laquelle, avant la fondation relativement récente de la Mecque, demeuraient seulement quelques familles chargées du culte.

Il est bien difficile de démêler, dans ce nom de Baitocace, la forme probablement sémitique dont il est la transcription; peut-être faut-il dans la première partie, reconnaître le mot bait, temple; le tau devrait être plus régulièrement représenté par un 0, mais on a du exemple de la transcription par T, et on peut rapprocher les noms de lieux tels que Baiтoavala (kopn) de l'onomasticon, Bairouaobaiu de Judith (xv. 3) et aussi le nom des betyles, phéniciens Baurúλia.

Peut-être dans la seconde partie de Baitocæce se cache le nom même du dieu auquel était consacré ce grand Haram (Cf. Beth Baal Meon, Beasthara, Beth Dagon, &c.). CH. CLERMONT-GANNEAU.

Now Chaucer gives us, in effect, two lists, both professedly incomplete, of these twenty women. One is in the Prologue to the 'Man of Lawes Tale,' where he names only such of them as are to be found in Ovid's Heroides'; and in the Ballad in the Prologue to the Legend, where the first verse must be held to be to some extent introduc

6

tory, since (1) it brings in Jonathan and Absalom, and (2) the women mentioned are mentioned for various excellences, not as martyrs of love, with the exception of Penelope and Helen, who are in Ovid; so that the last two verses are really those that give the list in a continuous form.

Putting the two lists side by side, and keep ing to Ovid's arrangement, the following names occur in both, viz., Penelope, Phyllis, Hypsipyle (and therefore Medea), Dido, Ariadne, Laodamia, Hypermnestra, Helen, and Hero. This settles ten of them. Then the former list supplies also Briseis, Hermione, and Deianira. The latter supplies Lavinia and Polyxena. This gives five more. Add the names of Cleopatra, Thisbe, Lucretia, and Philomela, whose legends were actually written, and here is the number made up. The only one who is at all doubtful, to me, is Lavinia, who was not a martyr for love, and of no great fame. Enone, mentioned both in Ovid and in Chaucer's 'House of Fame,' would do better. I now revise the list, re-arrange, and we get the following:

1. Cleopatra; 2. Thisbe; 3. Dido; 4, 5. Hyp sipyle and Medea; 6. Lucretia; 7. Ariadne; 8. Philomela; 9. Phyllis; 10. Hypermnestra (unfinished); 11. Penelope; 12. Laodamia; 13. Helen; 14. Hero; 15. Briseis; 16. Hermione; 17. Deianira; 18. Polyxena; 19. Either Lavinia or Enone; and (20) last of all, no doubt, was to have come the crowning story of Alcestis.

However, Chaucer wrote rather less than half, as was his custom. That is what he did with his 'Astrolabe,' with his 'Squire's Tale,' and with his greatest work of all. WALTER W. SKEAT.

NOTES FROM PARIS.

In the last two months, during which I have not had time to write to you, some twenty interesting books have been published, three or four new authors have been hatched, and several literary events have taken place. You will not be surprised if I commence with the events, and if I assign the first place to that which happened a day or two ago: I mean the sudden death of my old associate, Ernest Beulé, a distinguished archaologist, a vigorous writer, a prejudiced historian, and as unlucky a politician as ever lived.

I knew him in 1852, at the École Française at Athens, where he was my senior. The young man of five-and-twenty had already a history. After quitting the École Normale, he had been sous-préfet under Delescluze, in a Northern Department, entrusted with the task of revolutionizing a shrewd and Conservative population. But he was not proud of this brief campaign, and on the morrow of the Second of December he accepted accomplished facts with a good grace. His début at Athens was that of a youth whom the laurels of Alcibiades prevented from sleeping. He was a musician, an elegant dancer, a tolerable rider, and much more occupied with the modern world than with Greek archæology. A queer accident changed the course of his life. His mother, whom he had left in Paris, turned up one fine morning at Athens, as governess to the young Soutzos.

