The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 68

MISCELLANY.

_The Old Church at Chelsea, England_,--Mr. H. H. Burnell read a paper before the British Archaeological Society lately, on the Old Church of Chelsea. The chancel, with the chauntries north and south of it, are the only portions of ancient work left. The north chauntry, called the Manor Chauntry, once contained the monuments of the Brays, now in very imperfect condition, having been destroyed or removed to make s.p.a.ce for those of the Gervoise family. There remains, however, an ancient bra.s.s in the floor. Of the south, or More Chauntry, he stated that the monument of Sir Thomas More was removed from it to the chancel; and the chauntry had been occupied by the monuments of the Georges family, now also removed, displaced, and destroyed. Mr. Blunt showed that, notwithstanding the current contrary opinion, founded on Aubrey's a.s.sertion, the More monument is the original one for which Sir Thomas More himself dictated the epitaph. Mr. Burnell, the architect of the improvements effected subsequently to 1857, spoke positively as to the non-existence of a crypt which conjecture had placed under the More Chauntry. The foundation of the west end of the church before it was enlarged in 1666, he found west of Lord Dacre's tomb. On the north side of the chancel an aumbrey, and on the south a piscina was found, coeval with the chancel (early fourteenth century). The arch between the More Chauntry and the chancel is a specimen of Italian workmans.h.i.+p--dated 1528--a date confirmed by the objects represented in the carved ornaments, those objects being connected with the Roman Catholic ritual. It is a remarkably early instance of the use of Italian architecture in this country. In a window of this chapel, then partly bricked up, was found in the brickwork in 1858 remains of the stained gla.s.s which once filled it. The body of Sir Thomas More was, according to Aubrey, interred in this chapel, and his head, after an exposure of fourteen days, testifying to the pa.s.sers-by on London Bridge the remorseless cruelty of Henry VIII. and his barbarous insensibility, was consigned to a vault in St. Dunstan's Church, Canterbury. It was seen and drawn in that vault in 1715.--_Reader_.

_New Artesian Well in Paris_,--A third artesian well is now being added to the two which Paris' has already. Already the perforation has reached the depth of eighty-two metres, being twenty metres below the sea-level. Before reaching this point, considerable difficulties had to be overcome in the shape of intermediate sheets of water, which form a series of subterranean lakes. The first of these was kept in its bed by means of a strong iron tube driven perpendicularly through it; that which followed received wooden palings, and the subsequent stratum being clay, the masonry was continued without difficulty to about five metres above sea-level. But at this point a layer of agglomerations was reached, which let a great deal of water escape. It thus became necessary to have again recourse to pumps: those employed were in the aggregate of 20 horse-power. Owing to the bad nature of this stratum, it was resolved to protect the perforation by a revetment of extraordinary thickness; and in order that the well might preserve its diameter of two metres notwithstanding, the upper part has had to be widened in proportion, so as to {422} give it the enormous width of four metres at the top. After this labor the work of perforation was continued through a stratum of pyrolithic limestone.

At the depth corresponding to the level of the sea, they reached a layer of tubular chalk, all pierced with large holes, forming so many spouts, as thick as a man's thigh, through which water poured into the well with incredible velocity. While the pumps were at work to get rid of this water, a cylindrical revetment of bricks was built on a sort of wheel made of oak, and laid down flat at the bottom of the perforation by way of a foundation, and the intermediate s.p.a.ce between this cylinder and the chalk stratum was filled with concrete, 47,000 kilos, of which were expended in this operation. As soon as the concrete might be considered to have set, or attained sufficient consistency, the brick cylinder was taken to pieces again, and the perforation continued to the pressure point, where a new sheet of water has been reached, requiring ingenious contrivances._--Artisan_.

_New Irish Coal Fossils_.--Through the labors of Professor Huxley, Dr.

