as far east as lon. 18° 17′ w. The monsoon weather was squally and showery, and the wind always had a tendency to haul ahead, so that the ship was often sailing as nearly close-hauled as was possible; reined in sharp, in fact, with the short, jerky motion peculiar to these circumstances. So comparatively perfect are seamen now in the art of navigating both Atlantics, in consequence of the mass of information accumulated by scientific observations made in large numbers, and recorded during a succession of years by practical seamen, under the auspices of the governments of Britain, America, Holland, and France, and by scientific expeditions, such as those of the Challenger, that people speak familiarly of the currents, depths, and temperatures of every ocean.

The sea, therefore, comes to mean not "an idle waste of endless brine," but a well understood highway, on which one's position is as surely found as if it were marked by mile-stones. However, the researches of scientific men would have failed to bring about this result had it not been for the extraordinary perfection to which nautical instruments have been brought. Long ago, when I used to watch ships getting an offing in the Channel, when bound for India or Australia, I supposed their voyages to be merely haphazard work, aiming at a definite point by the shortest route, but perpetually thwarted in attaining it. So, in fact, it was in great measure, but the shortest way (down the middle of the Atlantic, with a sharp turn round the Cape) was so emphatically the longest, that a voyage which our clippers perform in from seventy to eighty days not infrequently took five months.

At the end of the last century the case was worse, for captains guessed nearly as much as they calculated the position of their ships, and when a vessel from London to New York made Boston it was not thought a bad landfall. In fact, there are many instances of ships navigating the Atlantics being 6°, 8°, and even 10° of longitude out of their reckoning in as many days from port. The regularity of certain winds was little understood, specially of the southern passage winds, which take ships eastward in a definite southern latitude at a rate of 300 miles a day. The powerful effect of the constant currents of various regions of the Atlantics was either unknown or not taken advantage of. Chronometers were a debatable experiment, the nautical ephemeris was itself so faulty as to give tables which indicated errors of thirty miles in the longitude, and the rude "cross staff," "back staff," "sea ring," and "mariner's bow" had not yet given place to the nicer sextant and circle of reflection of the present day, and erred as much by degrees as these do by minutes. The Gulf Stream itself, which has had a most powerful effect on North Atlantic commerce, was first utilised by Dr. Franklin as a means of acquainting mariners with their longitude; but his discoveries were made in the troublous year of 1775, and for political reasons were concealed till 1790.

By 1795, when this current was practically as well understood by seamen as it is now, the northern ports of the United States had become as accessible in winter as in summer, the average passages from Europe to the north were shortened nearly one-half, while those to the south were scarcely altered, and a heavy blow was struck at the commerce of the Carolinas. One can imagine how many of the bluff old navigators, who had been content to knock about in ice and snow in their bluff

bowed ships for half the winter on a single outward voyage, and were not much disturbed at last by finding themselves 10° out in their reckoning, must have ridiculed the notion of shortening the voyage, and finding their longitude and proximity to the American continent by means of the water thermometer! Nor is it only the Gulf Stream which has been thus utilised. Currents near the equator are of great service, and so perfect now are nautical tables and instruments that a seaman can detect with great certainty the direction and velocity of every current which thwarts or aids him. A vessel bound from Sierra Leone to New York has been known to be drifted 1,600 miles of her way by the force of currents only. This certainty about the ocean and its atmosphere, and the study of the persevering scientific investigations which have brought it about, do more to redeem a long voyage from monotony than all the amusements which can be devised.

When we lost the monsoon, and were fairly in the Doldrums, all previous resources for employing time failed, and hard work became essential. I had "Chambers' Arithmetic" and a book on logarithms, to which I gave two hours of honest work daily, but the books which served me longest and best, and which I reserved for the hottest spell of the day, were Maury's wind and current charts, with the accompanying letterpress, the charts of both Atlantics, and North and South Atlantic directories, and the "Nautical Almanack," in the study of all of which the captain kindly assisted me. It was possible to forget the heat in working at these studies, and I felt daily grateful to the friend who before my voyage said to me, "Don't try to get rid of your timetry to make the best use of it you can."-"An advice" I would repeat with emphasis.

