STRAY LEAVES OF SCIENCE AJSD FOLK-LORE. LONDON: ROBSON AND SONS, PUINXKBS, PANCIiAS ROAD, N."W. STRAY LEAVES OF SCIENCE AND FOLK-LORE. BY J. SCOFFEKlSr, M.B. LOND. FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY AND FORENSIC MEDICINE AT THE ALDERSGATE COLLEGE OF MEDICINE. LONDON: TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18 CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 1870. TO THE EIGHT HONOUKABLE THE EARL OF DERBY. MY LORD, Dedications, I am informed by critical people versed in the study of fashion, are out of date. To one like myself, who never professed to move with fashion, that does not sig- nify much. I dedicate these Stray Leaves to your Lordship out of respect for the advanced and generous sentiments conveyed by your Lordship's public utterances, and in re- cognition of some trouble your Lordship willingly undertook in a matter concerning myself. I have the honour to be, My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient Servant, JOHN SCOFFERN, M.B. LOND. 092 CONTENTS. PAGH POPULAR SCIENCE 1 A CHEMICAL TRIAD : CAVENDISH 20 LAVOISIEB 35 DALTON 43 XOSMETICS : THE SKIN 64 THE SKIN AND HAIR 71 THE TEETH 91 THE METAMORPHOSES OF MATTER 102 PREADAMITE MAN 117 EXTINCT SPECIES 136 JTHE MAROONS 154 PEACE ESTABLISHMENTS AND WAR SALARIES . . .162 THE FIRE-DAMP'S FAMILY CIRCLE 179 SAFETY-LAMPS 193 ALUMINIUM 210 CERAMIC WARE . . . 218 SUGAR 241 BEETROOT SUGAR IN FRANCE . . . . . . .259 MODERN MYSTICISM AND MODERN SCIENCE . . .274 BARON REICHENBACH'S THEORY OF KISSING . . .291 THE SENSES, THEIR LIMITS AND THEIR FALLACIES . .311 INSANITY , 328 viii CONTENTS. PAGE A TRIAD OF MEDIAEVAL 'MYTHS : THE BASILISK 342 VAMPIRES * . 346 SALAMANDERS 359 THE MORAL STATUS OF ALCOHOL 367 HYDROPHOBIA 392 CURE BY Y E TOUCH 411 VIVISECTION .431 WHAT IS THE SUN MADE OF? 453 EUTHANASIA . ' 460 THE SUFFOLK WITCHES . 472 PREFACE. IF any reader of these < Stray Leaves' has ever been in a wine-merchant's office, when wines were tasted in quick succession, sample after sample, he will have seen a dry biscuit, and perhaps a bit of cheese, inter- posed, to blunt one distinctive flavour before judging of the next. A similar office has been performed by my con- tributions on folk-lore and science, to various maga- zines ; in which judicious editors are wont to interpose small condimentary fragments of distinctive taste, to freshen the literary palate for deeper and more im- portant subjects of mental culture. When an individual accepts without murmur his destiny, not envying his betters, but honestly striving to do his duty in the position to which it has pleased God to call him, criticism should stand disarmed. I ask an indulgent public to take the following Stray Leaves of Science and Folk -Lore for what they are. Preadamite man, extinct species, spectrum analysis, and such-like minor topics, can advance no just claim PREFACE. to equality of interest or utility with fictional ren- derings of murder, bigamy, and divorce-trials: of that no one better than myself is aware. I doubt whether they can even claim equality with a well - idealised record of petty larceny. Things small and mean have their uses in God's coordination, notwithstanding. My 'Stray Leaves' have done some service on the biscuit-and-cheese principle when serially published in magazines. Their author craves permission for the modest hope that in this collected and corrected form their utility may not be less. Mainly selected from the Leisure Hour (in which my papers have taken substantive rank, scientific instruction being one of the specialities of that peri- odical), from the Dublin University Magazine, from Belgravia, Temple Bar, Tinsleys*, St. James' 's, and Chambers' s Journal, my ' Stray Leaves,' in this their present form, have been grouped under appropriate headings, and the scientific points brought up to the cognisance of the times. In this way the attempt has been made to give a continuity and a solidity to the theses, which the exigencies of periodical ap- pearance sometimes do not admit of. That the science is correct, so far as it goes, I know ; that the folk-lore has the warranty of authentic records, I also know, having collated it from accredited documents. The idea of giving authorities in foot - notes did once PEEFACE. xi suggest itself, but was abandoned for two reasons. It might have seemed pedantic, for the first reason ; and secondly, the volume would have expanded into inconvenient bulk. Were I conceited enough to think the memory of these papers might linger in the public mind, I should expect some benevolent critic to remind me of the fact, that certain of them have appeared under names and initials not my own. They are mine not the less. On some occasions it may be prudent to escape at once the enmity of enemies and what is still more important, the friendship of friends by the innocent device of feigned signatures ; of which, were this a day of confession, I should have to ac- knowledge many. 0f POPULAR SCIENCE. MANY circumstances prove that a taste has arisen for scien- tific information, if not scientific study, beyond that of any antecedent period. Popular magazines, the standard matter of which is assumed to be fiction, nevertheless find room occa- sionally for scientific papers. Scientific lectures are gene- rally well attended, if only the lecturer be competent; and here the fact should be heeded, that in proportion as a lec- turer is more deeply versed in the subject on which he treats, so does he commend himself to an audience. It is worth while to investigate the causes of this change ; for undoubt- edly it is a change, and it is rather sudden. Not by all is this change accepted at one even value. Whilst some per- sons deprecate the scientific spirit, associating it with some notion of irreligion, or at the least free-thinking, others foster the spirit as one calculated to elevate the mind to conceptions of the Deity such as the mind of an individual unacquainted with science can never aspire to. Meantime science ad- vances, drawing within its ranks men of pure minds and high theological training. The time has come when, if members of the clergy be sought to deprecate scientific culture, they cannot be found in the very highest clerical ranks. Upon B 2 POPULAR SCIENCE, the laity science has imposed a yet stronger hold. Oxford and Cambridge, abandoning their ancient principle of exclusive devotion to the dead languages and pure mathematics, have fallen in with the sentiment of the day. Both Oxford and Cambridge have established good chemical laboratories, and the collateral science of geology has been studied at Cambridge with a devotion and freedom from theological bias eminently characteristic of the spirit of the times. Some explanation may be found for the scientific tendencies of the age in practical utilitarianism men being induced to study science for what it may bring ; and much as it is the custom to deprecate this incentive, still the concession must be granted that practical utility is one not unworthy the aspiration of mankind. Some confusion exists as to the meaning of this word ' utility,' and a loose way of expression in respect to it has become usual ; one it may be worth while to dispose of. If a man could bring himself to believe that any specified branch of knowledge, acquired through scientific inquiry, was actually useless, and ever must be then, I apprehend, he would not be justified in giving time to its study. The fact is, he does not believe this : he cannot believe this ; the assumption would be wholly adverse to every teaching of periods gone by. No words are, perhaps, more ill-applied than ( practical' and c unpractical' in respect to science. The history of science shows that facts, the utility of which could not only not be seen at the time, but not for long ages after the time in some cases, have at length been turned to the most material account. No science is more rich in these examples than chemistry, understanding that science, as is usual in England, to comprehend electricity and certain other branches of physics as well. The example of the electric telegraph has been so frequently adduced in support of this, that I almost hesitate to adduce it ; still, to omit that illus- tration would be a mistake in such an argument as we are upon. When the Danish philosopher (Ersted, in 1819, POPULAR SCIENCE. 3 proved that an electric current travelling in any one direc- tion deflected a magnetic needle at right angles to itself, no sort of use for this discovery was at the time apparent. It seemed to be in the list of things popularly called useless. Nevertheless, in time, and, for a discovery to take effect, no long time it culminated in one form of the electric tele- graph. Then, again, when Faraday proved, that by winding an insulated wire around an iron bar, and transmitting elec- tricity through the wire, the bar was instantaneously con- verted into a powerful magnet, he laid the foundation of other varieties of the electric telegraph ; and the electricians who, before his time, proved that electricity could be made to develop colour in a chemical salt furnished a principle on which is based a third variety. Up to this day all the electric telegraphs made or proposed whether to indicate by bell- ringing, dial-work, actual printing in ordinary letters, print- ing by accepted signs, or telling their tale by change of colour (and electric telegraphs can do all this) are but de- velopments of three electrical functions that, when discovered, seemed as far from useful application as well might be. Take -electrotype, again ; the beautiful process whereby a thin layer of gold, silver, or other metal may be deposited on a conduct- ing surface; consider the numerous practical applications of this art, the manifold ways in which it conduces to the utilities of life : the principle on which it depends was known some time before any practical application became apparent. A very remarkable application of science, that seemed re- mote from any human need, is even now taking place to most utilitarian purposes. After the decisive proof offered by Dr. Tyndall at a Friday-evening Royal-Institution lecture, that air can be mechanically purified from dust by transmission through a filter of cotton-wool, it is impossible the demon- stration can stop short of effecting a rational means of venti- lation. Hitherto, ventilative contrivances of whatever kind liave merely had the end in view of admitting to apartments 4 POPULAE SCIENCE. atmospheric air as pure, but no purer than the atmosphere without, or, at the very utmost, separating the gross fuligi- nous particles due to smoke by a rude contrivance of filtration, as was accomplished by Dr. Eeid in the new Houses of Par- liament. It is impossible after recent discoveries that venti- lation can remain at that point of immature development. When certain facts in the history of atmospheric physical analysis shall have been laid before the reader in something like the order of their succession, the practical bearing of Dr. Tyndall's late illustrations will become apparent. There is a certain class of phenomena' known to experimentalists by the general name of ' catalysis ;' a word of indefinite meaning, almost equivalent to an admission that the so-called catalytic function was not understood at all. Some catalytic agencies refer to the inorganic, others to the -organic, kingdom ; but the time seems almost come, if it is not already come, for abandoning the idea of organic catalysis altogether. Not many years ago the change of sugar to alcohol under the action of yeast was said to be a catalytic change ; in other words, that the yeast acted as a ferment by mere contact in some inscrutable way. About the year 1836, however, the discovery was made that the transmutation was an organic change due to the growth of certain minute fungi, none the less real because they were minute. Proceeding from this starting-point, microscopists soon found that whenever any sort of fermentation or decay occurred, myriads of small living beings in some cases vegetable, in others animal, in yet others indeterminate were to be found. Thus, if beef- tea be set aside in the open air, it soon turns sour; and if, when in this condition, it be microscopically examined, it teems with animalcules. Again, the paste of wheaten flour, if set aside for a while in the open air, also becomes the abode of living beings. These are two instances out of many ; the generalisation being, that every fermenting or pu- trefying body is the abode of some form or forms of organic POPULAR SCIENCE. 5 life. It was found that great diversity of type was discover- able in the living beings that pervaded different substances, and that each class of body revealed its own forms of life. For example, the yeast fungus has been so frequently ob- served and drawn, that microscopists now speak of it with the same confident familiarity a botanist does of any variety of the large field mushrooms. Again, the special form of animal life to be met with in sour paste is that of an eel, and under the guise of something like river eels they are to be found depicted. Parallel cases need not be adduced to make comprehensible the philosophic boundary we are arriving at. Out of revelations like these the question naturally evolves itself: How came these things there? How came the yeast fungus in yeast, the paste eels in paste ? and so on for the rest. One of two hypotheses must be adopted as a necessity. Either these living things must have been spon- taneously generated, or must have been developed from some kind of ovum, seed, or germ. As for the spontaneous-gene- ration hypothesis, any general reader would most likely aban- don it as absurd ; but this word ' absurdity ' is not lightly adopted by the philosopher, whose usual and only legitimate way of dealing with a disputed proposition is to take measures by experiment, the issue of w T hich shall be to show the truth or falsehood of the disputed phenomenon in question. Now, improbable as the thing may seem, the idea of spontaneous generation had, some few years ago, won to its side many advocates amongst philosophers on the Continent, especially in France; the evidence on which they based their hypo- thesis being gathered from the fact that, notwithstanding all care they had been enabled to take to insure fair conditions of experiment, the living forms of decomposition, as, to gene- ralise, we may call them, would and did present themselves. It was found that the passage of air through such destructive agents as oil of vitriol and potash solution did not interfere with the development of these small forms of life. Flour- 6 POPULAR SCIENCE. paste, enclosed under a glass bell and exposed to air thus treated, soon became pervaded with its family of animalcules ; and similarly in respect to other bodies in which the pheno- mena of organic life would under ordinary circumstances be seen. In trying other forms of air-purification, however, cotton-wool pressed hard was at length alighted upon as being wholly efficient. More than one experimenter proved that certain things naturally prone to decompose suffered no decomposition when exposed to air that had been carefully filtered through cotton-wool. The inference was inevitable : the cotton-wool must have filtered away the floating germs of organic life. There was no spontaneous generation. In the cotton- wool these things must be, if one could only discover them. But how 1 how reveal and make manifest those microscopic forms of life ? The task might well have seemed hopeless ; but it has been accomplished. Proof having been made, as already stated, that filtration of atmospheric air through a pledget of cotton-wool effectually separated the organic germs naturally pervading the atmosphere, a French experimenter hit upon the following ingenious modification of the experi- ment. Instead of using ordinary cotton-wool, he employed gun-cotton wool, which, not differing from ordinary cotton in texture, of course had the same physical effect. But the power accruing to the experimenter was this. Gun-cotton is easily soluble in ether, the glutinous fluid known as collodion being the result. So, having taken gun-cotton, M. Pasteur for this was the ingenious experimenter used it as a filter; next dissolving the materials of his filter, he liberated into the transparent collodion whatever germs of organic life might be present. Being liberated, he subjected them to micro- scopic examination, and then what he had been in quest of was found. Hitherto the group of experiments I have been describing seems far enough away from any practical application. To POPULAR SCIENCE. 7 the philosopher it might be very interesting that the question of spontaneous generation was settled in the negative that the axiom omne ex ovo was upheld ; but what use, the utilita- rian might still inquire, were all these proofs ? This we shall presently see. Few of us who are old enough can have for- gotten the discovery which the cholera visitation occasioned in 1849-50. Asiatic cholera was, comparatively speaking, a new disease. Until this century had some way advanced, it had never been seen or heard of even in India ; whence, having gone forth, its origin was traced back to a localised region corresponding with the delta of the Ganges ; and numerous investigations, conducted by many persons working independ- ently, associated it in some way with a detrimental crop of rice. It was natural that microscopists should apply them- selves to this rice. They did so ; and with the curious, though not unexpected, result of actually discovering a mi- nute fungus. Analogies came in aid. Rice is a grass, and the fruit ordinarily called the seed of grasses was already known as being prone to the growth of fungi. The so-called smut of wheat is of this sort, as in like manner is rye ergot, a material used as medicine by the physician. In this coun- try a medical man, now deceased the late Dr. Snow first called attention to the fact that the incidence of cholera was, in every case known to him, traceable either to the eating or drinking of things which in some way had been associated with previous cholera patients, or else to the eating and drinking of articles of food in which certain processes of de- composition were going on. The late Mr. Warington of the Apothecaries' Hall, though not a medical man, came to the conclusion that Asiatic cholera depended in some way on the incidence of a certain sort of fermentation ; which was equi- valent to expressing the belief, in other words, that it de- pended on the growth of microscopic fungi. Collateral evidence was soon forthcoming. The im- munity of copper smelting-works from cholera had become 8 POPULAR SCIENCE. noticed; and here young physicians, led away by false in- dications, began to administer copper as a cholera remedy, but without success. Reasoning on the matter, the fact was remembered that copper was not, under the ordinary circum- stances of copper-smelting, volatile. The cholera preventive, whatever it might be, must have been volatile must have wrought its preventive agency through the air-passages, being absorbed by the lungs. Explanation must be sought, not in the copper itself, but in some collateral product or products. These were sulphurous acid and arsenic ; could the preven- tion of cholera be due to either of these ? Evidence on this point soon came to hand. It was found that men engaged in certain other operations involving the dispersion of sulphurous acid had also been free from cholera; and accordingly a large amount of evidence was in favour of the probability that sulphurous acid or its compounds would be valuable agents in the treatment of cholera, or rather to secure its prevention. All this accorded with previous know- ledge as to this agent. The fact had long been known that sulphurous acid absolutely prevented the fermentation of or- dinarily fermentible things. In the year 1849 a considerable amount of sugar-cane juice, charged in Barbadoes with sul- phurous acid, was brought to this country uncharged, and its full complement of sugar extracted. The Devonshire cider- maker, wishing to produce sweet cider for the London market, had long been in the habit of sulphuring his casks, as he called the process, i.e. burning a sulphur-match inside the bung-hole before turning in his yet unfermented cider. What he wished to effect was thus actually effected the sjigar yet present, but which under the ordinary march of fermentation would have been changed to alcohol, remained sugar, the cider kept sweet. Another illustration. Certain makers of fruit-pre- serves in the City had discovered, whether by reasoning or practice I know not, that by rinsing-out their preserve-vessels with the soluble bisulphite of lime, fermentation of the pre- POPULAK SCIENCE. 