By CHARLES GRINDROD.
[The old Renaissance figure (of a lady) is placed just outside the altar rail; looking northward, with one side of the face turned to the west, the other to the altar. Although kneeling, it has at a little distance the appearance of standing, owing to its peculiar erectness from the knees upward. The face is remarkable for the singular smile, half cynical, half spiritual (especially in the tightly compressed lips), which gives an expression oflivinginterest.]
[The old Renaissance figure (of a lady) is placed just outside the altar rail; looking northward, with one side of the face turned to the west, the other to the altar. Although kneeling, it has at a little distance the appearance of standing, owing to its peculiar erectness from the knees upward. The face is remarkable for the singular smile, half cynical, half spiritual (especially in the tightly compressed lips), which gives an expression oflivinginterest.]
Tenant of stone! here still thou worshippest,Smiling the prayer that on thy lips has hungWhile ages traveled. Still thou kneel’st amongThe quiet tombs. Impassioned joy or spleenMoves not thy face—in part to heaven addressed,In part to the green hills thy feet have clomb.Image of what is past, and what shall come!Silent as death, which thou embodiestFar more than life. Mute sentry! stood betweenThe crumbled mortal and ascended sprite!Has thou no sense for what is, or has been?Can nothing break thy sepulchre of rest?Once thy heart throbbed with human motion keen,Thy folded hands with others warmly pressed,Thy close-sealed lips have sweetly spoke or sung—Now an eternity is not more dumb!The organ peels around thee its deep notes;But thou art deaf to music’s noblest strains.A glory of rich hues about thee floats;Thou car’st not for the splendor of bright panes.What fateful storms and changes hast thou seen!How little dost thou heed the mad world’s hum!Our childhood knew thee as doth now our age—Time stirs not thee. Where art thou all this space,The part of thee which not in stone remains,While wondering centuries roll past thy place?They change and cease: the whole world turns a page—But thou still wear’st that smile upon thy face.
Tenant of stone! here still thou worshippest,Smiling the prayer that on thy lips has hungWhile ages traveled. Still thou kneel’st amongThe quiet tombs. Impassioned joy or spleenMoves not thy face—in part to heaven addressed,In part to the green hills thy feet have clomb.Image of what is past, and what shall come!Silent as death, which thou embodiestFar more than life. Mute sentry! stood betweenThe crumbled mortal and ascended sprite!Has thou no sense for what is, or has been?Can nothing break thy sepulchre of rest?Once thy heart throbbed with human motion keen,Thy folded hands with others warmly pressed,Thy close-sealed lips have sweetly spoke or sung—Now an eternity is not more dumb!The organ peels around thee its deep notes;But thou art deaf to music’s noblest strains.A glory of rich hues about thee floats;Thou car’st not for the splendor of bright panes.What fateful storms and changes hast thou seen!How little dost thou heed the mad world’s hum!Our childhood knew thee as doth now our age—Time stirs not thee. Where art thou all this space,The part of thee which not in stone remains,While wondering centuries roll past thy place?They change and cease: the whole world turns a page—But thou still wear’st that smile upon thy face.
Tenant of stone! here still thou worshippest,Smiling the prayer that on thy lips has hungWhile ages traveled. Still thou kneel’st amongThe quiet tombs. Impassioned joy or spleenMoves not thy face—in part to heaven addressed,In part to the green hills thy feet have clomb.Image of what is past, and what shall come!Silent as death, which thou embodiestFar more than life. Mute sentry! stood betweenThe crumbled mortal and ascended sprite!Has thou no sense for what is, or has been?Can nothing break thy sepulchre of rest?Once thy heart throbbed with human motion keen,Thy folded hands with others warmly pressed,Thy close-sealed lips have sweetly spoke or sung—Now an eternity is not more dumb!The organ peels around thee its deep notes;But thou art deaf to music’s noblest strains.A glory of rich hues about thee floats;Thou car’st not for the splendor of bright panes.What fateful storms and changes hast thou seen!How little dost thou heed the mad world’s hum!Our childhood knew thee as doth now our age—Time stirs not thee. Where art thou all this space,The part of thee which not in stone remains,While wondering centuries roll past thy place?They change and cease: the whole world turns a page—But thou still wear’st that smile upon thy face.
Tenant of stone! here still thou worshippest,
Smiling the prayer that on thy lips has hung
While ages traveled. Still thou kneel’st among
The quiet tombs. Impassioned joy or spleen
Moves not thy face—in part to heaven addressed,
In part to the green hills thy feet have clomb.
Image of what is past, and what shall come!
Silent as death, which thou embodiest
Far more than life. Mute sentry! stood between
The crumbled mortal and ascended sprite!
Has thou no sense for what is, or has been?
Can nothing break thy sepulchre of rest?
Once thy heart throbbed with human motion keen,
Thy folded hands with others warmly pressed,
Thy close-sealed lips have sweetly spoke or sung—
Now an eternity is not more dumb!
The organ peels around thee its deep notes;
But thou art deaf to music’s noblest strains.
A glory of rich hues about thee floats;
Thou car’st not for the splendor of bright panes.
What fateful storms and changes hast thou seen!
How little dost thou heed the mad world’s hum!
Our childhood knew thee as doth now our age—
Time stirs not thee. Where art thou all this space,
The part of thee which not in stone remains,
While wondering centuries roll past thy place?
They change and cease: the whole world turns a page—
But thou still wear’st that smile upon thy face.
By RICHARD A. PROCTOR.
During the last two years several comets—some telescopic, others visible to the naked eye, and even conspicuous objects in the heavens—have been observed, not only by the older methods, but by some which have only been available within recent years. It is naturally expected, therefore, by the general public that some new light should be thrown on these mysterious objects, whose phenomena still remain among the unexplained, seemingly the inexplicable problems of the celestial depths.
We propose to consider here what has thus been learned, and what also (unfortunately it is much more) remains still to be learned, respecting comets. But first it will be well to show what are the special phenomena which present themselves for explanation.
A comet apparently comes out from the remote depths of space in a condition of comparative calm. It appears as a small round nebulous object, looking like a tiny cloud of extreme tenuity—the idea of tenuity being suggested by the exceeding faintness of the comet’s light. This cloud appears somewhat condensed toward the middle. As the comet draws nearer to the sun, it usually grows somewhat long in the direction of the sun; and before long a portion within the part nearest the sun is seen to be brighter than the rest, and to have a more or less defined outline. This is thenucleus—sometimes seen as a dull disc of nearly uniform brightness, at others as a mere bright point not unlike a star. The fainter light around this is thecoma, or hair, which resembles a luminous fog round the nucleus, usually brighter on the side toward the sun, and on the other side growing fainter and fainter till it can no longer be seen. Later this lengthening of the comet in directions toward and from the sun becomes more marked, until at length the comet may fairly be said to have a head directed toward the sun and a tail directed from him. Nucleus, coma, and tail may be very different in appearance in different comets, and in particular the tail may be more or less complicated in structure, being sometimes a mere straight streak, at others twofold, multiple, curved, with thwart streaks, and so forth—no two comets, in fine, having tails resembling each other except in general details.
