Vintage Science Fiction from Australian Newspapers

Science and Invention Articles from Australian Newspapers

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• The Shower of Leonids in 1899
  Bendigo Advertiser (Vic. : 1855 - 1918), Friday 12 January 1900, page 4 THE SHOWER OF LEONIDS IN 1899. Now that the Leonids liave come and gone, and about which astronomers have agitated themselves so much in recent years-an<l more particularly the year of IS!)!) when we are approaching the richest part of the stream, it will he interesting to knew tho opinion of a great authority on comets and meteors-Mr. W. F. Denning, to whom observers in many parts of the country have transmitted information of the phenomena witnessed during the nights and early morai«»s >f Nov Wiitiiig in "Knowledge," Mr. Denning says:-"On the whole the shower seems to have been decidedly poor, and goes far to prove that the earth has not yet encountered the really dense section of the eometary meteor-stream. It will be remembered that there were live displays ill eaeli of the years 1S56, 1867, and 1868. Tiu? next two years 1900 and 1901 may well bo expected to witness their recurrence. But 1he parent comet of the meteors (Teaapel I.. 18(i0>) passed through its perihelion last spring, and t<he earth mu6t have rccenily travelled through a part of the orbit uracil nearer the comct than the sections it will enC' uuter in tin; next two years. . . . But the weather is in a measure responsible for this, for :it many places the nights lolloping Mill and iotli November were densely overcast. At some stations, however, the sky was partly vicar, and a feiv Leon:is were seen in the moonlight, but only in very moderate numbirs. A brilliant, tisplay, such as that ..{ 1703. 1813, or was entirely wanting. . . . 14-th November, 5" Leonids soon* in three hours-Oxford T'niversiiy Observatory. 1 tth November, about 17h. ti. 181: a.m., .98 meteors seen, including a splendid n'-m-L-onid. at 17h. l.'on., leaving a train visible for five minutes.-Sir Y>\ ,T. Hersehel." Alas! "the most majestic sight which it is given to man to witness"-so said Sir Norman Loekyer ill his circular of fith November on 1 iiis subject-has evaded us. nevertheless there are some among us v-iio vcmemb'r the superb display in 186H. and hero and ther-: one who can recall tl><Mill m ie a.st,)jiish:ijg speeincle presented bv falling Leonids in ISoli.
• The President's Address
  Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 - 1929), Tuesday 5 September 1905, page 7 THE PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. Tho President (Professor E. C. Stirling, C.M.G., M..D.. F.ltS.. F.R.C-S., Consulting Surgeon to the Adelaide Hospital, and Proessor of Phvsiokxrv in the Universitvt rie ivercd the inaugural addrefe, and took for his subject 'Medical science and social problems.' He said:— —Welcome and Thanks.— The first and wry pleasant duty that falls to my lot as President of this consress U to welcome, in the name of the medical profession of South Australia; our brethren from beyond our borders. If these to some extent stall divide m poli'iBillv. yet they form no barrier^ to the confraternization of the members of the groat irmy of medical fcfcncc. whose common object it the relief of suffering, and abolition of disease. On our visitors do we. in this numerically small Stato, very greatly rdy or the success of this* meeting, .which they inve honoured by their presence. Though South Australia cannot, indeed, offer the scenic attractions and advantages of some of the other States, yet we, it* citizens, like to. think that we arc not inferior to our nctighlxuin in the warmth of the personal and social welcome we endeavour to extend tb those who favour us with their too infrequent visits. On such nn occasion as the present we may be relied upon to do our be*t to uphold what- reputation for hospitality we may be thought to possess. May ] also be the month piece of tlie congreaj in welcoming to this meeting all those who, thouch not belonging to the medical profession, yet have shown their interest in our proceedinfH'and in the cuiw we represent by behiK present at a gathering which can scarcely have appealed to them as a recreaHonmry attraction. For my second duty tlie more aiuicnit ta-K presents meu of tcknowledflinK in an adequate manner the XMnpliment which has been conferred upon me by my election to a presidential chair Lhat has been occupied l-y some of the most) dwtingaishod members of the profession in Australasia. I 'lake this carutBt opportunity of expressing my deep appreciation of Lhc highest honour which lie* in the power -f my medical colleague* to bestow on one af their number. May I be found as worthy if their confidence as were those wlio have preceded me in the dignities of 'the position, in tt* dutfo*, and wilj not till my predccesMtrs agree with me if I add in ite greati anxieties and responsibilities? In this particular instance this acknowledgment ahnoMt requires the infusion of an Apology, seeing that I, standing for some vear-- outride the active practice of our |.rofe--*ion, feel myself in some respects unqualified to addrcM my experienced colleagues en many matters which lie nearest to their UwugbU and work. Instruction or inspiration is not in my power to offer, but 1 console myself with the thought that there may perhaps lie some propriety, or even advantage, in an arrangement whereby every now and then the opportunity of speaking ex catbedra should be given to tltofce whose daily work consists in the consideration of the healing art, rather from the point of view of its underlying principles than from that of their adaptation to tl-e requirements of actual practice. —Predecessors in Office.— Thi% your Excellency, ladies, am) gentlemen, is not an ordinary anniversary; I aia glad to think by the faeos I sec before me that thvre are many here this evening wbo need no rcmindimr that the Institution of Intercolonial Medical Congresses, to givo them their original name, was founded in South Australia, and tliat in Adclatdo in' 1SS7 was held the first of the series of meeting! that have continued uninterruptedly ever since to the great benefit of ourselves and, I woukl fain think, of our chIIing. Now, after these evcntfnl years, it returns to as for the second time!. It is pleasant to sec here, older by those eighteen years that have passed siikc he held office, but still in the prime of intellectual life, the first President of the lint congress. So also do we welcome those other past Presidents— Dr. Batcbeior, President of the New Zealand Congress in 1S90; Dr. John Thomson. President of the Queensland Congress in 1800; and Dr. Butler. President of the Tasmanian. and last, meeting in 1002, who in jtheir fwpectwe State* have so worthily upheld the dignity of Iheir country and their profession as to make their example difficult of emulation for their successors. Still with uk aho is the real originator of the system of congresses. Dr. Poulton, the secretary of the first meeting, as he is again of this. Neither has be lost bis superabundant energies of 18 years ago, which, to our f*rent advantage, he now once moro places at our. disposal. And other distincumhed participator!! of the first congress 1 see, now become the Nestors of their profewn'on. whom we gladly welcome to Adelaide for the second time. —Advances of Surgery and Medicine.— How, then, shall I use this, an opportunity that comes once only in a man's lifetime, when be may address not only his oftcembled colleagues, but those now numerous members of the public to whom the widespread dissemination of scientific information has brought some knowledge of the romance of medicine and surgery. On occasions such or these, which serve as milestones in our lives and in our profession, it w a time-honoured custom for him who stands in the position which I liavc the honour to occupy toniglit to review the progress of tliat particular branch of the profession with which bis life's work has been identified. For one whose special interests were for more than a quarter of a century centred in the prac tice and principles of surgery it is a tempting theme to exalt the bom of bJb- calling by dwelling on its phenomenal advance daring a period of which bis own student . day« Jxt the beginning. But that has! been an oft-told dde; it has been told !-y some of those who themselves were in the forefront of that triumphant march which ha* brought tsurgery to * pitch of suoos-jj undreamt of even only half a century iv-'O, and 1 need not repeat H. The thaumaturge proceedings of the operating room iiavc, indeed, ulwuyg ap(icaled to the popular imagination, and their results have become perfectly familiar lo the intelligent public, cither as the outcome of their own personal experiences or of the general spread of information which is one of the characteristics of this age of publicity. Indeed, we know how. cadi remarkable discovery is served uo to us by the daily press on tlie morning following its announcement in tlie country of its origin. The brilliancy of the results of surgery not unfrcqucntly gives rise lo disparaging comparisons between it* progress and t bat of its less spectacular sister— Uic science of medicine. Bat this disparagement is not wholly justified; for medicine, if it has been later than surgery to respond to the vivifying influences of the ancillary sciences, has now at last entered upon an era of remarkable discovery preguant with infinite possibilities for the future. If surgery as a craft has in the period in which ? we hve reached its golden age, it is pos. sible to predict with great assurance that the present century will witness an cqoal if not greater advance on the part ol medicine and its collateral branches. In. deed, as we can plainly see. that advance has now begun. Already the new therepcobcs and tlie new science of preventive medicine have accomplished unexpected results while offering boundless pro-i mue of achievements in the future. About 30 years ago a distinguished Eng.i lish surgeon, a leader of the profession, pave it as bis opinion that operative surgery had nearly, if not quite, reached its ultimate limits, and that certain regions of the body most perforce remain sacred from interference. But a great deal of water has flowed under the bridge since that tune. Surgery has extended its scope Jar beyond what then appeared possible. Almost every organ of the body, including such important structures as the spleen, kidneys, longs, Mver and its appendages, the brain and spinal cord, are now success- 1 fully invaded by the surgeon's knife; some of them arc even entirely removed. I The heart itself, the centre of the circulation, the slightest wound of which was not so long ago thought to be a fatal injury ia not exempt i from interference, for there have been cases in which wounds of this organ have been successfully sewn up. The feasibility has even been seriously considered of reraoving tlie obstruction to the circulation caused by the disease of its valves which, as experimental physiology has shown, need not lie regarded as impracticable. Long lengths, to be measured in feet, are with impunity cut out of the intestines and tlie continuity of tho remainder restored. The stomach— that long-suffering organ than which, as has been well said by a surgical cynic, no ass is more heavy laden— has. by its successful removal, been proved to be one of those usclcs* superfluities of vhich not a few encumber our far from structurally perfect bodies. But it roust be dear that in a finite body there must be some limit to our interference with organs on the adequate integrity of which the maintenance of life depends; nnd. if we have not quite reached those limitations, we can hardly doubt that, so far as actual removal of parts are concerned, there cannot in this respect be many more worlds to conquer for the surgical Alexander. Hut even if this be the case, it is quite possible tliat surgery may be considerably extended on the constructive Ride, so that we may be able to engraft, wholly or in part, complex organs as we do now in our transplantations of skin, l«ne, teeth, and nerve. And, of course, there w still abundant room for improvement in our methods of operation and means of diagnosis. —Importance of Anatomical Knowledge.— May I venture in this connection to enipliasize- the importance of the too-ol'ten neglected minutiae of human anatomy. Now that sumcal interference is piiKncd to the utmost limits of corporeal endurance, and almost every doctor considers himself capable of undertaking the most intricate operations, a refined knowledge of tho smallest structural details of the human body is more than ever imperative. A due regard to those methods of operation which will ensure the least possible distutbancc of parts and the least interference of normal functions may moke all the difference between success and failure. Bat it is astonishing what the human body will endure. On! the little more, snd how much it is. Awl the little tag, «nd what worlds away I' To whom shall this appeal with greater and more painful force than those to whose ''little lew' of knowledge or. of skill, that might, have been the 'little more,' -has cost a human life. But, after all, though I speak as a surgeon proud of my calling, our craft i'm, we must admit, in many of ils proceedings, a rough-andrready sort of business seeking to cut the gordion knot of disease rather than to untie it. Though the surgeon's knife will probably remain the ultima ratio of treatment of many of those injuries, deformities, and accidents to which our body w subject, partly on account of its own inherent ini|-erfections. yet the discoveries of recent years render it permissible, and by. no means visionary, to conceive of more rational and less violent therapeutics than the cutting off or cutting out of diseased organs or taaiuci. Indeed we are, even now, some times alilu to achieve this object by appropriate medication. Better still, tue council of perfection would be to substitute prevention for our cores, for, indeed, there is no reason whv the pruraipjes of the new ocience of preventive medicine diouki not equally be applicable to the suqpcal manifestations of disease. —The Old and the New Medicine.— After king epochs of slow and gradual growth, interrupted by dark ages of stagnation and superstition, both medicine and surgery have, in our own times, witnessed a remarkable and, relatively to post epochs, Midden expansion not only in their methods but in their underlying principles. Between the old and the new medicine there in a difference not merely of degree but, in a great measure, of kind. Wtuit then, we may ask, is the nature of the now influences which, to so. conspicuous a degree and with a potency exceeding that of p-u-t 'forces, have served both as a stimulus to, and as the Iwjbs of, this midden bound of progress. It may not be without some interest even to those outside the profession if we see what answer can be given to this question. In ancient Greece, some time dm/ins the three centuries lhat prc ceded the Christian era. there arose among the physicians of the day a sect who, because they based their practice on experience .done, to the exclusion of genera listlion, reasoning, ami analog}-, termed thempelves .the Empirics, this word being the Anglkwed form of the (.reek word, meaning 'one who is guided by experience.' Another sect, which flourished nt tine wme time, held experience to be \-alnetoss, ami founded it* doctrine exclusively npon reasoning and theory. These styled themselves Methodists, because they bused their practice on a simple method, which we intent call a 'rule of thumb.' To this wet Galen, one of tho greatest names in the early history of medicine, belonged. A third sect availed themselves of both experience and renwrninR. and were called the Dogmatists. Thus, even in these early days, there were schinm in the profession, and it is not surprising to lenrn that hei tween them there was much and bitter controversy. Truly our medical forefather* ; were very human. The Empirics were con. I trovcrmally defeated; the sect died out, '. and lhc name Emoiric, no doubt from its association with what was considered to he a defunct medical heresy, became a term of opprobrium.' which connoted (inackcry. nnd. as applied to medicine, it still rcteins much of its sinister meaains. But if the Empirics as a distinct medical sect died out,, their basic doctrine of practice has survived. For long ages empiricism— wing the term now in its literal and proper sense— bos been one of the principal foundations of our medical practice; to the wfa empiricism of our medical forefathers it has owed much, and we mart admit tliat on a method of sound empiricism successful clinical treatment greatly rests, and must continue to rest, as, indeed, do most of the judgments of our daily lives* And here let me observe that, -when we are apt to decry the manner of practice of our forefathers io the exaltation of our own method*, we should remember tliat it is Iqucstionablo'whcther we of the present day are in all respects the equals, in powers of .assiduous and attentive observation, of ' those (treat masters of the profession who f-r- lone ago preceded, us. Without the multitudinous mcchanica] and other aids to diagnosis that we now possess and that to come extent are substitute* for natural wits, yet these men. by their unaitied power* of observation, were often aide lo form an extraordinarily correct- conception ?of the conditions and course or a disease. Their methods of treatment, indeed, purely empirical though they were, had. in many cases a succees that we have not been abl«: grcatlr to improve upon. So then let u* ever remember when we boast of our modern progress that our prodeeesw* of old were not all ignorant not always wrong in their methods and judgments, and that they have left us a rich legacy of recorded shscrvatious und clinical insight into diskwc tliat stand as on example of bow much ? may lie achieved by the unaided senses and by natural intelligence wisely applied, in I many ways we might well ask for 'the old , paths is the pood way and walk therein.' i Hut .«o long as our practice continued to bo ba-«d only upon empirical methods to the exclusion of rea.--.nud processes which could enable us to recognise the underlying priuriplcs of which the observed £acUj were but i scattered cxprcssionx, fo lone could medi-j cine lay no legitimate claim to come within tin; category of the science*. To the dignity of tluit |KM-ition both medicine and surgery nuiy now, with some justice, lay claim. No longer docs medical practice rest upon a chaotf— an incoherent and unrelated aggregate of observed facts: Xo longer are we satisfied to know that such ami such things are, bjit we have begun to ask the questions why and how they ore, and when we are able to give even, a partial answer to these questions our knowledge ceases to be empirical, and becomes ratiqnal or . scientific, and it is this just in so far as our answers are complete. In other words, medicine no longer content* itself with ibe knowledge, however accurately determined or however often recorded, tliat a disease has such and such a set of symptoms, and that for some unexplained reason guchandsncha treatment is beneficial or detrimental, but it socks to know what are the intimate causes of the perturbed action; why does it arise; why does it run the* definite and constant course which has been observed to characterize it or which distinguishes it from other kinds of perturbed action; and why should a particular kind of treatment be beneficial or the reverse? When we arc able to give the answers to questions of this kind iu a sufficient number of correlated cases we arc able to establish certain laws of disease that embody principles which guide us in our practice, and give to medicine not only rational methods but extend infinitely its scope of action. A koinuI principle, or even a wrong hypothesis that has been rightly; wed, is worth any number of unrelated /acts. 'Felix qui |x-toit rerom cogiioecere' causas' is just ox true for the phynctan as for the phjloaopher; nay, twice lumpy u the former, who can by his knowledge project his own felicity into the bodies and minds of. those unto 'whom he ministers. It is part of the aims of this address to bring before the notice of those to whom the facts may be unfamiliar some conspicuous illustrations of the wide influence that scientific principles have exerted upon medical science; to show that the phenomenal progress' which the last balfccntury has witnessed in various departments of our profession lias been due to the application of these principles, and that what already has been achieved in this direction is only an earnest of further and perhaps greater triumphs in the future. Here, then, is the difference between tlie old and the new medicine. The old based its methods, often we must admit with, great practical success, upon empiricism and irrational hypotheses. The new, while retaining what is good of the old methods, seeks for tlie deeper and the truer insight into tlie bow and the wherefore. —The Germ Theory.— ?. In these days, when- every one is familiar with the extensive rob played by the microscopic organisms which we collectively call germs in the causation and manifestations of disease, it almost requires an apology for alluding (o so well-known a story. But as no more striking example can be mentioned of the fur-reaching influence that may follow the application of a scientific conception, may I be pardoned if I make some brief alluaon to the subject. Nowadays everybody, even that muchtalked-of individual tlie 'man in the street,' is familiar with the fact that the pront successes of surgery have been due to the co-operation of two factors— the use of anaesthetics and the adoption of aseptic and antiseptic procedures. Everybody knows that the object of these latter methods is. in the former case, to exclude from entrance into open wounds and aufe ceptiWc surfaces those noxious vegetable organisms generally found in the neighbourhood of man. which, when they do cuter, ore the ennsea of these local putrefactions and dangerous infections of the system commonly called blood- poisonings. Antiwptis has the less favourable design of destroying the germs if, unfortunately, they should have -.already gained entrance. Not only have these aseptic methods permitted a vastly extended scope of surgical procedures, especially in the abdominal region, but they have alto ted to the practical abolition of those. former scourges of surgical practice, hospital gangrene, pyaemia, septicaemia,., erysipelas, and other forms .of ,.' blood poisoning, secondary hemorrhage, und suchlike nirgical calamities. ..itAnd if puerperal fever and* its allies still, exist moro frequently than they should do it is principally because of the ignorance and want of surgical deanliness,.of those obstetrio anachronisms-rthe amateur. Mrs. Gamps, who so confidently and. so gleefully preside over ibe occasion* whidi ore liable to give rise to this class of complaints. —A Far-reaching Discovery.— Now, for the purposes' of my argument, the point is that all these great results from the me of aseptic methods may, with much truth, be said to have sprung from a single biochemical ' discovery, which, when it was made, liad no connection whatever with medicine or surgery; indeed, it bod reference to tlie very prosaic and apparently remote question of the mnkiiijr of beer. Nevertheless, it. was undoubtedly Pasteur's classical investigations into the causes and conditions of fcrinentatiou which formed tlie immediate starting point, and, indeed, the foundation of the aseptic methods of treatment with which the name of Lister will ever be honourably associated. For, applying the itfintinlm of Pasteur's uiscoverv to sur gery. Lister showed tlpt just as fermentation is caused by the presence and action of certain definite, living, vegetable organisms, so putrefaction in wounds, which is only a special variety of fermentation, is similarly caused by certain other minnte organisms: and ho proved also that the fame land of methods which would prevent the pne process would prevent tho other. Thus the practical question in respect to surgery resolved itself, as we have laid, virtually into methods for the exclusion from wounds of these organisms, or for their destruction should they, hovo gained entrance. No better example could be given of the world of difference that lies between the knowledge of a fact and the knowledge of its cause. Our forefathers were perfectly cognisant, indeed they had disastrous experience, of the broad fact that putrefactive processes were ant to bo 'set up in wounds, but, being ignorant of the cause, they were powerless to avert tlie fatal results. Tlie principles involved in Pasteur's discoveries in the field of fermeutut ion were soon destined to receive a still wider application .for they led to the discovery that many of tne diseases we term infectious were due -to the entrance into, ami operation within, the body -of other orpicisnw of a nature allied to those whieh cause the infection of wounds. And if, still, there are some infectious complaints 1n which the specific germ ha« not yet with certainty been detected -we may be absolutely sure ihat -for every such disease there exists an organic generator; and, further, there even is much to justify the view that other diseases than those now generally classed with the infectious group— such, for instance, as rheumatwm— may be due to similar causation: and need 1 say that we arc ever on the alert to discover a possible {rerm of cunccr? Nor is the knowledge gained from this gcneraluation limited in its application lo man nnd his diseases. It lias been extended to those pestilence* wiiich at times, in certain places and with such fatality, infest the domestic aiuniab; it has been successfully, applied to the improvement of ecoltomic and manufacturing processes; and, in the light of the same knowledge, we have learned the nature of those chemical changes taking place in the soil by whidi it becomes better litU.il for the nutrition of vegetable crops. Tlie formation of nitrates, whidi arc ro valuable as fertilir zcrs, we now know to be due to the action of vegetable organii-ms similar to those which produce disease, and when these arc nLseiit or deficient we can supply them by duett inoculation. How wide then and fur-reaching has been the influence of this oue biochemical discovery of the organic causes of fermentation; and I Ita-ve but I merely touched upon the fringe of an imnicnse subject. Truly the value of a new principle, however limited its application may at firsti appear to be. is incalculable, and the direction which its influence may take unlimited. It is, however, clear tliat these discoveries, great as thev.are, form, hut the introductions of fresh problems. Una great step to liave traced the causation of disease to specific organisms,! which arc tangible entities that may bo seen, isolated, and used as we wiO for the experimental confirmation of our theories. But our canon requires that causation should be -pushed still further back, for there arises the next question— Ii©w and why dp these gams produce their effects? Into this domain of enquiry we have now begun io penetrate. But as these considerations involve questions of somewhat greater complexity I shall most' conveniently bring them under your notice. in a concrete form. And in so doing may 1 seek once more the indulgence of my medical brethren for dealing with matters which to them are so familiar? —Toxins, Antitoxins, and Immunity.