9 serves was obviated. Gradually we see an accumulation of evidence leading up to more than one practical point. Next followed the announcement by a member of the medical pro- fession that sulphite of lime was, so far as his experience went, an almost absolute cure for choleraic diarrhoea a symptom that in times when cholera prevails runs on to cholera itself. Other medical men tried this agent in their practice; and having established its character, sulphite of lime is now sold for that purpose by most dispensing che- mists. Next dawned the idea that sulphurous acid used in some form might be probably efficacious in the preservation of meat. Professor Gamgee devoted himself to the necessary experiments, which, so far as they have gone, are wholly suc- cessful. By the adoption of his process, the details of which it is unnecessary here to give, carcasses of animals home- killed have been rendered, so to speak, incorruptible. It remains yet to be seen whether the process be efficient to protect carcasses packed in the hold of a ship during a voyage of Australian sea transit. If it be, then the problem of feed- ing our starving millions on good cheap animal food will have been solved. Let us pause to reflect on some of the remarkable, even stupendous, developments which have resulted from the seem- ingly abstruse and unpractical experiment of the German philosopher, who proved that filtered air would not prevent the development of living beings in his beef-broth. Whether the germs of these living beings be filtered away mechani- cally, or whether they are killed by the operation of sulphur- ous acid, the practical result is identical. It cannot be said that the curious group of experiments detailed has culmi- nated to its full practical issue ; but Dr. Tyndall has drawn them to a focus, so to speak has popularised them to his audiences, and is working in the new field with all his known energy, and employing all his manifold resources. Although he is not a medical man, yet the belief in the germ-theory of 10 POPULAE SCIENCE, disease is so strongly fixed in his mind, that he has expressed himself ready to be the subject of experiment, by breathing a diseased atmosphere, armed with no farther protection than a mouth-and-nose filter of cotton-wool. Perhaps the utilitarian in a perfect sense will cavil at the enunciation of spectrum analysis as a case in illustration of the point I wish to illustrate namely, the practical applica- tion, time being given, of the most seemingly useless disco- veries. He may tell me, that although it may be very in- teresting to know what the sun and stars are made of, and though spectrum analysis would seem to have taught us this, yet such knowledge is of no use to us. Looking at utility from his point of view, we must perhaps give way to the prac- tical man, and say, ' Agreed.' Kesponding to this considerate deference, will the practical man kindly meet us half-way ? Will he please to remember, that by aid of this spectral ana- lysis Mr. Crooke discovered the new metal thallium ? Will he admit that the discovery of any new metal belongs to his utilities ? No, he says ; thallium is not a useful metal. Well, I do not feel inclined to argue that point, the practical man and I viewing the evidence under lights so totally diverse. Not getting up a contest with him, I will proceed to describe the facts and the general line of evidence on which this spec- tral analysis is based. Everybody knows that when a sunbeam is passed through a triangular prism, the beam is decomposed into three primary colours : red, yellow, and blue. Newton described as many as seven colours; but more modern experimenters have proved all, save three, to be secondary mere mixed tints. So much for colour; but the solar rays are not composed of light alone. They have heat rays too, and another set of rays termed ' ac- tinic,' to the operation of which latter chemical changes are referable all the changes of daguerreotype and other sun- painting, wrongly called < photography,' for example. It is with the luminous part of the spectrum we have now to do. POPULAR SCIENCE. 11 If the luminous portion of a prism-decomposed solar beam be- looked at, certain black bands will be seen to traverse it, some broader than others, but each one of invariable relative dimen- sions and in one invariable place. Having been first pointed out by Frauenhofer, they were known, and are still known, by the name of Frauenhofer's lines. They remained a mys- tery until Bunsen and Kirschoff solved it ; and out of their solution came the modern spectrum analysis, which depends upon the following essential facts. Every metal can be burned, and heat sufficient being em- ployed, the burning mass can be made to evolve a vapour. Every metal burns with a certain invariable colour, and the light of these colours can be projected through a prism. If so projected, a line across the spectral image results, of cer- tain specific size and also colour ; but if the light of a burn- ing mass of metal be transmitted through its own vapours, then the band of colour it would have yielded on the spec- trum is quenched as to colour, and the result is not colour, but black. An indication of the nature and meaning of spec- tral analysis was only aimed at in this place and at this time y and the outlines given will be sufficient to the end. Whatever cavil the typical man of practice might raise against the utility of spectrum analysis, he will not object to the case now to follow. It is surely of some use to abolish a manufacture that produces horrible disease, mostly fatal, and at the same time to diminish the chances of fire. Amorphous or allotropic phosphorus has accomplished this, or rather might accomplish this. What, then, is allotropic or amor- phous phosphorus ? Amorphous means devoid of form; in the present example, crystalline form is alone referred to. Or- dinary phosphorus crystallises, the amorphous variety does not ; hence the name ' amorphous.' As for the word ' allo- tropic,' it is a very puzzling word to have any discourse about. Philosophers, of whatever kind, have long been used to em- ploy certain words to comprehend certain phenomena which 12 POPULAR SCIENCE. they cannot explain. It was said of Cuvier, that when he got hold of a living creature he did not know how to classify by any certain assemblage of analogical signs, he put it in ra- diata. Similarly we may affirm of chemists, that catalysis and allotropism are two cupboards wherein they have been wont to stow away certain facts undigested or unexplained. I have said something about catalysis, so let that pass; allotropism needs more attention. Literally, allotropism or allotropicity, when translated into plain English, is a very startling thing indeed ; meaning little else than expression of the fact, or rather belief, that some one thing may be some other thing, and yet remain the same thing. I will give an illustration. Everybody knows that the diamond to look at is very differ- ent from a lump of charcoal to look at, and both different from a piece of black-lead. This is physically evident ; yet chemistry, apply it as we may, .only proves that the diamond, charcoal, and black-lead are one and all carbon. If a diamond be actually burned in oxygen gas, carbonic acid results ; the very same gas we obtain by the combustion of charcoal in a stove. More evidence: by exposing diamonds to heat in a certain way, they can be changed to coke ; but unfortunately for the practical man, and happily for ladies who have in- vested in diamonds, proud of the investment, no means have yet been discovered for effecting the backward change of coke into diamonds. Enough for our purpose. Here, then, we have an agent, an element that element carbon, assum- ing three forms. Chemically, the element carbon is the same ; physically it is not the same. How shall the puzzled chemist describe the sameness and un sameness I He has invented the words allotropism, allotropic, allotropicity, to this end. A man who has done his best should not be blamed because the best is imperfect. Carbon is not the only element that can assume allotropic changes. Oxygen is in the same category, allotropic oxygen having the specific name ozone a name that I am surprised POPULAE SCIENCE. 13 to see is so much popularised. Hundreds of individuals using English, but wholly void of science, talk and write about the luxury of going into the country to breathe pure ozone. Un- happy individuals ! they little know what they bargain for. A little ozone will go a long way. Pure ozone entering the lungs would be surely fatal ; one might as well breathe pure chlorine. The popular use of the word ozone is in the ' fiery element' and * subtle fluid' category. Certain persons can only describe a conflagration by using the first, a lightning flash by the second. We have no concern with ozone or allo- tropic oxygen now, neither with allotropic sulphur ; for this also may take on a second form wholly dissimilar to ordinary brimstone. Allotropic phosphorus is what we have to do with, and the following particulars relate to it. In the year 1849 a Viennese chemist, Professor Schrotter, surprised and rather amused the staid members of our British Association by announcing that in his waistcoat-pocket he had brought a sample of phosphorus simply enveloped in a fold of paper. Now the particular circumstance has to be borne in mind, that phosphorus, as everybody knew phosphorus up to the time of the Viennese professor, was an element so prone to burn, that it had to be kept under water, and, when removed from water, handled with the utmost caution, inas- much as a degree of heat little exceeding that of the human body caused it to burst into flame. Sure enough the Vien- nese chemist had brought in his pocket a certain puce-coloured material, and he called it phosphorus; but no such phos- phorus had ever been seen. Philosophers tried to smell it. The thing had no smell. Ordinary phosphorus smells strongly. Philosophers shook their heads and demurred; but the Viennese chemist, using means unnecessary to describe, here, changed his puce-coloured powder into ordinary phosphorus without adding anything to it or taking anything away. This evidence was of course irresistible. The Viennese phosphorus had assumed some second form, just as carbon may assume a 14 POPULAK SCIENCE. second and third form : it was allotropic phosphorus ; accord- ingly, by the names allotropic or amorphous phosphorus it has ever since been known. Ordinary phosphorus is a very deadly and insidious poi- son. If swallowed, a small portion soon kills ; but swallowing is not most to be apprehended. Rats and mice indeed are fond of the phosphorus flavour, and eat phosphorus readily, to their own destruction, when occasions permit ; but to hu- man beings the smell of phosphorus is abominable. Children have been killed through putting lucifer-matches into their mouths ; but that sort of accident could hardly occur to grown-up people. The poison danger of phosphorus most to be apprehended does not come in this way, but through inad- vertently breathing air pervaded with phosphorus fumes. The result is slow, but it is deadly and most horrible. If an indi- vidual breathing phosphorus fumes continuously have an un- sound tooth and how rare is a set of teeth wholly sound ! absorption takes place, the jawbone decays, and in the end the patient dies in excruciating torture. Allotropic phos- phorus is wholly devoid of poisonous quality. It is not vola- iile, hence it has no vapour to be breathed ; and if swallowed, it does no more harm than so much chalk would have done. Now phosphorus is much used in the manufacture of matches; .and a very deadly operation match-making was and is under the original system of using common phosphorus. Allotropic phosphorus answers every need if used in a particular way ; that is, not as an ingredient of the match itself, but of the tablet upon which the match is rubbed. Thus Schrotter's discovery enables the manufacturer not only to guard his workmen against the chance of poisoning, but to guard the public against the chance of setting their premises on fire, in- asmuch as the sort of matches now under consideration will ignite when rubbed upon their own peculiar tablet, but not otherwise. The general history of phosphorus affords a good instance POPULAR SCIENCE. 15 of knowledge once abstract, ultimately applied to popular utility. The discovery of phosphorus is one of many which have been evolved from labours of the alchemist. It was dis- covered by Kunkel, and by chance. But for the incentive of the philosopher's stone and universal elixir, phosphorus might not perhaps have been discovered until our own days. It was first obtained from animal fluids, next from bones ; ultimately, when the supply of bones ran short, attention was turned to the mineral phosphate of lime of Estremadura, from which sub- stance nearly all the phosphorus of commerce is now extracted. A valuable essay illustrating our topic might be composed on the subject of the discoveries to which alchemy, or the belief in metallic transmutation, gave rise. At different epochs of human advancement the mind of man is ruled by different incentives; but one the love of immediate gain pervades all epochs. Experimental science has now at- tained such development, that it affords ample scope for in- tellectual exercise. Day by day it more nearly approaches to the exactness of mathematical science, in the study of which numerous men of high intellectual endowments, from the time of Euclid and Archimedes down to the time when we live, have found solace. It was not thus in respect to che- mistry and other experimental sciences until lately. Even going back a century, chemistry barely afforded any field for rigid intellectual study at all ; but now, owing to the formu- larisation of its known laws, much advance in the science may be achieved by book-work alone, without the need of actual experiment. The question indeed arises, whether the next great chemical discovery will not appertain to him who, hav- ing competent mathematical knowledge, applies himself to generalise the weighings and measurings already done and recorded, rather than to the industrious laboratory- worker. It takes long in the education of the human mind before men come to put faith in the belief that the unravelling of truth is valuable for its own sake alone ; and the belief once ere- 16 POPULAE SCIENCE. ated,the number of men to whom the unravelling of truth for its own sake is possible will be comparatively few. The num- ber, however, will be probably commensurate with the num- ber of intellects strong enough to be turned advantageously in this direction. The belief is very common, that discovery and invention are only two developments of one and the same faculty, but in inferior degree. An opinion prevails that dis- coverers are by necessity inventors ; men who, looking down on human needs, might, if they would only condescend, turn their discoveries to profitable use. This opinion does not appear to be borne out by facts. The faculty of invention would appear to be different from that of discovery, and few experimental discoverers could be predicated to their utilita- rian issues by aid of theory alone. Of this some remarkable instances may be cited. The theoretical prediction made by Dr. Lardner, that ships steam-propelled would never be able to .cross the Atlantic, has been often quoted, and is popularly known. Not so well known is the fact that a lecture was once delivered at the Royal Institution to prove that elec- tricity could never be used for telegraphic purposes save for very inconsiderable distances, the maximum specified distance being, I believe, no more than eighteen miles. It is curious to reflect on cases in which Science has fre- quently come to the aid of utilitarian man just when wanted so soon, indeed, as utilitarian man has deliberately sought her aid. Some remarkable examples of this are afforded by the history of the great French Revolution. Much fighting had then to be done, as readers need not be informed; but fighting needs gunpowder, gunpowder needs saltpetre, and up to the period of the revolution almost all the saltpetre of commerce had been imported from India. True, the Italians were aware that saltpetre occasionally forms in caves and tombs ; the fact is stated by the Italian writer Tartalea. This does not invalidate the fact, that before the French Revolu- tion nearly all the saltpetre of commerce was brought from POPULAR SCIENCE. 