Dr. Huggins, in a rather disappointing article on comets, recently communicated to a contemporary, remarks that the nucleus, though an apparently insignificant speck, “is truly the heart and kernel of the whole thing—potentially it is the comet.” This has scarcely yet been proved, though it appears exceedingly probable. It is true, however, as he adds, that this part only of the comet conforms rigorously to the laws of gravitation, and moves strictly in its orbit. “If we could see a great comet,” he proceeds, “during its distant wandering, when it has put off the gala trappings of perihelion excitement, it would appear as a very sober object, and consist of little more than nucleus alone.” This again seems probable, though it has never yet been proved, and the division of some comets into two or more parts, each having coma, nucleus, and tail of its own, shows that the nucleus cannot be, in every case, what Dr. Huggins seems here to suggest. Dr. Huggins has done well in saying (though scarcely with sufficient emphasis, considering how often the mistake is repeated) that “though many telescopic comets are of extremely small mass, nucleus included—so small, indeed, that they are unable to perturb such small bodies as Jupiter’s satellites—yet we should mistake greatly if we were to suppose that all comets are ‘airy nothings.’ In some large comets the nucleus may be a few hundred miles in diameter, or even very much larger, and may consist of solid matter. It is not necessary to say that the collision of a cometary nucleus of this order with the earth would produce destruction on a wide scale.”
It is even more necessary to correct the widely-spread misapprehension as to the relations between meteors and comets. We hear it stated that the nucleus of a comet is made up of meteoric stones (Professor P. G. Tait says—for unknown reasons—that they resemble “paving stones or even bricks”) as confidently as though the earth had at some time passed through the nucleus of a comet, and some of our streets were now paved with stones which had fallen to earth on such an occasion. As a matter of fact, all that has yet been proved is that meteoric bodies follow in the track (which is very different from the tail) of some known comets, and that probably all comets are followed by trains of meteors. These may have come out of the head or nucleus in some way as yet unexplained; but it is by no means certain that they have done so, and it is by many astronomers regarded as more than doubtful.
The most important points to be noticed in the behavior of large comets, as they approach the sun, is that usually the side of the coma which lies toward the sun is the scene of intense disturbance. Streams of luminous matter seem to rise continually toward the sun, attaining a certain distance from the head, when, assuming a cloud-like appearance, they seem to form an envelope around the nucleus. This envelope gradually increases its distance from the sun, growing fainter and larger, while within it the process is repeated, and a new envelope is formed. This in turn ascends from the nucleus, expanding as it does so, while within it a new envelope is formed. Meanwhile, the one first formed has grown fainter, perhaps has disappeared. But sometimes the process goes on so rapidly (a day or two sufficing for the formation of a complete new envelope) that several envelopes will be seen at the same time, the outermost faintest, the innermost most irregular in shape and most varied in brightness, while the envelope or envelopes between are the best developed and most regular.
The matter raised up in these envelopes seems to have undergone a certain change of character, causing it no longer to obey the sun’s attractive influence, but to experience a strong repulsive action from him, whereby it is apparently swept away with great rapidity to form the tail. “It flows past the nucleus,” says Dr. Huggins, “on all sides, still ever expanding and shooting backward until a tail is formed in a direction opposite to the sun. This tail is usually curved, though sometimes rays or extra tails sensibly straight are also seen.” The description is, however, incomplete in one important respect. The matter raised from the nucleus to form the envelopes may be, and probably is, carried past the nucleus on all sides; but the appearance presented by the tail just behind the nucleus is not exactly in accordance with our ideas as to what should result from the flowing past “on all sides.” There is a dark space immediately behind the nucleus, that is, where the nucleus, if solid, would throw its shadow, if there were matter to receive the light all around so that the shadow could be seen. Now it may be thought at first that this corresponds exactly with what should be seen: when we look just behind the nucleus there is no light, or very little; when we look on either side of that dark space there is the luminous matter which has been driven back from the envelopes in front of the nucleus. But if the luminous matter flows past the nucleuson all sides, it must flow past the nucleus on the side nearest to the observer, and also on the side farthest away; and it is just where the line of the sight passes through these two regions of brightness that a dark streak is seen just behind the nucleus. Let the reader draw two concentric circles—one an inch in diameter, the other two inches—and let him then draw two parallel tangents to the inner circle on opposite sides of it. Supposing now thespace between the two circles to represent in section the luminous matter which flows all round the nucleus, while the surface of the inner circle represents the unilluminated part behind the nucleus, the two tangent lines will represent the lines of sight on either side of the dark region, where as we might expect, we get plenty of light; and we can also understand very well why outside of that the line of sight through the luminous matter (or the chords to our outer circle), getting shorter and shorter, the light of the luminous streaks bounding this part of the tail gets fainter and fainter; but if just inside either of the two tangents, chords are drawn parallel to them, crossing the inner circle, the parts of these chords which lie between the two circles are very nearly equal in length to the tangent lines themselves; and even a common diameter to both circles has, lying between them, two portions together equal to the radius of the outer. Hence, since the line of sight even across the middle of the space behind the nucleus, passes through a considerable range of luminous matter, while a line within but near the outskirts of that space passes through nearly as great a range of luminous matter as one just outside that space, there should be plenty of light where yet to the eye there seems to be something like absolute darkness. Either then the eye is greatly deceived, or else we must find some explanation of darkness existing where considerable brightness might be expected.[D]
The matter which forms the tail, seems, as I have said, to be swept off from the envelopes raised by the sun’s action on the nucleus. It seems as though the matter thus raised had undergone in some way a change of character, which caused it no longer to obey the law of gravity as it had done when forming part of the nucleus, but instead of yielding to the sun’s attraction, to submit rather to an intense repulsive action, carrying it at a much greater rate from the sun than, under the action of gravity—starting from rest and free from all perturbing influences—it could have been drawn toward him. Dr. Huggins thus words his account of what seems to happen: “Now is seen to take place a change which is most puzzling—namely, these envelopes of light appear to give up their substance under the influence of a strong repulsive force exerted from the sun, and to be forced backwards.” Sir John Herschel, after his long and careful study of the comet of 1830 (Halley’s at its second return) came to the conclusion that repulsive action exerted by the sun on the matter raised in these envelopes had been distinctly proved.
Yet here, where we seem to have our first firm ground for hypothesis respecting these mysterious objects—comets’ tails—we meet with stupendous difficulties. Consider, for instance, the phenomena presented by Newton’s comet. That comet had traversed the last ninety millions of miles of its approach toward the sun in four weeks. At the end of that time it passed out of view for a few days, having then a tail ninety millions of miles, at least, in length. Four days passed, and it reappeared on the other side of the sun—having in the interval traversed nearly a semi-circle—in reality, of course, the perihelion end of its long oval path. At its reappearance, it had a tail still ninety millions of miles in length, but the tail with which it reappeared had, of course, a direction entirely different from that of the tail which had been seen before—the two directions were inclined about one hundred and sixty degrees to each other. Now, as Sir John Herschel remarks, we can not look on the tail of a comet as something whirled round like a stick, as the comet circles round its perihelion sweep. The tail with which the comet reappeared must have been an entirely new formation. Nor can we doubt that if the comet had been watched as it swept around the sun, the changes in the tail’s position which had been observed to the time of disappearance, would have been observed to progress continuously, the tail passing by a uniform motion from the position it then had to that which it was observed to have at the time of reappearance. So that we may fairly suppose the tail with which the comet reappeared to have been formed in much less than the time during which the comet had been out of sight. Probably its farthest part had been formed in much less than a day, the part near the head being, of course, formed later. But if the matter repelled from the head was thus driven over a distance of ninety million miles in twenty-four hours, at the outside, the average velocity of its motion was about a thousand miles per second, or nearly three times as great as the greatest velocity which the suncancommunicate by his attractive energy to matter approaching him from without, even though such matter come to him from an almost infinite distance, and in a perfectly straight line—the conditions most favorable for giving a high rate of final velocity. Such velocity as the sun can thus give by his attractive energy is only given to matter which has been exposed a long time to his influence; but here, in the tail of the great comet of 1680, matter seems to have acquired almost instantaneously a velocity sufficing to carry it over ninety million miles with an average speed three times as great as the sun can thus, after long effort, communicate by means of his attractive power!