— Diphtheria, one of tho oldest known of infectious disorders, is caused by specific b'ving organisms, which, as a rule, gain entrance into the body through the nose or throat. Settling on some part of these regions, they rapidly multiply, and at tho sauie time sccrens a poisonous substance, or toxin. This, entering the circulation, is distributed throughout the body, and poisons the tissues by interfering with the normal processeH by which they maintain their vitality. In short, a contagiitm anima turn frobi without produces a virus Inaniura— a lifeless poison— which docs the mischief within. Now, it is found that if some of this diphtheria toxin, which, up to a certain degree of purity, can be obtained separately by growing the diphtheria germ in suitable culture mediums outside the body, be repeatedly and in successively increasing doses injected into the blood of a horse, this animal becomes so affected that it acquires at length the capacity .of withstanding, without symptoms, a dose of the toxin tliat would, without preliminary treatment, inevitably have killed iU In other words, using the terminolofrv of the day. we ray that the horse has been made immune to this special diphtheria poison. In fchis condition the serujn, or fluid part of the horse's blood, is found tb contain a sulistancc whidi, because it is antidotal to, or capable of neutralizing, diphtheria toxin, is called anti-toxin. And when a suitable dose of this serum, is injected into the blood of a human being it may act either by preventing an attack of diphtheria— that is, it confers immunity in this respect—or, if the disease has not advanced too far. it nets as a curative agent: From this method of treatment arises the term so much in evidence at the present time —scrum therapy— and speaking of this one disease, diphtheria, it may safely lie said tliet by its timely application thousands of lives liavc been raved. Now, It must be umlcnftood that this conclusion as to the antagonism of toxin and antitoxin does not merely rest on the results of triab on the living bodies of man or other animals, but its main, facts are* based securely on experiments in the laboratory, where it can be shown that if the proper proportions of the two. substances are added together in a test tube the mature is harnucss when injected; the poisonous toxin has. in fact, been neur trained by tho antitoxin. The cose of diphtheria presents us with one of ths most satisfactory examples of the remedial application of the antidotal action of antitoxin on a toxin produced by bacterial action. In some other diseases— of which the now comparatively rare disease, tetanus, or lockjaw, may be token as an example— though laboratory experiments justify similar conditions as to the manner of formation and interaction of these antagonistic substances, yet the. application of this kind, of treatment lias not so far yielded such satisfactory results as in the case of diphtheria. For this relative failure we can recognise. reasons which in no way invalidate the general conclusions, but these it. is not necessary to discuss. We find also that the toxins arising from bacterial action are not alone in their power of generating antitoxins, for eadi land of snake powon will similarly produce its antitoxin, which, if it can be applied in time, act« as an efficient antidote; and so will ricin (the poisonous clement of the castor oil bean) and abrin (the active principle of those bright red-and-Wack seeds called crabs' eyes, or jequirity), both these latfbnamed poisons being far more powerful than strychnine. In all these coses the reaction may be demonstrated in the most certain manner in a laboratory experiment, — Ehrlich's Theory.— Considered merely in the light of a sysfa-m nnnlicnble tn the treatment of nar ticular diseases, these facts concerning toxins and antitoxins are of great imporunnce; but of still greater value arc certain underlying' principles which have emerged From some recent investigations on this subject, with which the name of Ehrlidi will ever honourably be associated; although, as in matt other great discoveries, the whole result is not the work of a single mind. The great merit, in this respect, of this distinguished pathologist is that he Iras reduced the interactions of toxins and anti-toxins, both intra vitam and in vitro, to principles of molecular chemistry and of chemical physics. Be has shown that tlie interactions in question are subject,. both qualitatively and quantitatively, to the known laws tliat govern chemical action. We hre not able, it is true, with our pro-, tent knowledge, to symbolize the reactions involved in the form of an equation, for we do not know tbe exact chemical nature of the substances concerned; and, indeed, both toxins and antitoxins have, not yet been isolated, in a pure condition, but wo have evidence that the former,- at least, nnpeara to he related to substances closely resembling products formed in the course of ordinary digestion. Consequently it is not improbable that, notwithstanding their poisonous character, the toxins are subEtanctiK not far removed from those which form the normal food' of the body tissues. Antitoxins arc believed to bdongtoadofcly allied group, tihrlieh's theory further refers the chemical actions involved to tiiosc cells of the bedy on which toxins exert their influence; he shows us how, on grounds finite in harmony with known physiological Liws. tbe formation of antitoxins., depends nn the power possessed by the molecules of. certain susceptible body cells to seize hold of and anchor to themselves tbe circulating toxins, and in so doing tliey arc ittiraulated to an increased activity which causes them to liberate into ? the blood- j btream certain substances which arc, in fact, the antitoxins, and these, meeting the j toxins, combine with them and neutralize; their effects in much the same way. as an alkali can unite with and neutralize an* add. i Thus in the laboratory ' of tbe body are produced the same effects as when two rhcttucal antagonists ore mixed together in n tax tube. —A Central Problem of Physiology.— Great as is the importance of this theory From a therapeutic point of view it has a Ktill wider significance, for it throws light upon one of the central problems of physio. log-% viz., the nature of the cbemkal roc- j chitninm of those normal physiological proL-CHse* by which the living cells of the body, regenerate their substance by incorporating the nutritive materials which form their food, and then ognin. by their activities, break down into watfe material. And the conception has still wider application*, which will be mentioned directly. We have seen that in diphtheria and tetanus Ihe deleterious inlliienec of their organic Eencralor* depends upon the production of toxins, which, indeed, may produce their pffecti quite independently of the actual presence of the germs themselves; bot we ilso know that there is another dass nf diseases in which the effects arc due to ' the actual bodUy presence of the bacteria ' ;md not to toxins, which may be isolated From them. Of such a das are typhoid fever, cholera, plaque, pneumonia, eeptiraemia, and other forms of blood poisoning in which diseases scrum therapy is still on its trial, but so far with lew certain and ntccessful results than in the ewe of djph- 1 thma. In immunMnR an animal against this clan of disenccs ihe object is to de- : velop in it not a serum capable of neutra- 1 liring the toxic product, but one capable of destroying the actual, bring bacterial organmns. 'torn is done by wing for nrawtDuatioo cultures containing the bodies of tbe bacteria themselves, not merely their separated toxins. To toe reactions which take place when these bactericidal sera, as they arc called, are used Ehrlich applies a clicmko-pbvsiological explanation similar to, but more complicated than, that which he given for the relatively simpler affair ;-f toxins and antitoxins, but this again it is not necessary to discuss. By pursuing ihiK line of research it has been found possible to produce iu animal scrums a variety rf thc*e anti-bodies, as they may be called collectively, each oi which bis some specifically destructive action, not unly on such organic cells as ore represented by bacteria but upon other lands of cellular units of complex fluids or organs, well as the red corpusdes of the blood, the cells of the liver, nervous system, and so on; and here can bo seen the ground for the hope, so often expressed but as yet unfulfilled, that by an application of this principle, we may be able to develop a scrum which shall have the property of destroying those cells of which a cancer or other malignant growth is composed, while leaving untouched tbe healthy cells; or if cancer should be proved to be due to a. germ, wo would eeek for a, scrum wliich would destroy either it or its poison. Koch's tuberculin treatment of consumption, the tragedy of the failure of which we so well remember, was one of the many attempts that have been made to treat this disease on the principles we have been discusnnc. Nevertheless, now that we know so well that in this and many other complaints we have to deal, not with a nameless and unknown something, but with definite and s|iecific organisms with whose conditions of existence we are perfectly familiar the hope remains that the defeat in these cases may not be final Indeed, we have good grounds for believing that the organic generator, of every disease once it is known may. be. made to produce its own antidote. This surely is a magnificent conception.—Other —Other Applications of Ehrlich's Theory.— Nor even do the results; of these investigations stop here, {or out of them have. arisen new methods more precise than any others available for the identification of various bacterial species; means more delicate than any other test for detecting the presence of toxins; . a means of diagnosis for typhoid fever: a method for the determination, with extraordinary accuracy, of tbe resemblances ana differences between the blood of various species of animals which is capable of being applied in. Courts of law for the identification of bloodstains. The same methods can be applied also for the purpose of determining the relationships of species and group* of animals by demonstrating tho Fact that 'there has persisted a common ]iroperty in the blood of various groups through tlic countless ages that have elapsed since their evolution from a common auccstor, and tiiiujn. spite of differences of food and habits of life.' lost)}, from an exhaustive study of the phenomena of old age, to which an increasing amount of attention has been paid of recent years, the distinguished physiologist Metchnikoff, wljoee name is o guarantee that lie doe* not speak as a visionary enthusiast and who. himself, lias borne a conspicuous part in the investigations tliat we have just lieen discussing, has 'suggested that it miy be possible to apply the principles of serum therapy to. the arra.t of those senile changes whidi we have been accustomed to believe form tbe inevitable and distressing concomitants .of old age, to the end that we may prolong tbe usual span of life. Bo this as it may, the increasing study do voted to the conditions of old age make it abundantly dear that many of its painful incidents arc of our own making, and, above all others, the deleterious euects of alcoholic excess in bringing about premature senility and decay stand, out in malignant relief.—Vaccination.— —Vaccination.— In these days when tbe questions of serum therapy and immunity loom so large iu the foreground of medical science we may, in tlic light of recent discoveries, recall the epoch-making discovery of vaccination. \ little more than a hundred years ago the Englishman Jeocer recognised, what seems at that time to have been common knowledge on the dairy farms of Gloucestershire, tliat persons who had contracted cowpox— a mild disease— from their, charges did not as a rule afterwards contract the virulent disease small|iox, and vaccination *u the methodised application of these observations. It rests on the basis thai by the introduction of a weakened poison such as thut of cowpox, which is in effect smallppx modified and mitigated by iu inssage through the cow, it. is possible to establish in tbe body of man a certain insusceptibility to,. or tolerance of, the poison of smallpox, so that tlie latter disease .is cither., not coptracted at all, or, tf contracted, it assumes, a milder form. Thus vaccination is but a special application of what we now know to be .a general principle. I. need not dwell on tbe fact that by. the general adoption of vacciuation smallpox, which from the thirteenth century ranked as the most destructive of pestilences, has been, if not completely eradicated, at least greatly mitigated in its prevalence and effects wherever communities have hern willing to avail themselves of tbe protection afforded by the practice. On the other hand, we have had frequently manifested tlie power of mischief that may arise from iu- nesrleet and from a policy of indulgence towards that type of person who calk himself a conscientious objector. You will sea why I have recalled this episode of medical history. It is, of course, because the basic principle of Jcnncr's discovery lias. received such ample confirmation by the recent investigations in serum therapy and immunity. But. we may ask, why did vaccination remnin more than a century as tlie single example of an immunization conferred by this method? The broad idea of establishing artificially an immunity for poisons is itself very old. for. as we learnt in our school days, MiUiridates, King of Ppnlus, in the fear of attempts upon his life by poisons, produced in himself a tolerance of their effects by the habitual and continued taking of them in small dote*. The term Mithridatism, still applied to the tolerance to poisons thus produced, perpctintes the mme of an early practical exponent of artificial immunization. —A Remarkable Conception.— We may, I think, safely say Ibat the reason why vnecinaUon remained for so long as the «ole example of protective inoculation was because it was an empirical discovery in - the sense that no underlying principle Was discerned which would admit of its explanation or its extension to other awes. 1 tie fact of its protective influence mis known, and. indeed, -was so obvious that the practice of vaccination was adopted by most civilized communities, though, let us regretfully admit, with greater thorougbiness by others than by tin countrymen of 'the great Englishman who delised it. but no rational explanation of the cause of- the fact was forthcoming, and this is just what Khrlich's theory attempts to supply. Even if. as L« very probable, it will ultimately be found out not to be correct in all it* details, it may safdy be said that iU fundamental principles will never die, and nothing can' minimise the stimulating influence of this very remarkable conception that Iras radiated in so many diverse direction*. It i». then, not a little remarkable that in these days, when tbe. principle of ?Icnncr's discovery has been so amply vindicated and extended, and when some of its undoubted original dangers have been removed by better method* of application, that we witness a marked tendency to neglect the protection which the world's cxjiericncc tew shown it so conspicuously affords. With, this wide and everwidening, scope : of the prindplcs involved in- the recent theories of immunity .' it is no wonder lhat they ocenpy «o prominent a place Sn modern medidne. Nor, as we have seen, is tlicir application limited to the proccntes of disordered function' with which medical science has to deal, but it extends towards a better understanding of the normal physiological mechanisms of. all living tissues. The-' Illustrate the ..conception that is being to surely borne in upon im (hat medical edence, like biology, of which, indeed, it is but a branch, requires for its duddation the convergence upon it and application to it of fundamental physical and chemical conceptions. No bolter example' could be given of tbe value to sriencc of a. well-ordered imagination and of a good working hypothesis, of how investigations in one field may open up unexpected discoveries in many direction*. Tlic dreams of to-dav become the rcali'fos of tomorrow, and in these theories we have a germinating idea which » destined to grow into a tree of knowledge whose manifold branches will bear abundant fruit. | —Tbe Animal Kingdom in BebiUon to Disease large & the role played in disease by' those minnte vegetable organisms that we collectively call hactcrial germs that we ire apt -to forget that the animal kingdom ulso provides its contingent of dnr.dly enemies to the human body. Putrinc aside those grosser forms of parasitism such as hydaituls, tapeworms, tuid the lik--. whidi ore not as a nde fatal, it is now well krown that in another cla«s of diseases-- infectious but not contagious— fitch m the various forms of malaria, yellow fever, ami oilier*, the exciting -auce is the |-rofcncc in the body of minute organisms wMch belong to the lowest class of animals; and. further, that the transmitters to man of these low organisms are to be sought among otiirr nnd higher orders ot annaaU. lo Ihe diseases particuhrJy mentioned it is now well established that mosquitoes of certain sorts are both tho agents in the transference as well as the necessary hosts in which a part of tbe parasiteV liie's cydc of development taken place Thus the problem of the abolition of these diseases resolves itself into u question of the destruction of the breeding placet of mosquitoes, which task. ap|»arently at first sight so impracticable, bits met with a gratifying success wherever it has been intelligently and persistently undertaken. That terrible complaint, deeping sickness, which devastates a large belt of tropical Africa,. is similarly caused by a minute animal parasite transmitted to man by a tsetse fly: sleeping uckncsj is, m fact, the human form of that deadly complaint known as naqana or fectse fly disease, which* renders large parts of South Africa uninhabitable for the introduced domestic animals. Other forms of the same fatal animal disease ore those known in India as surra, and in North Africa as dourine. The ' agency of animals in respect to the. causation of infectious disease is alto shown in plague,, where there is good reason to believe that raU. and |ierha'ps mice acd fleas, act as carriers to man. We strongly suspect bouse Hies to be agents whereby typhoid fever, cholera, and forms of blood poisoning may be distributed; anthrax and glanders come to us from tlic horse, sheep, and ox; our common tapeworms through the pig and bovine cattle, and tlie familiar friend of man— the don— is. as we liave long known practically the sole source of hydrophobia and hydatidi. From tlie knowledge of these and many other similar facts it has followed, as part of our recent views, tliat medical science refutes more and more to be bound by the rigid limits formerly prescribed for it^ viz, tluit the human body and' its diseases are to be regarded as isolated factors to be considered apart from their organic environment. It has been compelled to recognise, what the zoologist has long recognised, that man is only a unit m the work! of living things interrelated, not only in structure, but in disease, with bis animal and vegetable surroundings. . —A Warning to Australia.— While I speak of this subject perhaps it m not out of place if I litter a word- of senous warning in respect to the danger that now confronts. Australia from tlic caw with which some of these fatal diseases of stock, from which we have hitherto been free, may be introduced into this country. .Occurring all around us—in Soutn America, Africa, Mauritius. India, Manila, and New Guinca-ibcy ore, witii the frequcnt and increasing means of communication, knocking, so to speak, at our very doors. And if ever they or any of them should, through carelessness or misadventure, gain a footing in this land you may depend upon it ihat the result will be a destruction of our flocks and herds that is inconceivable to those unfamiliar with their deadly effects in other countries. Ask of Africa what it has lost from nagana. dounne. rinderpest, and lurse sickness, India, Manntius, and the Philippines from surra South America from mat de caderas, and from the answers let Australia take warning before it is too hie. A few hundreds a year spent now, with intelligent and prudent foresight, in securing the scr» vices of some competent and scientific expert, who lias had large and practical ex. penence of the highly complex and difficult problems which attend the investigation and management of this class of pestilence, might be the means of saving millions of money and untold trouble in the future. —Result; of British Apathy.— All these discoveries then whidi I have mentioned, with their extensive ramifications, constitute great and important advances not only in the wealth of added faefs. but abo, what is dill more important, in the widening of our ideas concerning the nature' of living activities, and those departures Irom the normal we call disease. Ahcady they have profoundly influenced our medical and suiuical theory and practice, while they are full of i»|ic for the future. Together they have led lo the establishment of what is practically a new science— that oi preventive medicine, which, in its turn, lias led io the virtual suppression of some diseases and the mitigation of the effects of others. Were it not for ignorance, apathy, and that selfcomplacency which is so essentially a diaraoteristie of our own British race, tbe results would be still more marked. Indeed, success in this direction has led a cyme to observe that medidne has made prodigious progress in all things except in the treatment of disease, and there is some truth in ihe sarcasm; but if we are not much better ablo to cure diseases, in the full sense of the term, than were onr forefathers we are certainly much better aide to prevent them, and wo may regard tui« as the higher and better function. —Rational Therapeutics.— We have, however, abo learnt that there are other and wiser methods ol treatment than by a multitudinous and often haphazard ppiypharmacy, for we have a much deeper knowledge, to whieh the recent investigations into tbe conditions of immunity bare largely contributed, of bow great, how manifold, ami bow cfTectirc are the natural ' recuperative powers of tbe healthy body, which were long ago recognised in .the. Hippocratic aphorism, vis medieatrix naturae, We have discovered, or, at all events, we better appreciate, tho facts that fresh air, abundant sunlight change of scene and climate, ocd more suitable, dietaries arc in themselves potent Ibsiapeutie agents; and not the least important discovery is the realization that the doctor s best function often is to he nraply the homo minister naturae We have rocccsrfully a|iplicd the actinic ravs of light to obstinate and disfiguring complaints of tbe skin, and we have invoked, with as yet uncertain success, as therapeutic ajients some of those mysterious and potent electrical and radio-active emanations placed at our disposal by the recni extraordinary developments of physical ptiencc, which bid fair io exhaust the Greek alphabet in their provisional no-nen clature. By the reseandies of ths rvnihttic chemitt we are able to tue medicvuents of absolute purity and known chemical composition, instead of crude drugs of vnry:«K ind uncertain content*: while a more cxfer.ded knowledge of molecular ttruclnr.' las directed attention to a possible connection between chemical constitution and physiological action, which must eventually lead to a more accurate and scientific fhtrapeusis. That conunrathely n-ctut development of physico-chemical science known as tbe ionic, dissociation tkcoiy, ivhieh gives us a rational explication, np Lo a certain p tint,' of such intricate li\ ing actions an tlie contwtir n or ordinary muscles and of the rhythmic and ceaseless beat of tbe heart, the traneudations of phy* ; tiol'igkal fluids, snd has i-ven 'oecti applied j to the explanation of that mystery of mys- 1 tcries, the fertilization of the egg cell, in similarly applicable to Uic chemical mechanisms involved in the action of I drugs, ftcrmtcides, and disinfectant*, as! well as to many of the normal activities of the living body. Again we come back to tbe fact that tbe more we loam of living actions the more do we find that they it*/ be referred to the same law-i of physics w chemistry which govern vhc rvmtiou^ oc iuert matter. —Medical Science in Relation to the Community — But whijc we may contemplate with much' Kaiisfuctiou these great advances in modi*, cal science let us not forget tliat the ledger of national life has its other side, which is not so flattering to our pride of progress. The gaunt spectre cancer, with lU allied, molignaut maladies— the opprobrium medidnac— the da-ad of wliich is an added terror to Uic frailties of old «©s, still stalks the land claiming in thousands its victims of unutterable jmin and misery- In spito of all our boasted progress we have not even learned their cause; we do uot know the remedy, save, in m far that all cx|-c-nence tells us, more and more, that early; and complete removal— and the earlier tho tatter— offers a good bone of recovery. 'J o this let all take heed, and they may taka the comfort tlxsy may so sorely need. On this problem of malignant dwease is now, being concentrated, in an organized system, *otnc of the best minds of 4Jte incdicul profession tlmmchout the civilized world, und it, may wdl be hoped-nay, it may be cx-liccted— that its solution, will not long be delayed, U, the glory of medidne and (ho infinite relief of human suffering. Tho great white plague, umsuni|Aion, in spito of our knowledge of its cause and of thu conditions which will bring about it* prevention aud cure, still slay* its myriads, far exceeding those of battle and all otlicc pestilences combined iu tlic most iutcrcst-ng, joyoui, and useful quells of their lives, but it may also be Aid that ir UilierculosM is still pnniagatcd it is not because of tlie failure of science but because of ignorance, apathy, wilful neglect, or, it may be, genuine poverty on the jiort of tiiosc who xtill continue habits and practices rliich are rcspou*ib!c for iu prevalence and xpread. We go into hysterics at the thought of the advent among im of some rare visitant disease nidi as bubonic plague, wnall|-ox, or leprosy; but we complacently tolcrau the continuance in our midst of typho*! fever and diphtheria, which are perfectly prevcntibJe, and whose talo of victims i* for greater than tlitt of the former. We fail to have our diihlren vaednated or to lie oursdves rcvaccinated, by whidi means we might render the community securo against a severe tmiolliiox epidemic, while our UovcrumenU, with all thdr love of compulsory measure*, tolerate Uic neglect, preferring rather, or at leant finding it KoiuetiuivH ncccKKiry. to spend Uiousand* in Uic effort to eradicate what might bo prevented. — niysical Deterioration of Uic llacc.— We sec unmistakable evidence of Uic physical deterioration of tiro race, due, no doubt, it, many co-operative factors into which 1 may not enter except to My that or* contributory cause is the tendency lor . jicuple (o flock to the towuH. where tho mothers of the future jiass the most important periodtof their lives— that of curly, udo]c«ccncu— under the unfavourable or even injurious ruiidiliuiu of crowded ami ill-ventilated working rooms. The cry 'bailc to the land' may have a wider and a deeper significance than the mere desire to fill up Uie blank spaccR on Uie map witU profitable industries. It is rare to mm even a child wiih a sound set of teeth— a defect most frequently due to their neglect, from whk-li arise* many an ailment, Ixiili 4 hen and afterwards; aud Uiere is much truth in Uie observation tliat toolln,K-wd-T may serve as a better national protection, tluin Riinimwdpr. — Survival of Uie RUest.— It cannot aUo be doiuited that Uic propress of medical science lilts beeu a contributory factor in this degeneracy by bringing about thu mving and tlie prolongation of Uic lives of those who are physically or mentally unfitted to lie Uic jiarents of a, hcnlUiy race. This brings us within sight of the eternal disharmony between the tendency of the work of our social, political, and ethical systems of our hospitals, asylums, and Uie like, wliidi arc directed towards a similar end, aiui Uia efforts of unaided Nature 'red in tooth and daw/' whidi. by. Uic diminalion of tin unfit, strives with unceasing purpose only for the improvement of the tarn and the survival and perpetuation oi its lxst. And if lime jiormiltcd it would bo an interesting study to see what an imiwrtanl part hit been played by disrobe in Uie evolution of the human species, and how dvilizeil man -by his migration*, his discuses, and his meddling has dwlurlnil existing harmonies nnd altered, often for Uie worn, tho organic face of the earth. And that the degeneration of whidi 1 have *pokcu in nut merely physical, but cxteud5 nlso to the mental organization, in iJiowii by the striking and progrcmive increase both in the nnmber of tho actually insane, and. in Uie increase of Uiooc nervous complaints of which neurasthenia and the like may be taken uh the tvi**— this phenomenon being apparently characteristic of all highly civilized communities and for which the mental strains and Htre»o* of modern life and ititcm|ierance are bcld to be chiefly responsible. —The Dcdinins Birth Rate.