E. P. Wright, and Mr. Brownrig, some very interesting fossils from the Castlecomer coal-measures of Co. Kilkenny, Ireland, have been brought under the notice of geologists. The specimens consist of fish, insects, and amphibian reptiles. Three out of the five forms of these amphibians are _undoubtedly new_ to science, and, in all probability, the remaining two also. The first, and most remarkable genus, Professor Huxley has named "_Ophiderpeton_," having reference to its elongated, snake-like form, rudimentary limbs, peculiar head, and compressed tail. In outward form _Ophiderpeton_ somewhat resembles _Siren lacertina_ and _Amphiuma_, but the ventral surface appears covered with an armature of minute, spindle-shaped plates, obliquely adjusted together, as in _Archaegosaurus_ and _Pholidogaster_. The second new form, which he names _Lepterpeton_, possesses an eel-like body, with slender and pointed head, and singularly constructed hourgla.s.s-shaped centra, as in _Thecodontosaurus_. The third genus, which Professor Huxley names _Ichthyerpeton_, has also ventral armor, composed of delicate rod-like ossicles; the hind limbs have three short toes, and the tail was covered with small quadrate scutes, or apparently h.o.r.n.y scales. The fourth new amphibian Labyrinthodont he appropriately names _Keraterpeton_, a singular salamandroid-looking form, but minute as compared with the other a.s.sociated genera. Its highly ossified vertebral column, prolonged epiotic bones, and armor of overlapping scutes, determine its character in a remarkable manner.

A paper has been read before the Royal Irish Academy upon the subject, and, in the course of the discussion which followed, Professor Haughton said he had Professor Huxley's authority for stating that the coal-pit at Castlecomer had within a few months afforded more important discoveries than all the other coal-pits of Europe.--_Geological Magazine_.

_The Accommodation-Power of the Eye._--The manner in which the human eye alters its focus for the perception of objects at various distances has always been a difficult problem for physiologists and physicists. The literature of medical science is full of dissertations on this subject, yet very little, if anything, is positively known of the exact means by which the alteration is achieved. There appears to be now a tendency among ophthalmologists to believe that the effect required is produced by an alteration of the form of the crystalline lens of the eye, which becomes less or more convex as occasion demands. This view has just received a rather strong condemnation by the Rev. Professor Haughton, of Trinity College, Dublin, in some remarks published in the "Dublin Quarterly Journal of Science."

Speaking of the alteration of form in the lens, he says:--"Even this must take place on a far greater and more important scale than anatomists have as yet suspected. The change amounts to the addition of a double convex lens of crown gla.s.s having a radius of a third of an inch. Anatomists have not as yet discovered a mechanism for changing the shape of the lens sufficient to produce these results.

The lens should almost be turned into a sphere, and I know of no ciliary muscles capable of effecting so great a change."--_Popular Science Review_.

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_Petroleum as a Subst.i.tute for Coal_.--Some recent experiments with petroleum oil used for heating water, gave results from which it was estimated that petroleum had more than three times the heating effect of an equal weight of coal. Mr. Richardson's experiments at Woolwich, however, gave an evaporation of 13.96 to 18.66 lb. of water, by one pound of American petroleum; 9.7 lb. of petroleum being burnt per square foot of grate per hour. With shale oil the evaporation was 10 to 10.5 lb. of water per pound of fuel. The evaporative power of good coal may be taken, for comparison, at 8 to 8.5 lb. per pound of fuel.

Taking into account the saving of freight due to the better quality of the fuel, and the saving of labor in stoking, it is possible that at some future time mineral oil may supersede coal in some of our ocean steamers.--

_Frith of Forth Bridge_.--Parliamentary sanction has been obtained for a bridge over the Frith of Forth, of a magnitude which gives it great scientific interest. It is to form part of a connecting-link between the North British and Edinburgh and Glasgow Railways. Its total length will be 11,755 feet, and it will be made up of the following spans, commencing from the south sh.o.r.e:--First, fourteen openings of 100 feet span, increasing in height from 63 to 77 ft. above high-water mark; then six openings of 150 ft. span, varying from 71 ft. to 79 ft. above high water level; and then six openings of 175 ft. span, of which the height above high-water level varies from 76 to 83 ft. These are succeeded by fifteen openings of 200 ft. span, and height increasing from 80 ft. to 105 ft. Then come the four great openings of 500 ft.