She had accepted this humble position in order to be near her son, without ever thinking that she was killing his prospects as a man of fashion in a little city where the vanities of birth and wealth are all-powerful. I must say that he recovered from the shock in a creditably short horse, sent his piano back to the man of whom time. He shaved off his moustaches, sold his he had hired it, broke with the world, and threw himself into archæology, as a man of less The Académie des Inscriptions, the guardian of energy would have thrown himself into a well. the École d'Athènes, happened to ask for a work on the Acropolis. He undertook it, and was successful. He had the singular good luck to settle the celebrated question of the staircase, which an architect of the name of Titeux had solved à priori, without an experimental proof. Titeux maintained that the ancient entrance wards the road from the Piræus. He had even must have been in the axis of the Propylæa, tocommenced an excavation on the site of the supposed staircase; but he died of the effects of a sunstroke, in the middle of his researches, at the distance of some few feet from the object of his his own account, with no other resources than the quest. Ernest Beulé re-commenced the task on France used to pay us monthly. He had to modest stipend of three hundred francs which struggle against, not merely the difficulties of the enterprise, but also the hostility of the Greek ploying gunpowder, and declared he was a second archeologists, who found fault with him for emthat of our friend Charles Garnier, the architect of Morosini. Never shall I forget his joy and mine, and the New Opera-house, the day that he discovered the first steps. Beulé were made. The French embassy, the AcaFrom that moment the fortunes of démie des Inscriptions, the Minister of Public Instruction, M. Fortoul, who had a fancy for archæology, the Emperor Napoleon III., and King Otho himself, vied with one another in rewarding to success; and, in the course of a few years, he the young savant. He walked, he ran, from success was Docteur-ès-Lettres, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, Professor of Archæology at the BiblioMember of the Académie des Inscriptions, and thèque Impériale, rich through a lucky marriage, Perpetual Secretary of the Académie des BeauxArts. Only the Ministry of Public Instruction was wanting to make him as successful as the Guizots, Cousins, Villemains, and the most illustrious men of the University. That he coveted the post is beyond a doubt, and he did not attempt to conceal his ambition. But he made the mistake, it seems to me, of confounding the personal government with the parliamentary reign of Louis Philippe, under which opposition was the high road

to office.

by his temperament beyond the limits he had traced out for himself, he launched into a war of historical epigrams, in which all the Caesars were without mercy put into the salad. This campaign made him popular in the little world of letters. He became one of the chief of the Liberal party, and along with my poor friend, Prévost-Paradol, and some others, he was looked upon as a kidgloved tamer of the hydra of despotism.

He had got entangled so far in the front of the mêlée, that in January, 1870, he was unable to retreat, and he refused, point-blank, an invitation of the naïf Maurice Richard, when the Guizots, the Broglies, and the Paradols accepted the reformed Empire in its entirety. Of his liberalism, alas, nobody can talk now-a-days. We have seen him combat M. Thiers and the republic with more impetuosity than he combated Napoleon the Third and despotism. Minister of the Interior after the 24th of May, 1870, he treated the press with a rigour which caused the empire to be regretted. The famous circular which he dictated to M. Pascal, and presently disavowed before the Chamber, proved only too clearly that he was not a man of principle; his embarrassed, lengthy speeches, in which his impudence and self-conceit approached the ridiculous, showed he was no orator.

But, as a writer, he had indisputable merits, and his laboured periods sometimes rose to eloquence. duced neither a masterpiece nor a quasi-masterHis books will not survive him long, for he propiece still some choice passages can be found in his works, suitable for cours de littérature. As a man he was superior to what, for the last year, he has been usually thought to be. Somewhat a prey, I allow, to ambition, he was yet a good husband and father: he loved his few friends, and would do anything for them-up to the point at which self-sacrifice begins. Finally, he was not devoid of a certain grace, acquired and calculated, rather than spontaneous, in society. The Académie des Inscriptions will replace him without much trouble, for he was only a savant at second-hand; but he leaves a great gap in the Académie des talent for business were highly appreciated. Beaux-Arts, where his correct editing and his

greater mistakes.

I cannot quit the academic world without saying a last word on the affaire Ollivier, although it is already pretty well forgotten. There has been a sort of match between the Academy and the man of the light heart as to which should make the The Academy won the first January, who was neither a writer, a statesman, bout by electing the minister of the 2nd of nor an orator. Ollivier took his revenge by coming which he is responsible; but the Academy was to claim his seat after the public calamities, for not to be beaten. It was ill advised enough to reject a discours de réception which it would have applauded in 1870. The public does not know, and probably will never know, who deserves the credit of having sold for ready money to a newspaper the mediocre speech of Ollivier and the clever answer of Augier. All that is certain is, that there are those who buy and sell in the years, we have seen a man of tolerable repute temple. Few doubted it, as, for more than twenty make a trade of the Academy itself, and dispose of almost all the vacant seats. There is, however, one strange fact worth remark, which shows how weak the force of tradition has grown in the old and pedantic corporation. The Academy decided that the insertion of two addresses in the Figaro was equivalent to a public ceremony, and it permitted Ollivier to take his seat on the Thursday following. He crossed the Pont des Arts, and gave two sous to the blind man, who gave him back four, with the simple remark, "My dear sir, you are blinder than I." So finishes the farce.