— Correlative with the question of physical deterioration is the uidy fact, for Mme time suspected and recently confirmed by tbe report of a royal ooinmisiou in a neighbouring colrny, tluit tbe decline in tbn birth rate, wl«ch we have lwen accustomed to Uiiiik of as a feature only of tho*! older countries which have had to face the )*vblenis of over-population, lias extended to these sparsely peopled States, and Uiat all classes arc affected, even those who hjta not the burden of want to offer as an excuse. Thus one of Uic conspicuous signs of national decadence is beginning to affect us while we are still a nation in lhc making. And the causes at work, clear and distinct, and for Uic most part disreputable, bring with them the uncomfortable idea of a concomitant general loosening ot' moral fibre which will inevitably radiate its ' maiign influence In other directions. Here at leant is a field in which that derabcratto panacea, compulsory enactment, is~ powers ?? leas. .*,...... -, -OU«* Evils.- ,-£*? ' Closely -connected.' in respect to cause, with the question of physical degeneration is the ? ercessifc mortality ^b£; itofant- fife, for which,; as m the former case, inadequate,and improper fceaing ure more largely rcsnonabie than any other single causi, and t bw, when not due to genuine poverty is attributable^ the lamentable PfcS-£ on *he part cf those who arc moUiers which our vaunted system of education does little to remove. If w« are powerfew to counteract those evil and otherinUuenon- whith underlie the reduction of the rfrth rate it ought, at least not to Ik- an insuperable problem- ami indeed it is our obvious duty to find means for prcscrrinir nwre of 4hose infani* we have, 'llii; hydra-headed monster alcoholic excess still dwcljs with «s briiigirig in his train poverty, crime, cndlcs* social ami domestic misery, and physical nnd mental suffering predisposing to disease, and second only to another cause, abo begotten of human frailty, in bringing about those degenerative changes Vnich Jead to senile decaf and premature old age The solution of the alcohol question would be tbe solution of many an 31 to which weak flesh has made itself tbe heir. We still show little msdom in out dietnrien either in yuaubty or quality. We still continue to 'dig 'our graves with our teeth,' nnd to lav the foundations of disease, among which may be mentioned the prevalent complaint appendicttu. In this rexpect we in Australia should pay more lived to the evin of our exccKdreJy carnivorous diet, to which many -of our ilk may be traced. —The Duty of the People.— Reviewing thcs-c and oilier physical disabiuV .tic* which it is the lot of man to suffer and endure it must in fairness be aunub* ied that the nsponsibility for the existence and continuance °f most of them cannot be laid at the door of medical science. Where this baa been able tb intervene ft ha* done *o with *-me succchs, as witness the nsmlts of preventive medicine. If wo except from the category cancer and some otber dL*ca*e« in which we must regretfully confaw tbe |»rwcnt importsnec of our pn»fewion Hie majority of thews physical ills have now. for the most part, largely become social qticstfoiiJ1. and their solution vfcen the doctor, upealdnjr in the name of science, has pointed out the cause and cure, lies in the individual and collective cf. forts of the people. Tf, owing to ignorance, apathy, or self-indulgence, they still con.Irene to exist, n. is the community, not the * doctor, who is responsible. And it would ?he better if mclcty, instead of blaming -rcience. a* it frequently does, that ?c ian»ot find ways o£ curing disease, set its houso in. order, and, by abstaining from hurtful wave, automatically abolished a vast '.amount of coffering. Sometime* the advice and precepts of science arc wilfully ilLornsurdcd, as in the case of vaccination, ?wlien* the effective remedy is deUlferateiy thrust aside with the approval, or even the insriizntion. of politicians who cure inure fur the votes than for the bodies of their constituents. — How Suffering May be Relieved.— Then think of the enormous smni of human improvement, pbyskal, mental, and moral, ilia'i would accrue to a great mass of the i«oT-k-. if only tlutil one factor in the lire? «tispo'it»on to and causation of disease, in?UiniteraJDce. wore eliminated from tbcftr lives by deliberate voluntary restraint, for I have no belief whatever in the permanent otficacv or benefit of three prohibitive smwurw which are f=o often ndvocated as the only possible (Kinacca. It U stated that iu.-o-Uiir.ii of the Immense national dnnk I.ill is incurred by the working .cLu-ses. Ifow surely, Ilicn, would the 'diversion into healthier channels of money -awd iu this direction bring an automatic xelk'f to tbore who arc most concerned— a iriicf from an uutoM amount of grinding l-ovcrty, flckmsy, and mental and tnoml tKrttrusM. And to a degree much greater than w realized, how very much longer and Jicalthicr Jives we should lend if we refrained from catins so much, so often, and so unwisely. What might be dune towards rthe relief, or even the abolition, of that ecanrgo of homo lite, consumption, if only people would cease from doing those tiling* Avhieh promote its propagation and continuance, and would do tlion; which, tlicy .can be to!d in all honesty, will with ccrtwity prevent iu spread and bring aljoot its cure, itiit how shall we blame the cicncml puWk- for their errors of commission and nmiicion when those who cannot daim the excuse of ignorance, in defiance of rinks that arc not so imaginary as they seem to think, persist in continuing the reprehensible and imanitnry practice of the rtronriovtioas transference t'com mouth to month of an uncleansed communion cup? 1 £n, too. any betterment in respect to the unsatisfactory and unwholesome condition* ?which prevail in councctiqn with physieal 'dcterkimtion. decline of birth rate, infant mortality, and the like, is only to be expected from a rode awakening of the |Hiblie . conscience and the adoption of a sane and rational system of training in those hygienic and physiologic matters which though of fuvh great importance for the varna mind and the sound body, yet arc so inadequately treated or even entirely neglected in our M-stenis of education. The suppression of malaria and yellow fever has become, as we have seen, a question of ' the destruction of the right sorts of mos' qiritor*: plague, largely, of the extermination of rats and of the filth which usually invites their pretence: cholera and typhoid, of pure water and uncontaminnted food. , Hydrophobia was soecdily eradicated in GrcHt Britain by the niudi-nbuscd order for tutitrliniz dopt, and in it hundred different ways the fact is obvious that what .were once considered mcdknl qucsi-tinnx have mnv to a a large extent re.'solved tlicnMclvcit into social problems. — Revival of Quackery and Occultism.— (Whether it is to be considered ns a social failing, or only an amiable foible, it is nevertlieless tn* tluit the boundless cmlulity of mankind u|mn subjoctg connected -ivith morlieine luts from curliest times been & conspicuoas feature in his life, and it is not a little reuuirkable that an age which hus witnessed *o great n growth of scientific precision in our medical methods and concepliouii should lie aLso characterized by .yrevrval of superstition, a belief in occultism and quackery of nil dc.-rintkirid tluit ,woold be worthy of mcdiucvnl times. It is particularly remarkable tliat these liehciu and the luiliits nnd practices begotten of tlicm arc not confined to the ignorant, but prevail notoriously among those u-ho belong to the educated classes. We sec the columns of the press filled with the announccmenti) of clainoyants, iirofessorrt of scunnd sight, pitimists, herbalists of various xwtiooalitns*, ami the more outlandish tbe more sought after, hypnotists, vr-*stal gazer*, faith ocalcrs. and a whole tribe ot a Hfmflar sort, ninny of the dcsignaUoUA being merely cloaks for practices much mxrm than is indicated by tlieir names. We are told that imperfect noses can be ?corrected by absolutely |iainlc*- methods, that double chins, drooping checks, and wrinkles can be removed, and that ruptures cam be cured without operation. There arc ; infallible remedies for cancer, consumption, obesity, baldness, alcoholism, nnrcotnania, and numerous other disease*. Column* are filled with the marvellous and unfailing virtue* of somebody's pills, potions, syrups, and other nostrums, the same article pro.fearing to cure a whole group -of the most diverse complaints, while flamboyant posters portray the features of the eminent tnccialwts who deal in tlicm. There is an abiding faith, chiefly among the more educated, in various routine 'systems of trentanent,' as they arc called, which pom under the names of their exploiters. And have ?we not seen in recent times worthy and oihcrwwc blameless citizens pinning their faith to thccfficucy of au iron riug as a cure for rbcuntathzn, — Christian ScienceOne of the most recent devdopmenU of this revival of superstition is the pscudoTeUgious movement which pones under tbe name of Christian Science, with the ltcv. Jlary Baker Eddy as the chief exponent and apostle. As an example of the fatuous twaddle which passes for Mrs. Eddy's gosjiellct me give you the foUo\rin^ extract, .which is port of on invocation for the cure of cancer of the stomach— one of the most zeal, most objective, and moot distrexring .of comnlaiata:— 'Lord, help us to believe 'that AU Evil is Utterly Unreal; that it is .silly to be side, absurd to be oiling, wicket _to be wailing, atheism and denial of Ijod 'to say I'm sick. Help us to stoutly aJb'rra 'with our hand in \our Hand, with our Eyes fixed upon Thee, that we have no Dy*pcpwn, that we never hail Ujvpepsia, ;tbat we will never have Dyspepsia, that -there is no such thing, that there never xua any Mich thing, there never will be any such thing. Amen.' Surely no liinmbo-iianbo of Haitian Obi-man could be more ridicnlonsly inept; and yet this is the sort of tiling that hog gained the concur; T«nce and approval of many educated people. XcverthclcM, however rc|»eUant we may find the mcUiods and practices of these charlatans, and however silly we may Uiink tiicm, in an age which profcswM to ?k! one of reason and enlightenment, it is Tcr-- evident that they must find their tnn'e profitable, for they continually increase in number, in the voluminoutoiess of ?then- announcements, and, we may add, in the impndencc of their pretensions. True of all times and of all sorts and conditions of men and women, nnd never more true than in this connection the Ifudibrastic distich— rvmhtkss the nleasun; Is as great Of being cheated as to cheat embodies a profound knowledge of human nature, and condenses a practical wisdom which explain* the facile success of many a rogue and charlatan with their confiding dunes. ? —Influence of tbe Mind on the Body.— To our sorrow and discomfiture it. must, liowtvcr. be admitted that we doctors have nil of us. at some time or another, met with cases in which so-and-so's patent pills have cured our patient when precisely the Mine ingredients (for the composition of all of these remedies is no secret) have failed, and do we rot know, all of us at Ica&t who have served our time iu a large hospital, the marvellous efficacy of the local brew of mistura diabolic* concocted .?with quite other object* in view than that of scientific medication? There can be no doubt of the reason of many of these successes, which w. in fact, the principal foundation on which all kinds of quackery is based. It is that the confident assertions and brazen effrontery of the purveyor of the patent medicine has produced an expecteticn of. and a profound belief in. its #nt i. cacy, -which contributory factor* often fail to accompany. the orthodox ?prescription. Tlus statement brings m within1 sight- of the great question of the influence of the mind on the body, a factor curiously enough more recognised by tlic laity than by the incdical profession, not only as manifested in one and the same person, but also as between two different individuals. The potency of this influence everybody freely admits, but few of us :actually take it into serious consideration in our practice. We were never taught anything about it in our medical course, nor do we teach it now, and but little attempt has been made to organize and systematize our scattered hut yet considerable imoss of kuowledgc of the subject. Yet there is no doubt but that the power to utilize, consciously or unconsciously, this mental factor in medicine u tbe real secret of Uk success of many a physician who, except iu this respect, has no better medical equipment than his less successful compeers. Though we ridicule the quality, yet really we all envy the possession of a good bedside manner, which is only one mode of expression for a pleasant and reassuring comportment, and it is just faculties belonging to the same category which account for much of the success of the advertising fraternity. 'Two mighty powers,' says tin: writer of a recent book, 'work for pood in every physician worthy of the name, what he knows, and what he is; but alas, as a role, we only value the former.' This well suggests the too often neglected powers that may lie behind tbe personality of tiie physician. Gradually we arc learning that the abundant faitfi which inspires to noble deeds nnd to the enduring of great sulf-.'ring is a form of mental energy, which may lie diverted into the swelling -therapeutic stream, hut it is a pity thnt the chief exploitation of this |-otcnt force should liave so chiefly fallen into the hands of unscrupulous impostors and charlatans ignorant of all things except the illimitable credulity of human nature. Here tiien is a wide held of investigation for til;- physician of the future from which a rich harvest may lie expected. —Conclusion.— It tins been my endeavour in this address, in which you may well say thnt I liavc vamlcrcd 'from tlic Dan to Dcersheba of medical and »ocioJ science, to present to tip*: who do nut belong to our protessiou t-onie ticcount of its niius and methods, of iU triumphs over physical ills, of its hojieK aiid aspirations for the future, nnd of the vivifyiiig influence of ramc principles of science which have *o gtcatly cotitririutcd to iU ndvnncc. 1 have endeavoured to show that man must be considered only as a unit, in the world of living tilings, closely inter-related by his diseases with his atiinuil and vegetable surroundings, and tluit medical knowledge consequently slaiuls not a|Kirt from, but part of. the great body of urgatiixed sc-iencc; inilted, more and more is it borne iu upon us tint nut only every science, hut also every system of truth, is intimately counectcd with every other. From tuc*c facts _ it arises thai the investigation of an everincreasing number of diseases have virtually rewired themselves iuto problems of notany, zoology, or of physical chemistryWe mh: how wide bus ixH-orae the w»|ie of preventive medicine, aud by a sli$!tt stretch of the imagination we may ahcuv. foresee a hygienic millennium in which alt i&hmhx sluill be abolished, leaving only accidents and tl«c inevitable inciilciiU of old age. Tlic*.? latter, we are ou the one hand, assured by ore of the moil eminent ot living patiioIogisW. might, by appropriate treatment and a better living. l-c pesqwuod (o a (tcriul conJdcrably be-*ond liiut at which we now accept them with what resignation we may command; while, on the other linnd. to those of us who have iwsswl the incridiiin of days it comes as an uncomfortable suggestion from a man ot MNcncc of equal eminence in . another branch of medicine, Lhat an anaesthetic cutinnasia is the most fitting treatment for the sexagenarian. .rur nir part 1 prefer ' to pin my faith to the optimistic new ratlwr than tn the homicidal treatment, and I fancy there arc nwny. similarly conditioned in |Kiint of years, who will liavc tlic same prefercm-e. Then it bun been indicated, very perfunctorily, as 1 am too well aware, that' many of the medical questions relative to disease have ims^cd out of the doninin of medicine and entered that of social nnd r-oliticnl science, in which, again, they arc dqicndeiil upon individual, collective, mid organised elTorts iwientificnlly directed nnd pcrsUtcntiy carrictl out. Had I not outraged your lutienl indulgence by the length of my remarks it would have been interesting and |ioesibly profitable' to examine the extent to which these efforts invc been smtefcsfnl nr. alas, too often nclhcicnt cr even unattcmptcil. Science hnx, I think, shown by its adiievemeiiU and by On enerpies Uiat it may be trusted to continue to do its share in the world's work, but how shall we, in an age distinsni»hc-l by its shams, slioddy, nnd superficialities, inculcate and foster that spirit of jofty imlriotism, self-reliance, wlfrestrnint, supreme dc\otion to duty, and imceasing striving for excellence in aU things undertaken wliich arc the real foundations upon which a nation's greatness rests? It i* well thnt we «houkl realize, before it is too kite, that a nation's pre-eminence deliendrt not alone on tlic extent to which its collective intelligence i* organized and coordinated along the nmny -livcrse |ioths that lend to sucoem. Uut nlso on tlic high sense of duly and Kolf-Kicrilice of iU citizens. And the doctor may perhaps lie forgiven if, in his capacity of a social unit of tlic community, he ventures to my that it i* iiii|MMrsiblc to view without anxiety the prevailing tendency of the day towards the pursuit of pleasure and the decline of high enthusiasms nnd beliefs in ideals. Tn this we mnv see the sacrifice of many thing) (liat hsive nMiic.our countrj' preiit and the presence of iminy that have contributed to the downfall of great nations in the |Ktst. It ix tciiil of n.- with much 'trutli that we arc apt to be in earnest about trifles and to trifle about earnest things, nnd this in day* when, with uncx|icctcd Huddcnnes. our national patrimony— nay, our wry existence as a great nation, may become the stake for wliich we shall contend with, others less self-complacent than ourselves. Mniiy Ic-snns have been taught to a wondering and startled world by the great Manchurian drtma. hut they may all be summed up in the one singularly happy nnd comprehensive appreciation, which we who deal with the lives of men may well take o heart— 'Nothing but tlic best will do.' This, after all. is hut the most modern variant of that venerable exhortation of the Preacher applicable to all men and for all time— 'Whatsoever thy hand findech to do, do it with thy might.'' The delivery of the address was punctuated by approving cheers, and at the close n iicrfect storm of applause broke from all parts of the hall Dr. John Thomson (Brisbane, one of the Vice-PrpsklenU) in moving a vote of thanks to the President, said they had expected an intellectual treat, and their expectations had lieen realized. (Loud cheers.) l*rofciM-r Stirling, in the feast he had put before them, had given them many- dishes of the very highest quality to provide food for their mental digestion and dissimilation. The address had been worthv of the man— the man wiioni the medicnlnrofcwion of Australasia had unanimously selected as .their President; the man who wrote after his name the mystic letters V.RS., which only two other men in Australia conki do, a title which England bestowed upon only her most scientific sons. (Cheers.) The address was worthy of the profession to which it was delivered, and equally worthy of the men of Adelaide, among whom was Dr. Poulton. who, to commemorate the jubilee of the Queen, inauiniratcd the rongrcmes. (Cheers.) His Excellency the Governor, in putting tin: motion, asked that it should be carried with acclamation. The vote of thanks was carried with the audience standing, and Professor Stirling bowed his acknowledgments. On the motion of Dr. Butler, M.L.C. (flobart). a vote of thank* was accorded to His Excellency the Governor. The proceedings d«wd with the National Anthem on the Cousorvatoriuiu organ by Dr. Knnis.
• The Planet of Romance
  Port Fairy Gazette (Vic. : 1890 - 1922), Friday 1 September 1899, page 4 I TIE PLANET OF llOIIANCE. DIARS — HER MOONS AND HER CANALS. AND WHAT THE ASTRONOMERS SAY ABOUT THEM. Mars may well be termed the planet of romance, says Miss Mary Proctor, in the June St. Nicholas, since more romances have been told concerning it than about any other planet in the solar system. In ancient times it was selected as the planet of war on account of its ruddy light, its symbol being the spear and shield of the old Assyrian warriors. But the evil qualities attributed to the ruddy hue of Mars by people believing in planetary influences have long ago been consigned to the realms of romance, and Mars is no longer held accountable for the wars and disasters that take place on planet Earth. Seen through a flue telescope, Mars presents the appearance of a miniature earth, floating over-head, the ruddy markings indicating land, the greenish markings outlining seas and watercourses, while white caps adorn the regions corresponding to the Polar regions on earth. The astronomer, in the quiet and ease of his observatory, can make a study of these regious, which may not as yet have ever been seen by the inhabitants of Mars, because of the dangers which prevent access to them. We may well doubt whether the bravest Martian ever succeeded in reaching either pole of his planet. Yet our eyes have rested on those poiar regions, even on the very poles themselves. In the same way., an observer on Mars might direct a telescope toward those arctic regions of our earth which the most daring of our explorers have in vain attempted to reach. Mars turns around on its axis just as the earth does, except that the day lasts longer than the day on the earth. With the telescope it is possible io follow the hourly changes that take place on Mars, from sunrise to sunset. We can see the mists of morning gradually clearing away, and the gathering of clouds towards evening, probably to pass from the skies at uiglit, leaving the stars to shine with a greater splendor through a rarer atmosphere. Perhaps one or both of the little moons of Mars (for it has two, named Deitnos and Phobos) may be shining in the sky. Deimos rises in the east, like other stars, but the inner moon, Phobos, hurries around Mars three times a day. For this reason, it rises in the west every night, and sets in the east after about live and a half hours. Neither of the moons gives much light, since Phobos supplies only one sixtieth of the amount of light given by our moon, while Deimos gives only one-twelve hundredth. But the smullness of the Martian moons must he taken into consideration, since Phobos is only seven miles in diameter, and Deimos five or six. Continuing our observation of the planet Mars during the daytime, we see in imagination the white shore-line along which the murmuring waves ripple, or dash in breakers against rock and promontory. Clouds form, and rain falls on the surface of Mars, though not on such an extensive scale as here. Nevertheless, during the latter half of October, 1S94, an area muck larger than Europe remained densely ooscurea. un anotner occasion, Sir Norman Lockyer noticed a great mass of clouds spreading over a sea many thousand square miles in extent. As the hours passed away, the clouds slowly dispersed, either melting on account of the sun's heat, or dissolving iu rain. When Lockyer ceased observing for the evening — at about half- past eleven — a large portion of the sea which had been concealed gradually came into view. On this same night, Mr William llutter Dawes, knowu as " the eagle-eyed astronomer, was also studying the planet of war, keeping it well under observation until the " wee, sma' hours," when he made an excellent drawing of the planet. Comparing this with a drawing made an hour earlier by Lockyer, it was seen that the clouds which had concealed the sea during the earlier part of the evening had passed entirely away. Referring these events to Martian time, the cloudy weather ou this occasion apparently occurred iu the forenoon, the midday hour bringing clear weather, which would seem to have lasted till the afternoon was far advanced. Judging from the whitish light which is usually seen all around the plauet's disk, the mornings aud evenings on Mars are misty. In 1877 Schiaparelli observed some peculiar lines on the surface of the planet Mars, and he called them canals. For nine years he was the only astronomer who could see theui ; and when in 1S81 he further announced that the canals had doubled, it wus supposed for a time that the Milanese astronomer was the victim of an illusion. However, since then, | the results of his observations of the canals of Mars have been abundantly confirmed both in Europe and America, especially at the Lick Observatory and the Flagstaff ' Observatory. The observations made by Mr Lowell at the latter observatory, and those already made by Schiaparelli, tend to make us feel very much at home on planet Mars. However, it i3 necessary to state that Mr Lowell's theories are not generally received among astronomers as satisfactorily established at present, but they are well worthy of consideration. The canals are not visible during the winter seasous in Mars ; but as springtime advances they make their appearance as faint, dark lines, growing wider and wider, until they are fifty miles across, and then, by way of variety, they double. In fact, single canals have been known to double themselves, literally at a day's notice, the twin canals running along side by side like railroad tracks; only, in this instance, the railroad tracks are separated by a distance of over two or three hundred miles. Some of the canals extend to a distance varying from three hundred to upwards of four thousand miles, and appear to he as accurately straight as lines can be upon a sphere. The canals seem to meet at a number of small spots or junctions, which have been termed " lakes " by Spbjaparellj, and " oases " by Mr Lowell. These small spots are scattered over the ruddy portion of the planet's surface, forming a curious network with the cauals, the spots at the junction of the caoals being as import ! ant a feature as the canals themselves. Mr Lowell assumes that the region intersected by the canals corresponds to , the desert region on earth, and that the canals were apparently constructed for j the purpose of fertilising this region, and the oases in the midst of the | i wilderness. Therefore, what we see is j not the cannl itself, hut vegetation I along its banks. Yet this does not i account for a canal doubling itself within twenty-four hours ; for, romance as wo may about Mars, we cau scarcely imagine vegetation developing with such amazing rapidity. As the canals widen, the oases do not iticrease in size, hut darken, which would seem to indicate that they become covered with vegetation as the season advances. Mr Lowell also enters into interesting speculations as to tne canais uemg ui artificial formation, ignoring the rather serious difficulty as to the temperature of Mars. He sees evidence of engineering skill in the construction of the canal system, which he attributes to the superior ability of the Martians. Under the circumstances wn can well imagine the (supposed) inhabitants of Mars recognising the necessity of such canals as a protection against the destructive effects of the annual inundations ; hut, several years ago, Mr J. Orr, of the British Astronomical Association, found, on calculation, that i the construction of such canals would require an army of two hundred million men working for a thousand years.