The difficulty is so great that many efforts—some bold and daring, others positively wild in the unscientific absurdity of their nature—have been made to overcome it.
Among the most ingenious of these is (or rather was, for I think it is no longer maintained even by its eminent author), Prof. Tyndall’s theory of a comet’s tail as an actinic cloud, generated by the passage of the solar rays through exceedingly tenuous matter after those rays had been in part deprived of their heating power, during their passage through the comet’s head. According to this theory the actinic cloud can not be formed under the heating rays, but so soon as the actinic rays fall on the tenuous matter alone, the cloud is formed,—so that all round the region in which would be the comet’s shadow, there is no luminous cloud, while along that region the cloud exists. The rapidity with which light travels would of course make this explanation absolutely perfect in explaining cometic tails lying always exactly in a straight line directed from the sun, or with their axis so situated. But unfortunately this exceedingly rapid formation of the tail (a tail of ninety million miles in length would be formed in about eight minutes) is more than observation requires or can explain. Prof. Tyndall made a slight oversight in dealing with this part of his theory. Noticing that the actinic cloud, as he called it, is not formed instantly, but after a delay of a few seconds, in his experiments, he reasoned as though it would follow from this that the formation of the actinic cloud behind a comet’s head in space might be a process extending its action in distance from the head at a rate considerably less than that at which light travels, yet still fast enough to account for the exceedingly rapid formation of the tail of Newton’s comet, and of other similar tails. But a little consideration will show that the few seconds following the fall of light on the vapors dealt with by Tyndall, before the luminous cloud appeared, would produce no such effect as he imagined. Therate of formation of the tail would still be that at which light travels. Imagine the head at A, for the sake of argument, and the sun’s light after reaching A, passing on to B, C, D, E, etc., to Z, a distance say of one hundred million miles, in nine minutes:
A . . . B . . . C . . . D . . . E . . . . . . Z.
Suppose that, when the light has reached the vaporous matter lying at B, an interval of one full minute (much greater than any noticed in Tyndall’s experiments), occurs before the actinic cloud comes into view, a similar interval after the light has passed C before the cloud is seen there, and so on, up to the time of the arrival of the light at Z. Professor Tyndall’s reasoning implied that all the time intervals thus occurring at B, C, D, E, etc., up to Z, had to be added together, to give the total time of the formation of the tail from A to Z, and hence naturally a long time might elapse, and the head having at the end of this time reached a different position from that which it had occupied at the beginning, the divergence of the tail from the direction exactly opposite to the sun, and the curvature of the tail, would be alike readily accounted for. But what are the actual facts of the case. The part of the tail formed latest by the supposed solar actinic action, namely, the part at Z, would be formed just nine minutes after the light had left A, and ten minutes after the part nearest to A had been formed (by the same light waves), for, nine minutes after leaving A, the light would be at Z, and a minute after each epoch (according to our supposition) the actinic cloud would be formed respectively at A and at Z. We get just the same interval—nine minutes—whether the actinic cloud appears immediately after light has traversed the vapour which is to form the cloud, or a minute after, or an hour after. In every case the tail would be formed outwards from A, at the rate at which light travels. This does not accord with the phenomena—in fact, the supposition that a tail could be formed at the rate at which light travels, will be found, on examination, to lead to many most manifest absurdities, which Professor Tyndall doubtless recognized when he sought escape from the supposition of such rapid tail formation, through the effects he attributed to the delayed appearance of the actinic cloud.
Another theory in explanation of the rapid formation of such a tail as that of Newton’s comet is worthy of far less notice. Professor Tyndall’s theory was based on an interesting physical fact, which he had himself discovered, and which was also manifestly akin in character to the formation of a comet’s tail. The one to be now noticed was suggested to a mathematician by a rather familiar phenomenon, the effects of which on his imagination he seems to have been never able to entirely overcome—at any rate no amount of evidence against the theory seems to counterbalance in his mind the notion once conceived that the theory might be true. (It is a way some theorists have.)
Professor Tait was once looking at a part of the sky which seemed clear. As he looked, a long streak rapidly formed, which presently disappeared (if I remember his original description aright) almost as rapidly as it had formed. At any rate, the appearance of the streak was rapid enough to remind him of what astronomers said about the rapid (apparent) development of comets’ tails. The phenomenon itself was easily explained. There had been a flight of seabirds, traveling after their wont in a widely extended layer, which when he began his observations had been looked at somewhat aslant, so that—the distance being too great for the birds to be seen individually—nothing of the flight could be discerned at all. But it is evident that in such a case a very slight movement on the part of each bird would suffice so to shift the position of the layer in which they were traveling, that it would be seen edgewise, and then the birds, being so situated that the range of sight toward any part of the layer passed athwart a great number of them, would of course be seen, not individually but as a cloud, or long straight streak, a side view in fact of the layer in which they were traveling.Eureka!shouted Professor Tait; and presently announced to the world the marvelous theory that the rapid formation of comets’ tails may be accounted for on the same general principle. Astronomers have found that along the tracks of some comets (where the tails never lie, by the way, but that is a detail) are countless millions of meteoric bodies separately undiscernable (and never yet discerned as a cloud—another detail); therefore it follows that the tails of all comets are formed by movements of “brickbats and paving stones” in them (Professor Tait’s own description of meteors), after the manner of the seabirds he saw from Arthur’s Seat. Professor Thomson at the Edinburgh meeting of the British Association endorsed this theory with special reference to the value of the “seabird analogy” in explaining the phenomena of Newton’s comet. Dr. Huggins, who, as he does not claim to be a mathematician (or to speak more correctly, as his labors in physical research have not given him time for profound mathematical research), may be more readily excused, also speaks of the seabird theory as if it had some legitimate standing. “The tail, he conceives,” he says, referring to Dr. Tait, “to be a portion of the less dense part of the train illuminated by sunlight, and visible or invisible to us, according, not only to circumstances of density, illumination, and nearness, but also of tactic arrangement, as of a flock of birds under different conditions of perspective.” Of course, the theory is utterly untenable—by astronomers who know something of the actual facts, and have enough mathematics to consider simple geometrical relations. Bodies moving in a plane surface like birds, if they individually travel in the same plane, keep its position unchanged. But if they move individually at an angle to that plane (as they occasionally do), they change its position—the surface, however, in which they collectively are at any moment, still remaining plane. In such a case only could such a phenomenon as was observed by Professor Tait be seen. But in such a case the visibility of the streak formed by the flight of birds would last but a few minutes, for the same motion which had in a few minutes brought the streak into view would in the next few minutes take it out of view. During the short time that a flight is visible in this way, it has an unchanging position, or a scarcely changing one. If the tail of Newton’s comet had rapidly formed and as rapidly vanished, remaining, while visible, in an almost unchanging position, the “seabird analogy” might explain that particular phenomenon, however inadequate to explain multitudes of others. But the phenomena to be explained are entirely different. Leaving out of the question the varying position and length of the tail as it approached the sun, and after it left the sun’s neighborhood, all of which were entirely inconsistent with the seabird analogy, what we are called upon to explain is that a visible tail ninety millions of miles in length, seen in position 1Aon one day, was seen three days later in position 3A(having manifestly in the meanwhile passed through all the intermediate positions, including 2A). If Professor Tait, profound mathematician though he be, though he may “differentiate and integrate like Harlequin,” can show how any flight of bodies, like or unlike seabirds, can accomplishsuch a feat as the above, appearing first to form a thin streakA1, and in less than four days a thin streakA3, each ninety millions of miles long, withoutsomeof them having had to travel a distance nearly equal to the line 1 to 3—or some one hundred and fifty millions of miles long, instead of the trifling journeys he assigned them, he should take a rank above Newton and Laplace as a mathematician. But there is another feat, apparently equally difficult to him, which he might achieve very readily with great advantage to those non-mathematicians among astronomers whom his name—well deserved, too—as a mathematician has hitherto misled, and with not less advantage to his own reputation: he might frankly admit that the idea which occurred to him while watching those unfortunate seabirds, had not quite the value which at the moment he mistakenly attached to it, and has sinceseemedto do.
diagram of three lines meeting at a point
But apart from the consideration of theories such as those, either demonstrably untenable, though ingenious, like Professor Tyndall’s, or altogether and obviously untenable like Professor Tait’s, there are certain phenomena of comets’ tails which force upon us the belief that they are phenomena of repulsion, though the repulsive action is of a kind not yet known to physicists.