span, which are placed at a clear height of 135 ft. above high-water spring tides. The height of the bridge then decreases, the large spans being followed by two openings of 200 ft., varying in height from 105 to 100 ft. above high-water; then four spans of 175 ft., decreasing from 102 to 96 ft. in height; then four openings of 150 ft. span, varying in height from 95 to 91 feet; and lastly seven openings of 100 ft. span, 97 to 93 feet in height. The piers occupy 1,005 feet in aggregate width. The main girders are to be on the lattice principle, built on sh.o.r.e, floated to their position, and raised by hydraulic power. The total cost is estimated at 476,543.--_Engineering_, Jan.

5.

_Origin of the Diamond_.--Contrary to the usual opinion that the diamond has been produced by the action of intense heat on carbon, Herr Goeppert a.s.serts that it owes its origin to aqueous agency. His argument is based upon the fact that the diamond becomes black when exposed to a very high temperature. He considers that its Neptunian origin is proved by the fact that it has often on the surface impressions of grains of sand, and sometimes of crystals, showing that it has once been soft.

_The Purification of Coal-Gas_.--An important essay on this subject has been written by Professor A. Anderson, of Queen's College, Birmingham. It relates chiefly to the methods discovered by the author for the successful removal of bisulphide of carbon and the sulphuretted hydro-carbons by means of the sulphides of ammonium. By was.h.i.+ng the gas with this compound, a very large proportion (nearly 35 per cent.) of the sulphur impurities are removed, and the illuminating power of the gas, so far from being diminished, becomes actually increased. Professor Anderson records several carefully conducted experiments, all of which prove the truth of the conclusions at which he has arrived. His method is now in operation at the Taunton and other local gas-works, and is highly spoken of by those who have given it careful consideration.

_Paraffine in the Preservation of Frescoes_.--In _Dingler's Journal et Bulletin de la Societe Chimique_ it is stated that paraffine may be used with advantage for the above purpose. Vohl coats the picture with a saturated solution of paraffine in benzole, and, when the solvent has evaporated, washes the surface with a very soft brush. Paraffine has this advantage over other greasy matters--it does not become colored by time.

_Welsh Gold_.--During the year 1864, we learn from statistics only recently published, there were five gold-mines working in Merioneths.h.i.+re. In these 2,836 tons were crushed, from which 2,887 ozs. of gold, valued at 9,991, were obtained. This is in excess of the quant.i.ty obtained in 1868, which was only 552 ozs.; but it is considerably less than the production of 1862, when 5,299 ozs., having a value of 20,390, were extracted.

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_A New Train-Signaling Apparatus._--Sundry mechanical contrivances and improvements in philosophical apparatus have been exhibited at the scientific gatherings of the present season in London, attracting more or less of attention, according to their merits and utility. Mr.

Preece's train-signalling apparatus for promoting the safety of railway-travelling, can hardly fail of being interesting to everybody.

It is in use on the South-western Railway, and if properly used, accidents from collision ought never to happen; it has the advantage of being applicable to any number of stations, which is of importance, considering how stations are multiplying in and around the metropolis.

Mr. Preece has a very simple and complete method of communication between the signalman and switchman. The latter, on being informed that trains are waiting to come in, operates on the lever-handles before him, there being as many handles as lines of converging railway; and these handles are so contrived, that on moving any one to admit a train, it locks the others; so that if the switchman should pull at any one of them by mistake, he cannot move it. He is thus prevented from admitting two trains at the same time upon one line of rails, and thus one of the most frequent occasions of railway accident is avoided. And besides this, safety is further promoted by a series of small signal-discs, which start up before the switchman's eyes at the right moment, and give him demonstration that he has given the right pull at the right handle.