• The Mystery of the Marie Celeste
  Geelong Advertiser (Vic. : 1859 - 1929), Thursday 23 November 1899, page 4 THE MYSTERY OF THE MARIE CELESTE. 0 ' ? I BT DB. ASDBEW" "WHSON. I Did you. ever hear the story of the Maria Celeste, a brig -which sailed from Boston in the sixties, bound for Mediterranean ports with a general cargo of merchandise? No. "Well, yon shall hear it as I heard it told the other night by a friend oyer a pipe and something else which cheers the heart of; mail. X shall tellyoa_the story as it was told to me, a plain unvarnished tale, the details of which are writ large in the. records of the American Poreign Office, or -whatever -bureau in "Washington corresponds to our own department at home that looks after the affairs of other folks; This is no mere myth or fiction of the sea", bnt a sober tale of fact, and when X have told the story-I hope I shall" relate it circumspectly-ay readers will have presented to them as pretty a puzzle as ever was Betbefore the niind of man to solve. - So far as I know, it has never been solved yel. The Marie Celeste set sail from Boston | with a crew of seventeen hands, the -captain, his wife, and His little daughter, twenty souls all told. Nothing, as far as we know, occurred on tha voyage across the Atlantic other than the routine life of a trading brig at sea.: But one fine day the brig came within hail of the Spanish coast. She was heading - probably for Gibraltar on her way to enter the great inland sea. All her Bails -were set. The weather was fine, the sea calm, and a light wind bore the vessel along. Duly tha Spanish authorities hailed the brig, without receiving any answer to thsir signals. Then came a visit of inspection, by the coastguard I "presume, ana. an astonishing -state " of things revealed itself. Not a soul of the twenty persons who set sail from Boston in the brig was found on board. Every man had disappeared, - from the captain to the boy, and - the captain's wife and child were also as if they had never been. The vessel was minutely and carefully examined. There was- an inspection bj the American Consul; there was a business-like noting of all details ; and a report was duly prepared for the authorities on the other side of the sea. ' Listen to the astounding particulars which an examination of the brig revealed. Not a rope or stay, not a sail was inj ured or a bolt missing. Everything from truck to keel was in its proper place. The brig's boats-note this fact, please, were all on board slung on ihoir davits or stowed on deck. Below, everything was in the same undisturbed state. The watches of the captain and Mb wife hung oil nails in the cabin. In the men's quarters, as in the cabin-another fact to be noted-there "were the remains of halfeaten dinners, cooked apparently no long time before the brig drifted towards the Spanish coast. Below and aloft all was silence-a ghastly, significant silence, appalling by reason of its inexplicable nature, and causing the faces of the searchers to pale before the mysterious possibilities which offered as solutions of the grim deadnes3 of the ship. Sinca the day when the Marie Celeste drifted on hsr- course to the European shores not a trace of any one of the twenty souls has been discovered. Needless to say, strict 'inquiries were made both in America and in Europe concerning cap*tain and crew. Every bailors' Home was notified of the story of the brig, in case some derelict Eeamcn should have come to a restful haven therein. The names and nationalities of the crew were known. I believe they inoluded Americans, Danes, Norwegians, and men of other nations in their numbers. But not a scrap of intelligence, not a wave-washed bottle with a message in it, not even a dead body, ever came to light which could suggest a solution of this horrible mystery. - Suppose we set our wits agoing on the problem of the Marie Celeste, what explanations are possible or likely to merit attention ? Pirates and a wholesale slaughter of the crew by ordinary murder or by walking the plank? Nonsense. Piracy was no more common in the Atlantic in the 'sixties than it is now, and pirates do not attack a ship merely for the sake of murdering ihe crew or without looting the vessel and sinking her, and a piratical attack surely would have left traces of a struggle on the deck. The pirato idea clearly will not hold water at all. A storm which swept everybody away f Equally untenable ah a theory; for storms there were none at the time the brig drifted eastward, end storms leave traces of damage such as were absent in a vesssl with all sails set and not a rope or bolt missing. Some calamity in the way of illness, you suggest. ?'Well, where were the bodies ? And if, mayhap, yoii main* tain that the last survivor Ditched hi3 dead friends into the sea and then drowned himself, you have first to find that mysterious epidemic, end to regard it as very unlikely that any disease should attack a whole crew rapidly and instantly, *o as to cut them off in a few hours' time. Don't forget the half-eaten dinners, for that fact proves that within a short distance of the land thecrew were practically at rest, undisturbed by any omen of approaching calamity; and no' disease I know of save, perhaps, cholera of malignant type oan kill people in a few hours. Besides, you must have infection, and whence did the pestilent microbes oome to the brig ? Sudden insanity on the part of one of the erew, leading to homicidal slaying of the others * "Well, if you elect to believe that theory, you may. I don't, for the plain reason that seventeen men could surely have overpowered one. The insanity idea will not work. It does not explain the facts as a true theory should, and a truo theory should explain them and b» contradicted by nane. Have I any suggestion to make. I have, though I offer it in all modesty, seeing that, if my information is correct, American scientists were consulted re garding the possibilities of catastrophes arising from tha denizens of the sea themselves, and rejected the idea. But we know more about certain sea monsters in this j'Par of grace than they did in the 'sixties,and my explanation of the mystery .of the Marie Celeste is that which -attri^ butes the disappearance of the crew to the attack of a huge octopus, or ~ devil-* fish, or some other member of the cuttle» fish group. 1st me picture what I think may have happened. There is a . man at the wheel. Ail the others are below at mess. A huge octopus arises from, the deep, and with a wave of its suckerstudded arm's, encircl«3 the steersman. He yells for help. Everybody rushes on deck. Then up sweep the other arms of the monster, and one by one, or en mass* the whole are included in the tenacious grasp of the sea-devil. They - are swept over the side and perish. There is.no damage done to the veisel,and the octopus leaves no trace of its attack as it sinks itself, a loathsome, mass of flesh and muscle, into the ocean abyss. If we find squids, which are cousins of tno octopus" forty and fifty long, if octopi abound in Southern seas with'bodies as big as vats and anus .twenty'- foot in length-these things we know we may go farther and fare worse in our attempt to explain- this mystery of the deep.
• Submarine Mines
  West Gippsland Gazette (Warragul, Vic. : 1898 - 1930), Tuesday 16 August 1898, page 6 SUBVMARINE MINEvS. WHAT COUNTER-MINING MEANS. JIETHODS DESCPIBm). A SUBIIARINE BOAT. Mr ft. G. Skerett Twrites to an American paper as follows:Aside from the navigable or autornobile torpedo, the passive torpedoes or mines that guard the entrance of ports against unwelcome visitors are the most dreaded of all present perfected miens of subaquatic warfare. .There are two kinds of mines used generally for this purpose, and they are, first, the ,Iser-vation mine, which is exploded by an observer when he sees that the foe's vessel is over that threatening mass of ,00 pounds of gun-cotton; and second, the electro-contact mine, which, containing about seventy-pounds of the sante explosuve, bursts when touching tlre bottom of -an enemy's craft, and, because of actual contact, needs a smaller charge to accomplish its dread purios,. This electro-contact mine is r'e'ally the most dangerous to cope with, for but a slight tilting causes the electrie circuit to be fired. A sudden jerk lupon its cable might work that havoc. That Spain has blocked the passes to her Cuban and Porto Rico ports in this manner we already know by one frightful example: and the question now is, "flow shall we protect ourselves from subIimarine attack even after the heavy guns of her batteries are silenced and the paths seem free for the safe entrance of our victorious vessels?" COUNTER MINING. Witit us, the work of laying or planting defensive mine fields falls to the army, and upon the navy of a foe is placed the very questionable distinction of destroying them. Captain-General Bllanco has planted some fateful fields, and upon our navy will lie the lburtdent of evading the harvest by skilful countermining. Briefly. "countermininri con-ists in the destructiorn of an enemy's rine-, tired by laying across that ieldl other mines,. which, by intentiornal explosion. destroy the mines plantedl by ithe foe. There are several n ays of accomnplishirng the same end, and it is thIe Ipurpose of this article to suggest onte whichl native skill has mnade thoroughly practicable and. unprecedetitly saf".A A LTNE OF COUNTERMINES. .\At ordlinary line of countermines consitis of ten or a dozen 500-pound mines of the obs: rvation type. These mines or,- fastened at Intervals of about ISO feet -apart to a long electric cable, and eachl mine has a branch cable of perhaps or CI' feet--d-ependinrg, of course, upon 1the1 deptlh of water in which they are to --li-rate. Th se minres are secured to one Sf i hit heavy launches or cutters. the sinkirs. cables, and buoys being so arrang1 ito drop overboard at the propir time 1., ing lash-ld in place only by light rope ya rtt which is intended to part at tlhe trim-nt -tra:in is brought to bear. The linews. i.,-.. tie iparts containing the detr:natinrg c,-arae. are turned towards the stern :,f tin- hlnt. where they will be ilast exl-psedI to ithe tire of the enemny's iI iii ir- guns---tlhe ones usually rele,itted tI tl- ,irotecti-in of mine fields, arn th.l- inns still likely to be available for sir- h di-f-ni- i tven after the heavy gunlls arii siltnrh it. 'I'hre art- thre-e buoys -t:.nhed to -*.It line If erutntertnines, on.- :it eai-ch e-d:l tnt -ir,- in the middle, -t-Ih r- -a m- lis-attire' f-rom the mines, and tiny .-r:r," ehtr-,-l with tihbsphlide of calCillr for ni;ht aork. wanter igniiting Itb-rin. Tlit-ir i urto Is is to mark the liie .if tnt pla:rntetl mintis andt the channti1l abroush t piitii tIhe cournterminrng b~:t can reeIni it aft r- tihe explosion. After the miini's are pilanted they are exIilodil.d try trhe joint action of the officer in cinurge of thie cable end on shipboard iir on tn.- battery tieat anti the officer at tihe othert ernr in the tub-boat rowing the cutter fiull Of minIs. They complete atn -lectrtie irc- it. \tOiEt OF TI-IE DETAIL. h'l-I cutter ibeing ready. the 510e:111 Intnch start-s off with thie tmirne bort anrri tvi hatter} b::t in trjw. 1'r-arhal-s ti1: en-mr s scrarch-lights are sweepint titi minte field and the :lapproaches to it. anti everything [iust ibe done it) keept it the shot;:ens.md to ce al as nlear as ipos ible to tnl t goat lieforei crowding on sIt-red. Thrn evryi iting depencds upotirn tle o -lcrite anti coitte ss of tIire op- :rtoris. Itn the- f ele. rhatps. if scatti triing tir: andi drit irg bullets frtomt tic- ,rick-lirling inlet-s. tt the titm launch Sr c-ps learrssly foirwa: it in t pr--ar-trang-d directilon. Tihe Attvry boatt tiltois astern rttrln ahrinlors, wirile oltilg its er olf t- tnInto. Orn 5te:ttm5 tlte cittttr. A few itt meits later- a tug n h- thein fr-oin the hattery btalt crlta-ises the litfst of thrnitint's. tail iivcr-biirt ii inr-5--Aia in, ril ainnderr. d inlrmrlg it tr is lipos. till all tt-n or ailtiint-n Ira e- br-Oi titroppt-i ov-romrdthe att tiretini buoys ittrltz with thin-t torcs of nfsnutterinrg tight anrt ir-cket frorti the tw twroat lell -mf its rcatlirln55. Then tine il-ing tts bltttertsarc joined trp. A Si i-ind rocket, rirr thre OttO it is rlosetiStd tltt sirtimtltanonufl-s r-essing of the keys it toth enrs. ltr tr- triefest frnctitn of a morm-en-r there is att expetanitl Iut. their fn-rom the depths butst great tnasses of lunrinnirus, thund-ring clumrns of water wilt all the frightful dettniton of pierhapri three tons of gun-crttonrur mines ant tlit enemy's as welt. If still allest atri unhalred by the fra-'s guns, lire ste.untaurtit turns tack through thr yet rgitated channel-waiy rind sutoeds ottn u--art thc- btintery boni, anti tire sheltering lht-hoc of tire ship beyond. GOOD. COOL 111EN. No one need be in tire counternminittg launelt, for thne mines nt-c arrangid to drop oiverhoard automaticrtily by tire strain upon the table at intrer-als; hut good, cootlatr men ust tie in the atter-y boat and the stenam cutter slpeeding on itt the face of threatening destruction and the sinking of that cutter means certain failure to the expedition. That Mlorro Castle Iras powerful seare-hlights we already know; and it is an easy thing. to mount easily rnai in a short while enough r::rpid lit-guns to sweep with dangerous frequtency the narrow cntrance into H2avana harbor. So eoUfn- ermining in the way described 'Aould itarily lt iealtthfutil r successful. [ ; otly other t Nel - oin mn thitl of tta-kivin afn tnemy's nmiies is byv "creridfn;, 1^, und i*,: ,bj'ect is to catch the cir - itic cati,!cs running t: the mines. ianl. by utting the-n, pire ernt the foe's ctntlrol of them. TTi is s done by towing two g'ajnee. - one containig an Spilsivx charge of sometlhing over two teols of guIn-cotton and the other a yim '' -ianel coming on behind at a -isc n e of thlirty or forty feet. The exhegi rapntl first picks up the cable, ir~. n; a tug is felt upon the grapnel li,-e t ! charge is exploded electrically. I-is miay not completely sever the (ilei'. so the other grapnnel picks up the r iir yý d cable and the whole thing. is Iullid up to the boat and either severed or underrun till a junction box of serer-] mines is reaclihed, and the whole lot ;:-Ploded at will. To meet this possiUnlity. it is a common thing to plant ti:ntaty mines and dead cables to deeii ran enemy. and it is quite common to screw the neighboring bottom with chain and steel rope to catch the enermy's creeps, and false buoys are always plna"ed so that they may purposely misle:nd a countermining attack. THIE SU-iBMARINE BOAT. Ag;in, the approaches to either Havxntt. or Matanzas are too .well gualrded to inmaie either ordinary countermining ior creeping reasonably safe or successful. andi tlhere is oiut little chance. indetld. of minies being found near enough to rho surface to he destroyed by the shell attack or the fire from machine guns. TWhether or not the Vesuvius could accompllsh that end at long range :i :nltetr for soeculation, but there - nr d1uht whaitever that it thi lake ti t atrinE boat rot Argonaut we have a _ i et:m practicable means of reaching dti Sounis-h mines, and that without uspicaien of her presence. WHAT SI-HE IS. The Argonaut is a cigar-shaped structure of steel, thirty-six feet long and gith aL greatest diameter of nine feet.It has a total weight or displacmnent, when submerged, of nearly sixty tons, and is anmply stout enough to resist the pressure of water at a depth of 150 feet. The body of the boat is divided into three principal compartments-the largest one, which occupies about twothirds of the length of the craft, contains the propelling engines, the air and water pumps, and the dynamo. The forward compartment is the pilot house, so to speak, and the compartment immediately next and aft is the air-lock and diver's room. From this room the diver can pass through a manhole in the - floor and out upon the bottom of the sea. To accomplish this the airlock is closed to the other parts of the boat, the pilot being shut up in his compartment, and the rest of the force being confined to the great chamber DIVER PASSES OUT. The diver and his attendant now turn on the air from the reservoir, and allow it to gather pressure in the air-lock till that pressure exactly equals that of the water outside. This is determined by a small cock In the manhole plate, which, If it does not admit water when turned on in connection with the water outside. indicates that the balance of pressure has been attained. Then the manhole plate is dropped, and,. upon the ladderlike rungs fastened to it, the diver passes right out into the water about the craft-the water stopping at the threshold of the compartment as though bidden to halt by some supreme power. With the glow of the searchlight at the bow and the small lamp borne in his own suit, he is able to see for a considerable distance about him, and. being in constant telephonic communication with the pilot, he is able to direct the movement of the boat. Once In touch with the cables of the mines-and he can readily distinguish the dummy from the real thing-it is an easy thing either to sever them or to connect them with a battery on board the boat, and then, when at a safe distance, fire them at will. The Argonaut is propelled along the surface by a gasoline engine, and when going along on the bottom by storage batteries charged by the gasoline engine. When not submerged. air Is taken In from without, either through the dome on toll or through a hose leading to a small float. WVhen submerged, the air supply will come down through the hose to the float, and an ingenious arrangement prevents the admission of water, should the tioat be sunk or flooded. The air tanks are charged to a high pressure, and air enough is carried in them to supply a cevw of four or six persons for quite two days. THE VESSEL RFEADY. In practical hands wonders could be accomplished with this little vessel, and Mr Lake is thoroughly fitted to clear the harbor of Havana or any other place of torpedoes, and to do It with that guarantee of thosoughness and immunity impossible to any other existing vessel, or by any other conventiondl means of countermnninng. It is not a long trip front Baltimore, where the little craft now Is, to the Cuban coast, and it would not be a difficult task to tow her there at a good, round speed, and to have her ready to do her service in a few days, her work to be well-done when the Spaniards again press those fateful keys only to find them responseless. The remarkable thing is that, although the above was written weeks ago. the Argonaut has not apparently yet figtred in the warlike operations.
• Squeezing the Heart
  Evening Journal (Adelaide, SA : 1869 - 1912), Saturday 6 October 1906, page 5 SQUEEZING THE HEART When a patient collapses while under chloroform, and all other methods of restoration fail, heart manipulation is occasionally tried. A case in which this rhre operation was resorted to came before the fcouthwai-k Coroner recently. The patent a youth, exhibiting signs of heart failure during an operation at Guy's Hospital, an incision was made, and the heart was manipulated by the surgeon." Unfortunately, this failed to renew the heart's action A distinguished surgeon said to a Daily Mail representative:—"This manipulation i= a very last resort after the electric batterv artificial respiration have faOedTamt J, patie n £ Se,dora do ^ it Th^ * f ^ ^ ™™?rily successful, l^u ^ ? etl l ot L 18 to .divide the ff^ardium expos ^ t b , e -, W h e D , ^ su^eon mtroduces his hand he gently presse? the heart 1 ^ ( ? bont four time s a minute), ??" ^ s V! % <?™te ^ ^ fast last enough euougn to restart nulsa-' pulaa ort-1 J Possible to do so at all. An dectne battery has less directly something of the same effect It causes a contraction of the muscles of the chest, and the heart usually responds. Brandy injected into the tnssues is another stimulant and two or 1 three^ints of a saline solution, in the case P, r °* use loss °f blood b is often invaluabl '
• Shooting Stars
  Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 30 December 1899, page 25 STAKK." Ifc.- *' " ,v- "l.l|l* CllCOttV .MilJI" li'.ts , ; of UlilttiT »t;,i ''' '! ' ' or cloudlet* of duM thr,.,|„tl v' >'<• Hying unresisted do. v, ,, nlnnets and comets tr',;,. ^ ^ K " ■■ 'v thin itif limit* of our iinn '"trolled |>y the :i11r:i•' """ ' move with a syoed anv n i"111" ' "'id, far exeeeding that ^ ^nn' iU '' '''tile. hut are too small £ ' V"'H when they enter ^•ted i,v ''"1. becoming intensely *-■ and : '""'■■ince they encounter i.rrv' aif Kn .i ,'! consumed in the wfof the ""thing reaches the sur^ *ttlin» !!!' 'xcePt> perhaps, a little 8 wowly as an imperceptible "smoke." Occasionally, however, some, mass larger than usual survives in part thc- j, fiery ordeal, and its fragments fall to thch ground as specimens of the material ol "other worlds than ours." |1 y The total number of these flying pebbles , jij interplanetary space must be enormous,; , An ordinary observer under ordinary cir-,. ' eumstances will average about eight an . hour in a clear, moonless sky. Schmidt, .• of Athens, in the clear Grecian nil-, nearly / doubles the number, and reckons about 15- ( to the hour for a single observer. It ifi j.j found also that one person is able to note i , only about one-sixth of all that are visible . at his station by a party of observers suffi- i cieiitly large to watch the entire heavens, minutely. Jt. therefore, we accept the es- . timate of .Schmidt, it appears that about. 2.200 must ordinarily come ' within the ; range of vision at any given station every i 24 hours, though, of course, those that fall in the daytime cannot be seen. ,, ()n this basis, Professor Newton calculates that about twenty millions large enough to be seen from Hie earth's surface : under favourable conditions enter our at-P niosphere every day. There are also multi- . tudes of others too small to be seen by the t eye. and it continually happens to a tele--: scopie observer working with a low power that lie sees minute meteors dart acrossi1 bis fio 1 d of view.
• Scientific. Science Notes.
  Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 24 March 1900, page 52 SCIENTIFIC. SCIENCE NOTES. By PUYS1CT Tin: HEARING OR INJECT Can insects hear? In order to answer this question it 'would seem necessary to demonstrate the possession by insects of t-oine organ that can reasonably be supposed to be ;i hearing one. Sounds are prop-agated by pul&ations or waves of the air. Ii there were no atmosphere the transmission of sound would not be possible. But even when sounds are produced there must be some means by which the vibrations may be conreyed to some part o! the nervou* s\>tetu and, so to speak, interpreted. A serie- of waves may strike a nerve and yet give rise to no sensation of any kind. Our organs of sight and smell are complicated structures, but they only respond to certain stimuli, and not to all. It seem- necessary, juc'giiig irom tbe examination of healing organs in different group1- <ii ;tiiiinnl>. that these should be some solid bodit.« which are s-et in motion by the air wave.-. These solid bodies then actually .-Hike wl.at. for our purpose, we may call the end of a nerve. The stimulus thus produced is transmitted in the ca=e of our-elve- to the brain, and is there interpreted .as a sound. In the back-boned annuals the place where sensations are perceived is the brain, but there is no reason why it should be so in all animals. There is no reason why, for example, the nerve mat- which perceives a sound should not be at one end of the body, that which perceives lieht at the other end. and that for the perception of an odour :n the middle. A s!ie!!-!isii. such as a cockle, has nothing resembling .1 brain, for it has no head, yet B'jine ?>! its allies have eyes for seeing, and an urtran probably akin to a nose in junction: it kno-vs how to keep the right way up and 'i-irt to search for its food. lhis being so. it does not follow that even if an animal has a head and something akin to a brain thf.t we are to believe that all .jrc /-crcejvcd in this brain. We are not i" -11; pose- that if an animal has an on: an ca table of receiving vibrations of the air that :ht- nerve from that organ must lead t" tl.e br.iin in order that the sounds may be j-eweivtfd as such. The nervous centre, as it i- termed, for the organ may, in l'act. be piaced anywhere, and in the same y 1 lit* part of tbe body which is ni'id'Met i'.i receive the stimulus may be anywhere. ') his beinc so, there is no reason why should cxpeci a grasshopper s hearing ore ui t » be ;;i its head ot its centre for the inU'ipTctauon in the brain. What we have tf- look for is something which will be riuved by sound waves, and so irritate a rr-rve ending. In many animals tlitre are additions made to these simple essentials, such as a sheet of tightly-stretched membrane expose a larger surface to the impact of the air waves. This is called a tym: aiiiim. or drum; while to tins is sometime- ii'hled. as in ourselves, an external fold of sl::n to collect a still larger numlier of wave- and convey them to the drum. Nov.- ;;n organ, almost certainly for bearing, is found in the locust, and is placed on the abdomen, or that part oi the body behind the legs. There is a tight membrane stretched on a horny ring, and tn the middle of this are fixed a couple of iiurd plates, which support a bag of fluid. To this bag runs a nerve, which leads back, not to the brain, but to one of the ganglia of the thorax. This organ certain!'.- locks like a hearing organ, and is generally accepted as such. In j-ome of the green grasshoppers an organ of similar stiiicture is found, but it is placed, not on the abdomen, but on the front legs. In the vvater be:-tie the hearing organ seems to be situated in the antenna?, or so-called feelers or horus, and there are other modifications. It may lie asked why not make poises and see if the insects pay any attention to them. A little while ago it was pointed out in this column that when the vibrations rise above a certain number to a second we can perceive no sound, but it does not follow that no animal cannot do so. Many insects are provided with somewhat complicated sound - producing organs, and were their fellows deaf the reason for the existence of these organs would be difficult to explain. But as we find the sound-producing faculty is generally associated in the same insect with what appears to be an organ of hearing, we would eecm to be justified in answering the question, "Can insects hear?" in the affirmative. THE ORIGIN OF MAGNETISM. The actual cause of magnetism is unknown to us; and till within the last few weeks no light whatever had been thrown on the subject. It appears, however, that Professor Rowland has bee® engaged for some time on experiments which, if all we hear about them is true, will go far towards an explanation of the origin of terrestrial magnetism. So far as the course of tbe investigation has yet been made public, it appears that the professor wound a length of wireseveral miles of it-on a brass wheel, which he then set in rotation, and found that while revolving it behaved a8 a very weak magnet, the strength of the resulting magnetic field appearing to depend only on the speed of rotation. The magnetism is supposed to be due to a feeble electric current set up in the wire coil. It has long been known that a wire coil in which an electric cujrent circulates has all the properties of a magnet; on this fact Ampere based his explanation of magnetic bodies. He supposed that the molecules were the seats of electric currents, and showed that, if such were the caee, the behaviour of steel magnets on dissimilar bodies could be accptinted for; 1»ut this only pushed the problem one step backward, aa the further question suggested itself, how are these molecular currents set up? The mathematical researches of Ixird Kelvin J^ iim to surmise that something of the jof n»Mion must exist in magnetised bodies; and a few years ago Professor Schuster mttgeflted, as a bare posMbttity, that every TaJnge rotating body atbe a magnet, and proved th^t if euch [ a reasonable theory of terres be formulated on :toi doubt that a conducting body, when set in rotation, is so acted on by the cthcio spa.ce as to become a magnet. On the other hand, it is qui*"? certain that bodies at rest-such as the nee-die ot a compass can be magnets: and it will be a simple ana obvious deduction from the espenmen s to ascribe their magnetism to the lm rotations of their constituent molecules, which, might l>e supposed to set up eleotri currents in their mass just as such currents are said to be set up in Rowland s coil. A RED I.AKE. The natron lake# of Egypt have long been known as a source of carbonate of soda, from the Arabic name fromwhich the words natron and nitre come, though themi^ily they ;-.re very different substance?. A German company is now walking somo of the :lakes in the LiKan Desert, and they were recently visited by a bk>logi>T. w"ho no; iced and '.vjj puzzled by the led colour of tlie water. He v.v? told hy people living on the fi-ot ihat the rolour was due to the prosenc-e of the brine shrimp, which communicated its reddish tint to the water This explanation Mr. Dewitz. the scientist in Question, dismissed as untenable, since at the time of lr® visit no brine shrimps wesunt. their s^i^on being past, msides." the.-e small so-called shrimps, like hmiiv of the irustacea. owe their colour to their blood and not to a pigment on the outer surface of their bodies, which coneeivablv migbt bo dj.-^olvtnl off at ue.un. Though he found no brine shrimps, he found some moMjuito larva?, w;iich normally are not red, though these were. 1 his showed that probably the mosquito larva? were red because the water was> red. and not vice-versa. The author tound that a red silt of an organic acid was present. Prcbabiv it is an iron salt, thugh he noes not siv ";o. As to the origin of the salt, ho a mi: be? it? formation to certain red bactena which are abundant in the w::ter. We know of variously coloured bacteria, some of which are very highly tinted. The small bright pink spots. for instance, that are sometime- seen in bread are due to bacteria belor.gine to the same group, and which, like "by far the greater uumber ot bacteria, are in no way harmful to man. A CHEAT MODKKX INDl'STRY. The electrkal production of refined copper is an industry of very reccnt date; hut it ha^ already assumed gigantic proportions. Brought into use about a quarter of a century ago. it was then employed on a very small scale, about twenty tons j)er week being the world's output. This has now increased to five hundred tons pc-r day, or one hundred and eighty thousand tons per annum, the net value of the annual output being about nine millions sterling. Of almost equal importance are the by-products of the indus-try. Crude copj>er alwavs contains gold and silver among its impurities; the latter to a very large extent, its average being over one hundred ounces to the ton. To separate these from the copper bv the older process would cost more than they were worth; but the electrical proves* effect- a complete separation, and as the silver forms more than half of the total residues from the process its extrac tion therefrom and the separation of the gold become profitable, the annual .net value of the preeiou* metals so obtained being about three millions sterling. An industry so extensive is naturally the subject of continual modification and impiovement; ainoag the most recent of these is the direct proce.-s of manufacture of copper tubes. The met.i! is now deposited by the current on a rapidly revolving cylinder, instead of a flat plate, as in the earlier day> of the industry: as copper tubes are very largely used in the arts this is a valuable device, but it has other advantages as we!!. Under ordinary circumstances c-opr>ei tends to be deposited by the current in a somewhat loose state of aggregation, and to give the deposit the necessary hardness and density requires the continual action of the burnisher; but Mr. Cowper-C'olesthe inventor of the new method-finds that the friction set up by the rotation of the c-vlinder in the depositing solution answers the same purpose as burnishing, lie makes use of this fact in the production of plates and wires; to obtain a plate it is only necessary to slit lengthwise a tube of the proper size, and then flaiten it out; to make wires, a thin thread of some insulating substance is wound on the cylinder, and the copper deposited in the spiral groove left between the windings of the insulator. The thread of copper thus obtained is easily drawn down to the required gauge by ordinary wire-drawing tools. Tne process is not only convenient, it is cheap, too; the net cost of refining the copper in this way being less than 2 per cent, of the value of the finished product. DESTRUCTION OF GADFLIES. Fortunately in Victoria we are not much troubled by gadflies, which are such a scourge in some parts of the Northern Hemisphere. They do a considerable amount of injury to stock by biting, and so annoying them to such an extent at times that their condition is considerably reduced, while they are credited by their bites with occasionally transmitting anthrax to human beings. In the United States and in Russia the practice prevailed of rubbing cattle with oil in order to lessen the painful nature of their bites. This measure, however, is only a palliative, and does not prevent the attacks or destroy the pests. Professor Porch iuski, of St. Petersburg, has hit on a simple method of lighting this plague. The gadfly is a thirsty creature, and ie very fond of drinking from stagnant pools while on the wing. Daring the operation it touches-the water with the lower surface of its body, which is protected by a coat of long hairs, and so is not wetted by the act. Porchinski thought that if he could wet them they would be unable to. free themselves from the water, and so" would be drowned .--The idea of spreading a layer of kerosene on the water struck him, and he tried it with complete success. The amount used was about nalf-a-pint to the square yard, and was renewed every morning. The insects in attempting to drink were at once wetted by the kerosene, and, as it were, became stock to the surface of ine pooL The kerosene then rapidly killed them, and they floated ebout in small islands in the water in vast numbers. .Kerosene has been recommended as a meens of destroying mosquito iarvae, which are aquatic and-come to the surface ,to Jbreathe, which act they perform by thrashing their foils up intothe air^ Ifthe water be covered by a layer of kerosene they are killed by it, just SB many ^orchard pests are br spraying the plants with kerosene emul sion. ,;
• Scientific. Science Notes.
  Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 16 December 1899, page 25 SCIENTIFIC. SCIENCE NOTES. By PHYSICUS. THE DRAKENSBERGEN. About the middle of last year Mr. F. G. Churchill read a paper before the South African Philosophical Society, which gives us a clear idea of the physical structure of the rugged mountains forming the border line-between Natal and the Free State. The parts he visited are likely to have more than a passing interest to us. The scenery he describes as being very beautiful. Leaving the railway at Ennersdale, he passed through undulating country, dotted here and there with flat-topped hills. The rocks are like those round Dundee and Newcastle, namely, light-coloured sandstone and shales, and belong to the Upper Karoo series, which is about the age of the Sydney sandstone. Twenty miles further on he name on the Drakensbergs. The flat-topped hills are capped by what we call bluestone in Victoria, in other words a form of lava. We could, then, match the flat-topped hills on a small scale in Victoria between Dayles ford and Castlemaine, among what are known as the Loddon Outliers. The rock beneath the African lava is, however, in nearly horizontal beds, and it is among such horizontal beds, especially when capped by a hard rock-like lava, that we get a canyon like structure, developed by the ceaseless cutting action of the streams. Again, we can find a well-known Australian parallel, for the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, give us a clear idea of what we should find—precipitous cliffs, rising tier above tier, looking, as Mr. Churchill says, like a succession of camel-backs. In the canyons of the Tugela and Little Tugela, close to the main wall of the Berg, the depth is in some places as much as 2,000ft., and the vertical face of the lava cap 400ft. The area over which the author traced the lava war some 60 miles by 15. The under lying sandstone is a compact, hard, gritty rock, of a cream or white colour, and. it weathers away in huge masses, leaving ver tical walls, or overhanging ledges. This upper Beries of sandstones is from 200ft. to 500ft. thick, and spreads over a large exr tent of country to the north and south, its top being about 3,000ft. above sea. level, rbe whole series of sandstones and softer beds is about 1,000ft. thick, and' its lower part is full of caves. ^ Pushing further into the mountains, Mr. Churchill found the volcanic cover to thicken, till at Bushmab's Pass he esti mates the lava sheet to be 2,500ft. thick. \V hen the summit was reached there was a disappointment, from a scenic point of view—a dreary, forsaken wilderness of. rocky hills and desolate valleys, gently sloping into Basutoland. The mountains then, like the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, are mountains of denudation, and are not, from a scientific point of view, a mountain chain at all, but a gently-slop ing plateau, carved, it is true, into terrible gorges and cliffs, and presenting a rugged and broken escarpment facing Natal. The , summit of the plateau is desolate and un inhabited, and extends as a broad strip about 200 miles long from north to south. 1 There seem to be no volcanoes whence the lava came, and, perhaps, it all welled forth from vast rents in the ground. At one place, Champagne Castle, the Drakensbergs are 7,000ft. above the valley immediately below, and the canyon below the Tugela Falls surpasses anything Mr. Churchill ever saw in Europe. In places, he says, the gorge is not more than 40ft. wide, and in four miles the river-bed rises 1,200ft. The Tugela Falls themselves, with three steps, are 2,050ft. high. The climate in winter time is very cold, and snow fre quently falls, even during midsummer. If the Boers betake themselves to fastnesses like these the work of rooting them out will be no child's play. EARTHQUAKES. Among the reports read and discussed at the recent meeting of the British Associa tion was an interesting one on the present state of earthquake observation. It is stated that 23 stations at home and abroad are furnished with complete earthquake ob serving apparatus, or seismometers as they are called. The most important station in the British Isles is Prof. Milne's station, in the Isle of Wight. This station recorded 103 earthquakes last year; that is to say, vibrations of the earth which are suffi ciently powerful to be distinctly recorded by the instruments, though they may not have been felt without. The extent of ter ritory over which these disturbances were felt may be judged from the fact that 60 per cent, of them were recorded at various places in Germany, Austria, and Russia; while nearly as great a number of them were observed at Victoria, British Colum bia. An earthquake, it must be remembered, consists of a series of vibrations of the solid earth. Bet" up by some meaw a&mt witfbfa we do not in general know very much at present. Even a landslip on a mountain will cause a small local earthquake, but the ordinary earthquake is due to disturb ances on a much greater scale at some dis tance below thesurfaeeof the e&nth. From this foaus, which is probably, miles across, the disturbance is propagated through the earth by wave motion of each of the two principal kinds; that is. to say, partly as longitudinal: waves, like those to wbich we awe the phenomena of sound in. the air; in which each particle moves backwards and forwaras in the line in which the wave progresses, and partly as transverse waves, inie those on the sea, where each particle moves at right angles to the direction of motion of. tha wave. When an earthquake is felt the seismome ters generally show first a number of slight tremors lasting for a few seconds, then tue main shock, consisting of a few oscillations only, and then a number of small vibra tions, gradually dying away again. The preliminary tremors are supposed to be due. to the longitudinal or compression waves, which necessarily travel faster than the transverse waves. The large 6hock is due to transverse waves which travel along the surface of the earth, and so resemble ordinary sea waves very closely. By comparing the times at which an earthquake is observed at different places the position of the centre may be roughly determined, or at least of the point on trie surface of the earth vertically above the centre of the shock, the depth of the cenfre is considerably hard to determine. It is curious to note that the violence of a shock is often less at points nearer the centre than at others further off; thus some earthquakes that originate in Japan give a smaller effect at Victoria (B.C.) than at the Isle of Wight, though tliey have travelled twice aB far to reach the latter place, the water seeminv to have au effect, in general to diminish the strength of the shock. Each earthquake seems to have a charac ter of its own, which impresses itself on the record made by the instruments. Gn ac count of this peculiar character it has been possible for Mr. Milne to correctly predict, from examination of his own seismographs, that an earthquake report telegraphed from Japan gave the wrong date by 24 hours. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE ATMOSPHERE, < We have explained before the reasons given for the absence of hydrogen and helium from the atmosphere of the earth, and the total absence of atmosphere from tlie moon. The general explanation adopted is that a substance like hydrogen, consisting of very light molecules, has these , molecules moving with a very high rate ot speed, according to the kinetic theory of gases, and occasionally some of the mole- j cules are moving in such a direction, and high up in the atmosphere, that they can actually escape from the influence of the earth's attraction altogether. At the British Association, Mr. Bryan gave some more calculations on this sub ject. He shows that if the earth possessed hydrogen in its atmosphere now, it would he so seldom that molecules would escape the earth's attraction that such an atmos phere would be practically permanent. But a rise of temperature greatly increases the possibility of escape. Thus, at a tempera tiira'a - -t, take 600,000 years for as much hydrogen to" escape as would form a layer one^ centi meter thick all over the earth, wlule 'the f same amount would escape in 220 yeara it { the temperature was constantly about 80 'Fahrenheit. It follows that if we are to continue to accept this explanation^ as, however, seems reasonable, we must sup* pose tiie. hydrogen and helium to have dis ; appeared at a time when the earth was in | w highly heated condition. The disappear ance of the amount mentioned above would he quite inappreciable to a barometer. IRISH GOLD. Though Irish diamonds are not what their name might lead us to believe, namely, true diamonds, but only quartz crystals, yet, as is well known, it is quite otherwise ■with Irish gold, for the existence of. gold in the Wicklow Mountains has long: been known. Gold ornaments of prehistoric: age are still occasionally found in the ancient burial-places, and, though some of" the metal of which they were composed may have been traded from far, yet there is reason to believe that part, at any rate, of the gold was of local origin. In later times, about the year 1795, several families of peasants found the value of the deposits and gold, washing took place in a secret manner. Then the news leaked out, and a rush took place, and in six weeks about 80Goz., with a value of some £3,060, was obtained by the peasantry. The Govern ment then stepped in and took possession. In a recent paper, Mr. V. Ball describes the steps he ha- taken to clear up the his tory of some of the nuggets which were found-about that time. The heaviest re corded is one of about 40oz., but this is shown to be due to a misprint, for the true weight was only some 4oz. One of the specimens in the collection of the Science and Art Museum is a cast of a nugget said to have weighed about 22oz., and round the original specimen a rich crop of myths has sprung up. One story says that the original nugget was presented to George IV. on the occasion "of his visit to Ireland in 1821, at the instigation of an "officious member of the Dublin Society. Another variant sayE that King George, on seeing the nugget, promptly pocketed it as his own property, which by law it was. There does not seem to have been any foundation for either of these stories, and. the idea of the King so far forgetting him self as to load his pocket with the weight of a 22oz. nugget is rather far-fetched, and, in fact, a claimant to the fabrication of the story has been unearthed. At the time of the King's visit, a 3oz. nugget was in the collection, and it is there now. The 22oz. specimen seems to have been discovered by eight peasants in 1795, and to have found its way into the hands of the King, having been presented by Abraham Coates, who was rewarded with a Government post, was a J.P., and has a street in Wicklow named after him. Tradition says that George III., who was the recipient, caused the gold to be made into a snuff-box, and Mr. Ball hopes that inquiries at Windsor Castle, hitherto of a negative character, may yet result in finding out what became of the gold. A fair number of mights, ranging from 5oz. down, have been re corded, and several are in various mue<r uins, but the Wicklow gold mines have nofc proved very productive, the matrix has not been found, and the country needs "loaming."
• Scientific. Science Notes
  Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 25 February 1899, page 29 SCIENTIFIC. SCIENCE NOTES. By PHYSICUS. BACILLUS OF SMALL-POX. The rapid advance of the germ theory of disease, which iB a thing of the last few years only, might make ordinary people imagine that physicians had at any rate dis covered the forms to which each disease is due, and so are on tbe right road to its successful treatment. This is, however, not the case, and small-pox is an instance of a disease in which the specific bacteria which cause it have long eluded recognition. The method employed in such a case is to make what is known as pure cultures of the various organisms found, and then to experiment on animals with them. In a bacteriological laboratory bacteria are grown on jelly or broth or something of that kind in small glass tubes, and the task of growing a pure culture, that is a culture which con tains one and only one kind of bacterium, is a long and tedious one. The germs of bacteria, as well as the bacteria themselves, swarm everywhere, in air, earth, and sea. Anything of an animal or vegetable nature will decay, and the decay is in every-day life not an easy thing to prevent. This decay is in nearly every instance due to the fact that bacteria are swarming in the dead material, and reducing it to a series of simpler chemical compounds, which in their turn are suitable food for the higher plants. The difficulty the bacteriologist has to face is not to get a growth in his tubes of jelly, but to get only the kind he requires. Every article he uses must be sterilised, or devoid of living germs of any kind, and the precautions he habitually employs would seem ludicrously unnecessary to an outsider, but experiment has shown how imperative they are. Then the pure culture has to be used on a large number of animals, and the results carefully noted, so that time slips rapidly on. The material from a small-pox vesicle contains a very large number of different kinds of bacteria, and the claims of each kind have carefully to be considered. 31 r. A. F. S. Kent claims to have discovered the special kind which causes the disease. It is to be hoped that the observations of other workers will confirm his results, for though vaccination is an excellent preventive, still with a remedy derived from pure cultures in use it is , robable that inoculation will be less uncomfortable for those who undergo it than it now is. LIGHT-WAVE TELEGHAPHV. Among the many devices suggested for the transmission of messages to a distance there is none more interesting than the method devised by Professor Carl Zickler; the apparatus required is of a very simple character and fairly portable, and the signals can be given and read with great ease. Moreover, the two main dis advantage- in ordinary systems of wireless telegraphy are "verc-ome, inasmuch as the signals are ouly transmitted in one definite direction. and, so only rea<Ti the intended receiver, thus at ori>-e ensuring secrecy and avoiding waste of power. The e.-sen'-e of the method consists in the u-e "i—11 the sh rt waves o: ""ultra-violet" light —the -called "phot graphic" waves— instead of the long electromagnetic waves of Marconi's apparatus: and i2> ^ vessel cor.t^.ror.g air instead of a tube of metal tilings. Twelve years ago. Hotz proved that the impact of waves of ultra-violet light increases the conductivity of air. just as Br&niy subsequently found that the imp-act of electric waves increases that of a layer of tilings. Zickier's method therefore requires tor a transmitter merely a powerful source of light, ar.d some means of cutting of the invisible ultra-violet rays, or allowing theru to pass, at pleasure. Glass ab.-orbs these rays completely: consequently the inter: osttion of a thin glass piste cuts thern of; without r-erceptibly weakening the v;-; 1 ie rays. As the s< ur--e of light— ultra-violet at.: other — a ; •■v-rful electric are is employe:. Th .- r-lacec at the focus of a large mirror. >u- h a- is u-e-t in projecting apparatus for ::.-.«h-.:ghi work, in order to concentrate the rays and send then.1 in any de.-ired dir—tion. At the receiving -ration the rays G:. on a ouartz lens, by which they are i r-iught to a :oci:s. Behind the iens is a glass vessel with a quartz front: into the sides of th:> vessel are sealed two wires, one of wfay-h terminates in a small ball, the other in a polished disc inclined at i'-deg. to the path of the light: the focus oi the iens is on this plate. Both pi ate and ball are faced with platinum. The wiies are joined to the secondary terminals of an induction coil, in such a way that the p<-u»hed disc- forms the cathode. <.:• negative plate. The distance between ball and disc • - a lit we too great to allow the ark fr m the c-oil to pa.-?: but whenever the beam of uitra-violet light falls oil the disc the s ark once passes, discontinuing a,- soon as the beam is shut off. The operator at the sending -ration has oniy to open and close tne gias? shutter, by meat.- of a nneuniatic arrangement, in order to transmit the signals. The passage of a -; ark in the receiving apparatus mat be detected in several ways: if it be desired to read the signals by ear a telephone is inserted in the secondary circuit of the coil, and a sharp "c-rack" is heard in the telephone at each pas-age of the spark. If. however, it be advisable to print the message on a tape, a relay is used instead of the telephone. When the spars passes the relay closes its local circuit and actuates a Morse ink-writer, ju?t as it doe- in ordinary telegraphy. The greatest distance to which Professor Zickler has succeeded in transmitting signals by th is method is a little under a mile: but there is no doubt that this can be greatiy inc-reased. The projecting mirror he employed was not very suitable, as the metal of which it is composed does not reriect anything like the- whole of the ultra-violet light which falls upon it. The receiver, too, was judged capable of improvement. The quartz lens employ...i was not large enough to sufficiently concentrate the ravs on to the electrodes. Ziekler found that*a reduction of the pressure of the air inside the receiver was a great advantage: but further im e.-tigaton is neeoed to determine the most suitable air-pressure to employ. Experiments intended to settle these point? are ?ti]I in progress; but the results already obtained show that the processes devised by -Marconi and Preece have to reckon with a dangerous rival. MKKoSn .)!>](. Kl LKIl LINKS. At a recent meeting of the Royal Micro-enpic Society, London, the president, Mr. E. M. Nelson, exhibited some ruled, glass plates which had been prepared and presented to the society by Mr. H. J. Gray ton, of Melbourne. In the measurement of the size of microscopic objects, such as, for instance, blood corpuscles or cells of the yeast plant, a small glass piate with a number of equidistant lines ruled on it is placed in the tube of the microscope in such a position that the lines and the object to be measured can both be clearly seen on looking into the instrument. In an ordinary theodolite, or level, used by surveyors, two crossed wires, wbicb are really spider's web. can be seen similarly, and are used so that by bringing tlie C. A. BENNETT. Winner of 1 mile and 3 miles Championships. W. SHEA, Winner oi Treble—100 yards, 220 yards, and 440 yards Championships. crossed wires on any point, its bearing irom the point of observation can be judged. In both the microscoj>e and the theodolite the lines are in the focus of the eye-piece. The mere observation of the ruled lines in the microscope is, however, of itself no guide as to the size of the object to be measured, for not only does the "objective," or collection of lenses, near the object magnify it, but the eye-piece magnifies the ruled lines, and makes them appear further apart than they really are, and these variable factors will be different for every combination of eye-pieces and objectives, and also for every change in the length of the microscopic tube. \Ve then require some means of measuring the apparent distance of the ruled lines for every combination which we are likely to use. This is attained by having another plate of glass, which is placed on the microscope stage in the position where we usually place an object which we are examining. This second plate, also, has lines ruled on it. and the distance between these is known. In an ordinary carpenter's rule we have an inch divided into eighths, while draughtsmen and others have still finer scales. These, however, are far too coarse for microscopic work, and some very astonishing ruling has been done at times. The finest ruling 6ent by Mr. Grayson on tin's occasion contained no fewer than sixty thousand lines to the inch, and another contained two thousand to the millimetre. These he can exceed. Lines like these are. of course, ruled with a diamond point, ana by a machine constructed for the purpose. It is essential that they should be correctly spaced and sharply cut, without ragged edges. With regard to Mr. Grayson's plates, it is interesting that Mr. Nelson should say that they are among the best he had ever handled, and that he could congratulate the society on the possession of two accurate plates for the purpose of comparison. TWO NEW ELEMENTS. The discover}*, made by M. Henri lleoquerel, that uranium and its compounds possess the property of emitting rays very similar in character to the Rontgen rays has resulted in a new method of chemical research. Uranium does not stand alone in this respect, and it is now possible to identify the presence of certain substances in a compound by raeanB of their greater or less power of emitting these rays—their "radio-activity" as it is termed. A short time ago a new element—to which the name polonium" is assigned—was discovered by M. and Mme. Curie in the mineral pitchblende. Polonium in many respects resembles mac, bat ditlerTwT, by possessing the property of radio-activit* in a more marked degree CTen thta uranium. While following up this X covery, the same investigator, have W« ' led to another. They found tli-.-.t. one 0{!?® mixtures with which they were working contained another radio-aeth substenl This resembles banum-the maallic con stituent of '^eavy epar"-ir , s chemical properties, To partially set.:.- .a; it from accompanying elements ao. utage Was taken of tbe fact that iu chloride is soluble in water but insolubh m alcohol ThiB allowed tbe method of : notional pre', cipitation to be employed, and was found that the radio-activity of mi • ssive small fractions steadily increased, last frac lion having an activity nine » ■ .died times greater than that of uranium This frac ticm was examined spectres. vioally. it proved to contain barium, :■ i. calcium and platinum; but, in add ,on to the spectra of these elements, a Mrcng newline was seen, indicating the presence of the newly-discovered substance, ' which the investigators appropriately a ;?n the de signation "radium.' FORMATION OF PhASTFU > PARIS. During the holidays some Ponds picked up a few crystals of gypsur. <m the sea cliffs, and as they seemed n . vested in hearing how it came there a 'Vscriptk® 0f the process may not be out m place. The POLE JUMP CHAMPIONSHIP : J. M'RAE CLEARING 9ft. ilw. cliffs from Torquay to Spin I'oint are. in the main, formed of clays v. h were laid down on the sea bottom, an-; ere in many places full of the remains fossil shellfish and other animals win- lived in the sea while the waste mater., was being carried down to form the i' . accumulations which have since bet: . levated to form dry land. This sea-b ■;.-<• mud carried with it a certain atnour;! iron which is everywhere present, and tk: ■ iron, which was probably mostly in the :.,nn of iron rust, or oxide, united with the sulphur contained in the bodies of tin i- ad animals and plants which strewed t!r : atom, and tiius formed iron pyrites. N des of this pyrites are very common in? darkercoloured clays, just, in fact. hey are m the deep auriferous leads 01 toria and elsewhere, and where they h ■ originated in the same manner. Now. ■<>« pyrites formed in this way is usuub ry readily acted on by the oxygen of ' dr. so that the brassy-looking sulphide urned into the sulphate of iron, whi<! known in trade as copperas, or green ■'>]. this substance is readily soluble water. and is very ready indeed to un with more oxygen, so that, being what chemists call ,m unstable compound, we rarely find it m nature. The effect of the union of more ixvgen is rather a complex one. Most of i he iron is deposited as iron rust or oxide, which is a reddish brown in colour, and <he remainder is left_as another peculiar •ilphnte of iron, which will not dissolve in water, and which has a yellowish hue. ., the same time some of the sulphuric ■ eid, or oil of vitriol, which was united ill) the iron is set free. This acid at nee attacks any lime in its neighbour nd. and turns it into sulphate of lime, jeh is slightly soluble in water. Gra.,:i] 1 v this sulphate of lime collects—how . not known—and crystallises as gvpsum, as it is then called by mineralogists, .mite. It is transparent when pure, and its into plates, which can easily be i.itched with a nin, and have a peculiar -re like horn. When gypsum is found in •jo deposits, as it is in many places, it is ted to drive off the water which its <tals contain, when it falls to a soft , ito powder, known as plaster of paris. is. when stirred up in water will, as >st people know, set as a stony mass, is is due to the fact that it combines ill the water with which it is mixed, and it does so gradually, and not suddenly, • an he used ^for casting various orna. lit s. or for plastering. It may be inen iod that the method of formation here vibed is not the only one which nature ■ids. hut is a common one in marly Vs.