1. The curvature of all the cometic tails when not seen from a point in or near the place of their motion.
2. The existence of more tails than one to the same comet, the different tails being differently curved.
3. The phenomena of striations athwart the tail.
It is evident that all these phenomena are such as we might fairly expect if a comet’s tail is caused by the sun’s repulsive action on molecules, raised by his heating action on the head. The matter thus swept away would resemble smoke, driven upwards from the funnel of a moving steamer, and then swept in any given direction by a steady wind; we should see a curved train of such matter just as we see a curved streak of smoke. If the matter raised from the head is not all of one kind (and it is antecedently unlikely that it should be), there would be more than one trail of matter, if the sun’s repulsive action were different on these different kinds of matter. Lastly, the striations seen athwart the tail, as in the well known case of Donati’s great comet, would be explained, either as due to the observed pulsational manner in which the envelopes are raised (if matter were raised uniformly from the head there could be no formation of successive envelopes), or else as due to the carrying off into the main tail, where alone such striations are seen, of matter which, had it freed itself at the beginning, would have been swept off into the smaller tails, but being as it were entangled in the great outflow of matter forming the large tail, escapes later, and when it does, gets swept off at its own more rapid rate, and there forms a streak lying at an angle with the direction of the principal tail.
Bredichin has shown that where there are three tails to a comet, their forms correspond with the theory that the envelopes raised from the head are principally formed of hydrogen, carbon and iron, but this, which, if established, would be the most important physical discovery yet made respecting comets, seems open at present to considerable doubt, though confirmations seem to be given to it, in some respects, by the results of spectroscopic analysis.
To spectroscopic analysis we must in all probability look for such information respecting comets, as may hereafter enable us to understand their nature. On this point let us consider what is said by one who, if not the greatest living astronomical spectroscopist, isfacile princepsin this country—Dr. W. Huggins. First, however, we must consider the past of this method of research as applied to comets.
The first successful application of the spectroscope to comets was made by Donati in 1864—the light of the comet being then divided into three bright bands, whose position, however, was not exactly determined. In 1866 Dr. Huggins obtained two kinds of light from a telescopic comet, part of the comet’s light giving a continuous spectrum, probably reflected sunlight, the other a spectrum of three bands. In 1868 a comet was observed (Brorsen’s) with more success. Three bands were seen in the spectrum of the light from the comet’s head, and a comparison of these with measures of similar bright bands belonging to the spectra of various combinations of carbon, showed, or rather seemed to suggest, that “combinations of carbon might be present in the comet.”
“In conjunction with my friend, the late Dr. W. Allen Miller,” says Dr. Huggins, “I confronted directly with the spectroscope attached to the telescope, the comet’s light with that from inductive sparks passing in olefiant gas. The sensible identity of the two spectra left no doubt of the essential oneness of the cometary stuff with the gas composed of carbon and hydrogen that was employed for comparison.” “Since that time,” proceeds Dr. Huggins, “the light from some twenty comets has been examined by different observers. The general close agreement in all cases, notwithstanding some small divergences, of the bright bands in the cometary light with those seen in the spectra of hydrocarbons, justifies us fully in ascribing the original light of these comets to matter which contains carbon in combination with hydrogen.”
“In conjunction with my friend, the late Dr. W. Allen Miller,” says Dr. Huggins, “I confronted directly with the spectroscope attached to the telescope, the comet’s light with that from inductive sparks passing in olefiant gas. The sensible identity of the two spectra left no doubt of the essential oneness of the cometary stuff with the gas composed of carbon and hydrogen that was employed for comparison.” “Since that time,” proceeds Dr. Huggins, “the light from some twenty comets has been examined by different observers. The general close agreement in all cases, notwithstanding some small divergences, of the bright bands in the cometary light with those seen in the spectra of hydrocarbons, justifies us fully in ascribing the original light of these comets to matter which contains carbon in combination with hydrogen.”
Last year photography was applied to this spectroscopic work. The spectrum of the brightest comet of that year was partly continuous, and on this continuous spectrum many of the well known Fraunhofer lines could be traced. This made it certain that part of the comet’s light was reflected sunlight; though Dr. Huggins considers also that a part of the continuous spectrum of every comet is due to inherent light. On this point some doubts may be permitted. It is one thing for special bands to show themselves, for some substances may become self-luminous under special conditions at very moderate temperatures; it is quite another thing that the solid parts of a comet’s substance should become incandescent. I venture to express my own belief that this can scarcely happen except in the case of comets which approach very near to the sun. Besides the continuous spectrum with dark lines, the photograph showed also a spectrum of bright lines.
“These lines,” says Dr. Huggins, “possessed extreme interest, for there was certainly contained within this hieroglyphic writing some new information. A discussion of the position of these new lines showed them to be undoubtedly the same lines which appear in certain compounds of carbon. Not long before, Professors Liveing and Dewar had found from their laboratory experiments that these lines are only present when nitrogen is also present, and that they indicate a nitrogen compound of carbon, namely—cyanogen. Two other bright groups were also seen in the photograph, confirming the presence of hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen.”
“These lines,” says Dr. Huggins, “possessed extreme interest, for there was certainly contained within this hieroglyphic writing some new information. A discussion of the position of these new lines showed them to be undoubtedly the same lines which appear in certain compounds of carbon. Not long before, Professors Liveing and Dewar had found from their laboratory experiments that these lines are only present when nitrogen is also present, and that they indicate a nitrogen compound of carbon, namely—cyanogen. Two other bright groups were also seen in the photograph, confirming the presence of hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen.”
It is worthy of notice that, only a few days later, Dr. H. Draper succeeded in obtaining a photograph of the same comet’s spectrum. It appeared to him to confirm Dr. Huggins’ statements, except only that the dark Fraunhofer lines were not visible—the photograph having probably been taken under less favorable conditions.
So far, then, it seems clear that comets shine in part by reflecting sunlight, partly with light of their own; the part of the cometic substance which certainly shines with its own light is gaseous, and this gas in most comets “contains carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen, possibly also oxygen, in the form of hydrocarbons, cyanogen, and possibly oxygen compounds of carbon.”
But the latest comet has brought with it fresh news. Its spectrum is not like that given by the comets we have been considering. The bright lines of sodium are seen in it, and also other bright lines and groups of lines, which have not yet been shown to be identical with any belonging to the hydrocarbon groups, but probably are so. Dr. Huggins’ photograph shows, he considers, “that the original light of the comet, which gives a continuous spectrum (he means that portion of the original light which does so), was too strong to allow of the Fraunhofer lines being recognized in the reflected solar light.” We demur to this as beingshown,it may fairly be said to besuggested. The cyanogen groups are not seen.