17 India. To have recognised small home specimens as a natu- ral product was one thing ; to have mastered the conditions of its formation, and generated it at pleasure in quantities large enough to supply the needs of French revolutionary armies, was another. Very soon after the pressure of the need, the thing was done, and for many years every pound of saltpetre entering into French gunpowder was home-made. The importance of this discovery became apparent to other continental nations. Remembering that they might be sub- ject by fortune of war to conditions of exclusion, just as the French had been, they took measures to insure a home supply. The government of Sweden to this day imposes a saltpetre tax, payable in kind, 011 every Swedish farmer. A certain spe- cified amount of this sinew of war must be rendered periodic- ally to the collector. The Swedish government will accept no money-equivalent the saltpetre must be paid in kind. An- other chemical manufacture to spring out of the revolution under the pressure of the times was that of sugar from beet- root. The French are, and always have been, a sugar-eating people ; but English command of the ocean was so vigilant, that during a period of the revolutionary war no sugar from the colonies could be obtained. Some years previously it hap- pened that a Prussian chemist had demonstrated the presence of sugar in white Silesian beetroot, but the discovery had been turned to no practical account. The French applied them- selves to the commercial problem, and ultimately with com- plete success as the large importation to this country of beetroot-sugar testifies. At first, however, they were unsuc- cessful. And here again we find an instance of inventors men of practice correcting a doctrinal error. A com- mission of French philosophers came to the conclusion that, although sugar did exist in beetroot, it could not be extracted at a commercial profit. The doctrinaires were wrong. Less connected with the revolutionary pressure, but associated with it to some extent, was the manufacture of soda from sea-salt. G 18 POPULAR SCIENCE. Some of us are old enough to remember the time when wash- ing-soda was not so common and so cheap as now when pearl-ash was habitually used for washing and other domestic purposes, for which washing-soda is now universal. Well might washing-soda be dearer than it now is, seeing that the whole of this useful substance was got by a tedious process out of the ashes either of actual sea-weeds, or from the ashes of certain plants that grow on the sea-coast. At length a chemist bethought himself that the sea the ocean held illimitable quantities of the material of washing-soda, only it chanced to be in the form of common salt. The proposition, then, was to convert salt into washing-soda. A chemical pro- cess suitable to the occasion was soon devised ; and now almost all the soda that enters into commerce is made from sea-salt either taken from the ocean or from salt-mines. When Mr. Woods, an assay-master in Jamaica, discovered amongst his gold a metal that caused him much trouble, and to which the name of * platinum' is now given, he little knew that it was destined to work a revolution in the whole range of chemical manufactures. Thus indeed it was to be, and in this way : Few chemical manufactures can be efficiently car- ried on without the aid of oil of vitriol, directly or indirectly ; and before the discovery of platinum, every drop of oil of vitriol had to be distilled from vessels of glass. The danger, the labour, the expense of this may easily be imagined. Pla- tinum retorts have made the case easy. Oil of vitriol can now be bought at considerably less than a penny the pound. To specify a tithe of the manufacturing utilities of oil of vitriol would fill a volume. Amongst other applications, we are not to forget its use in agriculture. Most artificial manures in- volve the use of oil of vitriol in one way or another. When the reader is informed that mummy bones are exported from Egypt to be half dissolved in oil of vitriol, and in this con- dition applied to English land, he may come to realise the curious connection between a precious metal, the bones of POPULAR SCIENCE. 10 some two-thousand-year-dead-and-buried Egyptian Pharaoh, and our daily bread. What I set myself to do is done; not to give the full rationale of processes indicated, but to foreshadow some ex- amples of the modern application of science to the wants of man. In view of these cases, and others like them, we need no longer wonder that science has taken such fast hold on the minds of men. The pure life and reverent belief of that great philosopher Faraday, who has passed away from us, is in itself a standing proof and disclaimer to all who profess to fear the influence of science on the holy mysteries of man's present and to come. One addicted to science, be it in ever so humble a way, must fain derive pleasure from contemplat- ing the scientific movement that now pervades the whole of English society. Independently of the direct pleasures and material advantages of scientific culture, both very great, it may possibly be that its indirect consequences as a mental discipline may be very applicable to English minds. Owing to our free institutions, our free press, and the license accorded by our government to full political debate, it may be fairly questioned whether the science of politics, if one may so dig- nify it, has not been carried to a point incompatible with a purity of mind or tranquillity of thought which human beings might rise to by following other trains of contemplation whi- ther they tend. It may be that the proper study of mankind is man ; but the time at length arrives for human beings to grieve over human imperfections to long for some purer field of intellect, within the realms of which the soul may expand, and reach, ideally at least, the sacred throne of truth. Science presents such a field. There we absolve ourselves from hu- man passions. There the elements speak to us in their never- changing, never-erring language: teachings the same for all, though their higher mysteries only a favoured few in each generation can understand. A CHEMICAL TRIAD. CAVENDISH. IT is the biographer's privilege to be present at the hearth and home of the subject of his memoir, to see his every-day performances, to chronicle his acts, without explaining to the world how the home was invaded, how the observing eye found means to cross the barrier, or the recording pen to write. I ask the reader, then, by force of will, to annihilate the last sixty years, and to imagine himself the world's denizen in 1810, and follow me. We go to witness a death-bed scene. Clapham is the local- ity; the house is, at the period of this narrative, known as Cavendish House. We enter : the domicile has all the aspect of a gentleman's mansion ; but its interior arrangement is sa peculiar that one wonders what the owner's avocation can be. One chamber we see fitted up like a blacksmith's shop. Here are anvils, forges, tempering troughs, files, hammers^ and in short almost everything that a blacksmith could re- quire; but there are other things too, which a blacksmith would not have. Philosophical apparatus lie about in con- fusion. Here an air-pump taken to pieces, there a transit instrument, yonder the compensation pendulum of a clock. Vainly we look for the artificer he is not there. Wending our way through a long corridor we open a door, and pass into a suite of noble apartments. Their aspect is equally strange with the last, but quite different. They are devoid CAVENDISH. 1 of furniture, but filled with all sorts of chemical instruments. In one corner is a furnace, the embers of which still glow ; proving that the operator has recently been there. On a large table in the centre of the room is an electrical machine ; by the side of it a Leyden battery, and a curious instru- ment of thick glass, known at this present time by the desig- nation of i Cavendish's eudiometer.' But the most striking feature in the apartments is the large number of thermometers which hang upon the walls. - Examining the thermometers more narrowly, we discover in them a peculiarity of construc- tion. Their frames bear traces of home manufacture. We see none of the neatly cut figures that appear on the ther- mometer scales of philosophical-instrument makers, but their scales are roughly engraved. Evidently no mere amateur has done this, but one who, desirous of having his instruments correct, has known how to make them for himself. This is evidently a chemist's domain ; but we look in vain for the chemist. No one is there. Wandering along in our visit of exploration, we ascend a flight of stairs, and at length witness some signs of human habitation. One sitting-room, meagrely furnished, and one bed-room 110 more. But perhaps the owner of the mansion, whoever he may be, prefers to live one flight higher. We ascend again, to find ourselves mistaken. All this portion of the house has been converted into an astronomical observa- tory, two rooms only excepted, the furniture of which suf- ficiently indicates their use. They belong respectively to the family domestics, a female housekeeper and a footman. Softly ! we hear a noise in the observatory, and return. In our hurry, we did not thoroughly explore it. Looking more attentively, we see, half hidden behind the stand of a large telescope, a pale infirm old man. He is intently gazing on the stars, for twilight has almost passed away. Let us not disturb him, but note his appearance and costume before the night sets in. In stature he is below the middle height ; his 22 A CHEMICAL TRIAD. countenance thin and very pale. His forehead is broad and intellectual. His eyes are bright and shining, but his features display no trace of sentiment or passion. He might be likened to a sculptured block of marble, were it not for the radiant intelligence of his eyes ; but that radiance is peculiar. It has in it nothing of human sentiment. It is the light of the moonbeam, cold and cheerless. Our strange individual is evidently stricken in years, and his attire is that which was fashionable in his youth. Pel-ukes even in 1810 were not quite unknown, but the peruke of our strange philosopher is of very antique shape. Its curls are very tight, and the queue is of the obsolete form known as the 6 knocker pattern.' His wrists are enveloped in lace ruffles, and he wears a frill of similar material. His coat is of velvet. Its colour was ori- ginally violet, but tune and use have faded it down into a sober neutral tint. Its cut is antique, but we are familiarised with it in the court-dress of the present day. Thus much for the appearance of our illustrious stranger, for he is indeed such illustrious even in the sense of heraldry, coming as he does of one of our most noble families. He is the grandson of a duke. He is celebrated, too, in another sense. The Honourable Henry Cavendish is one of England's most renowned philosophers : great as a chemist, great as a mathe- matician, great as an astronomer. No science was too ex- pansive for the grasp of that master-mind, none too minute for the limit of its scrutiny. To weigh the earth, to unveil the mysteries of the stars, to solve the most complex lunar problems these were the occupations of him we look upon. Henry Cavendish seems to have been born for the purpose of demonstrating the power of the human mind as a calculating machine, and of proving how little the possession of that power implies the coexistence of those sympathies which ennoble human life, rendering man, when he rightly directs them, that which poets have termed him, God's noblest work. The old philosopher, whom we see gazing at the orbs of CAVENDISH. 23 heaven, has numbered more than seventy-nine years. He who for so many years has studied the decomposition of bodies, and predicted the advent of eclipses, who has calcu- lated the tune when comets should reappear, knows the hour of death is at hand. The mystery of death is only unveiled to those on whom eternity has dawned, to such as have stood face to face before the great Omnipotent. There is, besides, a cognate mystery, one little discussed, but the existence of which is real : the sentiment of death approaching. What that sentiment, that vague prescience may be, who knows save those who have experienced it? Who, at all conver- sant with death-bed scenes, especially those of aged people, can doubt that a vague sentiment of approaching dissolu- tion is sometimes a reality a sentiment which, though vague and undefinable, is often justified by the result, death itself speedily following, so surely as thunder succeeds the lightning ? The old philosopher trembles, the telescope drops from his hand, he utters a faint scream. He feels he is about to die. His mental disturbance is but instantaneous. He gets up haggard and bleeding, for one of the telescope glasses has broken in falling, and has slightly cut him. He slowly descends from his observatory to the sitting-room, where, sinking into an arm-chair, he lays his hand upon a bell and rings it gently. A male domestic appears. ' Listen !' said Cavendish, addressing him by name. 6 Have I ever commanded you to do an unreasonable thing?' The man heard this question without much astonishment, for his master had the character (not without reason) of being an eccentric person. He replied in the negative. c And that being the case,' continued his master, * I be- lieve I have a right to be obeyed.' The domestic bowed assent. * 1 shall now give you my last command,' said Cavendish. *I am going to die. I shall now retire to my chamber. There let me be alone, for I have matters to arrange. Let 24 A CHEMICAL TEIAD. me be eight hours alone. Tell no one : let 110 one come near. When eight hours have passed, come and see if I am dead. If dead, let Lord George Cavendish know. This is my last command. Now go !' The servant knew, from long experience, he might not dispute his master's will. He turned to go away. 6 Stay one word,' interrupted Cavendish ; ' stay one word. Eepeat your orders exactly! And thereupon he caused the servant to repeat the directions previously given. Obe- dience was promised once more. But the directions, even though given by an eccentric man, were too mysterious to be implicitly followed. They seemed to point to suicide ; for who, not intending this, could foretell so closely the period of the great event ? One, two, three hours passed away. Cavendish had retired to his apart- ment, and all was still. Was he dead, or still living ? The man durst not ascertain ; but, feeling anxious, as well he might, hurried away to London, and made the particulars of his situation known to Sir Everard Home, the celebrated medical practitioner. Cavendish was personally known to Sir Everard known as a mere acquaintance, no more ; Cavendish had neither enemies nor friends. The intimation was so alarming that neither Sir Everard nor the man could banish entirely the idea that the philosopher's brain had become turned ; that a too arduous devotion to philosophical pursuits had caused insanity. The will of Henry Cavendish, too, was noted for a certain inflexibility which nothing could swerve from a pur- pose once formed. If, therefore, he had set his mind on the commission of suicide at some premeditated hour, he would probably do so if not interrupted. Such were the reflections which occurred to both the servant and Sir Everard as they hurried away to Clapham. They arrived considerably before the expiration of the appointed eight hours, and, proceeding at once to the bed- room in wiiich Cavendish lay, listened for an instant outside CAVENDISH. 25 the door. Not the most acute hearing could discover the slightest sound: all within was silent. They entered, the man keeping well in the back-ground, not caring to encounter his master's gaze, after breaking the promise so solemnly given. Sir Everard approached the bed. The curtains were not drawn ; Cavendish was not dead, neither was he asleep. His eyes were still open ; but they appeared not like the eyes of a living man. They gazed abstractedly into space, as if the world had no longer any object upon which their glances might fall. His lips were quivering, but voiceless. Cavendish was seemingly in communion with some invisible being. Sir Everard, approaching still nearer, gently removed the coverlet, and took Cavendish by the hand. The philosopher, thus disturbed in his last reveries, remembered that the sanc- tity of his retirement had been infringed. He started, but made no remark. Looking round the chamber, he presently recognised the servant : frowning sternly, he beckoned him away. 'Do you feel ill?' inquired Sir Everard. c I am not ill,' replied Cavendish ; * but I am about to die. Don't you think a man of more than seventy-nine has lived long enough? Why am I disturbed? I had matters to arrange. Give me a glass of water.' The glass of water was handed to him ; he drank it, turned on his back, closed his eyes, and died ! Such was the end of the Honourable Henry Cavendish. Imagination has not been drawn upon for a death-bed scene ; the most daring writer of fiction would scarcely have been guilty of such temerity, so improbable are the inci- dents. But the mental constitution of this great philosopher was a puzzle to those who knew him best. It defied all their acumen to fathom it, and remove its shroud of mys- tery. Even had he not been one of England's greatest philo- sophers, his biography would have been interesting ; but when his numerous discoveries in the walks of science are con- 26 A CHEMICAL TKIAD, sidered, a double interest is thrown around his career. A sketch of his biography I shall therefore proceed to give. Henry Cavendish was elder son of Lord Charles Cavendish, third son of the second duke. His mother was born Lady Ann Grey, fourth daughter of Henry, duke of Kent. Nice was the place of his birth, in the year 1731, his mother having retired thither for the benefit of her health. Of his infancy and early childhood very little is known. We hear of him, almost for the first time after his birth, in the year 1742, when he was therefore eleven years old, at which period of his life he was sent to the school of the Kev. Dr. Newcome at Hackney a seminary then celebrated for the education of aristocratic youths. He remained at this academy seven years, making himself no way remarkable, so far as we can learn, either by talents or peculiarities. One circumstance in relation to his scholastic career deserves comment, as proving that the extraordinary reserve which characterised him in after years, making him shun the society of his fellows, was only an extreme development of a youthful feeling. The records of Dr. Newcome's school state that Henry Cavendish never took part in certain entertainments got up by the boys for their amusement. And here, before accompanying Cavendish in his university career, a circumstance should be mentioned, which is not as should seem without significance as con- nected with the morbid peculiarities of the subject of this memoir. He lost his mother when only two years old. This, though a circumstance usual enough, and which has occurred frequently without generating misanthropic feelings in the child subjected to the privation,* was not, some have thought, without an influence on the subsequent character of Henry Cavendish. In 1749, he matriculated at St. Peter's College, Cam- bridge. There he remained until 1753, and left without taking a degree. The latter remark also applies to his bro- ther, who was studying at Cambridge at the same time. In CAVENDISH. 