Common consent has divided off the ocean into belts or regions, such as the horse latitudes, the trade-wind regions, the variables, and the "Doldrums." We had passed through the three first, and during many days spent in the last learned the absolute fitness of the word "doldrums" for describing a phase of human temperament. Theso Doldrums are under what has been termed the equatorial cloud-ring, a belt of clouds which encirles the earth. The atmosphere was dense and close; two torrents of rain which fell, accompanied by thunder, hardly refreshed it; there was no air above or below; the sea swayed heavily, like quicksilver rather than water, reflecting with an unwholesome, metallic lustre a white, fierce, nearly vertical sun, which hurried out of sight at 6 p.m. without colour or glory. A hot mist which came on every evening shut out the stars. In the daytime the mercury stood at 93° in the cabins, and at anything short of the boiling-point on deck; at night, though it sank to 84° below, the difference was hardly perceptible, owing to the smell of paraffin lamps and the fumes of brandy and whisky. The effervescing drinks had been forgotten, and we drank lukewarm, reddish water, and bathed in salt water at 80°, sticky and unrefreshing, and had oil for butter. There is one scientific fact for which no one in the equatorial Doldrums can but thank the Challenger-i.e., that while the surface temperature is 80°, if one could dive sixty fathoms one would be cooled by water at 61°5, while at 1,600 fathoms it is only 36°, below which it falls nearly to freezing.

Sluggishness and lassitudo assailed every one; the consumption of spirits increased; people became

surly, bearish, quarrelsome; the officers swore at the men; the apprentices dozed at the wheel; the awning and sails flapped as incessantly as the rudder creaked; the yards were braced continually to catch every flaw of wind; but though we really never drifted less than twenty-four miles a day, we were to all appearances as idle as the ship of the "Ancient Mariner." In my father's parish, in Huntingdonshire, the men who did not go to church had a habit of grouping themselves round their own or their neighbours' pig-styes, leaning over the palings, and contemplating the pigs with unwavering attention during the long summer Sunday afternoons. This always impressed me as a low habit, with something "lapsed" about it; and in my mind these pigfanciers came to seem little higher than the brutes they studied. I do not know what there was in the Doldrums to bring pigs and men together, but it is certain that for some time my fellow-passengers spent hours of the day gazing into the pig-pen, with the same stolidity of face, the same rigidity of muscle, and the same unflagging attention as characterised the Huntingdonshire rustics. I looked in once myself, and saw only a palpitating heap of swine, loaded with fat, gasping in the sun. On the whole, the Doldrums are answerable for a great deal of mental and moral deterioration. People wagered that they would drink some incredible quantity of beer and brandy- and won; some growled at the food; others anathematised the heat and the winds; and smouldering antipathies broke into open quarrels. We had only a few days of this weather, and were never literally stationary. Formerly, before the winds and currents were as well known as they now are, ships were often becalmed for a month, or even six weeks, in this doleful region, and many of the weak and exhausted perished on their way to the Golden Land.

On Friday, August 9th, things seemed going fast "to the bad." People were all cross, the captain was paler than usual, more brandy was drunk, and at all hours sails and awning flapped heavily, yards and rudder creaked incessantly; and though I studied savagely for ten hours, and tried to imitate in this respect every good example I had ever read or heard of, I felt the intolerable discomfort of the "Doldrums" all the time. The evening set in as usual with a hot, heavy mist, but when the captain was giving me my usual lesson upon one of Maury's charts, he remarked that he expected the s.E. trades the next day. As his expectations had been equally definite regarding the N.E. trades and the monsoon, and turned out to be well grounded, so they proved correct in this and every later instance of prophecy, the fact being that the wind-and-current system of the South is much better defined and more constant than that of the North. The phosphorescence that night was splendid, and as the mist lifted we saw it light up the silver sea far away, and roll in our wake, not in stars, but in great oblongs of pale fire. "Dead Horse Night" was duly observed. The unfortunate animal gave some spasmodic, dying kicks, and was then supposed to reappear as the effigy of a sailors' boarding-house keeper, dangling from the foretopsail yardarm under the full glare of a blue light, and then dropping ignominiously into the sea, amidst the cheers of the crew, a laughable commentary on advance notes." The mercury in my cabin stood at 86°. It was a dreary night, the silence only broken by the creaking of the rudder.

