quantity of Electricity associated with the particles or atoms of Matter." To this series of his Researches we are indebted for the enunciation of the startling truth that "The Chemical Action of a grain of water upon four grains of Zinc can evolve Electricity equal in quantity to that of a powerful thunderstorm," and that this enormous quantity of the Electrical Element is exactly that which is required to maintain the atoms of Oxygen and Hydrogen in the condition of a grain of water.

Faraday was not a Deductive Philosopher. As long as he solicited nature with his wands, his experimental and ever beautifully contrived apparatus, he was the Arch-evocator who proudly compelled an answer to his evocations, but, when he laid aside his wands and endeavoured to think out truths, he was still as noble as Prospero, but as powerless as the Duke of Milan, when he "his magic did abjure," breaking his staff to "bury it certain fathoms in the earth."

No other evidence of this is required than Faraday's "Speculations touching Electrical Conduction and the Nature of Matter,' and his clever papers "On Magnetic Hypothesis," and "On some points of Magnetic Philosophy." In these, and in other essays which might be named, Faraday displays his remarkable genius, in picking up the threads of an argument and weaving them together into a symmetrical cord, but when he casts that from his hand as a lasso to entangle a distant and flying truth, he shows that he is not practised in the art. His early education (and "the child is ever father of the man") unfitted him for large generalization. In this he stood on a lower pedestal than Davy, and why? The circumstances of the place of birth had much to do with this. Faraday was born and educated at Newington, and apprenticed in Soho. Davy was born on the beautiful heights of Ludgvan, looking down upon a bay, unrivalled in the world; and he was educated at Penzance, where nature has been lavish of her charms. Faraday learnt to love nature in the mechanical aspects which she assumes in the fuliginous metropolis,

"But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,"

Davy's boyish delight was

"To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,

To slowly trace the forest's shady scene;

and thus, in the day-spring of life,

" to hold

Converse with Nature's charms and view her stores unroll'd."

This gave to one mind that Poetry, without which there can be no Deductive Philosophy, which was denied to the other.

Faraday's powers as a lecturer were surpassingly great. The secret of his power was earnestness, an intense desire to be the Minister of Truth, and a determination to make every one familiar with her mysteries, so far as he was permitted to be their interpreter. He spared no labour to ensure a correct understanding of each fact. He never supposed anything to be known. When the writer of these remarks was preparing to deliver his first lecture in the Theatre of the Royal Institution, "Do not," said Faraday to him, 66 suppose that your audience will know anything of the subject you are about to bring before them," and taking a stone from the table, "was I about to tell them that this stone when set free from my hand will fall to the ground, I should let it fall." This was a brief lesson, but one of incalculable value.

Faraday was great as an Experimental Philosopher, he was even greater in all the relations of life. He might have been proud of the position which he occupied as an investigator of Nature; but, to the end of his days he was all humility as a man. We may be allowed to apply to Michael Faraday those lines addressed by Dr. Johnson to the Electrician, Grey:

"Long hast thou borne the burden of the day
Thy task is ended, rever'd Faraday!

No more shall Art thy dextrous hand require,
To break the sleep of elemental fire!

To rouse the power that actuates Nature's frame
The momentanous shock, the Electric flame.

"Now, hoary sage! pursue thy happy flight,
With swifter motion, haste to purer light,
Where Bacon waits with Newton and with Boyle,
To hail thy genius and applaud thy toil;
Where intuition breathes through time and space,
And mocks experiment's successive race;
Sees tardy science toil at Nature's laws,

And wonders how the effect obscures the cause.

"Yet not to deep research or happy guess,
Is show'd the life of hope, the death of peace;
Unbless'd the man whom philosophic rage
Shall tempt to lose the Christian in the sage:
Not Art, but Goodness, poured the sacred ray
That cheer'd the parting hours of FARADAY."

CHRONICLES OF SCIENCE.

1. AGRICULTURE.

THE country has now for a month or two been free from the Cattle Plague; and we may hope, that if the requisite precautions be taken at the ports of debarkation for foreign cattle, we may remain free from it for the future. In Cheshire, Norfolk, and Berwickshire-three widely separated counties-cases have been reported, and districts have been declared by the local authority to be infected; but in every instance, a further investigation, by the Veterinary professors sent down by the Government, has shown that the disease has not been Rinderpest, but some malady which has generally arisen from maltreatment. The provision of a metropolitan market exclusively for imported cattle near the point of landing, which is now contemplated, with extensive lairage there for young and breeding stock imported to be fed in England, will, we hope, reduce the risk of any reintroduction of the infection to a minimum. Meanwhile, however, we may place on record, that the history of the last great attack of the disease, which occurred at Lodge Farm, near Barking, in August last, proves that strict isolation and the abundant use of hot lime on roads and of carbolic acid in and about the cowsheds, enable us to insulate infected places, so that the mischief shall not spread. On a farm where 237 cows had been fed in six or seven separate sheds, two of these sheds, containing 111 cows, were kept free of it in this way, notwithstanding that the disease was raging on all sides of them.