2T explanation of his leaving without a degree, various con- jectures have been made. The reason advanced by some that he feared the test of examination is scarcely consistent with the circumstance of his profound scientific acquirements, more especially in the mathematics, as evidenced in his future career. Perhaps the extreme dislike which he manifested throughout life at being the subject of public remark, even in the way of commendation, may have influenced him ; or r still more likely, the existence of certain religious scruples scruples not accordant with the university tests, at that time very stringently observed. Even in his early youth he had been suspected of entertaining Unitarian doctrines ; and though his religious opinions were veiled throughout life in extreme mystery, there is reason to believe that the distinguished subject of this memoir died as he had lived. Those who have traced his career through life, with all the minuteness that his aversion to human society and his extreme habits of retirement permit, assure us that from the day of his baptism he never entered a place of worship of any kind, and that, when he felt the hour of death to be ap- proaching, he retired to his chamber, as already described, commanding that no one might interrupt him. What the matters were that to employ his own phrase ' he wished to arrange* in this solemn hour, of course stand unrevealed. The most probable supposition is, that he desired to pass these last moments in silent contemplation. It is not satis- factory to have to record such facts. How different would have been his career, had his love of knowledge been chas- tened and elevated by acquaintance with Him who of all others is the object most worthy of being known ! Experi- ence has shown, by many a bright example, that it is possible to be a man of profound science, and yet to sit with humility at the feet of the Saviour. It is not proposed in this short memoir to enter upon the scientific discoveries of Cavendish ; these would cover too- -28 A CHEMICAL TRIAD. wide a field, and would involve points of discussion not suited to general scrutiny. Perhaps the most remarkable investiga- tion associated with his name is that respecting the compo- sition of water ; which fluid, hitherto regarded as an element or simple body, was proved by his experiments to be the result of combination between oxygen and hydrogen. I am aware that the merit of Cavendish, as sole discoverer of this interesting fact, has been disputed. There is no space here to mention the reasons which could be adduced in favour of the scientific claims for or against. Let it suffice to say, that Cavendish is recognised to have been the sole discoverer of the composition of water, by those who have gone into the question most deeply ; and he is acknowledged by all to have contributed the major points of the discovery. It is not with the question of the scientific grade of re- cognition to which Cavendish is entitled, that we have to concern ourselves in the course of these remarks. That award has long since been made by impartial judges, and needs no amplification. It is with Cavendish here, regarded as a strange moral phenomenon, that we have to deal ; and his biographer will best acquit himself of that by relating some well-attested anecdotes. Up to the age of forty, Cavendish was poor his total an- nual income (being an allowance from his father) not exceed- ing 2001.) indeed, according to some authorities, falling short of that sum. This was indeed a small stipend for the son of a noble family; and popular rumour was not slow to attribute the restricted amount to the displeasure of Lord Charles Caven- dish at the peculiarities and impracticable disposition of his son. The truth of this explanation, however, is by no means apparent. When about the age of forty, a very large for- tune came into the possession of Henry Cavendish left him, it is believed, by some distant relative ; but concerning this there is again some doubt. Our philosopher had so long been obliged to cultivate habits of economy, that, without CAVENDISH, 2^ being parsimonious, these habits had become engrafted in his system ; and after indulging in the purchase of books and instruments to the extent of his fullest wishes, he still found that the interest of money accumulated faster than he could spend it. He therefore presented an example of that very rare phenomenon a man whose pecuniary means were so large as to be troublesome. A curious instance of one of these singular troubles is as follows. On one occasion, his bankers in the City finding that a very large sum of money had accumulated in their tills to his account, and thinking that it had better not lie idly there, determined to wait on him and receive his instructions in the matter. Accordingly, one of the principals hied away to Clapham with the intention of seeking our philosopher in his lair. Tliat was no such easy matter ; for once committed to the recesses of his den, Henry Cavendish never liked to be disturbed. The banker knocked ; the subject of his visit was deli- cate ; it of course could only be communicated personally. To the interrogatories of the footman as to who he was r and what his desires might be, the only answer was that he wished personally to communicate with Mr. Cavendish. ' At any rate, sir,' replied the footman, 6 it would be as- much as my place is worth to disturb him now. You must wait until he rings his bell.' The banker had waited for more than an hour when the long-expected J)ell rang. The footman announced the man of business. 'What does he want with me?' Cavendish was heard to say. The footman explained the banker's desire to have a per- sonal interview. 'Tell him I cannot see him. I am very busy,' was the reply. 30 A CHEMICAL TRIAD. The footman bowed and retired. ' Stay,' interrupted his master ; ( how long has Mr. been waiting?' ' For more than an hour, sir.' * O, very well, very well. Send him up.' ' I am come, sir,' remarked the banker, ' to ascertain your wishes concerning a sum of eighty thousand pounds now placed to your account.' ' Does it inconvenience you?' demanded Cavendish. 'If so, I can transfer it elsewhere.' Inconvenience, sir? by no means,' replied the banker; * but pardon me for suggesting that it is too large a sum to remain unproductive; would you not like to invest it?' ' Invest it, eh ? yes, invest, if you like ; do as you please with it ; but don't interrupt me about such things again. I have other matters to think about.' Though not a philanthropist in any sense of the term, few persons have contributed more liberally towards the ac- complishment of philanthropic objects than Cavendish. Sub- scription-lists if not the bearers of them found ready access, and Cavendish dealt with them in a way peculiarly his own. Glancing over the list of subscribers, he would notice the largest amount subscribed, then contribute a like sum. This peculiarity became so well known, that it was frequently abused, a fictitious subscription being announced for the purpose of misleading our philosopher. Although in early life Cavendish must have exercised no little amount of frugality in making his slender income suffice, yet a certain ignorance of the value of money characterised him throughout life : in proof of this, the following anecdotes may be cited. At a time when the funds of the Royal Institution were far less ample than at pre- sent, Sir Humphry Davy, then attached to that society, had opened a subscription-list in order to purchase an expensive voltaic battery, an instrument necessary for the prosecution of some discoveries which have since immortalised his name, and CAVENDISH. 31 in which Cavendish was largely interested. People hoped that the philosophic millionaire would come down for a good round sum ; but he did not contribute one penny, notwithstanding the various hints thrown out in the proper direction. If this be construed into penuriousness, contrast it with the follow- ing: A scientific gentleman having fallen into pecuniary embarrassments, some friends managed to procure for him the situation of temporary librarian to Cavendish, whose books were as much confused as the pecuniary matters of the libra- rian. The task was executed satisfactorily, and the gentleman took his departure, having received the stipulated salary, but nothing more. A short time subsequently, Cavendish hap- pened to be present at a dinner of the Royal Society, and some friends of the quondam librarian thought it a good op- portunity for turning the conversation on the subject of their protege. His name accordingly was brought up. ' Ah ! how is he? what is he about?' inquired Cavendish. *Poor fellow! he is in the country, very badly off,' was the reply. 6 1 am very sorry, very,' said Cavendish. c We were hoping that you would have done something for him,' the friends ventured to remark. ^1 I I? whatcottWIdof 'We were hoping that you would have settled a small annuity upon him.' A dawn of light seemed to have irradiated the brain of Cavendish ; the thought, apparently so obvious, had only then occurred to him for the first time. ' True,' replied he hur- riedly ; 'would a cheque for fifteen thousand pounds be of use f Would a cheque for 15,000/. be of use ? what a question ! The cheque was drawn, and the needy man of science made comfortable for life. If the subject of our memoir did not possess that active, searching, and, what is equally important, that discriminating benevolence which seeks out the hidden recesses of misery, 32 A CHEMICAL TRIAD. and cheers them with timely assistance, we have at least seen that he was open to suggestions, and that, when he did unclasp his cheque-book, it was after the manner of a prince. He had no hatred of mankind ; but of womcmkind that much cannot with truth be stated. If a female servant chanced to meet him in his own house, however inadvertently, it was the certain prelude to her dismissal; and the whole neighbour- hood of Clapham was once lost in astonishment at a most remarkable phenomenon no less than this : Our philo- sopher, in one of his rural strolls, interposed to save a lady from the attacks of an infuriated bull. According to all the preconceived notions entertained respecting our friend, he would more probably have taken sides with the bull against the lady. On one occasion, when dining with the associated fellows of the Royal Society, some of the philosophers, after the dinner was over, happened, when looking out of the window, to be attracted by the appearance of some young lady on the oppo- site side of the street, whom curiosity had led to glance in the direction of the apartment where so many philosophers were dining. ' How lovely she is !' said one. < What a beauty !' whis- pered another. The moon had risen, but the fellows were not apostrophising the moon. Cavendish, however, thought they were, and went to the window to participate in their delight. No sooner did he discover his mistake than he uttered a faint scream, as was his wont when disturbed or annoyed, hobbled back to the table, and showed his disgust by one single ejacu- lation : it was ' Pshaw P Though not much addicted to conviviality, Cavendish was sometimes known to invite a few friends to dinner. On these occasions everybody knew beforehand the bill of fare : a leg of mutton with trimmings; in other words, a due accompani- ment of vegetables and sauce. Now a leg of mutton pleasant eating enough in itself is not expensive ; the number of a dinner-party, when nothing else is provided, must be limited CAVENDISH. 33 by imperious laws. Once Cavendish appeared to have for- gotten this idea of a limit ; he invited more guests than a leg of mutton could possibly suffice for. The result was an epis- tolary communication to that effect from his cook (direct verbal communication, we have seen, was never permitted) : 6 The leg of mutton will not be enough.' 6 In that case pro- vide twO) replied Cavendish. But I must draw this memoir of a celebrated man to a close, and shall do so by quoting the words of his biographer, Dr. Angus Smith : 6 Such, then, was Cavendish in life and death, as he ap- peared to those who knew him best. Morally, his character was a blank, and can be described only by a series of nega- tions. He did not love, he did not hate, he did not hope, he did not fear, he did not worship as others do. He separated himself from his fellow-men, and apparently from God. There was nothing earnest, enthusiastic, heroic, or chivalrous in his nature, and as little was there anything mean, grovelling, or ignoble. He was almost passionless. All that needed for its apprehension more than the pure intellect, or required the ex- ercise of fancy, imagination, affection, or faith, was distasteful to Cavendish. An intellectual head thinking, a pair of won- derfully acute eyes observing, and a pair of very skilful hands experimenting or recording, are all that I realise in reading his memorials. His brain seems to have been but a calculating engine; his eyes inlets of vision, not fountains of tears; his hands instruments of manipulation, which never trembled with emotion, or were clasped together in adoration, thanks- giving, or despair ; his heart only an anatomical organ, neces- sary for the circulation of the blood. Yet if such a being, who reversed the maxim, Nihil humani me alienum puto, cannot be loved, as little can he be abhorred or despised. He was, in spite of the atrophy or non-development of many of the faculties which are found in those in whom the " elements are kindly mixed," as truly a genius as the mere poets, painters, and D 34 A CHEMICAL TKIAD. musicians, with small intellects and hearts, and large imagi- nations, to whom the world is so willing to bend the knee. Cavendish did not stand aloof from other men in a proud or supercilious spirit, refusing to count them as fellows. He felt himself separated from them hy a great gulf, which neither they nor he could bridge over, and across which it was vain to extend hands or exchange greetings. A sense of isola- tion from his brethren made him shrink from their society and avoid their presence ; but he did so as one conscious of an infirmity, not boasting of an excellence. He was like a deaf-mute sitting apart from a circle, whose looks and ges- tures show that they are uttering and listening to music and eloquence, in producing or welcoming which he can be no sharer. He dwelt apart, and, bidding the world farewell, took the self-imposed vows of a scientific anchorite, and, like the monks of old, shut himself up within his cell. It was a kingdom sufficient for him, and from its narrow window he saw as much of the universe as he cared to see. It had a throne also, and from it he dispensed royal gifts to his bre- thren. He was one of the unthanked benefactors of his race, who was patiently teaching and serving mankind, whilst they were shrinking from his coldness, or mocking his peculiarities. He could not sing for them a sweet song, or create a " thing of beauty," which should be a " joy for ever," or touch their hearts, or fire their spirits, or deepen their reverence or their fervour. He was not a poet, a priest, or a prophet; but only a cold clear intelligence, laying down pure white light, which brightened everything on which it fell, but warmed nothing a star of at least the second, if not of the first, magnitude in the intellectual firmament.' How mournful to think that a man with so many excellences stood aloof from that generous and ennobling faith which would have quick- ened his dormant affections, and superadded to his intellectual eminence the attractiveness of Christian love ! 35 LAVOISIER. ANTOINE LAURENT LAVOISIER, the philosopher who gave the final coup de grace to the wild mysticism of alchemy, and laid the foundation of modern chemistry as we find it, was an extraordinary character. He was also an unfortunate man. He lost his head by a stroke of the guillotine in the stormiest part of the first French republic, and because of a tobacco question ! Yes, it was even so. For this cause, ostensibly, the wise, the generous, the benevolent Antoine Laurent La- voisier died. He was said by his enemies to have watered his tobacco ! It was in the year 1794, when the notorious triumvirate of public safety were committing their atrocities when to be good, or well-born, or rich, was each a sufficient cause to be held in suspicion by the triumvirate that Antoine Laurent Lavoisier and his friend Berthollet were engaged in making some of those discoveries which have rendered them both so celebrated. The house of Lavoisier was where they prose- cuted their experiments. That house was in Paris. Men engaged in any deep pursuit usually take little heed of poli- tical strife. They live in a world of abstraction all their own, and are not usually much influenced or affected by what is taking place outside their own sphere. Lavoisier was like our own Cavendish in one respect he was a scientific man, and he inherited riohes. His family had for many generations held the post of Fermier-General an office, I need hardly say, abolished before the time of which I write, because the terrible revolution swept all those posts of the old regime away. Would that all the crimes to be laid to the charge of the French revolutionists were so venial as this ! The office of Fermier-General was of this kind. A re- sponsible individual agreed, for a consideration, to pay into 36 A CHEMICAL TRIAD. the exchequer a fixed sum on behalf of certain things to- bacco being one. The Fermier-General then, whoever he might be, held the monopoly of the sale of tobacco for his own district. For many generations the post in question had been held by the family of Lavoisier. They grew wealthy upon it, which may be taken as a proof that they found it a good thing. No flagrant charge of impropriety was ever brought against the Lavoisiers. People shook their heads sometimes, smiled, and remarked that farmer -generalship was a fine trade they wished they had the like ; but if the old Lavoisier had been a little close, young Antoine Laurent, when the office devolved on him, was so generous thought so little of amassing wealth, and did so much good that it would have been difficult to find a rich government official with fewer enemies. Then, finally, when the storm of revolution came, and the lucrative sinecure, with others of its stamp, was swept away, Lavoisier treated the matter so lightly speaking of it as a positive gain, and as giving him more time to cultivate philosophy that the few who had been envious of him were constrained to admit Antoine Laurent Lavoisier to be what his friends and the world knew long before a philosopher. At the period to which these remarks apply, Lavoisier was living at Paris, whither he had come some years before, the better to follow out, in the society of congenial minds, some experiments in which he was engaged. Being himself rich, he threw open his house and his laboratory to those who, with similar tastes to his own, had fewer means of gratifying them. One great disadvantage under which a chemist is placed, in comparison with workers in other branches of phi- losophy, is the expense of the instruments with which he has to work. Many a student of pure mathematics has positively no instruments. If he have practically to apply his mathema- tics, a few fixed unchanging instruments are all he requires. Give the botanist a pocket lens, and, if he be luxurious, a LAVOISIER. 