POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
IN THE WAKE OF THE “ CHALLENGER.” 
By JOHN C. GALTON, M.A. (Oxox), F.L.S. 
PLATE CXXIX. 
“ Sie est die einzige Kiinstlerin : aus dem simpelsten Stoffe za den 
grossten Contrasten ; ohne Schein der Anstrengung zu der grossten Vollen- 
dnng; zur genauesten Bestimtntlie.it immer mit etwas WeicRen iiberzogen, 
.... ilire Werkstatte ist unzuganglich.” 
OCTOR FAUS'TUS, seated among his dusty tomes, his cru- 
cibles, retorts, and limbecks, speaks with becoming reverence 
of the secrets of Nature, which, it appears, he has only attemp- 
ted to induce her to yield up by employment of the art of the 
alchymist ; while his former pupil, the priggish Wagner, flushed 
may be with his success in creating the 44 Homunculus,” treats of 
these same secrets with a somewhat flippant tongue. Nowa- 
days, in these matter-of-fact times, we, but with no diminished 
regard for Nature, gently, but firmly and with confidence, exact 
of her tribute from those of her treasures which she has buried 
fathoms deep, beneath the waves of the ocean, not strictly perhaps 
44 with levers and with screws,” but with dredge, trawl, and 
sounding-lead. 
The first successful attempts to ascertain the nature of the 
sea-bottom and the limit of life at depths greater than 100 
VOL. XV. — NO. LVIII. B 
Goethe, Die Natur , 1780. 
“ Geheimnissvoll am lichten Tag, 
Lasst sich Natur des Schleiers niclit berauben, 
Und was sie deinem Geist niclit offenbaren mag, 
Pas zwingst du ihr nicht ab mit Hebeln und mit Scbrauben.’ , 
Goethe, Faust, ler Theil, 1801. 
11 Was man an der Natur geheimnissvolles pries, 
Das wagen wir yerstandig zu probiren, 
Und was sie sonst organisiren liess, 
Das lassen wir krystallisiren.” 
Goethe, Faust, 2 ter, Theil. 