Such is Dr. Huggins’ account; but it is manifest that this comet underwent important changes, of which—we are surprised to note—Dr. Huggins has taken no account. Thus, in April, Professors Tacchini and Vogel found simply a faint continuous spectrum. In May, Vogel found that the three bands associated with carbon were present, though faint, while there was no trace of the sodium band. On the contrary, on the nights of June 4, 5, and 7, Dr. B. Hasselberg, of the Observatory of Pulkowa, found that the nucleus of the comet gave a very strong and extended continuous spectrum, with an “excessively strong” bright line in the orange yellow, proved by micrometrical measurement to be identical with the D line—the well known double sodium line of the solar spectrum. The observation was confirmed by Dunér, Bredichin, and Vogel. On this Mr. Hind remarks, “It is necessary to conclude that, during the last fortnight of May, the spectrum of Wells’ comet had changed in a manner of which the history of science furnishes no precedent.” It must, however, be remembered that as yet no comets have been examined under sufficiently favorable conditions, to enable us to say whether the change thus observed was really exceptional, or only exceptional in being for the first time noted. Whenever such a comet as Donati’s comes favorably under spectroscopic scrutiny, we shall probably learn something about these changes which will throw more light than anything yet discovered on the physical economy of these mysterious bodies.
What, then, do we know certainly respecting comets? What may we surmise with more or less probability? And in what direction may we look with most hope for future information? We know certainly that, in whatever way they are formed, the sun excites intense disturbance in them as they approach him. Prof. Stokes remarks that these effects, so much greater at a first view than we might fairly expect in the case of many of the comets observed, which have approached the sun no nearer than our own earth does, or not so near, may be accounted for by the circumstance that comets travel in what may be regarded as, to all intents and purposes, a vacuum. From Dr. Crooke’s experiments on very high vacua, we may infer that there is very little loss of heat, except by radiation. Thus the heat received by the meteoric components of a comet would be much greater than might otherwise be expected. Dr. Huggins mentions, in the same connection, the remarkable persistence of the bright trains of meteors in the rare upper air, which sometimes remain visible for three-quarters of an hour before the light fades, as the heat is gradually radiated away. “Our reasoning on these points,” he remarks, in his dry way, “would undergo considerable modification if we accept the views as to the condition of interplanetary space and of the sun’s action which have been recently suggested by Dr. Siemens in his solar theory”—but of course we do not.
Bredichin’s researches, showing that three distinct curvatures in comets’ tails correspond to the winnowing out by solar repulsive action of (1) hydrogen, (2) carbon, and (3) iron, seem worthy of careful study and investigation. It accords well with spectroscopic evidence as to the condition of the matter raised in gaseous form from the nucleus; and if as yet we have had no direct spectroscopic evidence of the existence of iron in comets, we know that meteors are closely connected with comets, and that many meteors contain iron. Moreover, as unexpected spectroscopic evidence of the presence of the substance sodium, common in so many meteors, has been found in the case of one comet, we may fairly hope that under yet more favorable conditions, the presence of iron also may be recognized in the same way.
How far electricity may be looked to for an explanation of cometic phenomena, is a doubtful point among astronomers and physicists. For my own part, I must confess I share the strong objections which many physicists have expressed against the mere vague suggestion that perhapsthisis an electrical phenomenon, perhapsthat other featureis electrical too, perhapsall or mostof the phenomena of comets depend on electricity. It is so easy to make such suggestions, so difficult to obtain evidence in their favor having the slightest scientific value. Still, I hold the electrical idea to be well worth careful study. Whatever credit may hereafter be given to any electrical theory of comets, will be solely and entirely due to those who may help to establish it upon a basis of sound evidence—none whatever to the mere suggestion, which has been made time and again since it was first advanced by Fontenelle. Dr. Huggins says that he finds there is a rapidly growing feeling among physicists that both the inherent light (which he prefers to call the self-light) of comets and the phenomena of their tails belong to the order of electrical phenomena. An American astronomer recently wrote to him, as to American views of the self-light of comets, “I can not speak with authority for anyone but myself; still I think the prevailing impression amongst us is that this light is due to an electric, or, if I may coin the word, (far better not) an electric-oid action of some kind.” On this Dr. Huggins himself remarks:
“The spectroscopic results fail to give conclusive evidence on this point; still, perhaps, upon the whole, especially if we consider the photographs of last year, the teachings of the spectroscope are in favor of the view that the self-light of comets is due to electric discharges. Those who are disposed to believe that the truth lies in this direction, differ from each other in the precise modes in which they would apply the known laws of electric action to the phenomena of comets. Broadly, the different applications of principles of electricity which have been suggested, group themselves about the common idea, that great electrical disturbances are set up by the sun’s action in connection with the vaporization of some of the matter of the nucleus, and that the tail is probably matter carried away, possibly in connection with electric discharges, under an electrical influence of repulsion exerted by the sun. This view necessitates the supposition that the sun is strongly electrified, either negatively or positively, and further, that in the processes taking place in the comet, either of vaporization or of some other kind, the matter thrown out by the nucleus has become strongly electrified in the same way as the sun—that is, negatively if the sun’s electricity is negative, or positively if the sun’s is positive. The enormous disturbances which the spectroscope shows to be always at work in the sun must be accompanied by electrical changes of equal magnitude, but we know nothing as to how far these are all, or the great majority of them, in one direction, so as to cause the sun to maintain permanently a high electrical state, whether positive or negative.”
“The spectroscopic results fail to give conclusive evidence on this point; still, perhaps, upon the whole, especially if we consider the photographs of last year, the teachings of the spectroscope are in favor of the view that the self-light of comets is due to electric discharges. Those who are disposed to believe that the truth lies in this direction, differ from each other in the precise modes in which they would apply the known laws of electric action to the phenomena of comets. Broadly, the different applications of principles of electricity which have been suggested, group themselves about the common idea, that great electrical disturbances are set up by the sun’s action in connection with the vaporization of some of the matter of the nucleus, and that the tail is probably matter carried away, possibly in connection with electric discharges, under an electrical influence of repulsion exerted by the sun. This view necessitates the supposition that the sun is strongly electrified, either negatively or positively, and further, that in the processes taking place in the comet, either of vaporization or of some other kind, the matter thrown out by the nucleus has become strongly electrified in the same way as the sun—that is, negatively if the sun’s electricity is negative, or positively if the sun’s is positive. The enormous disturbances which the spectroscope shows to be always at work in the sun must be accompanied by electrical changes of equal magnitude, but we know nothing as to how far these are all, or the great majority of them, in one direction, so as to cause the sun to maintain permanently a high electrical state, whether positive or negative.”
Unless some such state of things exist, Sir John Herschel’s statement, “That this force” (the repulsive force forming the tail) “can not be of the nature of electric or magnetic forces,” must be accepted, for, as he points out, “the center of gravity of each particle would not be affected; the attraction on one of its sides would precisely equal the repulsion on the other.” Repulsion of the cometary matter would only take place if this matter, after it has been driven off from the nucleus and the sun, have both high electric potentials of the same kind. Further, it is suggested that luminous jets, streams, halos, and envelopes belong to the same order of phenomena as the aurora, the electrical brush, and the stratified discharges of exhausted tubes.
