220 The Scrence of Mnemonics. 
scale of duties meant to protect certain colonies against 
the effect of their ignorance and wastefulness, had the 
effect of lowering the standard of sugar making all through 
the tropics. Instead of trying to make the finest possible 
sugar, the planter tried to make the worst, and the waste- 
ful process that had existed in only a portion of the colonies 
became general. In the meantime the ablest chemists, 
engineers, and agriculturists, were silently studying the 
constitution of the beetroot. Every invention that could 
increase the saccharine yield of the root, facilitate its work- 
ing, and improve the quality of the sugar, was eagerly 
applied ; the yield of sugar from a given quantity of beet- 
root has been doubled in ten years, and white sugar can 
now be made in France at the first operation as cheaply as 
brown. Should such progress induce cane planters to 
despair? On the contrary, it should stimulate them to — 
exertion. Surely if the cane contain twice as much 
saccharine matter as the beet; if it be far more easily 
worked ; if its growth can be more confidently relied on; 
if its molasses be a saleable article, which is not the case 
with the beet surely we say that, far from despair, the feel- 
ing that should animate the planters should be that of hope 
that the proper appliances may yet rescue their industry 
from ruin. Every year that passes shows more indisputably 
the necessity for improving cultivation, for improving 
machinery, and for making the best instead of the worst 
sugar; and if cane planters will take advantage of their 
opportunity, they may yet retrieve their position.— 7vavers's 
Circular. 
THE SCIENCE OF MNEMONICS. 
BY WILLIAM STOKES, 
Teacher of Memory, Royal Polytechnic Institution. 
HE resurrection of arts and sciences would be an 
interesting subject for a scientific essay. Without 
allusion to Mnemonics, such a paper would be incomplete. 
The fact that “whatever man has done man can do” seems 
to have been forgotten in respect to the Art of Memory, 
and century after century reference has been made to the 