_Action of Liquid Manure on certain Soils_.--Some recent researches on this point, conducted by Professor Voelcker, were alluded to by Dr. G.

Calvert in his Canton lecture before the Society of Arts. In some respects Dr. Voelcker's conclusions differ from those of Mr. Way. They are briefly as follows: (1.) That calcareous, dry soils absorb about six times as much ammonia from the liquid manure as the sterile, sandy soil. (2.) That the liquid manure in contact with the calcareous soil becomes much richer in lime, whilst during its pa.s.sage through the sandy soil it becomes much poorer in this substance. (3.) That the calcareous soil absorbs much more potash than the sandy soil. (4) That chloride of sodium is not absorbed to any considerable extent by either soil, (5.) That both soils remove most of the phosphoric acid from the liquid. (6.) That the liquid manure, in pa.s.sing through the calcareous soil, becomes poorer, and in pa.s.sing through the sandy soil becomes richer in silica.

_The Value of Sewage_.--This important question, which has been so ably discussed by Baron Liebig in his various works upon Agricultural Chemistry, had a paper devoted to it by Dr. Gilbert at a late meeting (February 1st) of the Chemical Society. After entering into the details of his subject, the author draws the following general conclusions: 1st. It is only by the liberal use of water that the refuse matters of large populations can be removed from their dwellings without nuisance and injury to health. 2d. That the discharge of town sewage into rivers renders them unfit as water supplies to other towns, is destructive to fish, causes deposits which injure the channel, and emanations which are injurious to health, is a great waste of manurial matter, and should not be permitted. 3d. That the proper mode of both purifying and utilizing sewage-water is to apply it to land. 4th. That, considering the great dilution of town sewage, its constant daily supply at all seasons, its greater amount in wet weather, when the land can least bear, or least requires more water, and the cost of distribution, it is best fitted for application to gra.s.s, which alone can receive it the year round, though it may be occasionally applied with advantage to other crops within easy reach of the line or area laid down for the continuous application to gra.s.s.

6th. That the direct result of the general application of town sewage to gra.s.s land would be an enormous increase in the production of milk (b.u.t.ter and cheese) and meat, whilst by the consumption of the gra.s.s a large amount of solid manure, applicable to arable land and crops generally, would be produced. 6th. That the cost or profit to a town of arrangements for the removal and utilization of its sewage must vary greatly, according to its position and to the character of the land to be irrigated; where the sewage can be conveyed by gravitation and a sufficient tract of suitable land is available, the town may realize a profit; but, under contrary conditions, it may have to submit to a pecuniary loss to secure the necessary sanitary advantages.

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NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY.

By Herbert Spencer. New York: Appleton & Co. 1866, Vol. I. 12mo. Pp. 475.

We have omitted the long list of works of which Herbert Spencer is the author, works of rare ability in their way, but essentially false in the philosophical principles on which they are based. Mr. Herbert Spencer is naturally one of the ablest men in Great Britain, far superior to the much praised Buckle, and equalled, if not surpa.s.sed by John Stuart Mill, now member of Parliament. We have heretofore considered him as belonging to the positivist school of philosophy, founded by Auguste Comte, and the ablest man of that school; able, and less absurd than even M. Littre. But in a note in the work before us he disclaims all affiliation with Positivism, declares that he does not accept M. Comte's system, and says that the general principles in which he agrees with that singular man, he has drawn not from him, but from sources common to them both. This we can easily believe, for in the little we have had the patience to read of M. Comte's unreadable works we have found nothing original with him but his dryness, dulness, and wearisomeness, in which if he is not original, he is at least superior to most men. Yet we have not been able to detect any essential difference of doctrine or principle between the Frenchman and the Englishman, and to us who are not positivists, M. Comte, M.

Littre, George H. Lewes, Herbert Spencer, John Stuart Mill, Miss Evans, and Harriet Martineau belong to one and the same school.