Hugo which a French writer is alone in a position to appreciate. No one can fail to recognize the

power of Hugo's invention, the wealth of his ideas, the grandeur of his oratorical flights, and that sublimity which is the mark of a man of genius; but it is not known in Europe, nor even in France, that Victor Hugo is the most learned of men of letters. He possesses an enormous Vocabulary. Out of the 27,000 words which the dictionary of the Academy contains, and 6,000 of which have an individuality of their own, the language of common life employs at most about a thousand. I could mention illustrious publicists, popular dramatists, novelists, whose books are much read and much liked, none of whom has more than 1,500 words at his disposal. Théophile Gautier, a studious man and a dilettante, used to boast to his friends of possessing 3,000. "But," he used to add, "I might toil to the last day of my life without attaining to the vocabulary of Hugo." Genius apart, merely by his knowledge and use of his mother tongue, Hugo is the Rabelais of modern days. This is the minor side of his glory, I allow, but critics ought not to neglect it, or they will lead people to form false ideas. Young persons ought to be taught that the brilliancy of a fine work, like the beauty of a mosaic at St. Mark's or at St. Sophia's, is due to small fragments, laboriously collected and put together with minute art. Those who imagine genius is like a volcano in a state of eruption, forget that volcanoes have never produced anything but lava and scoriæ.

M. Gustave Flaubert, who, from his worship of form and striving after effect, belongs to the school of 1830, is also a great worker, and a scholar of the first class. Few men of our day have so firm a grasp of the French language, or manage as well as he. The misfortune is, that since his masterpiece, Madame Bovary,' was written, he has not discovered a good opportunity for the display of his powers and his acquirements. He oscillates between the monstrous novelties of 'Salammbo'

and the insipid vulgarity of the Education Sentimentale.' His two last works, which have seen the light within a week of one another, sin equally in the choice of subject. The 'Tentation de Saint Antoine' is outside and above nature; while 'Le

Candidat' is outside and below nature. I once

knew a great sculptor who, after having produced finished masterpieces, took to making his statues either too little or too big. He had lost the measure, the kavov, that exact feeling for proportion which the Greeks retained till the Roman Conquest, and never regained.

Either I am much mistaken, or a poet and prose writer have been born to us in these latter days. But this letter is already a long one, and I have

so much to say that, with your leave, I shall defer the conclusion of my remarks to another number. EDMOND ABOUT.

Literary Gossip.

THE announcement made the other day by the Times and other papers, that the Government had undertaken to defray the expenses of Dr. Livingstone's funeral, was, to say the least, premature; up to 5 P.M. on Thursday, the Government had come to no decision on the subject. Neither is it true that the body will lie in state at the house of the Royal Geographical Society; this has never been contemplated, and would be indeed impracticable. It is finally arranged that the body shall be landed at Southampton, and received with due ceremonial by the town of Southampton. The remainder of Dr. Livingstone's journals and papers have not yet been delivered up to the Livingstone family by the Foreign Office. A large number of letters written by Dr. Livingstone to various friends have been distributed, some of them giving vivid descriptions of his last march along the mountainous eastern coast country of Lake Tanganyika; no doubt many of them will soon be published.

A NEW poem by the Hon. Roden Noel is in the press. The subject, 'Livingstone in Africa,' is one congenial to the author of those fervent verses on Palmyra