37 microscope, and he is well provided ; and though the instru- ments necessary to the astronomer are costly, they too are for the most part unchanging. But men who devote them- selves to new lines of chemical investigation frequently require instruments to be devised, and, what is still more difficult, the wherewithal to pay for them. Lavoisier, at the period to which this brings me, was en- gaged in proving what has since become a truth in the mouth of every moderately educated person, namely, that the dia- mond and charcoal are in composition identical. An investiga- tion so curious made great stir at the time. Our countryman Priestley, and the celebrated French chemist Berthollet, were appointed to come to the laboratory of Lavoisier, and see the experiments. Berthollet had already arrived, as I have said, but Priestley was yet absent. It was evening. A large argand lamp, having its rays cast downwards by a shade, played upon some diamonds laid on a piece of black paper, ready to be sacrificed to Lavoisier's splendid though expensive discovery. 6 It is well Robespierre does not know of this,' said Ber- thollet, a smile lighting up his large features, which seemed as if they had been chiselled out of a rock ; ' or it would make work for the Louisette.'* 6 We chemists are not high game enough for the monsters,' replied Lavoisier. ' These are indeed fearful times ! Ugh !' continued he, shuddering ; ' what the end will be, I know not.' ( It seems,' replied Berthollet, smiling, ' that some sort of revolutionary infection is in the air : even you, my friend, are struck with the malady.' Indeed, few persons have been more revolutionary than * The instrument of death invented by Dr. Guillotin, and now univer- sally known as the guillotine, was for a time denominated the Louisette, because it was the deputy Louis who first made himself acquainted with its capabilities, and furnished a report upon them to the National Assembly. 38 A CHEMICAL TRIAD. Lavoisier in his own way. He revolutionised the whole do- mains of chemistry ; he reduced the nomenclature of that science to a system, and gave us most of the names by which chemical substances are at the present time known. f l shall not wait longer for Priestley,' at length said Lavoisier ; * I am impatient to show you my experiment :' and, saying this, he made arrangements for burning a piece of iron wire in oxygen gas. Every itinerant chemical lecturer performs the experiment now, because it is so brilliant. The performance of it by Lavoisier, in the presence of his friend Berthollet, marked the downfall of a theory. It was one of the capital discoveries of Lavoisier, that when a body was burned and the results of combustion collected, they were invariably heavier than the body consumed ; from which it is quite clear that combustion cannot depend upon the loss of a something which philosophers called ' phlogiston,' but that it is attended with the gain of something. So Lavoisier pro- ceeded to weigh his iron wire ; he then burned it, and weighed the result of combustion ; no difficult matter in this case, in- asmuch as that result is a solid. 1 shall not entrap the reader against his knowledge, giving him a chemical lecture in the place of a biographical incident; but it will be at least worth while to make him aware of some of the great points of philosophy developed by the subject of this sketch. Whilst Lavoisier and Berthollet were thus engaged, the bell rang, and immediately afterwards Priestley was intro- duced. 6 Mon ami,' said Lavoisier, going to meet him, and grasp- ing his hand, ' why so late T Priestley trembled, and was pale ; his coat, too, was torn ; lie sank into a chair, and for a time could find no words. When at last he spoke, Priestley explained that he had been lost in a crowd of revolutionary miscreants, who were parading the streets with a model of the guillotine. Such LAVOISIEK. 39 wild revels were frequent at the time. Bands of savage crea- tures, after glutting their eyes with the sanguinary scenes of a wholesale execution, would parade the streets of an evening, calling at the guinguettes, and quaffing strong drinks ; carry- ing with them a model of the guillotine, which every now and then they would set down, and display its mechanism to all who contributed a sou. It was dangerous for a well-dressed person to be in the streets at this time. Rags and drunken- ness were the only claims on the respect of these depraved wretches, the ' sans culottes,' as they gloried in being called. Whilst Priestley was yet explaining the cause of his absence, the ignoble throng surged by. Hoarsely they yelled the revolutionary street-cries of the day : ( A. bas les rois,' f music, living in a city where discordant sounds prevail, does well to seclude himself, and trust his own perceptions. But he would be a foolish composer who, living in a grove, amidst the warbling of birds, should close his senses to their influence. Dalton was an honest, bold, and self-reliant man. Whatever he at- tempted, he preferred to do alone. To be honourably inde- pendent was the maxim of his life its spring, its motive force. This is an honourable sentiment: few men have it in excess. But even a sentiment, good intrinsically, may be unduly developed. Perfection of human character is the result of a balance established between faculties, not of the expansion of one. Dalton's negligence, his contempt almost of the labours of others, made him perhaps a greater genius, but a lesser man. His self-reliance partook of the nature of pride; and pride, like other faults, prepares a scourge for itself. Dalton's small reading was the cause of his sometimes appearing in the character of a plagiarist, though quite un- wittingly. He accomplished some discoveries which had been discovered before things great and wonderful, considered as the fruits of mental exercise, but of a bygone age. The doctrine of atoms which he had given to chemists was an agent of tremendous power an engine wherewith the rocks of crude knowledge could be moved and shattered, and their gems of truth laid bare. These rocks of knowledge had already been chronicled in books, as rocks and quicksands are depicted on geographic charts. Dalton, like a traveller rich in instruments, but ignorant of geography, knew not where to find them. Other travellers borrowed his tools, shattered the rocks, and unmined the gems. To develop and unravel the laws of atoms was to realise the brightest philosophic day- dream of modern times a great and memorable work. The later efforts of Dalton were less happy. He failed chiefly because he knew not what others had done ; thereby furnish- DALTON. 63 ing a proof, were it required, that a single human intellect, even when brightest and clearest, is a weak and limited thing. As Dalton grew older, he overrated his powers. A paper of his, sent to the Koyal Society, and rejected, first aroused in him the suspicion of this fact. On the returned paper Dalton wrote a few words, which have the force of an epitaph : * I sent the account of the Phosphates and Arseniates to the Eoyal Society. It was rejected. Cavendish, Davy, Wollas- ton, and Gilbert, are no more !' On the 18th of April 1837 he was seized with an attack of paralysis, from which he never quite recovered. On Feb- ruary 15th, 1838, he was attacked again; but rallying, he still talked of science ; and speaking of a scientific man whom he had seen in France, he said, 6 Ah ! he was a wreck then, as I am now.' His end was near. On May 27th, attempting to rise from bed, he fell on the floor and died. It would be injudicious to close this sketch without ad- verting to some modifications of opinion the atomic theory has undergone and is still undergoing. Just at this time chemists are divided in opinion as to the existence or non- existence of atoms ; and for some years past a distinction has been found necessary between molecules and atoms. The ex- pression equi-valent has no longer the universality claimed for it by Dalton. Chemists now speak of mono- di- tri-valents, &c. The atomicity or non-atomicity of matter will probably never be determined ; but the definite proportionality of che- mical combination, as established by Dalton, is a fact. As- sume the existence of atoms, and we find a cause for this definite proportionality ; deny the existence of atoms, and the result is inexplicable. To quote an expression of Monsieur Dumas : Matter may be atomic, or it may not be atomic ; but if atomic, its elements must observe definite ratios of combination exactly as they do now. COSMETICS. THE SKIN. WHAT are \ve to say about the propriety of painting the skin? The subject is one that would soon lead the inquiring mind into troubled waters ; or, if the figure of speech be thought unfitting, would lead it to troublous issues. A lady about to paint, or varnish, or enamel herself, has first, if she be wise, to consider the matter from a hygienic or health-disposing point of view. She has to consider what the skin is, what it has to do, and how the interior economy may resent any vio- lation done to this delicate expansion. Having decided to rouge upon a white ground, she has to consider what the white ground shall be, and what the pink to be laid upon it. Ah, ladies, you do not think of these matters you never will think of these matters ! The perfumer, then, must do it for you, as he does for the most part conscientiously. The white pigments used for skin-purposes at the present time are com- monly harmless ; time was when a verdict so favourable could not have been given. As for rouge, the best is a preparation, by a treatment unnecessary to state here, from the coccus cacti, or cochineal insect ; an inferior sort is got from safflower, the petals of a flower used in dyeing. White skin-pigments usu- ally go under the name of ' pearl-powder ;' though the com- position of none of them has anything to do with pearls, and though so-called pearl-powders differ extremely in their nature. I shall treat of their composition by and by; pausing now to note the troubled waters, or troublous issues, as may seem the trope most fitting, to which I adverted. THE SKIN 65 If skin-powder cosmetics are indeed harmless, as those now used mostly are, then what troubles are we to encounter ? Moral troubles conscience troubles, ladies fair. You know what opinions some people hold in respect to what they call vanity. You know how sinful it is in the estimation of some people to tint the skin. Would you wish me a man liking peace and quiet to pronounce opinions on this point, to state whether I approve of skin-painting, regarded from a moral point of view, or disapprove of it ? Goodness, no ! I hate argument. The morality of the thing, ladies, pray settle among yourselves. Still, perhaps some people may accede to a few general propositions ; the first being that any lady whose complexion is good already had better let well alone. It is not within the competence of any art to give the delicate tints which mantle upon a really beautiful female skin. My advice to ladies having delicate complexions, and valuing the gift, would be to keep their complexions good by observance of certain points of discipline. Early hours, not too much danc- ing, distilled water for the toilet, and low alkalised soap. If asked to specify the greatest enemy to the duration of a lady's complexion, I would state the London season ; re- curring again and again, with all its hard work, its mental anxieties and general rigour. Yet there will be London sea- sons many, despite my vaticinations ; and belles must disport themselves in hot drawing-rooms, and eat ices after the ball's warm glow ; and turn night into day. They must do all this and more ; all not conducive to good health, and hence not to the maintenance of the highest ideal of skin-beauty. Where- fore, after a certain age, I suppose skin-pigments there must be, as there always have been. There was a time when the chemical nature of things was not so well known as to-day ; when the creamy whiteness of flake-white none other than superior white-lead entered into the composition of pearl-powders. I need not pause to reprobate the awful danger of employing this material for 66 COSMETICS. such a purpose, seeing that the employment is abandoned. Subsequently to the going-out of white-lead as face or pearl- powder, another metallic preparation the trisnitrate of bis- muth came in. It is not so decidedly poisonous as a lead compound, but it is poisonous enough to prove injurious to the skin ; indeed, I know not of any metallic pigment so in- nocent that it can be laid-on the skin continuously without incurring serious damage. Such pigments mar the beauty of the skin at least, perhaps lead to evil constitutional effects through absorption. Even if white-lead and trisnitrate of bismuth were not injurious to the skin and poisonous generally, their use as skin-pigments would be attended with a great disadvantage. They both turn black under the influence of sulphuretted hydrogen a gas which in small quantities exists pretty largely diffused. The effect of bringing concentrated sul- phuretted hydrogen in contact with skin whitened by a lead or bismuth preparation would be to turn the skin sud- denly black. Under the usual circumstances of society, no such extreme issue as utter blackness need be contemplated ; but a certain darkening of colour would rapidly ensue, de- stroying the harmony of the work of art perfected with so much care dissipating the illusion of a beautiful complexion. The tale is recorded in books of a certain lady who had been whitening her skin with trisnitrate of bismuth magistery of bismuth our grandmammas and grandpapas called it and who chanced to bathe whilst whitened thus in the Harrogate waters. Harrogate is celebrated for its sulphurous springs. The water of these springs holds sulphuretted hydrogen dis- solved. If it be a fact that the lady in question went into a Harrogate bath of sulphurous water whilst skin-painted with bismuth magistery, then it must have come true what the tale records, viz. that she in one instant turned as black, wherever the pigment was laid on, as any Ethiop. Pearl-powders, as now used, are variously made. Some THE SKIN. 67 are nothing else than powdered talc or French chalk ; others, a mixture of the same with common chalk ; a third order con- tains starch-grains mingled with the preceding one, or both, By starch-grains I would be meant to signify the preparation known as ( violet-powder,' which really has no more to do with violets than it has with cabbages or cucumbers; being really no- thing else than starch-grains odorised by orris-root irisfloren- tina, sweet-smelling iris a root that smells not unlike violets. Much discrimination is used by perfumers in selecting a proper sort of starch-grain. Whencesoever starch comes, it has the general characteristic of being in grains. These are readily made manifest under microscopic examination, and are then found to be different, not merely as to size, but as to shape. Hence it is that the investigator can tell whether one kind of starch be mingled or adulterated with another. For example, arrowroot genuine arrowroot is starch obtained from the Maranta arundinacea. It happens to have an agree- able taste, and hence is so valuable for dietetic uses. It is more expensive than the starch of wheat or of potatoes ; than starch indeed generally, hence it is often contaminated. The grains of wheaten starch happen to be large and coarse; hence the material, although it will do very well for hair-powder, is not satisfactory when used as a complexion- powder; the grains are too staring. Horse-chestnut starch has been much employed for this purpose ; so in like manner the starch of ordinary chestnuts; in short, perfumers have, or pretend to have, each a speciality. Nothing whatever can be alleged against any starch pure and simple when used for toilet purposes; on the contrary, it imparts a softness and a freshness both salutary and delightful. Violet-powder hardly comes under the definition of a cos- metic. When made-up with other ingredients to constitute the so-called pearl-powder, is it injurious then ? That will depend on the character of the materials with which it is compounded. On white-lead I have already pronounced. 