All this, it will be noticed, is at present merely hypothetical. It is, however, worthy of notice thatoutsideof electricity there is nothing known to physicists which seems to afford even a promise of explanation, so far, at least, as the grander and more striking (also the most mysterious) of cometic phenomena are concerned. It may well be that with our advancing knowledge of meteors and meteor systems, the spectroscopic analysis of the next few comets of the larger and completer types—comets like Donati’s comet, the great comet of 1811, and the comet of 1861—may throw unexpected light on mysteries which still remain among the most profound and unpromising problems presented to modern science.—The Contemporary Review.
ByMrs. MARY LOW DICKINSON.[Continued.]
An early start from Killarney, and a seven-hour journey by rail, ending in delightful quarters at the pleasant Hotel Shelburne, in Dublin, gives a comfortable sense of having passed an agreeable day.
“I would like to have run from Limerick Junction up to Limerick,” says a feminine member of the quartette.
“I don’t think we missed anything in Limerick; I felt like stopping awhile at Kilkenny,” answered her brother.
“But Kilkenny comes to America,” said the first speaker, who had been reading about the enormous annual emigration from that town.
“Well, I fancy one can have all one wants of Limerick at home.”
“Not all I want,” said the little woman, perversely.
“What can you want, who have had your full share of domestic torments, with numberless Bridgets and Norahs?”
There was no answer, but later, in the privacy of her chamber, she said, “I did so want to go to Limerick, to buy some Irish lace. You know they make it there, and send it over to Brussels, and then it is bought back into Ireland for quadruple its cost”—but the air of mild rebuke with which her companion looked up from the diary in which she was describing the beauties of Killarney scenery, seemed to act as a sudden check upon the purely feminine outburst. “Of course I know we can’t stop to buy things,” she added, apologetically.
“Nor can we buy things when we do stop. It’s dreadful of you to begin to want things so early.”
“Yes,” chimed in a masculine voice at the door, “It’s unworthy the spirit of a true Chautauquan. Get on your hats, girls, there’s time enough for a drive, to get what the books recommend—a general view of the town.”
Our hotel fronts Stephen’s Green, whose twenty acres of beautiful grounds form only one of six such ornamented breathing places for that portion of the city which lies on the right bank of the Liffey, beyond the confines of the ancient town. Our coachman knows his business, and halts to point out the equestrian statue of George the Second, showing through the trees in the center of the square. Then we must look at the old Mansion House, and at the site of the great exposition building which stands in twelve acres of garden, and was, if successful, to have been what the Crystal Palace of Sydenham is to London. Financially, it was not a success, and the future use of the building is not yet decided. We halt again to admire the architectural beauty of “the finest building in Dublin, if not in Ireland,” formerly the Irish House of Parliament and now used as the Bank of Ireland. If it were not too late we could go in and see the whole process of printing the bank notes. As it is, we jog slowly on to the eastern end of College Green, which is entirely occupied by the imposing front of Trinity College. The huge Corinthian pile covers an extent of thirty acres. The income is derived largely from landed estates. Its library of one hundred and thirty thousand volumes grows rapidly, for the University is one of the five that has the right to a copy of every volume published in the United Kingdom. The number of students, usually about two thousand, is diminished somewhat by the new Queen’s University, founded by Victoria in 1850, which grants degrees to the graduates from the Queen’s Colleges at Belfast, Galway, and Cork. To a company of learners, nothing could be more interesting than to visit the museums, observatories, botanic gardens, and printing houses of this great institution, which has had such an influence on education in Ireland; but, if we could not see all, we confess to a preference for a day at the Royal Dublin Society, whose professors lecture to the public gratuitously, and whose schools in the fine arts instruct worthy pupils without charge. We want also to see the male and female training schools, under the charge of the Board of Education, the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, and the Drummond Orphanage, owned and supported by a merchant of that name. Other societies for the promotion of science and literature are too numerous to name. No city is more generously provided with the means of education, or produces more learned scholars, yet nowhere is the ignorance of the lowest classes more marked. No place more abounds in charitable institutions. The charity schools number over two hundred, yet the condition of the poor is wretched in the extreme. The city is one of striking contrasts, of grand architectural effects, heightened by the meanness of the dwellings of the poor. The nine bridges over the Liffey add greatly to the picturesqueness of the place, but the water of the stream is as notoriously filthy as ever. Within a few years some efforts have been made to improve the sanitation of the city and the hygienic condition of the poor. Dirty alleys have been widened, model tenements built and drinking fountains supplied. At enormous cost the neighboring streams were turned into a valley, which made a natural reservoir seventeen miles from the city. Thence the water is brought through tunnels to filtering chambers, eight miles from town, from which it is distributed over the city. From the University we went down Dame Street to the Castle, used since the time of Elizabeth as the residence of the Lord Lieutenant. Here there are state apartments to be seen, and music to be heard in the beautiful chapel, but none of this to-day. The sun is setting, and as we whirl on past hospital, postoffice, Custom House, and convents, over the bridge and by the magnificent structure called the Four Courts, because there are held the courts of Queen’s Bench, Common Pleas, Chancery, and Exchequer, there is not time to drive inside the gate of the beautiful Phœnix Park and look at the obelisk that commemorates the victories of Wellington. That must be left for the morrow, as must the old Christ Church and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, whose ancient archepiscopal palace is now used as barracks for the police. In this cathedral are the tombs of Dean Swift and the Stella of his poetry. The structure is the most remarkable instance of complete restoration of our day, Mr. B. L. Guinness, M. P., having spent £150,000 in its restoration. He was knighted for his generosity, and it does not become us to suggest that the sum could have been better spent.
We shall have to divide into two parties to-morrow, and while the artist and teacher go to examine the picture gallery and the schools, the others will get a look at the docks and the harbor, where, by aid of dredging machines, the sand is kept at bay, so that ships can now come up to the quays. Commerce still continues to be important, as Dublin is the avenue of supply for imports for the midland district, but manufacturers of woollen, cotton, silk, etc., are nearly extinct, though the general financial and commercial condition of Ireland is improved within the last twenty years.
While Dublin has declined, especially in manufactures of linen and flax, Belfast, the metropolis of the north of Ireland, has steadily grown in both. It lies on our route to the north, five hours from London. It offers nothing in the common lines of interest, such as churches, museums, public buildings, and parks that would induce a stay; but its immense manufactories are well worth any loss of time a visit may involve. We were shown all through the largest steam-mill, which employs nearly three thousand men; and through the immense establishment at Ardoyne, where the finest linen—that intended for the noblest houses, whose coats of arms are woven in the web—is made byhand. It was interesting indeed, to see, as in the former mill, the process from the beginning with the raw flax to the beautiful completed fabric, and more interesting to watch the workers, many of them women, young girls and little children, who live their lives out day after day in the dust and din of machinery. Their pinched and haggard faces, their dull, spiritless eyes, and the constant monotonous motion of their hands made them seem a part of the machines, and brought to mind with great force Mrs. Browning’s “Cry of the Children.”