• Other Worlds. Are they inhabited?
  OTHER WORLDS. 'AUK THEY INHABITED, ASTRONOMERBAItACCHl TALKS. DISCUSSESPROBABILITIES. IF THEY ARE PEOPLED WHAT THE FOLKSARE LIKE. AN INTERESTING LECTURE. Thefollowing Isportion of the mostIn terestinglectureon Astronomy,whichMr Bnrrtcchi,the GovernmentAstronomer, recentlygave before the Literary and MusicalSocietyat Mordiulloc:— BASIS OF CONJECTURE. ASCERTAINED ASTRONOMICAL - FACTS. Thequestionns to whetherother worlds than ottroarc inhabitedby humnnbeings cannotbe answeredby a simpleyes or no. Not yet can positiveevidence be adducedon.the subject,for the planets are so far awayfrom us that our best telescopescan tell us but little about them. Theancientscouldform hological Ideaof the subjectof inhabitationof the other planets,and.In fact, they thought theearth'was the centreof the universe, ami that all the heavensrevolvedround It. it wasonly with Copernicusthat the correctiiu'olianlsrnof thesolarsystembe cameknown.Then,In orderto answerthe questionas fur ns possible,I will lay be fore you the facts whichhave beenas certainedwith accuracy,andwhich bear en the question. It may he convenient to refer the motionsof the solarsystem to our notionsof tho globeon which we live. It Is well knownthat all the plan etsrevolvearoundthe sun from west to/ east, in clonedorbits, completing their circuits In a certain period, which is accuratelyknownfor eaehplanet. Iri the caseof our earth,this periodis3(15days. This conditiongives us then the length of the year of each planet. Wo also knowUnitour earth spinson Itsownaxis In 24hours,which periodconstitutesour duy.- Someof the planetshaveon'their surface certainmarkings,whichhaveen abledus,by observation, to determine that they spin aroundtheir own axis In a certain dilnlte time, and we have .thusbecomeacquaintedwith the length of tho day on theseplanets. Theseare Mars,Jupiter nnd Saturn. In the case of the other planetsnamelyMercuryVe nus,Uranus,and Neptune,wehave no certain knowledgeof tho lengthof their day. Anotherconditionwhich wehave beenableto uncertainon all the planet? Is tho amountof light and heatwhich they receivefrom the sun. This Is as certainedfrom thoknowndistanceof the planets from the sun. Knowing these distances,and knowing also the law of variationof light andheat,wecandeter mineat oncewhat theeffectsof tholight and heat from the sun must be on tho various planetsIn comparisonwith what they are on the earth. For in stance, If we were twice as far from the sun ns we actually are,wowouldreceivefour limestenslight and heat. This is an important condi tion, whichmust governthe life on the planets. "Weknowwith considerableac curacy thesizeof the planets and their weight, and we can thereforeform an idea of the material of whichthey con sist. THE LAW OF GRAVITY. WHAT IT IS. Another Important consideration is 'the attractive force exercisedby each planetuponobjectsonIts surface. Near the earth'ssurfaceall things tend to fall to the groundIf not supported. There Is a mysteriousforce which weighs us down. ,W« are conscioustlmt wehave to make an effort to stand onour feet, anda greatereffort to carry ourselvesup stairs or to climb a mountain— or a still greaterefi'oi1to Jumporto raiseour selveswith our feet off theground.These phenomenaare socommonthatwe bike little noticeof them. It Is only with the phenomenawhichdo w»f occurin dally life that womarvelat all.' Weknow the ordinary difficulties,-Imcnusethey are with us every day, but the others we know nothingof, nndarc thereforewil ling to passthem over. Our principal dtnicully is tlmt of weight,as nettledby the force of gravity. Nothing Is known of theorigin andnatureof this force,hut Gallicsnnd Newtondiscoveredthe laws by whichIt Isgoverned,andthelatterex tendedtheselaws to the wholeuniverse. The great universal law Is that the attractionbetweentwo bo;k-?Is propor tional to their inasFvs,andInverselypro portional to the squaresof the distanc" whichseparatestlioin.Thus,for a bodyon thesurfaceof a planet, the forceof attraclion experiencedby the bodyIs propor tional to Its mansand the massof the planet,andInverselyproportional to the radiusof-the.planeL By meansof these laws,,andknowing the size of the plan ets, \vocan at oncedeterminethe inten sity of fhn forceof attraction. I have dwelt on'.thldcondition,becauseIt will be of considerableImpurttinccIn judging of the conditionsof,life. HOW THE 'l'LANKTS SPIN. Anotherhnpurtnnlconditionwhich re gulatesto a considerabledegreethe me teorologicaloluiracierof a planetIs the existenceof on atmosphere. We have beenenabled to discover that certain planetsare unmistakablypossessed of an atmosphere,such ns Mercury, Venus, Mars,andJupiter. We ure pretty cer tain that .no atmosphereexists in the moon. In regardto meteorologicaclon ditions, another astronomicalphenome nonmuHt.U; mentioned. Tills Istechnic ally calledthe Inclinationof the nxls (if rotation. If you Imaginea lop spinning very rapidlyon a round, fiat table,mov ing at the sanie lime roundtho edgeof Ihe.table— ' Imaginethata sourceof light Is placedat the centreof the table. If the top spinsexactly upright,you have the way that the planetJnplh'rspins,but If the top spinsin an Inclinedway, you havea. modelof tho enrthnndof Mors. In theselast two bodiesthe angleof In clination Is 23degreesfor the earthand nearly25,degreesfor .Mars. Thovaria tion of seasonsIs dueto (heirInclina tion. in Jupiter, therefore,thereIs no 22!2l,0£ 0t "6aRonsPerpetualspring reigns there, if this inclination were muchgreaterthan it is onour earth tho seasonswouldbe far moreIntensethan tnoy irC; the summermuch,hotter, the wlntedmuch colder. Unfortunately. \vc H bccn t0 'ascertainthe inclinationof the axis of Mercury nnd venue,andthetwo furthest planetsUra nus andNeptune. But weknowit with considerableaccuracyhi regardto the other planets. THE PLANET- MERCURY. Ro arc nowIn apositionto considerthe conditionswhichgovernlife in eachof the planetsof the solar system. We will commencewith tho planetnearestto the sun,andproceedIn orderof distance. Mercury.—MercuryIs seenalwaysIn the neighborhood of thesun shortlyafter sunset,or after sunrise. Ouropportuni tiesnre few for seeingIt, becauseIt Is for tlio most part always immersedin the solar light It appearsto tho naked eye on someoccasionsns a star of the first magnitude,througha powerfultele scope,It showsas a disc goingthrough the samephasesof the moon. Markings are sometimesseenon its surface,sug gestingthe existenceof Immensemoun tains. nndseemsto be surroundedby an atmosphere. This small world has a diameter of ahotit 3000miles, so that It wouldlake 20Vjfthem,rolledInto one,to makeup a globeas large as our earth. Thematerialof whichit consists is such that It would weighabout four timesnsmuchnsan equalglobeof water, it Is of the sameweight,approximately, is the weightof magneticore. it Is foundthat the forceof gravity at Its sur face Is only about one-thirdof that of the earth,that Is, an object weighing3 pounlH, If carlredto Mercury,wouldweigh only 1 pound. Mercurycompletes Its courseroundtho sun In 80days,so that the lengthof Its yearis aboutequivalent to onoof our seusons, Wo know that Its distancefrom the sun Is aboutthree tlmeti lessthan our distance,andIt fol lows that Mercury receivesfrom the eun nine(lines morelight nnd heat than we do. We knowalsothat at onetimeof its yearIt receivesa great dealmorethanat another,on accountof the varintlon of its distancefrom the sun. So that it hits iit least two markedseasons—one hot and the other comparatively' cold. Thesefacts,being accuratelyknown,can be usedas a basis for forming an Idea as to whatkind of peopletheMercurluns inuHtbo. THE SALAMANDER MERCURIANS. WOULD FREEZE IN CENTRAL AUSTRALIA. Let us imagine a Alcrcurlan, for the fun of the thing. A personwho hadseenforty summersIn hisown plan et,nnd hadattainedIn his middleagea weightof ii stone, supposetins person came to pay u»a visit, wowould find him a strangecreatureindeed. Hewould be a merelad of ten, accordingto our reckoning,nnd If we weighedhim this lud nf ten wouldJust turn the wale at between30and forty atone. Ills eyes, accustomedto thedazzfingllghtnf hlsown planet,wouldfind the earthalmostdark, andfull daylight wouldappearto hlin not much brighter than a moonlight night. Ho .would bo unable to bear our temperature, nnd If they were to- take him to the centre of Aus tralia, ononeof the hottestof our Janu ary days,hewouldvery probablybe fro zen to death. In the ordinary tempera ture of his own planethe wouldhave to bearonly a heatequivalentto that which wc wouldexperienceIn thecentreof Aus tralia In themiddleof January,with eight or ninesuns shiningdown upon iw In stead of one. A MERCURIAN—AS COMPARED WITH AN INHABITANT OF THE EARTH. VENUS, DESCRIBED, HER PEOPLE MUST LIKE HEAT. Venus.—ThereIs noreason to suppose, tlmtthlswostheStarof Bethlehem. Venus, after thesun andmoon,Is the mostmag nificentobject In thesky. It isso bright thnt:wecan sometimessec Hhadowsof objectscastby Its light. Ifmnor called It Cnlllstosthe beautiful. Beingsome timesn morning,andsometimesaneven ing star,theancientsbelievedthe two to he different. It shows phaseslike the muon.Beenthrougha telescope,It ap pearsnsa dazzlingwhitedisc, showingcur tain darkish markings herennd there, but so extremelyfaint undevanescent, that It Is difficult to grasptheir form. It Is this uncertainty thnt prevented the accuratedeterminationof ' tho plunet's rotationroundIts nxls. Venusis 67millions of milesfrom tho sun, so that it receivestwiceas much light nndheat from the sunaswedo.It isnearlythesameslxeastheearth.Bornewhat lighter than our material, andtho force of gravity 87hundredthsof that of the earth. It is envelopedin a very' denseatmosphere,nnd it's year consists, of 225terrestrial days. Venus,like Mer cury, hnanosatellite. Thisplanetwould be,undoubtedlys,uitabletosupportbeings' not verydifferent to ourselves,but with constitution such as would have to standa climatetwiceashot as ours. STYLE OF HAT, ProbablyWornby u Native of Venus. HereIs an example. Their socialcon dition would very probablybovery dif ferentfrom ours. Thus,if civil servants of Venuswereto retireby law,after they' hudlived through0-7thsof their natural lives,theywouldbeallowedtoslay in the civil serviceuntil they were0f5yearsof; age,tlmt beingtheequivalenttoCOyears onthe earth. The two planetswhichwehavehofar discussedcirculatetiroundthe sun,with in our orbit, andare probablyyounger thanour earth. They are the twa last born childrenof the sun, but it Is also probable thnt they have attained a 4tngefor maturity as far, or further,ad vancedthanour planet. At somefuture timeastronomermsayheableto accurate ly determinethe periodof rotationnndIn clinationof the axis of these planets, whichwouldgive usmuchadditional in formationupon the questionof their habltablllty. MARS, THE LAND OF GIGANTIC ENGINEERING. Mars.—Mars gives terrestrial as- .tronornorsa bettor opportunity' of seeing Its surfucethananyof theotherheavenly bodies,exceptthe moon, nnd, consequently, we know moreabout It than weknow aboutthe other planets. Seen by the nakedeye,it presentsa bright, ruddyllame—like light,at times—brighter than ut uthorH. It shinesto the naked eyeas a star of the first magnitude,con sequently,nothingwasknownof Its sur facebefuretheInventionof the telescope, and,Indeed,verynearlynil our knowledge of the physicalconstitutionof this planet hasbeenobtainedIn our century,andthe greaterpart duringthe last25years. In a good telescopeIt appearsns il welldefineddisc, and.seenwith the highest practicablemagnifying power,has,ap parently,the size,us wellas thecolor, of a modcrntesizedorange. It might be thoughtthat If wewerecarriedaway In space,andsawthrougha telescope,our world becomingsmallernnd smaller to our view, until it reachedsuchu distance ns to appearof thesizeof unorange, it might bepresumptionto attemptto draw the outlineor the seas and continents, andevenlakesanddesertstuid moremin ute detailsorits surface,yet that Is what has beencloneby u«ti«»noinebrsy careful telescopicstudy of Mars. A ruperllclal examinationshowsdarkmarkingsIrregu larly distributedandof dlfTereiitsizeand outline. Thv.seare supposedto lie the seasand lakes. The rest consists of light orange-tinted patches,which tire HUpposcdto bethe continents. Ona closerstudy andhigheropticalpower,we see much moreami moreminute detail. Sometimesthe polarregionsof thisplan et appearas dazzlingwhiteareas,giving a BtrongImpressionthat theynre covered with snowor ice.ProfessorSchinpparelli discovered,amongmunyother markings, ccrtuln straight fines reticulating.the greater partof lb" surfaceof Murs. To thesehegavethe nameof canals. Liter he saw someof Ibenestraight linentut dosedoubleparallellines. Youwill note that theserumtlscrossIheoceansnndInlerseeteachother, nndrun from sea to sen,nnfikeuny terrestrial notionof can als, andthe suppositionbus beenmade that they maybe artificial works,made for the purposeof Irrigation,for distri butingthe water of the polarseas over theIntnl. If suchb»thecase,theseworks wouldbeof giganticmagnitude,of which wc have noparallelonour enrth. Mars revolvesaround the sun at a distance varying from 128to 151millionsof miles, in nn orlbtwhichIt takesCS7daysto des- Hcrlbe. Its yearIs, therefore, morethan 10munthxlonger thanours. Its dia meter is 4200miles, so thnt IUs area Is little more than one-fourth that of theearth. It Is a miniature earth receiving,comparedwith the enrth, less j than half, or about13per centof light ! andheatfrom thesun. It rotatesaround I its axis in a little over21hours,andoon- ; uoquentlyIts day Is almostthesame as j ours. This rotationaxis is Inclined to the plune of Usorbit hy nearly 25 de- ! grees,andMars lias thereforea varia tion of seasonsimilar to ours,wltlf tltc differencethat theyare almosttwice ns long. Thus,the Martiansummer lasts six months,winter aboutfive months, spring six anda half months, nnd nutumn nearlyfive months. Mnrsis made uf a mutcrlalof aboutthe samedensity andweightasemery,or aboutfour times tho weight of an equalglobe of water. Theforceof gravityat UssurfneeIsabout three times weaker than that on the earth's surface. Let us now, on tho .strength of theseknown facts, consider what would hethe generalcharacteris tics of the Martians. BIG-EYED MARTIANS, REVEL IN POLAR ICINESS. We have seenthat this planet Is four timessmallerIhnnour world;It pokschhoh ii solid-crust; Is surroundedhy atmo sphere,nnd Is probablyolder than wo are,anuin u moreadvancedstate or its career.'GwingtoIts greaterdistancefrom the sun tho Intensityof solar fight nnd heatIs somewhatlessthan half of that whleh wc enjoy, consequently Its Inhabitants probably have much larger eyes than the terrestrial ; must he so constituted as to stand whntwouldappearto us nn Intolably severepolar climate. Tho force of gravity beingthree times weaker than that on enrth, Martians.If the physical strengthbe the pamens ours, mustfeel very much fighter and freer In their movementsfo, r a terrestrialman15stone in weight. If suddenlycarried to Mnrs, would find his weight only 5 stone, and he could lift weights three times heavier,andcouldhit a cricket ballthree timesfurther thananychampionAustra lian. Hecouldclimbthehlghestmountalns with little effort, andcoulddo as much hard manuallabor in two.hoursas our strongestmancan do In eight. Hence the possibilityof accomplishing engineer ing worksIn Mars ona scalevastlylarg er thanwecouldundertakeonthis world of ours. 25 TERRESTRIAL YEARS ONEARTJI. "ONMARS. TheMartiansdonot fivejust ns wedo, for If wetaketwoladles,onebornin our world andthe otherbornin Marson the sameday,wewouldfind Unitby thetime the terrestriallady has reachedher 35111 years the Martianlady wouldlie still In her teenH.nndIf we terrestrials after reachingour allotted spanof three r.core yearsundten.couldtransmigrateInto our neighboringplanetMars,we would fin I ourselvesbroughtbackto the zenith of our.fife uH,uiiddle-ugemden. MursIs In deeda miniatureenrth,undpossesses all the conditionsnecessaryfur the support of life suchaswc know it to he,or at least not Inconceivablydifferent from ours, nndalthough nut yet evidenceis availableas to theexistenceof intelligent beingsIn-Mars,weureutmostirresistibly ledto believethat theydoexisL A MARTIAN. THE GIANT JUPITER. In regardto the other planetHof the solar system, although much, indeed, might besaidof their physicalconditions on factsaccurately- ascertainedyet In regard to habltablllty v enter in the field of wild conjecture.The giant planet Jupiter,whichIsso greutthat everyother memberof the solar,systemcouldberol led Into It, Isat a distanceof 433millions of milesfrom thesun. It revolvesaround the sunIn nearly12of our years,therefore the yearof Jupiter Isnearlytwelvetimes longerthanours, yet It spinsaroundUs axis morethan twin? as quickly as our world,making thedurationof Its day lessthan tenhours. Wo seeat oncethat thesetwo simple conditionsare vastly different from thoseof our world and of tho other planetshitherto consideredJ;upiter,ween through a large telescope,showsthose peculiar markingscharacteristicof this planet,generally called tho belts. Al thoughJupiter is probablymuch older than the earth, It has not yet reached thesamephaseof development,and Is stilt In its youth. It 1msnot probably cooleddown andcondensed ns yet to the same extent ns the other planetscon sidered.Wccannotreally soeIts surface, becauseit Is envelopedIn a veryexten siveatmosphere.It Is not unlikely that below this atmospheretheremny'he'a surfaceIn aseml-llquldstate. Themark ings wesecare causedhy greatatmos pheric currents, eompnrabloto our trade winds, but far stronger.Therela tive velocity of thesecurrents being,In fnct, five or six times strongerthan the strongesthurricanesknownto us. Jup iter Is very little hoavlbrthan nn equal globeof water. Its distancefrom thosun Ismorethanfive timesgreaterthanthat which separatesus from our luminary', and consequentlythe Intensity of Its light and heat,Is 27times weakerthan that which we receive. If It depended entirely on the sun, Its temperature would neverrise abovefreezingpoint; but It maypossessInterna! boat suffi cient to partly compensatefo' r this de ficiencyof solacbeat.' Owingto its great size, the forceot gravity at Its surface Is morethan twice that upon our earth. Onepoundweightherewill weigh more than twice In Jupiter;andIf theJovlans were of the samesize and build aswe are, they would bedoublethe weight, and would experiencevery great diffi culty in movingabout. THE ' JOVIAN PEOPLES. MINUTE. BUT BUSTLING. What a stronce'llfethe Jovianpeople. If there nre any,mustfive. All the dally routine must bedono In lessthan ten hours, only five hoursof daylight, nnd five hoursof night. Theymust belively creatures,living at a fast rate, always in action,always doingsomething.Sup posingthat an ordinary man tookhnlfon- hour to bathennddress,hnif-pn-hour for brenkfast,alsolunch anddinner,and only five hoursfor sleep,he wouldonly havethreehoursa day left to him to do all his work, he wouldhardly havetime for recreation,and what digestivepow ers hemust have,to eat three or four mealsa day In five hours. Yet theydo not grow old,for theyarc still babiesby the time we have reachedmlddlo age. In fact, In a century the Jovianarrives only at the ogeof SA years. But it Is Impossiblefor us to consider formsof life capableof existing undertbe condi tions of this strange, planet. They wouldhavenosolid groundto tread up on, andwouldhave to bear thecrushing weight of an atmospheremany times heavier than ours, and withstand a erpetuuJ hurricane. Living organisms JOVIANSIN A HURRICANE. In Jupiter are probably vers minute. For the remainingthree planetsthocon jectures tutto their habltablllty would be evenwilder than those 1 have al readyattempted,andI shall,therefore, passthemby without csmylngto pictureto you the kind of people,if any, who inhabit thoseplanets.
• Literature. Literary Gossip.
  Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918, 1935), Saturday 5 February 1898, page 31 |iTiimro LITERARY GOSSIP. Mr. Louis Becke is meeting a competitor in South Sea Island stories, and will no longer be able to claim a monopoly in this field of literature. "In Summer Isles," by Burton Dibbs, published by , William Heinemann, the qualities of sensuous charm, of childish innocence, coupled with a capacity for lurid savagery, which combined together constitute the attraction of island life, are presented with a realism which speaks of personal experience. Mr. lieeke is perhaps stronger in action, hut Mr. Dibhs more than equals him in grace of literary expression. There are five stories included in this volume, of which A Lotus Eater is by far the longest and mo3t ambitious. It describes the manner in whieli an English gentleman surrenders to the insidious spell of Samoan native customs until lie loses all desire to return to his natural sphere, and under the influence of love and languor abandons home and friends to become a perpetual exile in this land of soft sweet sadness. There is something of tragic intensity in the conditions under which his short idyll of love is broken through the malicious interference oL a European meddler. He maiden, who is tiie lode star of his existence, but he is in ignorance that to give the rite validity between an Englishman and a native the ceremony must be ratified by the British Cousul. At the instigation of his enemy, Causton, Leata's relatives are induced to remove licr, and she and her child are drowned on the homeward voyage. A Half Caste's Heart describes a pathetic incident. - A Veiius in Bronze is a mere trifle, hut The Psalm Singer strikes a holder note. It pictures the disappointments of a young and enthusiastic mis-, sioner.who in trying to convert the Samoans "becomes himself a castaway under the witching influence of a Samoan girl. He gives up eliurcli and home, and loses his life m a kind of semi-piratical expedition, where tho influence of his old scruples leads him to prefer sacrificing his own life to tailing those of others. Mr. Burton Dibbs writes with brightness and with knowledge' of the aspect of island life which he describes with so much vivacity. An admirable volume on astronomy has been added to the Concise Knowledge Library, .published by Hutchinson and Co., London. It is impossible to over-estimate the value to students of a popular yet accurate synopsis of ' the most recent developments of knowledge in this branch of scientific inquiry. The work has been entrusted to authorities of unquestionable' uuxiiwj. -a -Lists Tillies -"A. VjIUIKC, WilO IlUS previously shown her capacity for an undertaking of tills kind, gives a most lucid and interesting review of ' the historical progress in astronomical knowledge from Hipparclius to the present time. A description of the solar system is also supplied by the same hand. Mr. Fowler, demonstrator of Astronomical Physics to the Royal College of Science, supplies an outline of the general principles of spherical and . gravitational astronomy,, and also shows the possibilities which at present exist of ' astronomical research. The sidereal heavens are: treated by Mr. J. Ellavd Gore, F.E.A.S. The book is produced with every attention to detail,, anil the photographs and drawings are numerous. We have received this volume through Messrs.. Melville, Mullen and Slndc. The January number of the "Century Blustrated Magazine," besides the uniform excellence of its engravings, includes many articles of a very interesting and varied character. ' General Wolfe, whose victory on the heights of Abraham won Canada for the Emnire.was so little known to the general public when lie became the hero of the day that the London print sellers in their anxiety to 'meet the extraordinary demand for his portrait had resort , to the ingenious but unscrupulous method of satisfying curiosity; and at the same time reaping a golden harvest by utilising their old stock of engraved plates- and selling the likenesses of forgotten worthies as those of the veritable victor at Quebec. Many of these fictitious portraits' have since been reproduced as accurate.. ;Mr. Ford, who writes on this subject, brings forward convincing evidence to prove that there are not more than four pictures extant 'which ran present any claim to genuineness. One of these is by Gainsborough; painted just before lie entered ou his last campaign. Another is as a youth, a third one in the uniform of a line officer, painted between the years 1748-53; and the fourth now in the National Portrait Gallery — supposed to have been done by Captain Harvey Smith, an aide-de-camp of Wolfe on his Canadian undertaking. Wolfe was not by any means an Apollo in appearance. Everyone will he familiar with Thackeray s pen and ink sketch in "The "V irginians :— "There was little of the beautiful in his face. He was very lean and very pale ; his luiir was red ; his nose and cheek bones were high, but he had a tine courtesy towards his elders, and a cordial greeting towards his friends, and an anima/ tion in conversation which caused those who heard liim to forget and even .to admire liis homely looks." Archibald Forbes disposes of the mythical ride of Wellington before Waterloo to meet Bluelier at Wavre, and arrange for the co-operation of tho Prussians next day. The story has gained wide credence, and is included in some histories of the battle; hut. the absolute denial given by the duke himself, with improbabilities marshalled convincingly by Mr. Forbes, proves this suppositious incident to be the unveracious invention of the untrustworthy chronicler. An article on every day-heroism eulogises the heroes of peace; who, in such examples as we have recently seen in the sewer accident, display a courage and heroic self-sacrifice not to be surpassed in any martial deed of valor. In fiction; jioetry and general articles, this magazine ;akes rank among the very best.. Tim "St. Nicholas" for January is a very bright number, admirably illustrated, and with stories, articles and verses specially, selected to suit the tastes of young readers; There is much that is entertaining, and also . much that is instructive. Messrs. Angus and Robertson, publishers, Sydney, besides giving encouragement to, local poets and authors, also- devote special ittentiou to educational facilities. They, inve just issued a useful little book by Mrs. ; J. 0. Boyd, intended to encourage pupils to study the French language for purposes of everyday use. The idea is sound, and the causeries familieres, or friendly chats, ought to be a great assistnnpe to those who bungle wearilv over the inane sentences of the Ollendorff, method. The Australian Letter-ing Book, designed for use in Australian schools and in draughtsmen's offices, should also be appreciated Dy those for whom it is intended. From the same source we have-received a record of the annual writing com-petition established by the firm, which is open to pupils in the schools of Australasia. For 1898 new and more liberal conditions are announced. - A pamphlet on Popular Government and Federation, by A. B. Piddington, member for Tamworth, has also been issued. . The Juntiary number of the "Review of Reviews" contains, another instalment of Prince Ranjitainhji's reflections on the reasons which may be advanced to explain away the English defeats in the test matches. The Biege of San' Sebastian is the " Fight for the Flng which the author of "Deeds that Won the Empire" contributes this month. Mr. Stead expresses in glowing language the esteem in which he holds the talent of literary reproduction which Mr. Fit-chett - has displayed. ' This exhibition of mutual admiration i3 an interesting lllus-tration of literary vanity. Character sketches are given of the Ameer of Afghanistan and of ' the Secretary of the Congo Free State. The. future of Austro-Hungnry is predicted by a writer, E. Segrob, who displays a knowledge of tho political conditions, which are tending to the disintegration of the dual monarchy.
• Letter to the Editor. Meteoric Cycles.
  METEORIC CYCLES. to THE EDITOR OF THE AGE. Sin,— In your issue of 12th' ult. a cutting appeared from an English contemporary dated Gth November last, stating that " the sky would be furrowed by numerous shooting stars 011 the night of 13th and 14th November. Next tho ahowor will be more noticcnble and attain its maximum in November, 1699." Your first correspondent rc meteoric cycle ("T.K.," 29tli ult.) is thu fairly right in hi nuriniso that about this timo shooting Btar should occur, but wrong in idea that such would be tho climax of a 30 year cycle. Your second correspondent, C. II. , Smyth (2nd inst.), while right in the main, is in error ih asserting that " no display of thoso shooting star, or ' Leonids, : ' as they aro called, is likely to occur before tho 12th or 13th November, ISO'J." For allowing 33 year or thereabouts to one meteoric cycle, still — to further 3uote from your extract iu 12th ult. — " it is j issemmated along its elongated orbit round tbe I sun over a vast extent of hundreds of millions | of mile3, 00 that the passago of the stars lasts manv yeftV3." Flamtnarion Pop. Ast., 1891, pp. 532-552) goes extensively into tho nubjcct of shooting star, and this is what ho says, infer alia : — " This apparition is not equally remarkable every year, but its brightness varies periodically, the maximum returning every 33 years nearly; tho ahowor is then renewed" for several years, but gradually diminishes, and at last ceases to be noticed during a long period, to be reproduced later ou and pas again through a maximum at the end of 33 year. Moreover, the swarm of asteroids of tho month of November having a small thickness, the earth take but a few hours to traverse it ; tho maximum also is visihlo in some circumscribed regions, which vary each year." Ho further show that a large number of radiant points havo been determined for different epochs of tho year— tho November meteors being termed " Leonids," because their path diverges from the sumo point of the sky (called the point of emanation or radiant) which is in the constellation of The Lion, those of the night ot 10th August being culled " Fcracids " from Constellation Fcrseus and so on. Ho then instances among other the splendid show of shooting star of 27th November, 1872 aud 1885, and gives on the authority of Simon Neweomb, the American mathematician, that 148,000,000,000 shooting r.tar fall annually to the earth. Flammarion also agrees with Professor Schiaparelli, of Milan, in considering tho display of November and August to be connected with the appearanco of the great comota of 1800 and 18G2, tho one with a revolution of 33 and the other of 121 years. Tho comet of 1831 and Bielu's comet havo similarly an appendago of shooting stars, and he therefore! concludes that cometa, like shooting star, must be swarms of meteor derived from nebulous masses, strangers to our planotary system— although, as lie adds, we must not expect to find a comet for each shower of shooting stars. Iu conclusion, may I refer to an interesting extract that appear in The Leader, 28fch November last, from tho licichsanzieger, giving statement of Professor Foerster, of tho Berlin Royal Observatory ? Ho writes to show that the prophecy of the so-called "destruction of the world" through the shooting stars of November, 1899, is "founded on imprudent, inexact, and misunderstood scientific reports." And he sets forth clearly the reasons why. As Baxter was again found to be faulty iu giving -5th March last a the end of the world, other prophets have variously named 1897, 1898 and 1899 as the true and correct year. To thoso at all troubled by such forecasting of events the calmly confident refutation of Professor Foorstor may como with considerable comfort. — Yours. &c.. 4th January. E. WILSON DOBBS.
• Dr. McLaughlin Wants Rockefeller's Million
  Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), Saturday 24 November 1906, page 5 The man who proved covering that Electricity D J2ockeielkr, and JOHN FRANCIS BYRNES. Atlantic City, N.J.-Jno. D. Rockefeller offers a million dollars to the man who will give him a healthy stomach. He made that offer to a doctor who called upon him, saying that it would be worth a million to him if could fix his stomach up so that it would digest his food. "A million dollars for a healthy stomach John D. Rockefeller. , "I accept the offer, and will forfeit £1.000 if I fail to effect the cure." Dr. McLaughlin. a This looked to me like material for an interesting story, which led me to Dr. McLaughlin's offices for more particular details. The first greeting from the doctor convinced me that I had met a man of convictions, and strong ones. The doctor was enthusiastic over what he terms a long-sought opportunity, and entered gleefully into a discussion of the subject. is I would like to accept that offer," said the doctor. "I think I can earn it, and, farther, I believe that no medicine on earth in the shape of a drug will do what Mr. Rockefeller wants done, simply because there is no vitality in the secretive glands of his stomach, i e and until he gets that vitality, which no drug can give him, he will never be cured ' "Just understand one point clearly: His food does not digest because certain functions related to digestion are powerless to act. They are weak, incapable of doing what Nature intended. You see that. Now you can see that to set him right you must revive the strength in the parts which are weak. That is plain. Drugs will not do that. They, never did, and <*/' they never will; and every doctor on earth knows it." "What will do it, then? Electricity!" 1 . "I would pay £1,000 this minute to see John D. Rockefeller walk into this office and permit me to tell him what I can do for him," said the doctor. "I am as certain that I can build up his digestive apparatus as I am that I have done the same thing for hundreds of others. His case is not incurable by my method, and I would consider my fortune made if he would but grant me a trial. "What is my method? The restoration of vitality nothing more. To appreciate what , I am going to say, you will have to understand that it is now generally conceded by medical men that the motive energy of human organs-the force which keeps the heart pulsating, the stomach digesting, and the brain scheming-is Electricity. , " "Two years ago, Professor Loeb, recognised as a high authority, and who has recently been engaged by the University of California, stated that he had discovered, after ten years of studious research, that electricity is the basis of human vitality 44 "Just glance at this book of mine, written in 1896, and read what I say in the introduction." a '' H I took the open book from the doctor's hand, and readers anticipate still greater results from my efforts toward demonstrating the truth of mv lifelong claim that "'Electricity' is the basis of all animal vitality, and without it we could not live." 8 for 64 my mTmS Claim that "That indicates that my discovery was years ahead of Professor Loeb," continued the doctor, but I claim no credit for that. I did not discover that nil belief, twenty years ago, as it is the belief of every thinking man to-day, and I have simply "? * -lawyer. it, as an, developed the theory until now it is a proven fact." - -' In another part of his book Dr. McLaughlin gives a more comprehensive solution of the heat problem than that advanced by Professor Loeb. Dr. McLaughlin says: a J. "The food that we eat is treated as fuel by the stomach, just as is the coal in a furnace. The chemical action which is produced upon the food by the acids and juices of the stomach ' ' Trorns the food and causes a carbonic heat. This heat is electricity, and it is forced into the nerves and vital organs, and is their life." ~ 'as ' Further, Dr. McLaughlin says-The electrical heat generated by the consumption of '"> our food should keep healthy every vital organ of the body. Exhaustion of the vital organs 7 arises when the waste is greater than the repair-when the stomach is not able to generate sufficient electrical heat to supply the demands of Nature. "This excessive waste is due to over-taxation of the vital forces by hard work mentally, "grief or worry, extra physical exertion, severe fevers, such as typhoid or malaria, Which drain away the vitality, and leave the system run down." ' '-<.'. age-W, here is where Dr. McLaughlin passes beyond the period covered by Professor Loeb, and shows how this vital electricity which is the basis' of life, may be replaced in the body when lost by the causes producing prostration. , , J. He says "When the stomach is not able to generate sufficient of this energy to supply, the demands, of the vital organs,- the natural result is lowering of nerve, organic, and mus- cular power-a general break-down. Then an artificial agent must be used to assist the stomach. That agent is Dr. McLaughlin's Electric Belt. area" 'This is the remedy for Mr. Rockefeller. To prove my faith in itJTf would be wnTingJeu. - - jpntTip -£1$Q0Ó, to be given to any public charity which he may select, if I faü.to,ciire/hÍ8 '" BtpmaçXin four months, he to wear my appliance for six hours each day or night during that - time. And he may be the sole judge as to the results obtained." . ' , ' "How about Mr. Rockefeller's offer of a million dollars, doctor?" ; ( "That is a secondary matter. I want it, of course, but not for my own use, as I don't < need it, and a million dollars wouldn't increase my happiness one quiver. I would much rather have the satisfaction of seeing my invention successful in curing a case where so many 'noted physicians have failed. When a man has devoted the greater part of his life to the development of an idea which he thinks will benefit humanity he is passionately fond of his idea, and money holds little fascination for him." ' .' "What would you do with the money, doctor?" , ? "If I should earn the prize I would gladly consent to having it go to some public charity, which I would reserve the right to name." -i s '- "And the £1,000 which you offer?" "On the day that Mr. Rockefeller agrees to use my treatment and observe my simple instructions I will put up my certified cheque for the amount, to be paid to any public 'charity which he may designate if he says that I have failed in my work." '*" wa"Then you leave the matter entirely in his hands?" " , . ? "Entirely. I am willing to trust to his decision." . - - "A great many wealthy men are suffering tortures and closing themselves with drugs without relief who never try a remedy like mine because they impose entire confidence in j their family physicians who believe that electricity is a remedy for the future, not of to '-day and so advise their patients." . - " "Is it true, doctor, that your patients are mostly people of the middle or poorer class?" "Yes; when a rich man is sick he calls in his doctor, who writes a prescription and looks wise, and the rich man has confidence that he will be well to-morrow. He feels better, perhaps, because the doctor can fool Nature for a while. But after a while the doctor looks " wise, and it doesn't do the rich man any good, and the first thing he knows nature demands a "cher price; and he has to pay it, as the doctor can help him no more. -a, ' When a poor man gets sick, he does the same way, but he soon gets tired of the doe" * lady's hills, and takes his case in his own hands and comes to me. I cure him with Electricity, and that is why my patients are usually poor men. rich men's doctors will not let them come to me. . "You cannot possibly estimate the true import of this discovery of Professor Loeb," said Dr. McLaughlin. It means more happiness to the civilised race than has followed any, ' discovery for years. It will bring about the general recognition of the great possibilities which exist in the application of electricity for the preservation of the vigor of youth. "I have for years contended that old age was nothing but the freezing of the blood when there was no longer sufficient vital heat in the body to keep the blood warm and the organs active have said that years did not cause, decay, and proven it by citing cases where some men have been made vigorous under my rejuvenating treatment at 80, while you have examples all about of men who are old and decrepit at 60. Now, Professor Loeb says that the animal heat is Electricity. That I know to be true.. We get that heat from the chemical action of the acids and juices of the stomach upon your food. That is combustion. This combustion produces carbonic heat, and carbonic beat is Electricity. That is the basis of life in every vital organ. As long as the stomach is able to generate enough of this heat to replenish the wear and tear upon our vital energies we are strong and active. It is when the stomach, finds the strain too heavy that we grow old and begin to decay. i "One old fellow, a patient of two years previous, came to see me one day, and asked me to have his belt overhauled, as he wanted to put it on again. I reminded him that he had reported himself as cured two years before, and I didn't see the need of the belt now. Pre-caution,' said he. 'I was cured two years ago, strong and sound, but I am seventy-one years of age, and am not as well able to stand knocking about as I was in my youth, and I wear the belt occasionally, not because of present need, but just so that I will have strength to spare in case of demand. If you are riding a bicycle on level ground and see p. hill before you what do you do ? Put on more steam, eh! I am getting older every day; jSnd I need more steam. That is why I wear my belt. This is upon the same principle that an engine pulls a train of cars uphill. On level road it goes easily, but when it goes up hill the strain is heavy, and your engine, making power from burning coal, just as your stomach makes it from burning your food, is taxed beyond its limit, is unable to go farther, and, exhausting all its steam in the effort, breaks down. - -"The human body is just like that engine. It breaks down when the physical energy is overtaxed. That energy is electricity. I have here a means of replenishing the electri- city of the body, and that is the basis of my treatment. "Decay in old men is similar to functional exhaustion in younger men. Years have nothing to do with it. In each case it is the failure of the stomach to generate sufficient energy to supply the demands made by the vital organs. "How quickly we fail when the stomach fails to digest the food! That shuts off the supply of energy. > i I I at "One decrepit old man of 75 had in youth been a blacksmith. After using my appliance the took up his tools, and says be can work as hard as he did at 35. He says he is an old man made young. "Another, who was a wreck at 49, and said that he had been so for twenty years, was cured, and three years later undertook the severe hardships of a trip to the Klondike. He returned a few months ago, and said that he had stood the terrible privations better than hundreds of young men. "I could cite thousands of similar incidents. When you see that I have fifty thousand voluntary testimonials, and that there is hardly a hamlet in. any English-speaking country without one or more acres by my appliances, you will understand that my experience has been broad. "My treatment is a success in any case where strength is lacking, whether in the nerves, stomach, heart, kidneys, liver, or any other part. My appliance gives a soothing, constant electric glow, which is taken by the body as a sponge takes up water. It cures rheumatism in any guise, as well as every other form of pain. ' "I am an enthusiast, you say? Why should I not be? I have the gratitude of thousands of people who have been cured by my Electric Belts after the failure of the best physicians. I am enthusiastic because I know that I offer suffering humanity the surest cure for the least expenditure of money that is known to-day. "I have gained my success by learning how to treat my patients, and then curing them. I know how others do not. I charge nothing for my knowledge, knowing that it helps my business to do all I can for every patient. My patients are my friends. They, are building Amy success." Then I questioned Dr. McLaughlin in regard to his Electric- Belted asked him therein Has it so much, better than other similar contrbaacea. That is very simple," replied the doctor. "Having spent twenty-two years in study and experiment, I have found means of perfecting my appliance, of removing defects as fast as they appeared in actual use, xmA of supplying features, such as a regulating device, non-burnable electrodes reversible battery, and of increasing the power of my appliance until it is five times as strong as that of any other electric body appliance on the market. It is patented in every country under the sun. My appliance is conceded to be the only one of the kind which, is constructed upon truly scientific lines. Compared with it all other so-called electric belts are the inventions of the blacksmith's hammer. "It is not upon that point, however, that my success has been founded. My immense business is due to my knowledge of the effect of electricity upon the ailments treated and the best way to obtain that effect. I take every case that comes to me as an individual, and direct the application of my belt to suit the demands of this particular case. When you consider the fact that the electricity which I supply is life to the organs into which I send it, you can see how I get my results. My success comes from my cures. If I did not care my Business would have been worn out long ago. A great many schemers and frauds have gone into the electric belt business because they fancied it was an easy way, to make money, and have resorted to very questionable methods at times, but the old adage, "You can't fool all the people all the time, was active in their case, and they did not last long." "Tell me, doctor, why it is that you seem to get better results than a physician derives from using a battery on his patients?" "Because thenervoussystem which receives the electric current is so sensitive that the current from a battery shocks it, but leaves no additional power to the nerves or vitals. That is why a doctor's battery does no good. Now my system is different. I pour the current into the for six or eight hours every day or night, usually while the patient sleeps. The delicate are not shocked or jarred by this current as it goes into the system just like a drizzle Prd Loeb in dieshe can cure Jno, charity if he fails. rain saturates a newly-ploughed field, they grow strong with it. They absorb it, drink it in, and as it is their "Some doctors even believe that my appliances do not generate a current. I will pay £200 for one of them that fails to give a powerful current as soon as it touches the body'. In days gone by electric belts used to burn the skin. I guarantee my patients against that. My appliances have soft cushion electrodes which give a glowing heat, but no heating or burn. They have also a regulator to control the current. "The day is drawing near when physicians who now avoid Electricity because of their belief that it is yet in the experimental stage, will awaken to the fact that while they have been waiting I have been working, and that Electricity as I apply it possesses marvellous curative powers in cases where drugs will only stimulate. "And my success is not limited to stomach troubles. Any organ of the body, any part that lacks the necessary vitality to perform its natural function, can be restored by my method. It gives strength, it makes the blood rich and red and warm, it realises the nerves, puts life and vim into the bushland muscles. ' It just makes a good man out of a bad one in every way. "With my Electric Belt I cure Rheumatism in its worst form; a cure pains and aches, weak nerves, all manner of functional weakness, and any other trouble which can be cured by restoring strength." Varicocele, the disease that probably does more than anything else to make a man's life miserable, cannot be successfully cured except by using my Belt. The current is directed in such a way that while the influence from the negative pole dissolves, disintegrates and tears down the accumulation of clotted, unhealthy blood, the current from the positive pole directs new life and energy to the tissues, building up and strengthening them against any further attacks. My Belt is guaranteed in every case undertaken. Dr. McLaughlin has not only proven that electricity is the substance of life and organic vitality, but has gone so far as to perfect the bestknown means of replenishing that force in the body when it is lost. His electric belt is the natural result of scientific study, coupled with experience and mechanical skill. "Now, doctor," I said, "your theory sounds very good, but can you give me any bona-fide evidence of cures to back up your statements. Yon know that there are a great many advertised remedies, and this case of Mr. Rockefeller, who has been in the hands of the best physicians for years, is very good proof that few of the remedies are successful." . "That is my strongest argument," said the doctor. "Here are letters from prominent people given me without solicitation. You can see these patients, and secure from them a verification of what is contained in their letters." Thereupon Dr. McLaughlin showed me a file containing letters from many of the best known people in the city, and some from outside places. After reading several of the American testimonials, amongst them one from United States Senator Call and many other prominent business people, the doctor handed me a number of grateful letters from Australian patients. Some from lawyers; also one from a doctor, and many m, fluential people, so I am led to believe. * A WELL-KNOWN LEGISLATOR writes-In answer to your enquiries about my health since I purchased your Electric Belt I have great pleasure in informing you that I carried out your instructions as nearly as possible from the beginning of January unto the beginning of this month by wearing the Belt when going to bed, and taking it off every morning average 7 hours every 24- After the first three weeks I with it I began to feel better in myself, and was able to walk better, and now I am pleased to say that the Belt has ENTIRELY CURED ME and I have not used it now for three weeks. Up to the time I called on you in Melbourne, the week before Christmas, I had been under the doctor's treatment for some time, and nearly physicked myself out of existence, so much so that between the physical and the want of sleep and rest I was almost run down, and had lost in flesh one stone six pounds. Immediately the Belt began to operate successfully my appetite improved, and my strength also, and now, thank God, through your advice and the ÏJelt, I am quite well again. I weighed myself last week, and have again put on some of my lost flesh, to the extent of over a stone. "When I was taken ill with the Sciatica, I had just been returned to Parliament. I became so tea I could not walk except under the most excruciating pain, and had to hire a cab to take me to and from the House for over three weeks. I can honestly and fully recommend, your Belt to anyone suffering from this complaint am, sir, yours respectfully, . , ^ HAY KIRKWOOD, J.P.. M.L.A., Member of Parliament for Eaglehawk, Vic." NOTTLE you will cut out and sign the appended letter, a book will be immediately sent to you, and an account opened for you, giving you credit for ten shillings. Send to-day. * CUT ALONG THIS LINE. -THE DR. M. A. MCLAUGHLIN (CO., UKPT. 2, liNDEN COURT, SYDNEY. 