It is but simple justice to Herbert Spencer to say that he writes in strong, manly, and for the most part cla.s.sical English, and has made himself master of the best philosophical style that we have met with in any English or American writer. He understands, as far as a man can with his principles, the philosophy of the English tongue, and writes it with the freedom and ease of a master, though not always with perfect purity. He must have been a hard student, and evidently is a most laborious thinker and industrious writer. But here ends, we are sorry to say, our commendation. It is the misfortune, perversity, or folly of Herbert Spencer to spend his life in attempting to obtain or at least to explain effects without causes, properties without substance, and phenomena without noumena or being. In his _Principles of Philosophy_, he divides the real and unreal into the knowable and the unknowable, without explaining, however, how the human mind knows there is an unknowable; and to the unknowable he relegates the principles, origin, and causes of things; that is, in plain English, the principles, origin, and causes of things, are unreal at least to us, and are not only unknown, but absolutely unknowable, and should be banished as subjects of investigation, inquiry, or thought. Hence the knowable, that to which all science is restricted, includes only phenomena, that is to say, the sensible or material world.

Biology, which is the subject of the volume before us, is the science of life, but on the author's principles, is necessarily confined to the statement, description, and cla.s.sification of facts, or phenomena of organic as distinguished from inorganic matter. He can admit on his philosophy no vital principle, but must explain the vital phenomena without it, by a combination, brought about n.o.body knows how, of chemical, mechanical and electric changes, forces, action, and reaction--as if there can be changes, forces, action, or reaction where there is no relation of cause and effect! But after all his labor, and it is immense, to show what chemical, mechanical, and electric changes and combinations, binary, tertiary, etc., are observed in a living subject, he explains nothing; for life, while it lasts, is neither mechanical, chemical, nor electrical, but to a certain extent resists and counteracts all these forces, and the human body falls completely under their dominion only when it has ceased to be a living body, when by chemical action it is decomposed, and returns to the several elements from which it was formed. Mr. Spencer describes very scientifically the entire {426} process of a.s.similation; but what is that living power within that a.s.similates the food we eat and converts it into chyle, blood, and flesh and bone?

You see here a principle operating of which no element is found in mechanics, chemistry or electricity, or any possible combination of them. The muscles of my arms and shoulder may operate on mechanical principles in raising my arm when I will to raise it; but on what mechanical, chemical, or electric principles do I will to raise it?

That I will to raise it, and in willing to do so perform an immaterial act, I know better than you know that "percussion produces detonation in sulphide of nitrogen," or that "explosion is a property of nitro-mannite," or "of nitroglycerine."

The simple fact is that the physical sciences are all good and useful in their place, and for purposes to which they are fitted; but they are all secondary sciences, and without principles higher than themselves to give dialectic validity to their inductions, they are no sciences at all. There is no approach to the science of life in Herbert Spencer's Biology; there is only a painfully elaborate statement of the princ.i.p.al external facts which usually accompany it and depend on it. Indeed, we had the impression that our most advanced physiologists, while admitting in their place chemical and electric forces as necessary to the phenomena of organic life, had abandoned the attempt to expound the science of physiology on chemical, electric or mechanical principles, or any possible combination of them. Even Dr. Draper, if he makes no great use of it in his physiology, recognizes a vital principle, even an immaterial soul, in man. We had also the impression that the medical profession were abandoning the chemical theory of medicine, so fas.h.i.+onable a few years ago. We may be wrong, but as far as we have been able to keep pace with modern science, Mr. Spencer is a quarter of a century behind his age.