Belfast is a great, comfortable, well-to-do looking city, with wide, well-paved streets, many attractive public buildings and substantial homes. We stopped but a night, taking train to Portrush,viathe cozy little town of Coleraine. It is a journey of about seventy miles, leaving daylight enough to direct to the picturesque castle of Dunluce, which stands on an isolated rock a hundred feet above the sea. The bridge from the mainland is so narrow as to incline all four of us, like children, “to take hold of hands.” It is a wild spot, with many romantic associations, if the head did not swim, gazing down into the boiling waves that have worn great caves under the walls, so that we could not stay to hear. We creep back, cautiously as we came, to our car, a regular bouncing, swaying, Irish jaunting car, and are whirled on four or five miles further, to see the one thing for which we are up here on this wild Irish shore—the famous Giant’s Causeway. This great natural curiosity has been so often described, that it is already familiar. Its prismatic columns of stone, rising a thousand feet from the sea, make a promontory of pillars, each fitted so perfectly to its neighbor that we can not at first recognize the structure as a freak of nature. As we look over the whole field, it is strangely impressive, and reminds one of the towers, tombs, spires, and strange shapes taken at Vesuvius by the fields of lava, and the mind takes kindly to the wild legends, and does not disturb itself with the various scientific theories concerning the formation. The legends say that the giant was Fin M’Coul, who built the causeway quite across the channel to Scotland, in order to meet in fair fight a boasting Caledonian giant. The giant well whipped, and the causeway, no longer needed, Fin allowed it to fall into the sea. It is a pity to hasten here, for the wild picturesqueness of the spot grows with every hour of wandering upon the rocks, but we must back to Coleraine, and thence to Londonderry, where, tired and sleepy, we hide ourselves away in our cabins on the little steamer, and are carried in our sleep over the channel to Scotland, breakfasting cozily in McLean’s old-fashioned, quiet hotel in Glasgow.
And now we are in another world. Here is no lack of pure water, for Loch Katrine, thirty miles away, pours into the city no less than twenty-four millions of gallons a day. Here is thrift, for around us is a city whose trade so increased that its import duties multiplied a thousand times in sixty years. Here is the beautiful Clyde, literally lined with ships, old and new, ships going and coming, ships in every stage from hulk and beams to paint. Here is a city alive with honest work, with staunch and loyal principles, with churches and schools of the best. Her cathedral ranks next in the kingdom to Westminster Abbey. Among her philanthropies, one of the latest is specially worthy of mention. It is an immense depot, with many branches, for furnishing food to the working classes. They can have a good substantial breakfast for six cents; a dinner of soup, meat, potatoes and pudding, for about nine cents. The originator of this work is Mr. Thomas Corbett, who should find imitators in every city in the world. Is not this a better work than to scrape a cathedral inch by inch from base to tower?
With so much that is living and practical to interest, strange that we hurry away to that which is a matter of poetic sentiment and association with the dead. Yet there are, even in our quartette, those who cheerfully turn from the living pictures of Scotch prosperity, to go and dream for a day on the bridges and in the shadow of the old Wallace tower of Ayr. They want to stroll out to the cottage where Robbie Burns was born, to visit the “auld kirk-yard,” to grow sentimental, perhaps, over his snuff-box, and to touch the Bible he gave his Highland Mary. Well, if they will go, we might as well go along, for, leaving out the poetry and the poet, what can be lovelier than to be out of doors in this early September weather in one of the most picturesque parts of Scotland! The excursion takes only one day from Glasgow, and when we are safely back, we are only two hours by rail from Edinburgh.
And here, as we throw wide open the shutters of front rooms in the old Hotel Royal, and look out upon the deep ravine that divides the city, and across to the castle-crowned hills, and down upon the monument of Walter Scott, just over the way, our cool and quiet ones become eagerly enthusiastic, and the enthusiasts grow wild. We are sure we want to stay here a month; we want to fly out to the nearest circulating library and get all of Scott’s novels at once; we want to hurry our dinner, that we may go and explore this wonderful and picturesque old place.
The girl whose outcropping desire to buy things was unanimously nipped in the bud, ventures to say she “must have a plaid—a shawl, a necktie, something,anything, that is plaid,” and receives no unsympathetic reply. For the moment, struggling Ireland’s forgotten, and all that is not purely American in us, is altogether and unanimously Scotch. In this mood we are not slow in finding our way to the streets, believing that acquaintance with details will enhance our first impression of the imposing picturesqueness of the place. Our starting point is the foot of Sir Walter’s marble monument, which rises slender and graceful two hundred feet in air. The statues in the niches represent characters in his books, the “Lady of the Lake,” the “Last Minstrel,” and “Meg Merrilies,” breaking the sapling over Lucy Bertram’s head. We had thought to pass by Abbotsford, having indulged ourselves with Ayr, but here we find the question recurring, “Can not we take the time on the way to London to see the home, especially the study, of Scott—to go to Dryburgh Abbey and stand beside his grave; and on the same excursion see the Abbey of Melrose?” Forced to leave the question unanswered, but secretly resolving to do it, we go as straight as we can, asking many questions of the guide by the way, to the Castle of Edinburgh, which frowns down from the precipice on which it stands with a grim aspect ill-suited to the present time.
The esplanade or parade ground of the castle covers about six acres. Over the drawbridge, between the low protecting batteries, along the ramparts we pass to the strong gate that gives us admission to the inner fort, which contains the older portions of the castle. In this pile of buildings on the east side are, what we more specially came to see, the state apartments of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the wall down which her infant son was lowered in a basket. Here, too, we see the crown-room containing the regalia of Scotland, the crown, scepter, and sword of state, and the lord-treasurer’s rod of office. From the ramparts we are shown northward the magnificent view of the new town, while to the east lies the old town, backed by Arthur’s Seat. The line of street eastward from the castle to Holyrood House, contains many of Edinburgh’s most prominent buildings, both new and old. Near the foot of the hill is the new Assembly Hall, the meeting place of the General Assembly of the Established Church of Scotland, and near it the Church Normal Schools and the extensive buildings of the Free Church College, and the Parliament House, whose carved, oaken-roofed hall—the Westminster Hall of Edinburgh—was used by the Parliamentbefore the union with England. Near at hand is the old Cathedral of St. Giles, whose space after the Reformation was divided into four churches, in one of which John Knox was wont to preach. We pass near his house also, and approach the memorial of Scotland’s ancient splendor, the ancient palace and abbey of Holyrood. The ruins of the chapel where Mary Stuart was married to Darnley, and where King Charles the First was crowned, lie behind the present structure, which was rebuilt after the destruction of the old palace by Cromwell. The spot abounds in historical associations. It was a most powerful institution as an abbey, the abbot holding regular court like other barons: as a royal refuge it sheltered Charles the Tenth of France during the Revolution, and as a residence has received at times nearly all the crowned heads of England, not excepting Queen Victoria, who sometimes stops hereen routeto Balmoral, and who held a levee here in 1842. Yet of all its associations, that with Mary Stuart is the one most familiar, and perhaps most painfully interesting to the stranger. Here are the rooms she last occupied, her bed-chamber remaining as she left it, here the cabinet where Rizzio was murdered. These apartments are in the northwest corner, and the oldest portion of the present quadrangular building.
But, interesting as is all that is connected with a historic or tragic past, we must not overlook the city of to-day. Records of what Edinburgh has been, as found in ruins, in buildings, in monuments, in books, would require a volume, and records of her present condition, another. We can only glance at a few of the more marked evidences of her material advancement. Formerly she accommodated her growing population by building higher and higher in the air, but more recently they have filled up the ravine and extended in every direction on the ground. Her population increases, though not with the rapidity of Glasgow, for she has no great trade or manufacture to attract the rural districts. The women exceed the men by some twenty thousand. Her moral condition has been of the best, her sanitary condition unfortunately of the worst, but great improvements have been made in drainage and in destruction of dilapidated dwellings, ventilation of unhealthy courts, and especially in cleansing of the streets. In this latter particular Edinburgh is better cared for then any other large town in the kingdom. While the city has been, like the rest of the world, wofully behind in caring for the bodies of the healthful, her numerous hospitals, public and private, testify her kindness to the ill. Nothing of prevention and everything in the way of cure seems to be the motto of modern philanthropy. Churches for souls, university, colleges, every type of school, free and charitable, for the brain; all stress laid upon what the people believe, what they learn, what they do, and what they wear, combined with utter disregard of what they breathe or what they eat. There is no disregard of what they drink, however, even in this western Athens, for Edinburgh can boast larger breweries than any other place in the world. But then she boasts larger printing houses and more of them than almost any other. Printing is indeed her principal craft; scholarship flourishes; learning is reckoned at its true value; philanthropy is active and earnest, and the city abounds in monuments of all; there is an air of vigorous heartiness in the people that is tonic in its effect, like the feel of a country morning with the first crisp frost in the air.