These

Where once Zenobia, Queen of all the East, Drove in her chariot, girt with flaming swords And dark adoring faces of her lovers. THE Clockmakers' Company is one of the few among the less powerful of the livery companies which have made any progress of late years. It has not only prospered as a Company, but has applied its limited of the Company began a library and museum resources with liberality. The new founders sixty years ago, and although these were for a time neglected, the plan was never lost sight of. On the movement for technical education springing up, the Company thought that one good way of promoting it was to set the example of depositing in the free public library at Guildhall their valuable collection of books. include not only special works on horology in many languages, but works of science and manuscripts, which have been lately put in admirable order by Mr. W. H. Overall, the feature in the library; another is the singular City librarian. These form a conspicuous collection of ancient watches, which are given in the hope of attracting further donations. The Company contemplate, it is said, employing Mr. Overall to complete the history of their Company, or more properly of the art of clock and watch making, which is recorded in their annals. At their court the other day they determined to perform another useful act by depositing in Guildhall their collection of portraits, which includes Mudge and many eminent inventors of chronometers. Their hope is that by so doing they may promote the formation of a City of London Portrait Gallery, on the plan of the National Portrait Gallery, which may provide for the gift or loan of portraits, not only of City magnates, but of eminent inventors and public characters. Deputy Atkins, the clerk of the Company, is one of the chief supporters of these movements. THE second volume of the 'Records of the Past' is getting ready for publication, and will contain several articles illustrating ancient Biblical history. This volume will be devoted exclusively to Egyptian texts, and comprises, among other contributions, the following translations by Dr. Birch, President of the Society of Biblical Archæology :Inscription of Una, in the Museum of Boulaq,' Tablet of the 400-years, referring to the Hycsos Period,' six of the 'Annals of Thothmes the Third,' 'The Tablet of Canopus, of the Ptolemaic period,' The 'Sepulchral Inscription Ameni,' with a note of the star Sirius, and a Magical Papyrus' in the British Museum. M. F. Chabas gives the 'Luxor Obelisk,' and the 'Hymn to Osiris' from the Paris Stele. The other contributors are the well-known Egyptologists, Mr. C. W. Goodwin, M.A., Canon Cook, M.A., M. Paul Pierret, of the Louvre, Mr. P. J. de Horrack, and Mr. P. Le Page Renouf.

THE Weekly Register, which has but just passed into the hands of a new proprietary, is preparing, we learn, to make its appearance, early in May, under entirely new arrangements, as an authoritative organ upon a question vitally important to the Catholic body, that of Higher Education. The responsible

editorship has been entrusted to Mr. Charles Kent, the well-known poet, who was for many years the editor, and for seven or eight years the sole proprietor of the Sun. We are happy, we may add, to learn that Monsignor Capel, who has been recently prostrated by a rather severe attack of illness, is already far advanced on his way to a complete recovery.

MR. THOMAS CARLYLE has been re-elected President of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, one of the very few public, if honorary, positions he takes pleasure in filling. advantage of to present to the Institution, in The occasion of his re-election was taken Mr. Carlyle's name, a portrait of John Knox, beneath which he had written, 66 The one of John Knox, February, 1874." A scheme portrait I ever could believe to be a likeness for erecting a memorial of Knox in Edinburgh, in which Mr. Carlyle has taken some interest, suggested the idea of obtaining the most

authentic likeness of the Great Reformer.

Mr. Carlyle's gift is an autotype copy of the engraving made from a picture in the possession of Lord Somerville for Knight's 'Pictorial History.'

has now in the press a catalogue of the MR. SINKER, of Trinity College, Cambridge, fifteenth-century printed books in the College Library.

A THEOLOGICAL class for ladies is about to

be inaugurated at Edinburgh by Prof. Macgregor, of the Free Church College.

MR. J. PAYNE COLLIER informs us that he

has put to press the historical play of 'Edward the Third' (originally printed in 1596, and attributed by Capell to Shakspeare), with a view of striking off fifty impressions as presents to private friends. It will be accompanied by very brief notes of the readings offered by the edition of 1599, and of such passages as correspond with others contained in other dramas in the folio of 1623.

A NEW edition is in the press of Nimrod's (Mr. J. C. Apperley) Hunting Tours in the North of England and Scotland.' The book has long been out of print. It contains anecdotal reminiscences of the great hunting men of the North, the Earl of Fife, Mr. Ramsay of Barnton, Capt. Barclay, the famous pedestrian, and others.

ANCIENT bookbinding is well represented at the International Exhibition this year. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, the Dean and Chapter of Durham, and Cambridge University contribute examples; and the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Buccleuch, the Marquis of Lothian, Lord Spencer, Lord Orford, Mr. Gibson Craig, Mr. Henry Gibbs, Mr. A. Franks, Mr. T. O. Barlow, and Mr. Robert Turner send many volumes, decorated in the taste of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from the famous libraries of Henri Deux and Diane de Poictiers, Marguerite de Valois, Grolier, Maioli, De Thou, and other celebrated book-collectors. English binding from the time of Henry the Eighth to the days of Queen Anne is also well illustrated. There is besides a fine collection of modern bookbinding, French and English.