Quite suddenly I heard a low musical ripple, which increased rapidly in strength; there were noises on the poop of many feet and many voices; the crew were singing and hauling with a will; and when I went on deck all the light and fair wind hamper of stun-sails had vanished, and the ship was in the act of "going about" under royals on a course W. half S. on a long tack to the Brazils. "Cheerily, cheerily oh!" How the yards came round! The beautiful White Ben once more felt her pinions, for in lat. 4° 54′ N., and lon. 18° 16' w., we had got the S.E. trades. Down tumbled the thermometer 6° in two hours, the ocean rippled crisply, the mist and foulness of the atmosphere were all gone, and before the first rose flush of the tropic sunrise, unfamiliar constellations were withdrawing their unfamiliar glitter, demonstrating that we were fast leaving the northern hemisphere.

Southward and westward still as the hours went by. We were on a great ocean highway, and ran winning races with eight or ten ships a day, instead of having long conversations with vessels lying nearly alongside of us in the Doldrums. The captain looked serene, and even condescended to join the passengers in a game at "The wrang sow by the lug."

All the readers of the "Leisure Hour" have read of, heard of, or experienced the ceremonies observed in crossing the "line." Formerly they were of such a brutal and hateful description, that there have been instances in which they have proved fatal to sensitive and delicate persons. Time has ameliorated them generally, but still it was necessary for the law to step in and prohibit the application of the equatorial rites to passengers, unless their willing consent was previously obtained, so that they have fallen into comparative disuse on board passenger ships. The White Ben, however, on this voyage was an exception to this rule, for she had a young and lively crew, including several frolicsome apprentices with dramatic tastes, and as there were a few novices before the mast, and several of the intermediate passengers were good-naturedly willing to go through the ceremonies, and even two of the cabin passengers, the thing promised much excitement. Women, and passengers who had crossed the line, were mulcted in a bottle of brandy each, but as the captain doled it out at the rate of a small glass a day only to cach man, no evil results were apparent. For several days before we reached the equator the ignorant were being imposed on in the usual way. Some were made to look through a telescope across which a hair had been stretched; others were told that they would hear the ship's keel grate upon the line as we crossed; and my attendant came to me in great alarm because the first-mate had told her that we should strike heavily on the line, that the ship would be "taken aback anyhow," because the captain did not know within a mile where the line was; that we should lose some of our heavy spars, and any one who happened to be on deck would be likely to be killed.

Our last night in the northern hemisphere was superb: the moonlight such as is not seen out of the tropics; and the Southern Cross was still sufficiently unfamiliar to be an object of intense interest. The sea rolled in small waves crested with light; and our noble clipper, white like a snow-drift from bulwarks to skysails, left a stream of phosphorescence in her wake. That night was the poem of our voyage.

Still there are found men, impelled by scientific zeal and ambition, who renew the Sisyphean labour, hoping to solve the mys. teries that have baffled their predecessors. Let such men hear the words of the old Roman Celsus :-"It is alike unprofitable and cruel to experiment with the knife on living bodies, so that the art which is designed for the protection and relief of suffering is made to inflict injury, and that of the most atrocious nature. Of the things sought for by these eruel practices, some are altogether beyond the reach of human knowledge, and others could be ascertained without the aid of such nefarious means. The appearances and conditions of the parts of a living body thus examined must be very different from what they are in their natural state. If in the entire and uninjured body we can often, by external observation, perceive remarkable changes produced from fear, pain, hunger, weariness, and a thousand other affections, how much greater must be the changes induced by the dreadful wounds and cruel mangling of the dissector in internal parts whose structure is far more delicate, and which are placed in circumstances altogether unnatural?" The vivisectors of those days had human subjects to operate upon, condemned malefactors being given over to them, especially in the school of Alexandria. The differences of structure and function in the lower animals must give the less chance of light being thrown on human physiology.

These remarks I make not as an opponent of experiment, but to remind those who have not closely studied the question of the fallacies of this mode of inquiry. That some discoveries are due to experimental physiology no one will deny; but the number and importance of these discoveries are grossly exagge. rated. In an early number of the "British Medical Journal" for 1875, a list was given of "discoveries due to vivisection." Not one in ten of these alleged discoveries can be truly affirmed to be due to experiment alone. By far the largest number are equally due to observation, either by anatomical research, as in the case of Sir Charles Bell, or in the ordinary way of clinical and pathological study.