The close of the Paris Exhibition enables many of our agricultural readers to look back upon the unequalled illustration it has afforded of the implements and farm economy of many nations. There was certainly something in the dairy and general homesteads, of which specimens were given from Holland, to instruct the English agricultural spectator; but it was to the British section of this department chiefly that not only we, but the agricultural machinemakers of all other countries, looked for guidance. Now that the display is over, exhibitors are discussing both the relative and the actual value of the awards of medals and of merit which have been made by the examining juries. One thing seems certain: they bear no relation whatever to either the relative or the actual professional status of the several exhibiting countries. We are accustomed here to consider that the productiveness and enterprise of our

agriculture is in direct proportion to the quantity of live stock maintained upon a given area of land. Guided by the application of such a test as this, the relative standing of English and French agriculture may be read with greater accuracy in the agricultural exhibition of them out of doors, than in the awards of an international jury examining the agricultural contents of the Exhibition building and its annexes. There are more cattle and sheep seen on the return journey of the English tourist within eight miles of the landing at Newhaven than are visible all the way from Paris to Dieppe.

Among the topics which receive attention in the current number of the English Agricultural Society's Journal,' is the agricultural value of town sewage. It appears that nitrogen equal to 200 ozs. of ammonia passes annually from every average individual of a general population, and this being mixed with the usual annual water-supply to our towns of 40, 60, or 80 tons per head, gives only 94, 61, or 44 grains to every gallon of the resultant sewage. If the average be taken at 7 grains to every gallon, which is equal to one in every 10,000 parts of the drainage water, then that is worth about as much as half-a-ton of Peruvian guano for every 1,000 tons, or between 14d. and 14d. per ton. Nothing like this valuation has, however, ever yet been realized in agricultural experience. The large quantity of water with which the guano in sewage is diluted, spoils its fitness for our more valuable crops. It has hitherto indeed been applied almost exclusively to grass, which is not worth more than 6s. or 8s. a ton in country districts, rising, however, to 15s. or even 20s. a ton near towns, where it can be used in cow feeding. The calculation from experience near Edinburgh and at Rugby does not result in one-half the estimated return indicated by the chemistry of the subject. During the past year, however, on Lodge Farm, near Barking, a better result has been obtained from its use in growing Italian rye-grass on thin and gravelly soil. From 300,000 tons of North London sewage passed over 55 acres of Italian rye-grass, 2,400 tons of grass have been obtained. And as much of this land had been sown down only this spring, and a good deal of what was sown last year had been much injured by last January's frosts, all of it ought not in fairness to be taken into the account. Off 134 acres, the extent which was in good bearing order, 800 tons of grass was cut between April and November this year; and, as a good deal of the sewage had been wasted (in the carriers cut through gravel) before it could reach the plant, it is believed that one ton of grass has been produced over and above the natural and unassisted growth of the land for every 100 tons of sewage that was applied. If further experience shall justify this conclusion, then we shall at length have realized in agriculture something like the chemist's valuation of this manure; and a profit will be available for towns from their drainage waters, which recent legislation

very properly requires them to keep out of the rivers. It is also reported from Lodge Farm that the sewage has been successfully and profitably used in the growth of mangold wurzel, cabbages, Lucerne, potatoes, and celery; and that, where applied in dry weather, it has largely increased the yield of wheat. In all these cases, however, the experiments were on a small scale, and require confirmation. The area in grass, on the other hand, is quite enough to enable a trustworthy inference to be drawn.

It is in some degree connected with this subject (for the large addition to our supplies of succulent grass which is certain to be the first result of sewage utilization, will be somewhat difficult to turn to account), that the question of artificial haymaking and harvesting has occupied a good deal of attention during the past season. Mr. Gibbs, of Gillwell Park, Sewardstone, has patented an apparatus by which air heated in a furnace (and the ordinary agricultural locomotive engine may be used not only for the heat but the power required) is driven by a fan through sheaves of corn, which, wetted purposely for the experiment, were dried at the rate of 250 an hour. And this speed would, no doubt, be much greater if only the last portions of natural moisture had to be driven off, which hinder the completion of harvest work in a difficult season. Even, however, if the reported speed of four sheaves per minute should not be exceeded, that would be equal to the clearance of an ordinary_crop at the rate of four or five acres a day; and this would often be of great service to the farmer in a wet harvest.

As regards the grass and other green crops of the farmer, it is an improvement of them, as the food of cattle, to get rid of a large proportion of the water which they naturally contain. And this is especially the case when they are used as winter food. It is somewhat interesting, therefore, to find that an attempt to produce a dry, or nearly dry cake from pulped, dried, and pressed mangold-wurzel roots, has been made, and that it has been found extremely nutritive in an experiment reported by Mr. Hugh Smith, of Great Hadham, Herts. Five sheep put up on May 26, to feed on oilcake and pasture, made 262 lbs. of increased live weight during twenty weeks, having consumed 7 cwt. of oilcake; and other five sheep fed on similar pasture, along with mangold cake, prepared from 3 tons 3 cwt. of raw mangold root, made 266 lbs., almost exactly the same increase, in the same time. The oilcake cost 47. 9s., and if the 3 tons 3 cwt. of mangold wurzel can be credited with having done as much as that value of oilcake did, certainly the roots were doubled in efficiency and value to the farmer by being dried. It can hardly be contended that this is so; but we may safely gather from the experiment that if a certain advantage is obtained in the warm summer months by removing a large proportion of the cold water which is given to our fattening stock in mangold wurzel and