"J. H." writes to us :

"Having occasion to give some instructions with reference to a tombstone erected in Stoke Newington Churchyard, in memory of some revered

SOME few weeks ago the Echo drew attention to an absurd report, which was said to have been derived from Chinese sources, of the ceremony at the audience granted to the foreign ministers at Peking, in which Mr. Wade was represented as having been overcome with fear and trepidation on entering the presence of the Son of Heaven. The account was absurd in the extreme, and was universally recognized as a squib, except by a writer in the columns of a weekly contemporary, who gravely undertook the task of showing, by reference to the whole of his previous career, how very unlikely it was that Mr. Wade should give way to the weakness imputed to him. It now turns out that the imaginary narrative first appeared in the columns of Puck, a comic paper published at Shanghai; that it was translated into Chinese by some native wag, who palmed it off on his countrymen as a truthful account of the behaviour of the English barbarian on this occasion; and that some inquiring foreigner, ignorant of the source from whence it came, re-translated it into English, and held it up as another instance of the way in which the Chinese pamphleteers were attempting to undermine our influence in China by covering our minister with contempt!

It is a pity that Dr. Dasent does not give up writing bad novels, and confine himself to work he is capable of doing well. In a letter we have lately seen, Mr. Asbjörnsen says of Dr. Dasent's version (under the title of Tales from the Fjeld') of his "new series" of "Norse Folk-Tales."-"Dasent's translation of this new collection is remarkably good; truly I hardly know how it could be better; he has rendered even the most difficult proverbs, provincialisms, and turns of thought with a fidelity and exactness which are almost incredible. Wherever it has been impossible to follow the original verbally, he has given the spirit and meaning often in a surprising way." In these days, when translations like Miss Bunnett's are only too numerous, it is pleasant to find that some work of the kind is conscientiously done.

BESIDES 'The History of the Tooth-Relic' and 'The Sermons of Gautama Buddha,' already referred to in our columns as about to be published, Mr. Mutu Coomára Swámy, Member of the Legislative Council of Ceylon, is preparing for publication a translation of the poems of a well-known Tamil philosopher, Tayumanavar. These relate to the Vedantic or Siddhantic systems of Indian philosophy, and are held in high respect by the Southern Hindus. Many of Tayumanavar's speculations will be found in unison with those of the later developments of German philosophy.

THE Edinburgh School Board, at their last meeting, decided by a majority of votes (the two lady members voting with the majority)

to continue in the schools under their charge, the system of mixed classes, which has always been a characteristic of Scotch elementary education. The Glasgow School Board have unanimously adopted the same resolution. The stipulations of the Education Department as to the size of school-rooms, have been altered to suit the views of the deputation recently sent to London on that subject.

will shortly be published in Manchester, to be WE hear that a new daily evening newspaper called the Manchester Evening Mail. Its An Anglopolitics will be Conservative. French journal, the Eastern Echo (Echo de 'Orient), devoted to Eastern affairs, is to appear in London.

A COMMITTEE has been appointed by the President of the French Republic to examine the question of including the documents kept in the Record Office of the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères in the official collection, long in progress, of Documents Inédits Relatifs à l'Histoire de France.' Duc Decazes, in the Report which precedes the decree appointing the committee, says that the voluminous correspondence of Mazarin is in the press, and that the correspondence of Richelieu is nearly ready. Both will shortly appear in the 'Documents Inédits.' This does not throw open to the public the Record Office of the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, as the Minister publishes only what he chooses, but it is a step in the right direction. The chairman of the new committee is Baron de Viel-Castel, member of the French Academy.

THE tomb of Petrarch was opened on the 8th of December last, by a committee appointed by the Bovolenta Academy. The bones of the poet, instead of being collected in a wooden or metal box, were merely spread on a common board; they were damp, partly mouldy, and of amber colour. The size of the bones shows that Petrarch was of middle stature. A statement has been drawn up and signed by the delegates, and then deposited in a sealed bottle in the tomb, which has been closed again.