130 Dear Sir Please send me by return mail one of your ILLUSTRATED FREE BOOKS, describing your method of curing weakness and disease by. Electricity, WITHOUT THE USE OF DRUGS. Kindly send me a book by return post prepaid, and oblige. Yours truly, "F THIS LETTER ENTITLED THE SENDER TO A TEN SHILLING DISCOUNT ON ONE OF OUR BELTS. THE DR. M. A. MCLAUGHLIN CO., DEPT. 2, LINDEN COURT, SYDNEY. Name Address, WOMEN'S AILMENTS. Picola West, Vic. The Dr. McLaughlin Co. Dear Sirs-I is now over twelve months since I first got your Belt, and I am pleased to tell you that my general condition is excellent. The pains and aches I used to suffer from are ailments of the past, and though previous to using your Belt I could not walk a quarter of a mile without stopping to rest, I feel certain that I could now walk ten miles without being duce sufferers to use your Belt. fatigued. I shall always be pleased if I can ribs Yours faithfully, MRS. W. H. EDMONDS. and REMARKABLE CURE OF PARALYSIS. The Dr. McLaughlin Ch. Glenelg, SA Dear Sirs-Indeed remarkable has been the cure your Belt has effected in my case especially when you consider that for two years my legs were so paralysed that I could not leave my bed. The different doctors who saw me gave me up one after the other until I had a little encouragement of hope left. I therefore determined to try one of your Belts, and it is with great joy that I am able to tell you that it cured me in a few weeks' time. After a few applications I could feel that it was benefiting men and now my legs are strong and well, and I am able to walk any distance. You can well imagine that the people who knew my condition are surprised, and wonder greatly at my recovery. I earnestly desire to thank you for all you have done for me. and I trust that other sufferers will profit by my experience and go to you first Yours gratefully, J. A. WOODING. Dr. MCLAUGHLIN says that the chief reason so many people are sceptical about using his Belts is that the country is flooded with so-called "galvanic," "magnetic," and "electric" belts, braces, bands, girdles, &c, which are so poorly and crudely constructed, and of such worthless material, that when tried they prove to be valueless and utterly devoid of curative or strengthening virtue. Many persons misled by false claims made for them, have been led to purchase these articles, because they were cheap. These worthy people, having once been deceived by pre-tentious charlatans, do not hesitate to characterise all electrical appliances to be worn upon the person as frauds or humbugs. Even many intelligent people have reached this conviction. They could fall into no more serious error. When carefully constructed, upon the best known scientific principles, and of suitable materials, belts, bands, are, worn upon the body, and which communicate a constant electrical stimulus to the system have been pronounced by eminent physicians to be of inestimable benefit. In regard to cheap belts, then, he says to afflicted persons, try them if you must; but when convinced, as you will undoubtedly become, of their utter worthlessness, come to me and get a good one. The Dr. MCLAUGHLIN ELECTRO MAGNETIC BELT is not a cheap one; it cannot be made cheaply, and, therefore, cannot be sold, cheaply. STRAINED BACK. The Secretary, Dr. McLaughlin Co. Port Pirie, S.A. Dear Sirs-I severely injured my back lifting, and suffered a great deal from it for many months, but after' wearing your Belt for three weeks It was entirely restored to my former healthy condition. My work at the Smelting Works is extremely heavy, but I am now able to perform my duties as well as ever Yours truly A. GORMAN. SCIATICA CURED. The Dr. McLaughlin Cb. - Blumberg, SA Dear Sirs-I suffered with Sciatica and had great pain at times, but after trying many remedies, none of which ever did me any good, I saw your Belt advertised, and after obtain-ing and reading your book, get a Belt. It cured me in a few weeks, and I am now strong and hearty, and have had no pain for a long while, neither have I had any return of the trouble. Yours faithfully, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ CHARLES LLOYD. TRIED A FREE BELT." Alfred Woollen Mills, Williamstown, Vic Gentlemen In answer to your kind enquiries after my health, I beg to state that I have been completely cured of the Sciatica that has troubled me for years. I cannot thank you enough for your gentlemanly treatment and fair dealing with your patients, as I know from others that their treatment has been the same as mine. I may just as welLlet you know- my experience in seeking a. cure for my trouble before ''I purchased'one-of your High Grade Belts. I had been under doctors and received scant) relief, and tried various quacks, but it was all the same. I then placed myself in the hands of a Specialist (in Melbourne) guaranteed to cure Rheumatism and Sciatica, but received very small benefit from the treatment. I then had my attention drawn to Electricity. Well, I thought, "Never venture, never win, so I PROCURED a so-called "Free Belt," with a most "Wonderful Pedigree," at a cost of £4. Well, I wore the Belt according to the instructions given faithfully for a period of five weeks, and by that time I was burnt and blistered so badly that I could not wear it longer, and still no relief was gained, although the Belt was guaranteed to Cure Anything in sciatica in One Month. You bet I was very much discouraged in regard to Electric Belts. However, I was persuaded to come and just see you, gentlemen. I then found that I had been wearing a Torture Belt and very Wrongly Applied, and quite enough to give any patient a Horror of so-called Electric Belts. After the consultation I decided to place myself in your hands. I knew my case was very difficult, as I was compelled to follow my employment, and standing at the vice was very irksome, and the complaint was a very stubborn one. However, gentlemen, your Belt, coupled with your advice, has made me a grateful patient. I thank you kindly for supply-ing me with a remedy which has Completely Cured Me, and strongly recommend it to all and sundry that I find are suffering from the distressing malady called "Sciatica." I have not been wearing the Belt for the past fortnight, but have passed it over to my wife, who has received great benefit for nervous troubles. I remain, your grateful patient, ________________________ W. FOLLEY. I SUFFERED FROM WEAK BACK. Mr. GEORGE LEWIS, Willow Farm, near Gladstone, SA., in making two reports, says in his first-I have much pleasure in telling you that the Belt I purchased from you, is giving , the greatest satisfaction; in fact, I may say that I am as well now as I ever was in my life. I feel my back suit the weak after my day's ride, but a little rest soon puts it right. You may make what use you like of this letter. I would not have been so long without one of your Belts if I had known of them before my son told me. IN THE SECOND HE HAS BECOME A WALKING AND A WILLING TESTIMONY: Sirs I am feeling as well as ever I did in my life; I really must say I am a living advertisement of your Belt. All my friends can see the change in me since I got it. There were dozens of letters from prominent men, whose names, if Dr. Mclaughlin was permitted to publish them, would-be sufficient guarantee of the genuineness of his cure. Among them were several prominent physicians, who spoke highly of the treatment from personal tests. "Is your treatment beneficial in cases of general weakness?" I asked. "Decidedly. In the same manner that it restores the vitality to" the stomach, it builds up the vital force of the nerves, enriches the blood, and restores the motive power of all organs. To quote Prof. Loeb against part of the chemical energy of foodstuffs is transformed into electrical energy, which in turn gives energy to the muscles and organs of the body. You see, Prof. Loeb has proven that all energy of the vital organs is electrical. Therefore, you can see that when I am able to increase the electrical force of every vital organ I have in my hands the means of cure for every form of physical weakness or decline. "You can take a man who is thin, puny, and unnourished in appearance, and poor thin electric life into his body every night for a few months, with the proper exercise to draw it into the muscles and tissues, and you can add twenty-five pounds to his weight, double his strength and vitality, and transform him into a giant in strength, as I have often done. Look at the men who have worn my belt, and you will see men of force, men of power and confidence; men who respect themselves, and are respected and admired by their fellow-men. "Poor digestion, inactive liver, constipation, sluggish heart, slow thinking, dormant energy, and laziness are all due to the lack of electricity. Understand that electricity is the motive power of the human machine, the power that keeps the organs active, and you will see what I mean. In such cases you can see how my electric belt will pump action into his body. It renews the electric life and transforms the sluggard into a bundle of vigorous energy. "This agitation on the subject is going to prove of incalculable benefit to the future health of our race. Just satisfy the people that they can procure a renewal of bodily vigour" and health by simply renewing the electricity in the body, and you have given them what they have always prayed for-a relief from noxious drugs. Convince a suffering man or woman that drugs will not cure them, and that all they need is a new supply of electricity, and you have made them happy. "So many people suffer from pains and aches, called Rheumatism or Lumbago, or Neuralgia, due to impoverished nerves, crying for aid. The life of these nerves is electricity, and nothing else will cure them. I can send a gentle current from my electric belt so that it will convey the life direct to the ailing part, and relief is often felt in an hour. I frequently cure such cases within ten days. "Suppose we take a man who has in one way or another overtaxed his system until it is in a state of abject exhaustion, the brain sluggish, all ambition gone, and an ever-present feeling of despondency, a disposition to give up the fight. "In that case the electric force has been reduced, and there we have the cause of the trouble. Now, replace that force and you have a rejuvenated man, as good as ever. "If these scientific men would do more investigating along paths that I have already well worn they would find more evidence to back their theory that Electricity is Life' in one day than they will get out of the carcase of a frog in ten years. I prove it by results upon human beings whom I have cured, and thousands upon thousands of them are already, shouting the praises of my belts. Let the scientists take my patient as examples, and they will be convinced of the wonderful power of electricity. "If it were not for the prejudice, due to the great number of lakes in the land, 7 would not be able to handle the business that would come to me. The "Free Belts fraud, and the CHEAP BELT and DRUG scheme, which are not free or cheap at all, have made everyone sceptical but I know that I have a good thing, and 111 pound away until everyone knows it." Before leaving, the doctor informed me that he had been a student of this subject for twenty-two years, and had never seen a case where his electric belt was properly applied without grand results. He stated that he has now more than twenty-five large branches of business. Each office is in the keeping of a staff of experienced men, carefully trained in his theories, and experts in the use of his appliances, whose business it is to give a free ' personal test of what his belt will do to all who were able to call. He said he had never known a failure in a case where the proper power of current had been used. That, unlike other belts, his was made, not for show, or a cheap appearing bait to other methods, but made solely to cure; that there were several different grades of chain batteries, differing in strength only, with the price ranged according to the construction of the self from a stand- point of power secured. He says that during the past few years over one million of his books have been given to suffering humanity, either personally or sent by mail. If you are ailing -you cannot do better than to send for-ariree book. Be careful of the address. TheJte.jULl^McLangldiB COorDej^^Xiiideihcourt Sydney
• Despondent Young Men!
  Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), Saturday 18 March 1905, page 50 [Advertisement] s ,§? Will you allow yourself to tall into this #r^^HHBHHBSD VM I . miserable state of Nervousness or De- i' .^fc jPIWWB5S'HHj#^ bility when a CURE IS AT HAND? fjf) ? ' - ^f^W V* THIS IS A SERIOUS MATTER.-rA man who has lost his will- ^|$P ||y|f \^r ^^1 l| power-by continually committing himself to habits of dissipation . *f$ii&r , . \ ^ /piSslft 1 and abuse unfits himself for nearly all the walks of life. Now 20,000 ... \-^*&JM^li?P'H i inen have overcome their delicate feelings to such an extent that they have openly endorsed (S^lilSslil&Jr i ' ' 'Vi! ELECTRO-5V1EDICAL TREATMEMT. ' jaSS/BSK^ \ ? . I It restores men to perfect manly state. This is not the mere verbiage of a single man, but M^^^^^^^^^^^^^ i ' J ! 20,000 MEN TALKINQ TO YOU. M^^^^^^ Sj ?' Men who have been Restored to Health by the world-renowned Specialists, and if . MS^^^^^^^^§ | ! they are willing to sacrifice all modest feelings to prove to you that this is so, you ^^^^^S^^^^^^S^^ H I should take enough heed of Uie matter to make careful investigation ^^^^^S^^^^^^^^^Mf i II THE FREEMAN & WALLACE II ^^^^^^^^^W I 1 buctro-med^'l tTeatmekt II ^^^^^ffl^^m^ I Y brings back vim, vigor and energy to men who have wasted their ^^^^^k'^Kl^^WJ^^^^m^^W & strength in dissipation and abuse. The man who abuses himself, who wrecks lll|ilil\fPiy W$&J*IM&M£s®MI^ § liis manhood by those evil habits, most certainly suffer. Remember that ^^^R^Kl^^ff^^^P^^a I DR. R. WALLACE, M.D., L.R.C.P.E., L.F.P.S. bas Nine Diplomas and Certificates B ^SsAWtSKB^SSSS ' gj of Qualification and Registration open for inspection at (be Consulting Rooms. ^Ph^^^^ K^^^^^^^^ S7O PAGE SV1BDICAL- WORK , IHBBB9' S| The Largest Medical Work of its kind ever published in Australia, containing over 150 en- ^^^^P^^^^^^ cravings, is now ready. Every miner, mariner, farmer, in fact all classes and conditions llsiii^ SillraS&fel . gj of men, should purchase a copy. ^^Pl^^^^ J one: shilling, post free. ; HKB ? 1 READ THE SYMPTOMS ! and if you have any of them, you require the remarkable ^^^ffl^^^^^ £ treatment which has. made both Fame. and Fortune for Freeman nnd Wallace Medical Institute. ^^^^^^fe*^^ FAILING MANHOOD. When manhood begins to go you will twitch, and show signs of premature weakness. -Following are some of the' symptom? : Do your facial nerves twitch ? Are you all run down ? Spots before:your eyes ? Do the muscles twitch ? Have you pains in' small of back? Have you pains in head ? . Have you shooting pains ? Do you feel fatigued ? Are you weary ? Does your head swim ? Do your knees knock ? Does your hand tremble ? NERVOUS TWITCHINGS. A nervous man easily gels all of .a tremble, gets fits of weakness, fits of twitchings. Here are some of his symptoms : Do your eyes twitch ? Do your hands tremble ? Do you feel shaky ? Can you walk without halting ? ?Are you melancholy ? ' ?' Do you have ringing in the ears ? Is your blood poor ? Are your eyes weak ? Are your eyes bleary ? Does your head swim t DEBILITY. This affliction destroys ambition, organic strength, energy, and hope. Following arc some of (.he symptoms :— Do you feel weak ? . Have you cold feet ? Have you backache ? Do you shun society ? Are you losing flesh ? Do you sleep poorly ? . Are you low spirited ? Are youl1 eyes sunken ? Do you have hot flushes ? Is your memory impaired ? Have you no manly vigor ? Have you no vital energy ? Do you have sick headaches ? Is there nausea after eating ? Do your hands or feet sweat ? Has brightness left your eyes ? IK m 8&B 1 The Freeman & Wallace ^Z^?Z. WEM I I HOWARD FREEMAH, DIRECTOR. || CR. ELIZABETH & BATHURST STS., ^^HS DR. RICHARD WALLACE, PHYSICIAN-IN-CHIEP ._.„__ ^jfleSfi«9 1 DB. ELIZABETH WHITE, DISEASES OF WOMEH SYDNEY. ? J^SMSBS ' ' A«d at MELBOURNE. ^ , , ^M^^^^W tSlkQ-ixld. B^ay the New Oldsmobzle i|| ??? It is the simplest and most reliable runabout 1|| made — 25,000 now in use; the only light car that m has been driven 3,500, miles across the American 11 continent ; the ^onl^jjne. in its class that took the |f| highest awards in the English Reliability Runs in 11 Seven proven JiOfee-ppwer, 3-iach tires, no gaskets, §£§ ?weighs 1,100 lbs., splendid kill climber. Increased Si sower, speed and strength over former models. g| Send to nearest agent tor handsome catalogue §1 showing Oldsmobile light Tonneau Car, Touring M Runabout and Delivery Car. li Olds Motor Works, Detroit, MjgirigjigjJU^JS^A. Em DUS^CAW & FRASEH, if' . SOUTH AUSTRALIAN AGENTS. 303w:n2X303:112 ^j§j_ ? iBSBasiwsHMHasra^^wraSraagEfiBl^HSseB^^ra^asH Safest and most lie Universal Remedy for Acidity of the Gentle Medicine for fctomach. Headache, Heartburn, Iudiges- Jn^nts, Children, tion, Sour Eructations, Bilious Affections. 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• Communicating with Mars
  Bendigo Advertiser (Vic. : 1855 - 1918), Saturday 15 January 1898, page 6 COMMUNICATING WITH MARS. The question has been raised whether the Martians have riot tried to enter into communication with us (says Cumille Flammarion in tlie ILnn'iiu'turinn) and if the luminous points sometimes observed by the telescope may not be signals. A careful examination of these luminous points leads rather to the conclusion that they are clouds elevated to a great height in the atmosphere of Mars, and illuminated by the setting sun. Certainly it is not impossible that. these neighbors of ours in the sky may have tried to signal to us. Perhaps they may have at their disposal sciences unknown to us. They may have been doing this 100.000 years, or 10,000 years or 300 year.-; before the invention of the telescope, and the inhabitants of the earth may have known nothing of these appeals. We have for so short a time observed Mars with good optical appliances, and our atmosphere is so often clouded, that the efforts of the Martians, supposing such to have been made, run great risk of not having been seen, and of remaining for a long while unperceived by the inhabitants of our planet. Still, for some years, astronomers ha reexamined with special care the luminous points of which we speak, in order to discover whether in truth they were not artificial lights at least for those amongst us who were far from the meridian illuminated by the setting or rising sun. On the other hand, it has been iisked whether we ourselves could not attempt some form of optical telegraphy with them. Ot:e of my friends, Charles Cross, has even already devised a system of intermittent lights to be thrown on Mars by means of powerful reflectors, and has found that these luminous points, seen from Mars, would be equivalent to the brightest of the planet Xeptune as seen from the earth, when they were examined by optical instruments analogous to our own.. But it is evident that terrestrial humanity has so many material and vulgar interests to think of that it cannot indulge itself in the luxury of such a celestial romance; and we only mention the project by way of saying that it does exist and has already been very seriously studied.
• A Wonderful Machine
  Port Fairy Gazette (Vic. : 1890 - 1922), Tuesday 31 July 1900, page 3 A WONJJERFUE MAEJ6INE. " The Criming Race," w 1 1 >j Wel's, in "The War of tire wr , and " When tIle Sleeper Wakes, both drawn rricturei of what the world will be like when tho scieutiuc inventor really lets himself go. An article that Mr Nikola Tesia has con-trihuted to the Century shows that these forecasts of which Lord Lvr ton's, at least, must have been a pure child of the imagination — were singularly accurate, and are now very likely to be realised. If Mr Tesla succeeds in making half his discoveries available fur daily use, we shall havo everything at our command that the Vrilya had, and shall have gone a long way towards acquiring the amazing forces of the Martians. Some 10 years ago, in a lecture to the Royal Institution, Mr Tesla showed that if an electric current bo reversed a great number of times a minute, it will develop powers immensely in advance of anything we can produce by other means. Acting on this principle, he has eucceeded in producing what is really an indue ion coil with 150,000 alternations of current per second. W'i h this huge 'oscillator," as lie calls it, tile ordinary spark of a few inches besomes a roaring blaze 70 feet across, while it produces such a disturbance of thu electrical equilibrium in surrounding obj-cts that, when at work, sparks an inch long can be drawn from a water main at a distance of 300 feet from the laboratory. Moreover, he has discovered a way of so " tuning " it that another coil similarly tuned will respond to its vibrations at a distauce which lie believes may be infinite, but which in practice does not seem to have been tested beyond GOO miles. He thus has at his disposal a means of conveying electric energy of millions of volts (N.B.— Two thousand volts will kill a man) to a great distance in any diioction he pleases, and, of course, without any connecting wires. No known substance or power can stop or insuiatu tuts current, which can travel indifferently through the earth or the air, nor can anyone lap or avail himself of it unless he possesses a coil exactly tuned to the vibrations of the oscillator. What this extraordinary machine can do outstrips all the stories of mediaeval magic. By its use, Air Tesla claims that he can double the fond supply of the world. For it offers the boat and most economical means of fixing the nitrogen which, as S.r William Cro.-ke has told us, is the life of plains, and I10 can therefore make two ears oi corn grow where one grew before. It can also produce iron in vast quantities by a cheaper process than any hitherto attempted. It can also control at enormous distances an automatic machine, as, for instance, a crewless boat, which shall catry its own propelling and steering power, and yet lie as entirely under the control of the operator seated in his study hundreds of miles off as an organ is under the control of the player at the keyboard. Finally, though Air Tesla does not tell us so in this article, the battery can so "electrify" — to use the word in i: s popular sense — a room that an exhausted glass tube will gluw with radiant light whenever it is brought within a certain distance of the flour or ceiling. If it does what i>s inventor expects of it, light and power should at no very distant date be within the reach or an, wiuie t lie problem of feeding our increasing millions should be greatly simplified. The facts so far have been proved by actual experiment and may therefore be taken, to use the French phrase, as definitely acquired by scieuce. But when Air Tesla goes oil to tell ui what he thinks the result of his discoveries will be, one does not wonder that an American biugraper depicts him as much elated at his successes. He says that it will soon be possible to draw our supplies of electric force, not, as now, from magnets rotated by steam engines, or, still more expensively, by the dec-imposition of chemicals, but from the upper strata of the atmosphere. By these means we shall command a practicaily unlimited supply of power, and we can set about trans forming the face of Nature in real earnest. War will, of course, be done away with, or rather it will be reduced to a contest of machines, at which tho nations will bo " simply interested, ambitious spectators." Then machines which are now made of iron or copper will be made of aluminium — a theory, by the way, anticipated in "The War of the Worlds" — with the result that flying machines will be of daily use. These are, in fact, according to him, already on the way, and he prophesies that " 1 he next year " will see the establishment of an ' air power," and its centre may nut he far from New York. At a later date will arrive "a self-acting machine, deriving energy from the ambient medium," which will really, but for the wear and tear of its parts, come as near perpetual motion as can be. Then will come a time when this earth will be too small to hold us, and we shall gat more anxious than most of us are at present to establish communications with the o'her planets. When this happens, we shali find Air Tesla ready and able to oblige us. "My measurements and calculations have shown that it is perfecily practicable to produce on our globe, by the use of these principles, ail electrical movement of such magnitude that, without the slightest doub', its effect will lie perceptible on some of our nearest planeis, such as Venus and Alars." What will happen if the Veuusites and the Alar ions Bliould turn out, when we do make their acquaintance, to be arintd with powers as formidable as even Air Tesla's oscillator, he doeB nut stop to inquire. But it is to be hoped that all this will he carefully gone into before he is allowed to m..ko his signal. How much of all this will stand further investigation remains to be seen. Although burn in Hungary, Air Tesla lias been domiciled for some time in America, where tha desire for " the greatest thing 011 airth " shows no signs of abatement. Hence wo may consider that, between some of Air Tesla's calculations and their fruition there is yet a step or two, and that these last may present difficulties as yet unthouglit of. Is it certain, for instance, that because the atmosphere of our globe offers no bar to tile progress of Mr Tesla's alternating curien', the medium— if there is any — that occupies' tho inter-planetary apace will be equally obliging 1 Or can he really prove that the sun, as he seems to assume, is the sourca of all Lho electrical energy of the earth ? Some have thought that the electro-motive force of lightning, to take only one example, is developed by the friction of one cloud upon another wilt n driven by strong winds ; and tho themy has much to recommend it. But when all this and some other rather wild theorizing is disposed of, there seems little doubt that Air Tesla has discovered a means of transmitting energy to a distauce, and also a new method of illumination, which probably surpasses anything we havo yet dreamed of. If this he so, and if— which is a large supposition — his invention can be made commercially valuable, his oscillator may really work as great-a change in the conditions of civilised life as did the steam engine. . One word may be said as to tho risk of handling tho enormous forces now revealed to us. One of the very oddest things about the whole matter i'e that these alternating currenis seem to be absolutely harmle.s to the living human organism. Those of us who remember Air Tesla's visit to this country early in his carter may remember liuw he then horrified ail assemblage of savants by transmitting through Ibis own body a current a hundred times that which in other circumstances would have caused instant Heath, ' He azures us that the same immunity has attended his experiments throughout, and that neither ho . rior any of his assistants has over suffered inconvenience so long as the vibrations were sufficiently rapid and the potential sufficiently high. Ho now offers to transmit through his own body the entire energy of the 40,000 horse-power dynamos now worked by Niagara, and the offer is, if rather foolhardy, an undeniable guarantee of good faith. He also tells us that he has transmitted through his own hands discharges which have caused thick metal wires to melt and drop like wax, without feeling any pariicular sensation! As to the risk of lire, perhaps the less said about it the better The fire insurance companies will certainly raise their rates of premium if there is any chance of one of Mr Tesla's nnrronta fetching loose. — Pr ill Hall Gazette.