From Edinburgh to London we take the Great Western Railway, one of the best managed in the kingdom. Already we have learned that we have no more “baggage,” and how to “own our luggage;” that there are no cars in this country, but carriages, and “luggage vans.” The man who locks us in our own compartment is not a conductor, but a “guard;” we hear nothing of railroads, but a good deal of “ways” and trains. After days of steady running hither and thither, to see this, to hear that, to learn the other, it is agreeable to lean back and doze and dream while the swift train bears us away from the highlands and the heather. We sleep in England at the quaint old Roman town of Chester, and take time enough in the morning to visit the cathedral, walk through the queer streets where the covered sidewalk for foot passengers is on the roofs, and the carriage-way is sunken several feet below the level of the road. Anxious as we were to reach London, we could not resist stopping at Warwick for a couple of days, resting at the Old Warwick Arms, and crowding every hour with a living interest hardly to be aroused in any other part of England. For from this point a drive of eight miles through a charming country takes us to Stratford-on-Avon, and to the oft-described home and tomb of Shakspere. This is almost always a white day in the tourist’s memory, for, through all the delightful drive, at the house of Shakspere, in the room where he was born, by the desk at which he sat at school, in the cottage of Ann Hathaway, and by his tomb in the church, one feels in a new world. A crowd of visitors may throng the cottage and the house, and one hears all sorts of chatter, but they and we and all modern folk seem strange and out of place. And I doubt not many minds have found it hard to associate the place with Shakspere at all. It doesn’t suit our idea of the man or his work, and it is hard to dispossess the mind of the idea that we are lending ourselves to a little farce.
We drive slowly back along the Avon at sunset, and give a second day to Warwick Castle and a drive to the ruins of Kenilworth. In the former we have the best representation of an old English castle that we shall see; one all the more impressive because it is the first seen; in the latter the grandest ruin that England can show. Both have many historical associations, but we have not yet escaped from the dominion of Scott, and have just re-read his “Kenilworth,” and naturally look for traces of Queen Bess, and of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, whose tomb is in the Church of St. Mary in Warwick. So we sit down under the ivy-crowned battlements, and listen while one reads aloud the account of the five days of entertainment that Leicester gave the Queen, and imagination peoples the ruined banquet hall with the knights and ladies fair who made the place so gay.
Yet, strange to say, such dreams fade as we drive home to dinner, and find us quite ready, after a refreshing sleep in the queerest and quaintest of all English inns, to depart for classic Oxford, which lies direct upon our London route. Time was when no more venerable and imposing architectural effect could be found in all Europe than that produced by the groups of buildings along the main street of Oxford, belonging to the twenty colleges that make the University. But, in these latter days, so many of the colleges have been remodeled, or restored, that the air of venerable antiquity is entirely lost. Outside the college buildings, new hotels, a town hall, savings banks, a corn exchange, and other mercantile structures materially alter the effect of the place, which owed its character formerly to the University alone. Among the colleges themselves, University and Exeter have new chapels, Jesus College a new Gothic front, Merton’s Library has been remodeled, and the old gate-house of Brasennose restored. The new buildings, given at a cost of thirty thousand pounds, by Miss Brackenbury, the daughter of an old scholar, are very fine, and the new Gothic building, called the Union Debating and Reading Room, decorated in part by Rossetti, from the legends of King Arthur, is a great ornament to the group. The new Keble College, in memory of the author of “The Christian Year,” is near the University Museum, which is the principal addition to the group of buildings,which we can not mention in detail. As the most important of all institutions of learning, Oxford University must have an interest for every lover of knowledge. Its origin is not certainly known. Its government is by statutes, originating with the University authorities, and confirmed by the kings of England. Its chancellor was formerly an ecclesiastic, and chosen for three years; now he is chosen for life, and from among nobles of distinction who have been members of the University. Its professors are paid partly by the crown, partly from the University chest, and partly from estates left for this purpose. Both Oxford and Cambridge have the privilege of choosing two representatives in Parliament. There is no end to what may be seen and learned if the traveler can linger a few weeks just here. In that event, leave the hotel, which is very luxurious, but very dear, and take lodgings in some one of the many comfortable houses, kept for that purpose, within easy walking distance of the libraries and museums. There is only one danger, and that is, that the longer one stays the longer one wishes to stay, and if we should linger to see onemoietyof what we might enjoy, our trip to London would be indefinitely deferred. So we decide against the lodging, and take instead—the train.
The one blessed thing about London, especially to travelers who have rushed through miles of country and crowded the sight with constantly varying scenes, is that it can not be seen in a day. We might as well try to eat a life-time’s Thanksgiving banquet at once, or to grow from youth to age in a night. London is of all places in the world the one to stay in, and we have come to stay. Not at any so-called American boarding-house, not even at the great caravansary in Portland Place, or down by the Alexandra Gate, but in our own hired house. A wee place, not far from St. James in Piccadilly, whose master was once upon a time head butler to lord somebody or other, and whose mistress was the maid to my lady. And butler and maid saved their wages and were wed, and now there they are living in the basement of this their home, he to wait at table, with an air that makes our masculine friends feel, as if he were saying, “Yes, my lord,” and “No, my lord;” and she to keep all tidy and bright in our tiny parlor and dining room, and the bedrooms above. Here we can rest until the home letters are written and the books read, and we are ready to attack the great city with real zest, happy in the thought of what it has in store. Our life will cost us half what it would at the great hotels, where we should meet only the American life we know so well. English life we can see only in the streets, in church, in making purchases, in books, and in its out of door public aspects, unless we are indeed so fortunate as to have brought letters that shall open English homes. Then, indeed, we come to know England and the English in a way to appreciate its best, and to estimate justly what seem to us some of its worst characteristics.
To its social life, of any class whatever, introductions are the only key. To its political movements the ordinary tourist has little access beyond what the newspapers give, and that he may have at home. To be an eye-witness of momentous events or of the circumstances that shape a nation’s destinies is hardly to be hoped. Her history lies all about in monuments, and ruins, and palaces, and institutions, volumes in changeless stone. Her general conditions of prosperity, commercial and other, may be guessed from what one sees, and, reading backward from effect to cause, the thoughtful observer may determine something of individual and national character. Something comes to him by intuition, something by observation, and slowly, by ways he knows and ways he knows not, he feels that he is coming to a knowledge of England, of English people, and English life. London of all places seems the spot to bide. He haunts her galleries and walks her streets, and dreams in her abbey, and sits in her churches, and finds he is claiming her history as his own. If Americans must live anywhere out of America, London, with its teeming varied interests, its thousand worlds in one, is the place for him to live. What sights he will see there, what things he will do there, everybody knows. Let art, or literature, or commerce, or religion, or science be his hobby, he will find companions enough and to spare. There is room for everything in London, notwithstanding it is the most crowded place under the sun; room even for us who, while jogging along together, yet have each cast our nets in separate streams. What we shall gather, who can tell?
[To be continued.]