MR. H. A. JOHNSTON, Kilmore, Rich Hill, co. Armagh, has written to us to say that the publication which we spoke of some time back, of a complete edition of the "Remains" of the late Rev. Geo. Hamilton, who was the son of Bishop Hamilton, formerly Fellow and Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Dublin, cannot at present be proceeded with, as Mr. Johnston has not been able to obtain a perfect set of the author's works.

BROCKHAUS, of Leipzig, will shortly publish the first volume of a work he entitles "The Modern Plutarch,' to contain biographies, averaging about 80 pages each, of important persons, from the Reformation to the present time. The first volume will comprise Luther, by Heinrich Rueckert; Cromwell, by Prof. of Pauli, Gottingen; Voltaire, by Prof. Rosenkranz, of Königsberg; and Henri IV., by Philipson, of Bonn. Herr Gottschall, the editor of Unsere Zeit and the Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung, will also edit The Modern Plutarch.'

AMONG the autographs now on sale in Paris at M. G. Maraway's, we may quote the following: In a letter of H. de Balzac, the novelist, to a person praising him, he says-"Un travailleur éternel, enséveli dans les difficultés,

n'a pas le temps de vendre un sou d'éloges à chaque passant pour en recevoir cette masse d'or qu'on nomme la gloire." Charles the Tenth of France, ceremonial of his reception as Knight of the Garter; Charles the First, as Prince of Wales, letter on vellum (1620); Camille Desmoulins, the "Conventionnel autograph verses to Mdlle. L... Anglaise; Hamilton (Lady Emma H.), fine letter, curious Plesens, May 28, 1797, a letter written with from its bad spelling; Nelson (Lord H.), the right hand, which he lost six months later; Sir W. Scott, letter relating to an engraving by C. Heath for one of his works; Watt (G.), relating to an engine he has constructed.

HERR VON MUEHLER, whose death has been recently announced, was not only an authority on ecclesiastical law, but was likewise author of a volume of poems, published at Berlin, so far back as the year 1842. These poems are, for the most part, of a rollicking, jovial character, by no means foreshadowing the sober and serious eminence their author attained to as Prussian Minister of Worship and Education. The Minister, during his tenure of office, was frequently assailed by his opponents with references to his well-known song, "Grad'aus dem Wirthshaus."

THE history of the unpublished manuscripts of the Duc de Saint-Simon, the celebrated author of the 'Mémoires,' is interesting, and has been traced as far as possible by M. A. Baschet, after a great deal of laborious research (Paris, Plon, 1874). The Duc died in Paris, March 2, 1755, and bequeathed all his papers to his brother, Bishop of Metz; but the latter died five years later, without having been put in possession of the papers, which a royal order sent to the Record Office of the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, where some literary men bien en cour as Voisenon, Duclos, Marmontel, and, later, Soularie and Lemontey, were allowed to make extracts from them. In 1829, King Louis the Eighteenth ordered the manuscript of the 'Mémoires' to be given up to Général de Saint-Simon; but all the other papers-his letters, for instance, confiscated in 1760-remained at the Foreign Office, where they still remain inaccessible to the profanum vulgus, although no harm and a good deal of interest might result from the publication of papers more than a century old.

THE next number of the Journal of the British Archæological Association will contain, among other articles upon the archæology of Sheffield and its vicinity, a paper upon Conisborough Castle, by Mr. E. Roberts, and a review of the arguments respecting the supposed imprisonment of Mary, Queen of Scots, in the Lodge at Sheffield, as well as at the Castle and Manor House, by Mr. J. D. Leader, of Sheffield.

SIGNOR GAETANO TREZZA has been lecturing this year on the 'Germania' of Tacitus at the Florentine Istituto di Studii Superiori, and at the Circolo Filologico on the Myth of Prometheus.' At the Circolo, the well-known traveller, Count Miniscalchi, has given a lecture on Dr. Livingstone, and Prof. De Gubernatis one upon the Count and Countess de Gasparin.

SOME weeks back, Mr. H. B. Goold pointed out in our columns, that an article which appeared in Colburn's New Monthly Magazine,

"THERMOLYSIS" is the name which Herr F. Mohr has recently proposed to apply to those curious phenomena of decomposition at high temperatures which were originally described by Deville under the name of "Dissociation." Just as the term Electrolysis is used to express decomposition by electricity, so Thermolysis may be employed to denote decomposition by heat. It is maintained that dissociation is not a strictly appropriate word, since it implies that a union is broken up into socii, or members of like kind, whilst in the phenomena in question chemical compounds are resolved into components, which are essentially different from each other. German purists may prefer the word Wärmespaltung to Mohr's Thermolyse.

