444 



Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



" There are occasions in life in which a great mind lives years of rapt 

 enjoyment in a moment. I can fancy the emotions of Galileo, when 

 first raising the newly-constructed telescope to the heavens, he saw ful- 

 filled the grand prophecy of Copernicus, and beheld the planet Venus 

 crescent like the moon. It was such another moment as that when the 

 immortal printers of Mentz and Strasburg received the first copy of the 

 Bible into their hands, the work of their divine art ; like that when Co- 

 lumbus, through the gray dawn of the 12th of October, 1492, (Coper- 

 nicus, at the age of eighteen, was then a student at Cracow), beheld the 

 shores of San Salvador ; like that when the law of gravitation first re- 

 vealed itself to the intellect of Newton ; like that when Franklin saw 

 by the stiffening fibers of the hempen cord of his kite, that he held the 

 lightening in his grasp ; like that when Leverrier received back from Ber- 

 lin the tidings that the predicted planet was found. 



" Yes, noble Galileo, thou art right, JEpur si muove. " It does move." 

 Bigots may make thee recant it ; but it moves, nevertheless. Yes the 

 earth moves, and the planets move, and the mighty waters move, and the 

 great sweeping tides of air move, and the empires of men move, and the 

 world of thought moves, ever onward and upward to higher facts and 

 bolder theories. The Inquisition may seal thy lips, but they can no more 

 stop the progress of the great truth propounded by Copernicus, and de- 

 monstrated by thee, than they can stop the revolving earth. 



" Close now, venerable sage, that sightless, tearful eye ; it has seen what 

 man never before saw — it has seen enough. Hang up that poor little 

 spy-glass — it has done its w r ork. Not Herschell nor Rosse have, com- 

 paratively, done more. Franciscans and Dominicans deride thy discov- 

 eries now ; but the time will come when, from two hundred observatories 

 in Europe and America, the glorious artillery of science shall nightly as- 

 sault the skies : but they shall gain no conquests in those glittering fields 

 before which thine shall be forgotten. Rest in piece, great Columbus of 

 the heavens — like him scorned, persecuted, broken-hearted ! — in other 

 ages, in distant hemispheres, when the votaries of science, with solemn 

 acts of consecration, shall dedicate their stately edifices to the cause of 

 knowledge and truth, thy name shall be mentioned with honor." 



"We give below a list of papers presented to the Association at their 

 meeting. Abstracts are not here published, unless contributed by the 

 authors, as we hold that an author should have the responsibility of pre- 

 senting his own views in a Scientific Journal. 



I. Section of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistrg. 



The Elements of Potential Arithmetic ; by Prof. Benjamin Peirce. 



On the Next Appearance of the Periodical Comet of thirteen years ; by Dr. Peters. 



On Ammonia in the Atmosphere; by E. N. Horsford. 



On a Possible Modification of the methods of ascertaining the density of the 

 earth ; by Stephen Alexander. 



Investigation and Calculation of the results of a general process of causation ; by 

 John Patterson. 



On the Law of Human Mortality ; by C. F. M'Coy. 



Analytical Discussion of the motion of a body under the action of central forces; 

 by Benjamin Peirce. 



On Acoustics as applied to public buildings ; by Prof. Henry. 



Notes on the Progress made in the Coast Survey, in prediction tables for the tide^ 

 &t the Coast of the United States ; by A. D. Bache. 



