When this state of mind is fully devel- | lungs; or by deposition, which last proc. oped, the wretched subject of it is unable ess requires several days for its comple to see any good in himself, and discerns tion. The most delicate test of the freedemerit where others perhaps find the dom of the air from solid matter was highest worth. Many of us probably have found to be the passage through it of a in the course of our observations met beam of light. The path of the rays from with some sad illustration of this morbid an electric lantern is clearly marked in form of conscientiousness in reference to ordinary air by the illumination of the individual character. Yet happily we may motes that float in the air; but if a flask look on such a gloomy condition of spirit of filtered or otherwise purified air is inas exceptional, and due to certain latent terposed, no such illumination takes place, tendencies of individual temperament. In and the space inside the glass vessel apthe vast majority of cases the habit of pears dark. For the same reason, a flask searching self-scrutiny is attended with filled with clear liquid transmits the light, little if any risk of nourishing this un- acting as a rough lens, while the liquid healthy anxiety, and its effect can safely inside remains dark; but a turbid liquid be regarded as exclusively beneficial. reflects the light at all possible angles, and appears brilliantly luminous in consequence. The beam of light is therefore a test, not only for solids floating in the air, but also for solids floating in liquids; and as turbidity is an invariable consequence of the establishment of putrefaction or fermentation in a liquid, the use of the test is obvious. From The Lancet. PROFESSOR TYNDALL ON THE AIR AND ORGANIC LIFE. It was asserted long ago by Pasteur, and has since been asserted and denied alternately by different experimenters, that in putrescible solutions, such as infusion of turnips, no organic life is developed, and no putrefaction takes place as long as the solution, after boiling, is exposed only to an atmosphere free from organic germs; in short, that life is never, in our experience, developed from lifeless matter. Among the opponents to this theory, the foremost has been Dr. Charlton Bastian, whose experiments convinced him that organic life is constantly developed in liquids which have been hermetically sealed in flasks while boiling. Dr. Bastian goes even further, as the following passage from one of his letters will show "I have heated flasks, sealed in the ordinary way, and containing the fluid abovementioned [the turnip-cheese infusion], to a temperature of 105° C. for ten minutes in a chloride of calcium bath, and have found these fluids swarming with bacteria after six days." So far the experiments, though interesting and suggestive, brought out no new truth. That floating particles existed in the air, that they were partly organic, and that they could be removed more or less completely by filtration through cotton-wool, were facts known before; and the correlation of these facts with the current theories of putrefaction, fermentation, and zymotic disease was obvious. The agency of the air in these processes was doubted by few; and the idea that the solid particles of the air were the active agents in them was entertained by many. It remained to connect by direct evidence the solid particles and the zymotic changes, and to prove that when the solid particles were excluded the zymotic changes did not occur. As far as putrefaction is concerned, this direct evidence has been supplied by the experiments we are about to describe. An air-tight wooden box was made, of which one side was glass, while each end Professor Tyndall's researches on this had a glass window through which the important subject, and the well-devised beam of light could pass. Through the and well-executed experiments which he bottom passed several test-tubes, sealed exhibited a few days ago to an audience in their holes, and with their open ends which crowded the theatre of the Royal upwards. In the top was an India-rubber Institution to the roof, are a continuation stuffing-box, through which passed a long of those on the floating particles of the at-pipette by which liquid could be dropped mosphere, which attracted so much attention some years ago. He has found that these particles can be completely removed from the air by heat, which destroys their organic matter; by filtration through cotton-wool, or, less completely, through the into each test-tube in turn. The inside of the box was moistened with glycerine, so that all particles that settled on it might be retained. Alterations of volume were provided for by small tubes, plugged with cotton-wool at the top. So prepared, the apparatus was allowed to remain at rest for three days, until by the passage of a beam of light through the windows the freedom of the enclosed air from dust was proved. Then organic solutions of various kinds, infusions of turnip, and of many kinds of fish, flesh, and fowls were dropped into the tubes. If our memory serves us rightly, about one hundred and thirty different infusions were used in turn. The liquids in the tubes were then boiled from below for five minutes, and the apparatus placed in a room maintained at a suitable temperature. Similar experiments were made in atmospheres purified by filtration and by calcination; but in all the results obtained were identical. Except in a few cases, where the cause of the failure was certain and obvious, no turbidity occurred, and no organic life was developed in one single sample, even after the lapse of weeks or months. Every one of the same solutions, when exposed to ordinary air, putrified rapidly. It is difficult to see any flaw in the evidence here presented. The conditions were apparently far less stringent than in Dr. Charlton Bastian's experiments, and the aptness of the solutions for putrefaction was proved in each case. The only obstacles to the spontaneous generation of bacteria were the five minutes' boiling and the purification of the air; and yet these obstacles were in every case sufficient. It seems, however, that the advocates of heterogenesis are by no means content to accept these results as final and conclusive. The last word in regard to this matter has yet to be spoken, and we are informed that Dr. Bastian is prepared with some fresh experimental evidence which he hopes soon to bring before the Royal Society in support of