But it is not the object of this letter to discuss with physiologists the precise number or importance of discoveries thus made. Granting at present all that can be said in favour of vivisection as a legitimate and useful mode of inquiry, I wish to appeal to the profession on the subject of abuses of very recent growth. Ten years ago, when Dr. Markham of St. Mary's Hospital published his prize essay, he said that "experiments performed before students, in classes or otherwise, for the purpose of demonstrating known facts in physiology or therapeutics, are unjustifiable." Dr. Markham says of such operations :"They are needless and cruel; needless, because they demonstrate that which is already acquired to science; and especially cruel because, if admitted as a recognised part of students' instruction, their constant repetition through all time would be required." Then, in parenthesis, he alds :-"I need hardly say that courses of experimental physiology are nowhere given in this country; and that these remarks apply only to those schools in France and clsewhere where such demonstrations are delivered."

What is the state of matters now? and to what length could the imitators and pupils of foreign vivisectors have gone but for the protest of public opinion, which gave origin to the Royal Commission? The publication of the report of that Commission will begin rather than end this controversy. It is difficult to obtain direct evidence of what is done, and those who used to be boastful among their brethren of the number of their experiments are now cautious and reticent. But the publication of such a book as the "Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory' suffices to show the nature and extent of the evils against which the public voice has been raised.

The appeal against the abuse of vivisection must be made to the medical profession itself, either to the members individually or to the Medical Councils and official bodies. It is not a question of science against sentiment; true science is on the side of humanity on this point. Professor Owen has thus recorded his

views :-"I reprobate the performance of experiments to show the students what such experiments have taught the master; whilst the arguments for learning to experiment by repeating experiments on living animals are as futile as those for so learn. ing to operate chirurgically." Professor George Wilson, in his "Life of Dr. John Reid," says that, to encourage students to engage in such researches, is "putting a premium upon animal torture and animal murder." Sir Robert Christison objects to all public demonstrations by experiment on living animals, and has always done so. These exhibitions are, therefore, against the highest scientific opinions, and are justly characterised as

wanton and cruel.

I do not think that the depth and strength of popular feeling as to the abuses of vivisection are sufficiently known to the medical profession. Foolish things may have been said, and extreme opinions urged by those who advocate the total abolition of vivisection. But, apart from this popular and sometimes ignorant clamour, there is a public opinion not to be despised.. Sir Arthur Helps gave expression to the feeling prevalent among men of culture in all professions when he said that "any man known to have practised needless cruelties on animals should be placed under a social ban." It is very certain that the whole tone and standing of the profession may be lowered from being associated in the public mind with these horrors. It was not by mere technical knowledge and skill that the medical profession obtained and kept the high place that it holds in English life and history. There has been always a succession of men of high standing, scholars, and gentlemen, men also as conspicuous for their generous and humane charac ter as for professional acquirements. It was when the associate of such men that Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote his celebrated paper on Vivisection (No. 17 of the "Idler"), describing "a race of wretches among the inferior professors of medical know, ledge," who, by knife, fire, and poison, sought the advancement of knowledge. He would not have written thus if the higher grades of the profession approved such practices. There has been always in the provinces also a succession of medical men, high in character as well as attainments-men like Cotton of St. Albans, Hey of Leeds, Bardsley of Manchester, and others whose names are yet held in honour. These men gave tone to the whole profession in the spheres of their influence. There are men of the same stamp now in all parts of England, who could maintain the same high tone in our provincial medical associations. To them this appeal is made to resist the influence of those who would hold up as the great lights and ornaments of the profession men like Magendie and Schiff, instead of men like Bell and Abercrombie. If a new epoch of medical history in England is to be begun, let it at least not be without a protest being heard.

JAMES MACAULAY, M.D. EDIN.

of the British Association for the Advancement of Among the grants of money made by the Council Science, a sum has for several years been voted for experiments on the functions of different parts of the encephalon. Are there no men of science now on the Council to protest against such a grant? Surely there must also be many men of cultivated and humane minds in the medical profession, who would side rather with the old English than with the new French school of physiology. Surely there are many who do not think physical research to be synonymous with all science and philosophy, and who still recognise moral law amidst the materialism of the present day. The new Act of Parliament will leave vivisectors, in their licensed places, free to perform all experiments to which the inspectors do not object. These inspectors are not likely to interfere with the professors of physiology and their pupils. The "Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory" contains a terrible record of cruelties which will