In seeking to explain the phenomena of dissociation in accordance with the principles of the conservation of force, Mohr is led to recognize a new mode of molecular motion, distinct from heat, light, electricity, and other physical forces, and which he distinguishes as 66 chemical motion." In the act of chemical combination this motion may take the form of heat, whilst in the converse action of dissociation, heat is absorbed and converted into chemical motion. The quantity of heat rendered latent during dissociation is exactly equal to that which was evolved during combination; but the temperature at which decomposition is effected is always higher than the temperature at which combination occurred. Chemical compounds of which the constituents are not volatile do not lend themselves to this kind of decomposition. Mohr's paper, entitled 'Theorie der Dissociation oder Thermolyse,' will be found in the last number of Liebig's Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie.

Several communications from the Laboratory of Applied Chemistry in the University of Erlangen are published in the same number of the Annalen. Among these we may note Dr. Von Gerichten's analyses of the rock called Eclogite, and of the garnets which occur in this rock. The same chemist has a paper on the methods of conducting the analysis of rocks, which may be commended to students of petrology.

Under the name of Huantajayite, a Peruvian mineral, of very remarkable composition, has been described by Prof. Sandberger. According to an analysis by Raymondi, in Lima, it is a compound of chloride of silver and chloride of sodium, containing 11 per cent. of the former salt, and 89 of the latter. The occurrence of this mineral seems to show that the native chlorides and bromides of silver in the South American mines may have been formed by the action of sea-water upon the minerals of the silver veins.

Bismuth, which is a metal restricted to but few localities, was formerly obtained almost exclusively from Saxony, where the ore was simply fused in iron cylinders to separate the native metal from its gangue. The great rise in the price of bismuth of late years has led to the extraction of large quantities of bismuth ore in Bolivia. The process by which this has been successfully reduced in France has been described by M. A. Valenciennes. The ore, which contains about 30 per cent. of bismuth, with iron, copper, and sulphur, is first roasted in a reverberatory furnace, and the roasted

DR. HANSEN.

ore then reduced by admixture with charcoal and a flux composed of lime, soda, and fluor-spar. The PETER ANDREAS HANSEN was born at Tondern, fused product separates into three distinct layers, a town on the river Widau, in the duchy of according to their relative densities, namely, at Sleswick, on the 8th of December, 1795. From the bottom a button of bismuth, above this a regulus composed of sulphides of bismuth and 1821 to 1825 he was assistant to Prof. Schucopper, and on the top a vitreous slag, containing the Astronomische Nachrichten, a publication macher, at Altona, who established there, in 1823, the iron in the state of silicate.

An ore of bismuth has been discovered near

Meymac, in the Department of Corrèze, in France, and the peculiar treatment of this ore for extraction of the metal has been lately described both by M. Valenciennes and by M. Carnot. Ordinary metallurgical processes being inapplicable to these ores, the metal is obtained in the wet way. The ore, which is a mixture of oxide of bismuth and wolfram, is digested in hydrochloride acid, and the bismuth thrown down as a sub-chloride by addition of water. This salt is decomposed by the action of iron, which precipitates metallic bismuth. That portion of the ore which resists the acid is chiefly wolfram, and this residue, roasted with nitrate of soda, yields stannate of soda.

It is well known that in the preparation of hydrogen by the action of dilute sulphuric acid on zinc the gas is frequently contaminated with sulphuretted hydrogen. In some chemical notes communicated to Dingler's Polytechnisches Journal by Herr J. Löwe, it is recommended to prevent the escape of sulphuretted hydrogen by adding a solution of sulphate of copper to the acid. The copper salt decomposes the sulphuretted hydrogen in the generating vessel, with production of sulphide of copper.

A memoir on the deviation of gases, especially hydrogen, from the law of Mariotte, has been contributed by Herr E. Budde to the last number of the Journal für praktische Chemie.

Mr. Andrew Taylor, at a recent meeting of the Edinburgh Geological Society, read a paper On the Conversion of Coal into Graphite.' This communication possessed as much chemical as geological interest, since the problem of the conversion of gas-coal into anthracite and even into graphite was involved in the facts brought under consideration. A specimen of coal converted into graphite was exhibited. This had been found in one of the coal-pits of Lancashire after an explosion of fire-damp; but it does not appear to have been satisfactorily proved that this graphite was the result of heat. It is thought not improbable that, under certain conditions, great pressure would remove all the volatile constituents from the coal, leaving the carbon as anthracite or as graphite.