the position for the truth of which he has so strenuously contended. From The Queen. HOSTS AND HOSTESSES. THE only way by which people can be thoroughly known is by living with them in the same house or travelling with them in the same carriage, this last being as sharp an "Ithuriel's spear" as the domestic intimacy brought about by dwelling under the same roof. The vizor created by conventionalism and imposed by goodbreeding, which can be worn with ease and effect for the few hours of an afternoon tea or an eight o'clock dinner, drops off when it comes to a question of association for days and weeks. The smooth surface which we can maintain with so much success for a short time gets broken up then by the thousand petty details of daily life, and tempers are tried and characters revealed to an extent which years of ordinary drawing-room intercourse would not have allowed. Then the real man or woman comes out, and the human nature which has been suppressed reasserts itself, sometimes with startling sincerity, and almost always in unexpected places; for no one is exactly what his casual acquaintances and superficial friends believe him to be, and the depths reveal secrets never so much as outlined in the shallows. Grace and good breeding to equals becomes tyranny and ill manners to inferiors; the kindness which caresses other people's children is exchanged for harshiness and coldness to its own; the enchanting sweetness, the delightful vivacity, which so charmed the outside world, drop into sourness and gloom so soon as there is no longer an audience before which to act; the touching affection of the married people who are too prodigal of their endearments in society is exchanged for quarrelsome contradiction and spiteful satire; and the sisters who coo like turtle-doves in the market-place, fight like sparrows behind the doors and portières of home. All these are the things which only close daily intercourse can find out; the several transformation scenes which render the drama of life both more intelligible and complete. But if this is the result of domestic intimacy in the one direction, in the other is that revelation of character to be had from those who play the part of host and hostess. Of these the tale is many and the varieties infinite. There are the formal host and hostess the people who are painfully polite, oppressively stiff, always full-rigged, never for a moment laying aside the whalebone and buckram of state and appearing in the dressing-gown and slippers of home, but forever acting as if on parade, where every one must be perfect in his drill, and standing at case is not allowed. The house of this kind of host and hostess is a kind of minor court where you go through a prescribed ceremonial, and can never cheat yourself into the belief that you are at home. You are company, and you are not supposed to forget that fact. You know that the best china is used in your honour; that the meals are planned on a grander scale, and served with more state and magnificence | world, and all that you desire is to lie on because of your presence; that the toi- the lawn and watch the clouds and the lettes of your hostess are of greater splendour, and the whole arrangements of the house more stately than usual in their hospitable desire to show you becoming attention, and to fête if not to adopt you. You are unspeakably wretched in your golden chains, and you feel that you are a nuisance and a bore, put it as kindly as they will; and if, as it generally happens with this sort, your host and hostess are not too well off, you feel that you are something even worse than a nuisance and a bore, and that your presence is a tax on their resources which they cannot well afford, and ought not to incur. This kind of formality is very different from the state natural to great houses. There you are always en grande tenue certainly; but then this is the rule of the house, and it may extend only to the mere outside. Often in the most luxurious, the most magnificently appointed houses, and those where society is conducted on the highest scale, you have substantially the least formality. You have to submit to the rules of the house, which demand daily dinner "dress" and breeding; but within these not very formidable restrictions you are free and at home, and suffer less from stiffness than in the house of a formallyminded curate and his wife, who think it incumbent on them to act grand, and to play company all the time that you are with them. Then there are the anxious host and hostess, the dear, kind, fussy people who do not trust to themselves, but think that you will be dull if they do not provide some kind of entertainment for every day in the week. You like them heartily, and you show that you do frankly; but, tormented by that want of self-reliance which is the misery of so many worthy souls, they cannot believe that you will be happy enough tête-à-tête with them, and so deluge you with a succession of uninteresting strangers for whom you have neither sympathy nor admiration, nor feel the faintest desire to know or meet again. It is a long time since you have seen your friends, and you have an interesting leeway to make up; but they check all the possibilities of mutual confidence by the introduction of their friends who are not yours, and your visit ends before you have got half your budget said. Or you are weary and tired, you poor worn-out victim of work and the birds, caring for neither society nor movement, wanting only solitude and rest. But your kind good host drags you tramping over the country till you are half dead with fatigue, and your kind good hostess gives you the belles of the place, or their husbands and brothers the wits, to amuse you; and you find that country society fatigues you even more than does metropolitan, and that the rest for which you yearn is a heaven which mistaken kindness diligently denies you. In contrast to these are the people who treat you so much as one of themselves as to cause you to feel isolated and neglected. They make their own arrangements exactly as they would if they had no visitor at all, and expect you to say what you would like to do, as if you knew all their ways and the various ins and outs of life thereabouts like one of themselves. "You see we make no stranger of you," they say, smiling, when they assemble from their several points to the dinner of cold boiled mutton and suet pudding; while you have been left the whole afternoon to wander at your