORGE ILES. 



^VT~0 tendency of these times is more marked than that toward 

 -L-^l organization. It manifests itself as plainly in scientific 

 inquiry, literary investigation, or the cultivation of art as in the 

 sphere of industry or finance. Let chemistry, folk lore, or mu- 

 sical education engage the minds of a group of people, and forth- 

 with they unite themselves to further the interest they have at 

 heart. The societies thus created have often manifold utility; 

 they provide rallying centers for men and women of kindred 

 aims, whether these aims are of popular acceptance or not; they 

 make possible a co-operation which economizes the labor of obser- 

 vation or research ; they furnish agencies for the spread of infor- 

 mation accessible nowhere else ; in their " proceedings " or " trans- 

 actions" they publish valuable papers which otherwise would 

 never see the light of day, and often these volumes are the sole 

 registry of progress in important branches of inquiry or revolu- 

 tionary reform. The public mind may be profoundly exercised 

 concerning a wrong or a grievance, but its discontent is powerless 

 until, let us say, a Free-trade League is born to serve as a nucleus 

 around which public opinion can crystallize, which will gather 

 and clarify argument to be echoed by a thousand friendly voices, 

 and which will press its fight at every opportunity. Only in this 

 way can an interest which concerns everybody only a little tell in 

 legislation against a much smaller interest which concerns a few 

 plunderers a great deal. 



Of course, the meeting of a league or a society, whatever its 

 objects, is determined in character by that of the organization 