68 COSMETICS. It may well be called fatal ; not only to beauty, but in certain cases to life also, and to health in all cases. In ordinary domestic usage, thus to write, in the ordinary employment of skin-cosmetics by ladies themselves, violet- powder, the so-called pearl-powder, and rouge, usually com- plete the list. When female charms have so much waned that higher artistic resources are needed, or are thought to be needed, the case is one for out-of-door practice. Then come the operations of enamelling and blue-veining, operations that are kept a secret, but in performing which the chemist, if he so pleased, could beat the professed artists who make ladies ' beautiful for ever' out of the field. I have already adverted to collodion as being a material that may be used to give the appearance of artificial skin, and I have indicated some limitations to its employment. As then stated, I have no doubt that a human individual, man or woman, might be killed by the laying-on of an investiture of collodion all over the body. Death would be induced by occluding the cutaneous pores, checking exhalation, perspira- tion, and skin-respiration. It does not thence follow, however, that a layer of collodion may not be deposited over limited sur- faces of the skin with impunity, nay in some cases with advan- tage. Suppose, for instance, that a finger has been cut or scalded, and the cuticle removed. The immediate injury may not be grave, but it becomes irritating through collateral cir- cumstances. Not only does the part look ugly something to be regarded in a pretty hand but every touch of salt, vinegar, soap, and a thousand other things that might be mentioned, and that we are obliged to touch, induce and keep-up a troublesome irritation. The wound thus perpetually worried, so to speak, gets worse and worse, and all for want of cover- ing. In such a case, collodion is a real boon. I mean true collodion, or solution of gun-cotton in ether. There is a spurious collodion, which is made by dissolving gutta-percha, he effect of which is by no means so good. THE SKIN. 69 The use that might be made of collodion for cosmetic purposes happened to be brought under my notice casually during medical attendance on a case in my own practice. A blister having been applied to the chest of a girl whilst in the condition known to physicians as that of anaemia, or defi- cient blood, the blistered part, instead of healing kindly, as it should have done, mortified. The patient being supported by administration of stimulants, the mortified part in time came away, leaving a frightful wound extending all over the chest, and up into the visible part of the neck. At a certain stage of treatment collodion was had recourse to, for encroaching on this wound around the edges, imparting a ring of artifi- cial skin, in point of fact. The practice had no reference to- beauty at that time, but I could not fail to be struck with the beauty of the work in addition to its surgical efficacy. Wher- ever the collodion had deposited and dried, there was not only a protective surface, but a very satisfactory-looking skin, a little too white and glazed for nature, but yet satisfactory. When my patient got better, and wished to appear in society, the suggestion came from her that I would perform the office of Madame Rachel, that I would enamel her neck, and make it presentable. I did my best, and, for one who took-up ex- temporaneously a new art, the success was encouraging. W^ith the artificial skin to begin upon, touched-up with now a rub, now a stipple, of rouge and pearl-powder, and finished-off with violet-powder, I turned-out a work of art beautiful to look at from afar, and not contemptible on nearer scrutiny. Ha\ing no intention to devote myself to this branch of practice for my own immediate emolument, and as little intending to patent the process for acquiring wealth in an indirect way, it would be a useless and a churlish thing for me to hide my knowledge under a bushel. I throw it open for the benefit of science, of beauty, and Madame Rachel. To one conclusion I have come, videlicet, the real artistic want I felt was the absence of those short downy hairs which, grow- 70 COSMETICS. ing all over the skin, impart a look of such delicacy and soft- ness. The absence of this down is very conspicuous on a waxwork presentment of the human face divine. Anybody with true artistic eye, having gazed on a waxwork, even the most admirably finished, must have been struck with a certain ghastly unreality; he perhaps knows not what or why. It may seem strange that it should be, yet so it is. The defect can hardly be due to that merely explicable on the assump- tion of imperfect colouring; it must be referred to a deeper source. It comes of this, namely, the wax surface is wholly devoid of those small hairs of that soft down; hence the unreality. Now to the point. Whenever, if ever, and per- haps it will be sooner than I think whenever some artist in female-charm rejuvenation, commencing where I left off, takes up this cdllodionising treatment of the fair, I counsel him or her to devise some means of imparting the much- desiderated downy finish. I think it could be effected in the same way that the manufacture of plush-enamelled paper is effected. This, however, is a point to be investigated by any one who, profiting by the indications herein set down, may think proper to work-out the process to his or her own profit. Consideration of the skin naturally leads on to the hair and nails, between both which and the cuticle there is a close similarity. The hair claims cosmetic priority. What can be more beautiful than it, when copious, soft, and delicately tended? what more hateful, more destructive of the charm of loveliness, when allowed to degenerate into savagery by some inappropriate treatment? A hair consists of three parts the root, which is fixed in the skin, the shaft or stem, and the point. The usual shape of the stem is a cylinder ; it may be flattened, or even grooved. Hair, we all know, varies much as to size. What a difference, for example, between the whiskers of a cat and the hairs of the sleek coat of her tiny victim ! Even for one THE SKIN AND HAIK. 71 and the same species, and one and the same part of growth, there may be much variety as to the fineness of hair, as the human head exemplifies. As to the further structure of hairs, it is more complex than those people may imagine who abuse it by hair-dye so remorselessly. The stem of each hair is covered with a coating of scales overlapping each other like those on the skin of a fish. Hence comes the property of felt- ing, which only consists in beating a layer of hairs, laid upon a flat surface, sharply until they interlace and hold tight one to the other, held by their rough external surfaces. Inside this scaly covering comes a fibrous substance, making up the chief part of the stem ; and in the very middle of it, running like a streak of alder-pith along a branch, is often a sort of marrow. This central pith, however, does not exist in all hairs. It is wanting in the fine hairs over the general surface of the body, and is not commonly met with in those of the head. The special pigment that constitutes the difference of colour be- tween different hairs resides in this pith when present, also in the fibrous matter. We now come to the hair-root. It is lighter in colour and softer than the stem, swelling out at its lower end into a bulbous knot, lying in a special recess called the hair-fol- licle, which may reach down to the subadjacent fat. It is known that women more rarely grow bald than men, and it is accounted for by the circumstance that women have more fat underneath their head-skin, thus furnishing a richer soil, so to speak, for the feminine tresses to spring from. Usually hair is wholly devoid of sensation, else it would go hard with us when we submit to hair-cutting. There is a certain disease, however, not unusual in Poland, and known as the plica polonica, the characteristic of which is that the hair grows sensitive, and when cut bleeds even dangerously. Some physiologists have entertained the belief, that from the insertion of each hair-filament to its extremity a fluid passes, and thence back again. The reality of this circulation, how- 72 COSMETICS. ever, has not been demonstrated. The diverse colour of vari- ous heads of hair is referable, as we have seen, to the presence of special colouring matters. Hence it follows that if such colouring-matters be absent, the remaining hair is white. Narrations abound of the hair having turned white suddenly after some shock, or fright, or other violent mental emotion. No satisfactory explanation of this has ever been offered, and some physiologists deny the fact wholly. Among the number of these must be mentioned Dr. Davy, who, some years ago (1861), read a paper on the subject at the British Association. It is his opinion that hair never turns gray save under the influence of impaired health, or of age. Much study is popu- larly considered to turn the hair gray, and long-continued anxiety. The imputation is doubtless true; but then the immediate cause of grayness may still be impaired health. Haller, in his Elementa Pliysiologice, discusses the evid- ence for and against the sudden change of hair to gray exhaus- tively. He refers to eight authorities for proof of such change, but, finally summing up the evidence on behalf of himself, he comes to the same conclusion as Dr. Davy. Those who adopt the popular opinion fortify their argument by referring to the colour-mutations certain animals and birds undergo with change of season. Mountain-hares and ermines, ex. gr., ac- quire white fur towards winter. In like manner so do lem- mings. Mr. Blyth the naturalist examined a lemming that was just undergoing this change, and satisfied himself that the whiteness was referable to special new hairs, not to defect in colouring-matter of the hairs previously growing. For my own part, I confess to a leaning towards the popular belief. If the sudden change of hair from dark to gray be not a fact, I am at a loss to account for the belief to the contrary, which is almost universal; finding expression in the traditions and the poetry of so many nations. Of far higher value than any expression of credence on my part is the testimony of the celebrated skin and hair physiologist and practitioner, Mr. THE SKIN AND HAIR. 73 Erasmus Wilson, who has no hesitation in giving credence to the popular belief. Still, doubtless many of the instances of such change that have found their way into history and narrative are otherwise explicable. Thus, for example, history attests the sudden change of Marie Antoinette's hair from black to gray after her imprisonment. As to this, there now exists little doubt, I believe, that the unfortunate queen's hair had become gray before her imprisonment, but that she darkened it assiduously by some sort of hair-dye. When imprisoned she could no longer obtain this hair-dye : hence the natural gray colour of her tresses became apparent. The same explanation awaits the conspirator Orsini, who was executed at Paris some years ago. When he went to the scaffold his hair and beard were gray ; when he went into prison they were black. It is well established that Orsini had been in the habit of using hair- dyes. Were it not thus made out, his case, too, would be cited amongst the instances corroborative of popular opinion. Though the hair be wholly devoid of feeling, it is not de- void of life; it soon resents any discipline founded on the treatment of it as mere dead filaments. It cannot be pinched with hot irons, or crinkled in and out a waver, without caus- ing speedy deterioration ; as many ladies have, when too late, discovered to their cost. No style of hair-dressing is so con- genial to its well-being as that of arranging it in plain bands. Curling, in whatever w r ay conducted, is injurious ; curling by hot irons most injurious of all. Far more prejudicial, how- ever, are some of these crinkling and waving operations, which unfortunately have become fashionable. They are only second in evil to certain operations of dyeing, and, still worse, bleach- ing, which will be noticed further on. English curls boucles Anglaises have acquired a civilised -world -wide celebrity. The former predilection of English ladies for ringlets is not to be considered a matter of taste alone, this style of hair-dress- ing being peculiarly appropriate to English hair and the 74 COSMETICS. English climate. Our fair sex are not celebrated for the profusion of their hair, in that respect there is hardly a peasant-girl of France, Italy, Spain, or Germany that would not have the advantage ; but English ladies' hair is usually of admirable quality soft and silky, a condition indispensable to the formation and maintenance of pleasing ringlets. Hair may be easily too long for this style of adornment : foreign women's hair is usually too long. Moreover, the moisture of the English climate promotes just that degree of rigidity in the helix twist which is indispensable to beauty. Mostly, when a continental lady emulates the boucles Anglaises, the result is not satisfactory. The ringlets are prone to assume a certain corkscrew aspect, hard, and the reverse of pleasing. Coming now to the discipline of the hair, the method or methods of keeping it in order, I believe the more it feels the touch of atmospheric air the better for its condition. The magnificent masses of hair to be seen on the heads of foreign peasant-girls, who never wear bonnets or other head-covering, is a standing proof of the soundness of this doctrine. Con- versely, again, who can have failed to remark the tendency to baldness which any persistent covering of the head induces I Look at barristers men whom precedent and tradition com- pel to smother their pericranium in an investiture of powdered horsehair see how bald they tend to be, how bald they mostly are. I would advise a barrister entering his profession with a good head of hair, to have it powdered and got-up horsehair-wig fashion. Is there any cure for baldness when it has become con- firmed? Are those elixirs, those balms of Gilead, those rosemary essences, and other things which hair-dressers talk to one about in such bland persuasive tones, are they fact or are they delusion? And what shall we say about bear's-grease, that was once held in such repute, and the hair-producing character of which still lingers, as did the odour of flowers to Tommy Moore's broken vase ? Delusions THE SKIN AND HAIR. 75 ally I fear ; at any rate mostly all. Consideration of the struc- ture and anatomy of individual hairs will prompt to this con- clusion, and experience, I think, confirm it. Each hair, as I have already explained, springs from a bulb, and each hair- bulb is naturally bedded in its own socket. The arrangement is one very comparable to that of a tooth in its jaw-socket and membranous investiture. If a hair be broken off, or if, grow- ing weak from one of many causes, it withers down, leaving the root behind, then doubtless much may be done to effect restoration by proper treatment ; but if the bulb has wholly gone, and the skin once closed up, then one might as well expect to grow a new tooth from the gap whence a tooth had been extracted, as to evolve a new hair from that particular bulb-socket. The only effectual way I know of for imparting a new head of hair to a pericranium upon which the blight of actual alopecia has fallen, is transplantation. It is a well-established fact that hairs can be transplanted from one head to another, and that when thus transplanted they will grow. I say nothing about the pain such an operation would cause tJiat is a matter to be thought of by the patient. In like manner, feathers and teeth will grow if similarly transplanted. The experiment was tried, and it succeeded, of transplanting a tooth to the comb of a cock. These physiological facts are suggestive of much cranial artistic beauty, whenever fashion may prompt individuals to incur the pain of its infliction. One can readily imagine the imposing beauty that would come of adorning human heads with birds' feathers. It would be some sort of triumph for a lady to boast that she grew her own ostrich-plumes ; and it would not be difficult for men of the law to set-off their naturally bald pates with such a resem- blance of the conventional horsehair-wig idealised as might satisfy the punctilio of any martinet judge. I have dealt with the proposition, seeing that it comes naturally developed out of the postulate hereinbefore set down. As this thesis is intended 76 COSMETICS. to be practical, intended for the present, moreover, not for pos- terity, it would be hardly worth while to bestow more thought on an expedient that, whatever its demonstrable feasibility, is one for the adoption of which people are not yet prepared. When hairs have withered away down to their respective bulbs, their growth can be promoted by certain applications. Among these, cantharides, or Spanish flies, have acquired a celebrity which, upon the whole, may be pronounced merited. Cantharidine, however, in all its various states, is so powerful an agent that the employment of it should never be trusted to the discretion of a hairdresser. Pernitrate of mercury is another agent that has grown into repute for the same pur- pose. This also, however, is dangerous when used too strong, and its degree of concentration can only be judged of in respect to each particular case. The repute acquired by bear's-grease for strengthening the hair, and even overcoming alopecia, is wholly unfounded. Bear's-grease first came into vogue through application of what is called the doctrine of signatures, whereby it was, in one stage of medical belief inferred that each particular agent used, or capable of being used, gave evidence by external sign of inward potentiality. Thus inasmuch as bears were seen to grow a strong coat of hair, the signature was adopted as foundation for the belief that any scalp to which bear's-grease might be applied should forthwith produce hair in true bearish fashion. Very conducive to the well-being of hair is assiduous re- moval of the small cutaneous scales that invest every inch of the skin it grows upon. Brushing accomplishes this well, and the mild friction of the brush is also advantageous by stimu- lating a proper supply of blood towards the hair-roots. Let no one be led away by the notion that so-called magnetic brushes are of especial use. Magnetic brushes are like any ordinary brushes, in effect neither better nor worse. True, in- deed, each of these magnetic brushes has a magnet fixed into its reverse ; but any person acquainted with magnetism will THE SKIN AND HAIR. 77 feel assured that the conditions of arrangement are altogether incompatible with the exercise of any magnetic influence. Beyond combing and brushing, what are the best expe- dients for hair-cleaning ? In man there is nothing so good as soap-and-water lather ; but the plan cannot be recommended for ladies. The alkali of soap is not congenial to the gloss and beauty of female hair ; moreover, to some extent, alka- line contact affects the colouring-matter, and changes its tint. Men are above or beside these considerations, but they should be regarded by ladies. Glycerine and lime-juice, so called, is not glycerine and lime-juice at all. It is merely scented oil and lime-water. Glycerine and rose-water is much better. The advantage of glycerine is, that it imparts to the hair a soft silky brilliancy ; the so-called brilliantine, in point of fact, which gentlemen vain young ones use for their whiskers and moustaches is only glycerine scented. For bandoline, nothing is better perhaps nothing so good as a very small fragment of gum- tragacanth dissolved in water and perfumed. The fragment must be very small, otherwise the solution will turn the accroche-cceur into a veritable horn, uncomfortable to wear and ungraceful to look at. People who use pomades should be very careful that they do not apply injurious colouring-matters to the hair. The fashion these some years past has come in of using yellow or straw-coloured pomades. They are elegant to look at, and so long as the yellow tint is imparted by palm-oil, as it should be, they are, sanitarily considered, unobjectionable. I