own sweet will, or not to wander at all if that suits you best. Perhaps you think that adoption into the family might have included something of initiation, and the guardianship, the tutorship of some of the members. You do not want to be made a fuss with, but as you do not know their habits, you do not like to be left entirely to yourself. You are afraid of doing what would be disagreeable, intrusive, inharmonious; yet it is "dree" work to pass your days utterly neglected and uncompanioned, no one asking you to join in any of the plans discussed, and you not liking to offer yourself uninvited. One by one the young men steal out to their various pastimes; one by one the girls disappear to their rooms up-stairs, whence you hear their voices in talk; the master has his various duties to attend to; the mistress has her house to look after; you are left alone, and the chances are that you see nothing of any one till luncheon, when they all slowly gather round the table, to dissolve again as before as soon as the meal is ended. You acknowledge the freedom and sans gêne of your host and hostess certainly, but you wince at their neglect, and the chances are that if you are a hot temper you leave in a pet, and swear that you will never pay a visit to them again. THE Secretary of the interior, in his annual | CHINESE FUNERAL NOTICES. On the report to the president of the United States, death of a parent, it is customary in China, at commends in high terms the work of the any rate with persons above a certain rank in Geological and Geographical Survey of the the social scale, to forward to all friends and Territories, and presents the following brief acquaintances, however slight, a formal notifisummary of the results for the season of 1875: cation of the fact, written in mourning ink, -The survey under Dr. Hayden continued its and on mourning paper of portentous dimenlabours of the two preceding years in the ter- sions. On the present occasion this docuritory of Colorado. The field of work during ment (in which, be it observed, the family the past season was the southern and western name of the parties, Shên, is omitted), ran as portions of said territory, and including a follows: "Be it known that the unfilial belt, fifteen miles in width, of the northern Pao-chên, who, on account of his manifold border of New Mexico and the eastern border and grievous crimes, was worthy of sudden of Utah. The survey was divided into seven death has not died, and that, instead, the parties, four of which were devoted to topo- calamity has fallen upon his worthy father, graphical and geological labours, one to pri- upon whom the reigning emperor of the Tamary triangulation, one to photographic work, ching (lit. great, pure) dynasty has conferred and one to the transportation of supplies. the first order of rank in the civil service, The survey of the southern and south-western and that in the imperial body-guard, and the portions of Colorado has been completed, so governorship of the province of Kiangse. In as to make six sheets of physical atlas, de- the twelfth year of the reign, styled Taosigned by this department, leaving unexplored Kuang, at the competition of the literati, he only the north-western corner thereof, which gained the rank of Chii jêu (that is, M.A.). can be surveyed by a single party during the The writer's father, Tan-lin, fell sick on the coming year. The districts explored in the ninth day of this moon, and lingered in great past season were not so mountainous as those pain until the twelfth, when he passed away. of the previous years, but were quite remote He was born about two or three in the mornfrom settlements, and in perhaps the most in- ing of the ninth moon, of the fifty-second year accessible regions of this continent. The total of the reign styled Chien-Lung, and was arca surveyed is about thirty thousand square therefore somewhat over eighty-four years old. miles, portions of which were very rugged. Immediately he expired the family went into Much of this area is drained by the Colorado mourning, and now, alas! have sorrowfully to River, and is mainly a plateau country cut in communicate with you. We have chosen the every direction by deep gorges or canons, the 18th, 19th, and 20th for the return presentasides of which show, for geological investiga- tion of this card [that is, will then receive tions, admirable sections of the strata forming visits of condolence]. No funeral presents the earth's crust. The topography of the dis- can be received. The writer and his brother trict surveyed was elaborated in detail by the are kneeling with forehead in the dust, weepaid of the plane-table. The exploration of ing tears of blood. The sons of the writer the remarkable prehistoric ruins of southern and his brother, nine in number, are kneeling Colorado, glimpses of which were obtained with downcast faces, weeping tears of blood. the preceding season, was continued with The relatives and descendants, to the number great success. They were traced down the of nine, are on their knees (before the coffin), canons to the Colorado River in New Mexico, beating their heads upon the ground. [From] Utah, and Arizona, and their connection es- the residence of the writer, named the Ancient tablished with the cliff cities of the Moquis Grotto of the Fairies." Chambers' Journal. of the latter territory. Hundreds of cavedwellings, of curious architecture and many miles from water, were found in the sides of the gorges, and the ruins of extensive towns discovered in the adjacent plains, indicating the former existence of a people far more numerous and advanced in the arts of civilization than their supposed descendants of the present day. Of these ruins many interesting sketches, plans, and photographs were made, and a valuable collection of flint weapons, earthernware and other specimens were gathered. The materials thus obtained will enable the survey to present an exhaustive report on this interesting subject. The photographer of the survey obtained a series of mountain views on plates twenty-four inches long by twenty wide, or larger by several inches than any landscape photographs ever before taken in this country. THE BEST USE. OUT of the bud the bright rose bloweth, Abroad to the sun and wind and rain; And close herself in a bud again! To die with an untouched virgin heart? MARY ANIGE DE VERE. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. 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