The chapter on genesis, generation, multiplication, or reproduction, is as unscientific as it is unchristian. We merely note that the author insists on metagenesis as well as parthenogenesis, that is, that the offspring may differ in kind from the parents, and that there are virgin, or rather, s.e.xless mothers. Some years ago, in conversing with a scientific friend, I ventured to deny this alleged fact, on the strength of the theological and scriptural doctrine that every kind produces its like. He laughed in my face, and brought forward certain well-known facts in the reproduction of the aphid or cabbage-louse. I a.s.sured him that if he would take the pains to observe more closely he would find that his metagenesis and parthenogenesis are only different stages in the entire process of the reproduction of the aphid. Of course he did not believe a word of it; but a few days afterwards he came and informed me that he had seen his friend. Dr. Burnham of Boston, a naturalist of rare sagacity, who told him that naturalists were wrong in a.s.serting metagenesis in the case of aphides. "I have,"

said he, "been making my observations for some years on these little organisms, and I find that what we have taken for metagenesis is only the different stages in the process of reproduction, for I have discovered the young aphid properly formed and enveloped in the so-called virgin or s.e.xless mother." The naturalist is dead, but his friend, my informant, is living.

We have no s.p.a.ce to enter into any detailed review of this very elaborate volume. It contains many curious materials of science, but the author rejects creation, generation, formation, and emanation, and adopts that of evolution. Life is evolved from various elements which are reducible to gases, and, upon the whole, he gives us a gaseous sort of life. His theory seems to be that of Topsy, who declared she didn't come, but _growed_. We cannot perceive that Mr. Herbert Spencer has made any serious advance on Topsy. The universe is evolution, and evolution is growth, and he must say of himself with Topsy, "I didn't come, I growed." At any rate, he must be cla.s.sed with those old philosophers who evolved all things from matter, some from fire, some from air, and some from water, and made all things born from change or corruption; or rather, with Epicurus, who evolved all from the fortuitous motion, changes, and combination of atoms. Those old philosophers were unjustly ridiculed by Hermias, or our recent philosophers have less science than they imagine. Verily, there is nothing new under the sun, and false science only traverses a narrow {427} circle, constantly coming round to the absurdities of its starting point. Yet Herbert Spencer's book has profited us. It has made us feel more deeply than ever the utter impotence of the greatest man to explain anything in nature, without recognizing G.o.d and creation.

THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER. May, 1866.

The first volume of the new series of this periodical is completed in the present number, and, we suppose, is a fair specimen of the way in which we may expect to see its programme carried out. On the whole, our expectations are quite well satisfied, particularly with the present number. The first article, "The Unitarian Movement," is an _expose_ of the view taken by the conductors of the influence which the Unitarian movement is expected to exert upon the future destiny of Christendom and the civilized world. The Unitarian movement is supposed to represent the generally diffused and accepted theology of the ma.s.s of thinking persons in the Protestant world, especially of those who give tone to literature, and are most active in promoting science, art, culture, civilization, and process in general. The Catholic Church is a sect, because separated from the scientific and progressive movement. The Unitarian denomination is a useful little inst.i.tution in a small way, but is not expected to absorb other bodies into itself. Rather it and they are expected to coalesce into a more universal form of organization, which will be the New Christendom or Church of the Future.

The princ.i.p.al difficulty we find in the ingenious theories of our Unitarian friends is, that they a.s.sume a great deal, and prove but little. They a.s.sume to be in advance of all the world in intelligence, science, liberality, etc., and quietly ignore the whole ma.s.sive, colossal fabric of Catholic theology. The truth is, the Unitarian idea, so far as it is an idea, and in the way in which any considerable cla.s.s of Unitarians represent it, is not, and cannot become, the dominant idea of that portion of the scientific or civilized world which has disowned allegiance to the supreme authority of divine revelation. Nor can it be shown that the Catholic idea will not win again the control partially lost over the intellectual realm.

Either the human race has a purely natural destiny, or a supernatural one. If the former, a Trinitarian or Unitarian Church, a Past, Present, or Future Church, is not necessary. The State and Society are the highest and all-sufficient organization of the race. If the latter, there must be a divinely inst.i.tuted organization, possessing continuity of life and fixedness of laws, from the origin of the race.