MM. Troost and Hautefeuille have recently communicated to the Académie des Sciences of Paris some account of their experiments with hydrogen and palladium. Their conclusions are, 1, that palladium forms with hydrogen a definite combination, of which the formula is Pa H; 2, that this combination, once formed, can dissolve

which has been lately removed to Kiel, and still continues to be the great medium of astronomical communication and announcement. In 1825 Hansen succeeded the late Prof. Encke as Director of the Observatory of Seeberg, near Gotha, where he remained to the time of his death, having declined the offer of the headship of the Dorpat Observatory in 1840. His investigation of the mutual perturbations of Jupiter and Saturn obtained the prize of the Berlin Academy in 1831. His works since that time, chiefly on subjects in physical astronomy, have been very numerous; and, in particular, his theory of the figure of the moon is well known. The conclusion he arrived at (which has, however, been controverted) was, that her centre of gravity does not coincide with her centre of figure, but is in a line with it on the farther side from that turned towards the earth; a consequence of which would be, that all the air and water on the moon (supposing any to exist) might be collected on the side which is never visible to us, making that side alone, perhaps, habitable. But the work for which Dr. Hansen is chiefly famous is the elaborate investigation which he made of the moon's motion, and the tables formed by him from his theoretical labours, which obtained the gold medal of our Royal Astronomical Society in 1860, and are now used in the calculations for the Nautical Almanac, though it is likely that this will, before many years, cease to be the case, owing to the later investigations of M. Delaunay (late Director of the Paris Observatory), and those upon which Sir George Airy is understood to be now engaged. Hansen's tables were published in London in 1857, at the expense of the British Government, on the recommendation of the Astronomer-Royal, who remarked, on comparing their results with those obtained from the tables previously in use, bably in no recorded instance has practical science ever advanced so far in accuracy by a single stride."

"Pro

Dr. Hansen died on the 28th of March last, at 7 o'clock in the morning, when, as is related by his widow, he "tranquilly expired," being in the seventy-ninth year of his age.

KASHGAR.

THE letter from which the following extract is taken was not intended for publication, but its contents are so interesting that I venture to submit the greater part of it to public inspection. The writer is Capt. Edward Francis Chapman, of the Royal Artillery, one of the few officers in

The

India who have thought it worth their while to pay attention to the language of Russia. letter is dated Kashgar, January 4, 1874.

hydrogen gas like platinum, and in quantities varying with its physical state. This property of Pa H explains the difference in the numerical W. R. S. RALSTON. results obtained by Graham according as he had the palladium as wire or sponge. These two "Central Asia' has always had a mysterious chemists also state that they have obtained two meaning, but I hope we shall effectually break the perfectly definite compounds of hydrogen with charm, and carry back with us information about potassium and sodium. They contain for one the various races lying between British India and equivalent of hydrogen-the one, two of potassium, Russian territory that will make it easy hereafter and the other, two of sodium. They have both to keep up free communication. We have found the characters of an amalgam, having the aspect the Toorks in this part of the world a decidedly and metallic lustre of the amalgams of mercury flourishing people, well clothed, well homed, and and silver. The details are given in a note pre- well fed, and, if one may judge by the absence of sented to the Academy by MM. Troost and crime and the general signs of prosperity, wellHautefeuille on the 23rd of March. It should governed. There are great natural resources in be noted that these combinations have a remark- the country, and if only our host is allowed the able agreement with that of copper with hydrogen luxury of peace, he is likely to develope these to Cu3 H2 (Cu=63.50), and to which the name of some purpose. We have been two months here, hydruret of copper has been given. Through M. and, while mixing freely with the people, we are Dumas the same gentlemen have communicated to in no wise molested by the curious. I skate the Academy some curious experiments on the regularly, and am likely, as soon as the workshops combination of hydrogen with mercury, upon which of the Amir can turn out enough skates, to have M. Dumas remarks that those experiments "in- plenty of pupils, for the outside edge has made vinciblement conduit à admettre qu'elles con- many envious and ambitious. The city of Kashgar stituent elle-mêmes des alliages, et que, par is about five miles from the embassy which has conséquent, l'hydrogène est un métal." been built for our use, but I often go into the