fear, however, that in many instances the peculiar tint of yellow so much desiderated is given by incorporation with some in- jurious metallic compound. Roseate pomades are never, on account of their colouring-matter, objectionable, the tint being always imparted by alkanet root, which is wholly innocuous. The oleaginous composition of pomades varies greatly. Spermaceti, and almost any animal oil or fat except mutton- 78 COSMETICS. fat may be employed in their composition. I believe the very best oleaginous hair-application consists of a mixture of castor-oil and alcohol, two parts by measure of the former to one of the latter, the whole perfumed according to taste. The circumstance should here be mentioned that castor-oil is the only oil admitting of this treatment ; if, for example, it were attempted to combine olive-oil with alcohol, the operator would soon find he had taken trouble in vain. Between the two no union would ensue ; and the same remark applies to every oil, with the exception of castor-oil. The hair of human beings, as well as of animals, holds sul- phur in its composition, and retains this element obstinately. Thus, if a scrap of flannel a thousand times, or even ten thou- sand times, washed be taken and analysed for sulphur, this element will invariably be found. As will be seen hereafter, the theory of the action of a certain class of hair-dyes turns upon this sulphurous presence. It is a property of sulphur and more especially of a certain sulphur-containing gas to turn several metallic combinations black. Lead is one of the metals in this category, and accordingly lead has formed the basis of more than one hair-dye. Bismuth is another of these metals, and silver another; the blackening function of silver salts, however, when used as hair-dyes, is not wholly referable to this sulphurous reaction. Poets have*often expatiated on the harmonies of Nature ; and whateverjhas been the theme of poetic thought and dic- tion from the earliest times is almost certain to be true. Nothing can be more adverse to the truth than to regard poetry, after] the manner of some, as the wild outpourings in language of lawless day-dreams void of order or coherence or reference to fact. Eather should the poet's lucubrations be looked upon as the crystallised essence of truths made to him apparent by the light within, and demonstrable hereafter by the slower mechanism of reason and induction. Thus has it come about in the fulness of time that the harmonies of THE SKIN AND HAIE. 79 Nature, of which poets sang in days of yore while science yet was not, have been confirmed by investigation and made evident to understanding. Harmony can come through each and every sense, though acoustic harmonies are, to common appreciation, the most evident. In respect to these, study of the science of acoustics has reduced them to order and cer- tainty. Every physiologist knows, so does every musician, that the most perfect of all harmonies is fundamental tone to octave ; so perfect indeed, that one desiderated effect of har- mony is almost lost, the two or more notes coalescing into one integrate tone; all individuality departed, or rather merged, the general effect being a mere intensification of loudness. In respect to the acoustics of Nature, the voices of her streamlets as they murmur past, or the sterner tone of her more impetuous rivers, the seething plash of cataracts, and the wild throb and intermittent bellowing of the mighty sea, there is nothing inharmonious in all these tones. Swelling together, they come to the ear of man impressed with no quality to shock his acoustic sense. Thus also with the breezy whisper through forest-leaves, or those wild voices that the tempest wakes, even to heaven's artillery, the mighty thunder. Thus too with the voices of birds. Songsters chirp and warble nay, croak and crow yet all is harmonious. Birds ay, think of it, doctors of music and learned maestri and orchestral conductors, each and all whose duty it is to solve the mysteries of acoustic art birds may sing all toge- ther each a different song and in a different key, yet their singing produces no discord. Much has been written of this, but much is still unknown. Ingenious Daines Barrington considered that the reason why birds can establish a Dutch concert, each singing his own tune, each in a different key, is because the timbre of bird-music is pitched so high as to lie beyond the range of human acoustic let me say ' vision.' Then the harmonies of Nature's colouring, how beautiful 80 COSMETICS. they are! Every physicist knows that white light is a compound of three primitive lights, blue, red, and yellow. Into these separate tints a ray of white light may be ana- lysed by the prism, but in different measured proportions. Looking at the prismatic spectrum, we soon perceive that there is less of blue light than either of red or yellow ; where- fore it follows that if in any picture the blue light should pre- dominate, a sense of discord would be suggested, violating perfect harmony. Mark, then, how Nature ordains her colour harmonies. Regard the flowers we see in any one tableau of nature, and observe how the red and yellow and white ones predominate ; thus preserving the balance between the three tints that should obtain in order to make-up harmonious colouring. In regard to the harmony of taste, Brillat Savarin would not have thought that individual worth argument who should have seriously doubted the reality of it. Why should apple-sauce have come to be accepted as the proper accom- paniment for goose and duck, mint-sauce for lamb 1 Why do we eat mustard with beef and pork and duck and goose, not with lamb or mutton, chicken or game, if not guided and regulated by a sense of this sort of harmony 1 And of smell ; how is it that certain odorous things go well together, whilst other odorous things go ill together, but for the existence of the functions of gustatory harmony and discord I To demonstrate the harmonies of touch is not so easy; but instances can be adduced making it evident. If ice felt warm to the touch, or feathers cool, the sense of tactile har- mony would be violated. What has all this to do with the dyeing and bleaching of human hair? for to that at last I am coming. Much rather, everything. It has soon to be explained that Nature does not give hair tints at random, any more than she gives blue corn-flowers to harmonise with yellow corn, or red pop- THE SKIN AND HAIR. 81 pies to mingle with the green corn-stalks yet immature. The tint of hair has been arranged according to the fixed canon of colour-harmony. We cannot alter that tint without destroy- ing the balance of that harmony. The real amount of power the chemical hairdresser has of changing the colour of hair, or even of dyeing white hair which represents the simplest case of all is very limited. If, however, the whole chro- matic range were available, the result would not be harmo- nious to any artistic eye. To make the work perfect, the operator would have to alter the entire tint of skin in order that it might harmonise with the changeling. Nevertheless, hair is sometimes dyed, ay bleached in order to be dyed ; and I recording events as they are, not palliating them am bound to explain the manner of doing it. The simplest case that can arise is that of gray, or, better, white hair. The operator wishes to change it to a darker colour that is easy enough; but wishing to change it to some particular colour, the artist soon finds himself hampered and shackled in his resources. We will first take the case of black, that being the most simple. Orientalists, Turks, Per- sians, and Egyptians set great store on having black beards ; and when these are not naturally black, they are frequently made so by dyeing. The Persians, who affect a blue-black, are said to use indigo extensively for this purpose; but the Turks and Egyptians more affect a sort of pasty writing-ink, made of pyrogallic acid and the powder of a native ore of iron. Amongst the people of the West these hair-dyes are wholly unused. They mostly- employ certain metallic bodies, to be presently noticed ; but some are content with the colour given by the juice of walnuts. In countries where the use of nitrate of silver prevails for any purpose, whether fused and solid, as in surgery, or in solution, as marking-ink, or for photography, the idea must speedily have been suggested of its employment as a hair-dye. Not only solution of nitrate of silver, indeed, but every pre- G 82 COSMETICS. paration of silver, blackens when exposed to air and light; accordingly the number of silver preparations which from first to last have been employed as indelible inks and as hair- dyes is very great. I need not specify them here. To one and all the defect attaches of not only dyeing the hair, but everything they come in contact with. The nails, the skin, even the teeth if it should happen to touch them, are dyed black by nitrate of silver, and other silver solutions. This is a serious defect, but it does not stand alone. If the surface of a piece of bone or ivory the handle of a tooth-brush, for example be dyed black with nitrate of silver, and continu- ously exposed to light, a coat of metallic splendour will at length become apparent, mingled with iridescent hues like the tints on the neck of a dove. This chromatic play of tints is very beautiful, in suitable places and under proper circum- stances. It is out of place when seen in the human hair ; yet I could specify the moustache and whiskers of certain old .gentlemen known to me, whereon that silvery splendour and those dove-like tints may be seen in much perfection. Accordingly, notwithstanding the convenience of its ap- plication, solutions of silver cannot be recommended as hair- dyes, and consequently they have much gone out of vogue. A hair-dye, to be as good as it can be, should have the pro- perty of dyeing the hair alone, leaving the skin untouched. This can be accomplished by the use of some one amongst many metallic solutions, and the rationale is explicable on grounds of physiological chemistry. First, it is needful to state that nearly all the ordinary or calcigenous metals when dissolved yield solutions that are blackened by the contact of sulphuretted hydrogen gas, a compound holding sulphur. Secondly, it is needful to state that the element sulphur is a constituent of hair, which continually evolves, but more espe- cially during sleep, the gas in question. We now begin to perceive what must come to pass if we moisten hair with the solution of one of the metals capable of blackening under the THE SKIN AND HAIR. 83 touch of sulphuretted hydrogen gas. The solution, having found its way into each filament of hair by absorption, there remains ; and subsequently, the gas during evolution coming into contact with it, change of colour to darkness results. Long before the theory of this action was understood, leaden combs had acquired a celebrity for the change of colour they effected on red hair after continuous use. It is not that the stain of abraded lead is so black, it is more lustrously metallic. But for the hydrosulphuric acid gas evolved sulphuretted hydrogen the use of leaden combs would not be efficient. The explanation of their utility has already been set forth. First, the small particles of abraded lead the actual lead stain coming into contact with certain acids present natu- rally amidst the hair-filaments, is dissolved. Being dissolved it is soon absorbed, when the sulphuretted hydrogen taking effect produces blackness. The change effected by a leaden comb, however, is very slow, the operation needing to be per- formed again and again before any result is apparent. Hence in process of time a readier mode of operation was devised, having reference to the same theory. It was found that a mixture of litharge, or oxide of lead, and lime, made into a paste with water, furnished a convenient means of effecting the dyeing rapidly. It was seen that if hair were daubed with the paste over-night, and secured in an oilskin bag to retain the blackening gas, then next morning, on brushing away the powder and pomading, the hair would be found to be black. I am told that the discovery of this mode of treat- ment was made by some British military horse-doctor, whose name has been lost in the efflux of time. This is a pity, seeing that the discovery is ingenious, and does him credit. I am informed that many of the horses on which our household troops are mounted, notwithstanding the immacu- late beauty of their lustrous black coats, are very prone to have tails of less unimpeachable jet. Wherefore again, I am told, tire practice still prevails of daubing these defective tails 84: COSMETICS. with the lead paste above described, and then enveloping them not in oilskin bags, but in green cabbage-leaves. Whether applied to skin of horse, or man or woman, any lead compound is objectionable because of its poisonous na- ture; objectionable in the highest degree, however, in pro- portion as the seat of its application is nearer to the brain. When this lead blackening has been produced, by whatever modification of the process, what are its advantages and what its defects, to pronounce in an artistic sense? They are many. The blackness is not of that special tint which be- longs to any naturally black hair. It is a heavy, harsh sort of blackness, neither begetting reminiscences of the past, nor har- monising with the skin-tints evolved by age. The result is a violation of nature, hateful and odious. The ars celare artem, that glorious canon, not being within the artist's reach, he has missed it. What he has accomplished leaves the poor candidate for youthful appearance a mere disguised old man or woman : a phenomenon to be stared at, a butt to be laughed at. If the problem of dyeing hair black involves the simplest case, and if its accomplishment be so difficult, what have we to say about brown and chestnut in all their delicate varieties ? Only that the task is more difficult still, the result more in- complete. To the visual appreciation of such people as are content with a sort of smothered black as the sufficient repre- sentation of browns in all their varieties, the effect of ordi- nary lead dyes used in a particular manner may suffice. We generally find it specified in the directions for using black hair-dyes that they may be caused to impart a brown tint by a little modification of practice. Thus in respect to the ordinary paste of litharge, lime and water; if instead of water, milk be used, the ordinary fulness of the chemical effect is smothered, and there does not result full blackness. The hair-artists call it brown, and it passes for brown; but I pity the chromatic eyesight of anybody who is content to call it brown. It is simply a fusty black, neither more nor THE SKIN AND HAIR. 85 less ; calling up reminiscences of a grandmamma's black-silk dress treasured from her girlhood; or a black-silk dress of more modern origin that has come across the sea on the back of a deck-passenger. Lead is not the only metal that has this function of turning black when dissolved and brought into contact with sulphuretted hydrogen. Bismuth preparations are affected with a similar change, though the tint of blackness slightly differs. Gold is in the same category, and indeed most of the ordinary metals. Four, however, are exceptional, and one of them is iron ; yet the belief that iron actually imparts dark colouring-matter to certain tints of hair as a natural con- stituent has suggested the use of iron-salts in the process of artificial dyeing. They can be so used, but not alone. Some second solution must be employed by way of mordant to develop and fix the colour. The Turks use pyrogallic acid to this end, as I have already announced ; common gallic acid would not yield black of such unimpeachable colour. British and other west European hair-dyers, when they avail them- selves of iron solutions for dyeing hair, employ usually neither gallic nor pyrogallic acid. They use for this purpose a solu- tion of hydrosulphate of ammonia, which will blacken iron solutions, though uncombined hydrosulphuric acid will not. I am not aware that iron dye thus mordanted is used for any more extensive purpose than for the dyeing of whiskers and moustaches, or, at the most, beards. The abominable odour of hydrosulphate of ammonia compounded of the smell of putrid eggs with hartshorn would, I should think, make the application of this sort of dye to a full head of hair intoler- able ; and a fellow who could complacently apply this hateful thing to his moustache must be strong of stomach, and not over delicate as to the sense of smell. To all hair-dyes one general remark applies, and it is the following : if the illusion of the change of colour effected by them is to last, the dyeing must be gone through con- 86 COSMETICS. tinuously. Day by day and, still more, night by night, the hair grows. The root of yesterday is the stem of to-day ? and what was underground to use a metaphor could not have come under the dyeing influence. No failure of the hair-dyeing art looks more ridiculous than that resulting in a particoloured effect the body and tips of one colour, the lower part of the stem another. People before committing themselves to the practice of hair-dyeing should well con- sider this. Let them remember that it must be a practice, not a casualty, or else the deception will stand revealed; let them bear in mind also the precept, that in this affair leaving off is worse than beginning. It needs a good deal of moral courage to begin to grow a beard. Nothing can well look more disreputable than a beard two days old, except perhaps it be a beard of three days. It takes a week before the scope and design of what the fellow is about becomes apparent, and even then he feels uncomfortable to himself and all about him. The bent and genius of a man's character may be divined by observing the manner in which he begins to grow a beard, having resolved to do so. One man will cultivate the stubble excrescence all over each appointed square inch, suffering resolutely taunts and gibes : the mens sibi conscia recti. I like that man : he is an honest man. With my purse I would trust that man my wife, my daughter. To such a man I incline at once : he is my beau ideal. He would tell me my faults at once,, and not conceal them, making me morally worse, thinking to please me. Another man, having concluded to grow a beard, will go surreptitiously to work, encroaching a little day by day, thinking you will never discover it. Accursed be that base individual carbone notandus I Even so would he encroach on my landmarks, my purse, my family peace. He would rob a canary-bird of his sugar the trope is not mine he would grub-up his grandmamma to make knife- handles out of her leg-bones. THE SKIN AND HAIR. 87 If it be a solemn and a serious thing to grow a beard, then by how much more a solemn and serious thing to dye a beard, or a head of hair for a climax ? It comes at once, or at most in a night, the portentous change of colour. White, or carroty, or foxy, as the case may be, you come under the operation of art ; then, hey presto ! out you go fully meta- morphosed. However I may reprobate the act itself, the deed, the thing, I must needs admire the prompting courage of it. Talk of suicide hanging one's self, drowning one's self, poisoning one's self, or cutting one's throat, the supreme moment is all in all; the deed is done, and your friends shudder, but yourself are out of it. But to dye one's hair, and live ! To stand the gibes and staring, the chaff and innu- endoes and allusions and questioning, that indeed is courage ! This is a digression; we come back again to capillary chromatics. Life is short and art is long; the triumph of hair-dyeing has been reserved for modern time to achieve, and the latter part of this thesis to chronicle. The dyeing of hair black or brown such as it is I call mere child's play ; to impart the fashionable golden glow is a modern triumph. This achievement resolves itself into one of two cases. Either the hair to be dyed is naturally red, coaxable into golden, or it is actually and unmistakably dark. In the latter case preliminary bleaching will be needed, in the former not. Of red hair there are various tints ; the designations cherry, carroty, scorched, and foxy, will mostly comprise them. The two former are colours that generally go together with a rich animal growth; they are accompanied with an exuberance of gloss, and, I think, an exuberance of temper. The two latter seem as though they had grown on poor soil; they want lustre, surface, finish, hot-pressing ; they are poor and meagre, suggestive of flocks of dingy oakum untwisted from ropes by convict hands. Out of each and all of such raw materials, then, it were idle to expect the same final amount of artistic golden beauty. 88 COSMETICS. To understand the principles whereon the imparting of this fashionable golden tint to hair is founded, it is necessary to revert to the chemistry of calcigenous metals. Most of the metals in this category, as I have already announced, when in solution yield a black tint by the reaction of hydrosulphuric acid (sulphuretted hydrogen), and still a few others by hydro- sulphate of ammonia, iron being amongst the number of the latter. Two metals of this class, however, yield a golden- yellow colour under similar treatment ; and this brings us to the point to which we have been tending. The metals in question are arsenic and cadmium; wherefore it should follow from application of the principles already expounded, that whereas a lead component applied to the hair under condi- tions indicated should cause blackness, an arsenical or cad- mium compound should produce yellowness. Now, cadmium is, so far as a metal can be, innocuous; the character of arsenic we all know. It has the evil repute of being a violent poison, and that character it merits. To exaggerate the poi- sonous danger of arsenic, whether taken internally, or applied to the skin, or its fumes breathed, would be difficult. Yet, terrible to state, solutions of this awful poison are slopped upon ladies' heads when the cherished golden tint of hair is aimed at ; and, worse still, sold to ladies for private domestic use. Recklessness could not well farther go, even in the behests of fashion. Many cases of poisoning have already occurred from this cause, the origin unsuspected. What appears to me strange is, that cadmium compounds, though comparatively harmless and yielding a tint hardly less aureate than those evolved by arsenic, have not commonly, if at all, been employed as hair-dyes. The theory of this process of dyeing is identical with that already described under the head of dyeing black by lead compounds. The sulphuretted hy- drogen evolved reacts upon arsenic and cadmium, producing yellow, whereas it would have evolved black with a lead com- pound ; in this is all the difference. Evidently this process is THE SKIN AND HAIR. 89 inapplicable to hair naturally dark until some preliminary bleaching has been adopted. Several fluids have the property of bleaching hair. Alkaline solutions bleach it to a certain extent ; solution of chlorine, and the so-called chlorides of soda, and of lime, more effectually. Solution of sulphurous acid will also bleach hair ; so will solutions of bisulphite of magnesia and of lime ; peroxide of hydrogen has acquired great celebrity under many imaginative names. Whatever process be had recourse to, the subsequent operation of yellow- tinting is prosecuted as already set forth. Copper solutions are sometimes used for imparting a tint to fair hair not very unlike a tint sometimes seen in natural beards and whiskers. To understand the rationale of this use, we must again refer to our chemistry. If a copper solution be tested with a solution of prussiate of potash (ferrocyanide of potassium), a brown tint, condensing into a precipitate of the same colour if the solution be strong, results. Solutions of three other metals viz. titanium, uranium, and molybde- num yield a similar tint under similar treatment ; but I am not aware that either metal of the group save copper has been ever employed as the basis of a hair-dye. Our ideal labora- tory experiments have shown that the mordant, or second application, must be solution of prussiate of potash. Hair moistened with sulphate-of -copper solution first, and prussiate- of -potash solution to follow immediately, turns brown ; as to the precise tint of brown evolved, it is exactly that of old Spanish mahogany. De gustibus non disputandum: the pro- cess is easy ; let those who like use it. For the dyeing brown of small tufts of hair, such as whiskers, moustachios, and imperials, solution of the chloride of gold might be used, but I am not aware that it ever is used. I have tried it experimentally, and find the result to be more satisfactory than of most hair-dyes. Chloride of gold, how- ever, has the disadvantage of acting as a substantive colour. It needs no second application or mordant, and it dyes both 90 COSMETICS. skin and hair alike. Treating of arsenical solutions applied as hair-dyes, I allowed it to be inferred that they acted by virtue of the naturally evolved sulphuretted hydrogen alone, needing no second application. That is, indeed, the fact, if people so like to employ them ; but artists using these terrible things have usually the sagacity to employ hydrosulphate of ammonia as a mordant, whereby the effect is sooner gained, and the chances of absorption through prolonged application to the skin diminished. Any paper on hair cosmetics would be imperfect that should omit to specify certain body paints, not dyes at all, that are frequently used to impart colour to facial hair beards, moustachios, and whiskers. These things are crude and un- philosophical ; they hardly merit our regard. Any possible powder may be mingled with grease and applied to the hair this way washing-blue, were the aspirant so minded, or chimney-soot, or black-lead, or brickdust. There is actually no limit to this sort of application. The individual's taste is all in all. The repertory is large; he may please himself; and he had better please himself, for that will comprise the sum-total of all the pleasure his art is calculated to beget. And thus do we conclude the subject of hair-dyes. It is a silly practice, and withal prejudicial. Even the most inno- cent applications known to this end do some harm, and the use of arsenical hair-dyes is too terrible to think about. Better remain as we are than have recourse to these stupid disfigure- ments. In respect to the modern whim of imparting golden hues to the brown hair of brunettes, it is strongly to be ad- vised that the brunette pay regard to the unities : let her get into a chlorine bath, and bleach her skin to match, by all meaps. If a negro can be bleached,* then a brunette a fortiori. It would be painful; but what lady heeds pain inflicted at the beck of fashion ? * A dead negro can easily be bleached by immersion in chlorine solu- tion ; the process would kill a living one. 91 THE TEETH. CIVILISATION, whatever its defects, is usually conducive to beauty ; but in respect to human teeth there is a marked exception. The ugliest savage races the snail- and snake- and caterpillar-eating Australian savage, the man-eating New Zealander of a past generation, the Fejee cannibals of to-day, the Esquimaux, the Calmuck, whatever the savage or half- savage race we may choose for illustration have finer teeth than have human beings nursed in luxury, fed delicately, comfortably clad and housed. The fact is plain to sight, but the explanation varies. To say as many are content with saying that the deteriorated teeth of civilised races are re- ferable to the habits of civilised life is, in point of fact, to evade explanation ; the question being, what are the habits and usages of civilised life to teeth so detrimental ? Some hold to the belief that sugar is the cause an opinion I conceive to be untenable, as in the sequel will more appear ; others would refer to vinegar the teeth-deterioration of civilised humanity a verdict irreconcilable with the subsidiary part fulfilled by vinegar amongst the constituents of human food. I believe that, more than to any other cause, the inferiority of teeth in civilised to those of savage life, is referable to the swallowing of hot food and drink ; often in rapid alternation with cold. Be that as it may, failure of teeth seems a part of the price civilised humanity must pay for the boon of civilisation ; hence the due economy of teeth becomes of high importance, whether as a matter of beauty or of utility. Childhood past, a natural tooth lost is usually lost for ever. The cases in which a third set of teeth have been pro- duced are so extremely rare, that the event is looked upon, when occurring, as one of Nature's freaks. The loss of teeth has more than a local meaning: it is a sign in itself of lowered vitality, and is a cause of further constitutional defect. 92 COSMETICS. In the negro slave-market soundness of teeth is relied upon as a sign of sound health and general bodily competence. ' He who has lost a tooth,' wrote Haller, t may consider that he has begun to die, and already taken possession of the next world with part of his body.' Although the teeth-economy of human beings is that which especially concerns us here, still, comparative examination of the teeth of different animals has so much of interest that one ought not to pass it by. As a general rule, all animals of the mammalia class have teeth. To this, however, there are some exceptions ; thus, the northern or whalebone whale is devoid of teeth, though the warm-sea sperm-whale has tremendous fangs, as those whom he has attacked in his fury could attest. All the ant-eater tribe, again, are devoid of teeth; appendages that would be useless to these animals; even in the way, the habits of their life regarded. A few remaining exceptions might be cited, were one to run the animated kingdom through ; the rule being, as common expe- rience makes known, that mammalian animals are all teeth- provided. Not all, however, with teeth on the same pattern and principle. Among mammals the elephant is most pecu- liar for the mode of teeth formation and development. About the tusks of an elephant little need be written; they are simply long and large teeth, which grow pretty much after the manner of other teeth. It is the short or grinding- teeth of an elephant that are the most peculiar ; they are de- veloped in a sort of bony trench, and in growth continually move forwards. The teeth of rodent animals are, again, peculiar. Thus, for example, if the teeth of a rat be examined, they will be found to terminate each in a cutting, chisel-like edge; and the arrangement of parts is such that, gnaw as much as the creature will or must, the sharpness of these chisel- edges can never be lessened. The result comes to pass in this way : the outside surface of the tooth of a rat contains THE TEETH. 93 the hardest materials; wherefore it follows that the inner portion of each tooth is soonest to wear away. From this arrangement, and due to the operation of this cause, it follows that the outer crust of each of a rat's front-teeth will extend in length, and form a cutting edge. In order to make this arrangement effective in rodent animals, the longitudinal growth of these chisel-teeth is very rapid; so rapid that if an opposite corresponding tooth be drawn, whereby no bearing-point shall be left, the unopposed tooth will continue growing circularly until, curling round, its farther develop- ment is stopped by pressure of the animal's own skull. A preparation illustrative of this may be seen in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. Teeth, regarded as to material, are composed of a hard outer covering known as enamel, and an inner portion of soft bone furnished with nervous branches; as in toothache we discover. Chemically, tooth- enamel is remarkable in the cir- cumstance of its holding a considerable portion of fluoride of calcium, the material of fluor, or Derbyshire spar, in point of fact. The full complement of human teeth is thirty-two, four of which, however, coming late, are called wisdom-teeth. Everybody who is of suitable age remembers that, when a child, his first teeth fell out, these having been the first set, or milk-teeth. The coming of the milk-teeth belongs to those oblivious days of infancy and early childhood which, going, leave no memory behind. That order, however, was the following: the milk, or deciduous, teeth were twenty in number, and they made their appearance thus : first came the four central incisors, about the seventh month after birth, but occasionally earlier or later, those of the lower jaw appearing first ; next in order came the lateral incisors, the lower jaw again having precedence. Those teeth usually appear between the seventh and tenth month. Then there was a short period of rest, after which the front molars came forth soon after the twelfth 94 COSMETICS. month ; these were followed by the canines, which appeared between the fourteenth and twentieth months. The posterior molars were the last, and being the most uncertain as to time, one cannot specify when they came for any particular indi- vidual, say any time between the eighteenth and thirty-sixth months. The second dentition consists in the replacement of the deciduous, or milk, teeth by the second or permanent set. It usually commences about the seventh or eighth year. The gums of the new teeth, however, are prepared ; ready, and waiting, a long time before this. The middle incisors are first shed and renewed ; then the lateral incisors. Next are shed the anterior or milk molars, to be replaced by the anterior bicuspid. About a year afterwards the posterior milk molars fall out, being replaced by other bicuspids. The canines are the last of the milk-teeth to be exchanged. Next year the second pair of true molars will appear ; but the third pair, or denies sapientice otherwise wisdom-teeth may come at any subsequent period. It has been already stated that, in exceptional cases, a third set of teeth has been known to come. Looking over the records of extreme old age, it will be remarked that any considerable extension of life beyond ninety has often been accompanied by the growth of one or more of a third set of teeth. A remarkable instance of this I find narrated by Dr. Slare, in a book written by him in advocacy of a saccharine diet, and published in 1715. Most of us are aware that amongst certain people sugar has the evil repute of destroy- ing the teeth of persons much addicted to its use, unjustly, I believe, and have already recorded. I am not aware that the imputation rests on any firmer basis than that of the economical spirit of thrifty housekeepers. In the early days of sugar the teeth-destroying prejudice against sugar was much stronger than now. As an aid towards confuting that prejudice, Dr. Slare the great sugar-advocate of the last THE TEETH. 95 century published the case of Mr. Malory, his grandfather by the mother's side. This very old gentleman led, testifies the doctor, an active, but sober and temperate life: loved hunting, a gun, and a hawk ; was very regular in his eating and drinking ; did make three meals a day, but did only eat flesh at dinner; drank every morning near a pint of good soft ale ; then walked in his orchard as many turns as did make a mile; seldom drank wine, but when he did 'twas canary: did this in the even of his old age. His eyesight was so good that, when between eighty and ninety, he could take up a pin from the ground. His stomach never failed him to the last, and what concerns us most when this old gentleman was past eighty-one, his hair did change somewhat dark, and cer- tain of his teeth coming out they were replaced by new ones, and so did they continue to come until he had a new set quite round. He delighted in all manner of sweetmeats; used in the morning to spread honey upon his bread ; at other times to strew sugar over his bread-and-butter. He loved to have all his sauces very sweet, especially his mutton, hashed or boiled, or any other sort of meat that would bear sauces. The utility of teeth needs no expatiation ; yet they are not in most cases treated judiciously, nor with the respect the memory of < gone once for ever gone' demands. Amongst the evil habits most to be reprobated is the use of hard tooth- brushes. The opinion prevails in some circles of injudicious people that some latent virtue, some strengthening power, re- sides in the bristles of a hard toothbrush. A greater error than this it would be difficult to imagine. The teeth, though bony, are organised. They have to receive their due blood- supply from vessels of the gums. When, from any cause, the blood-supply is cut off, then do the teeth loosen in their sockets, decay, and ache. Far from hardness being a quality desirable, the bristles of a toothbrush cannot weU be too soft. If hard, they infallibly denude the gums after a time. When this has come to pass, decay and pain are not far off. In 96 COSMETICS. respect to dentifrices, again, much error prevails. They are pretty often mechanical, often chemical. Some are com- pounded of hard, gritty materials, that wear away the enamel and mechanically abrade the gums ; others hold chemical agents, that whiten the enamel-surface of the teeth indeed, but at the price of destruction. Long before any admonition conveyed by pain, caries will set in. The fact can only be determined l?y examination by some intelligent dentist. Now is the time for preservation by filling, and not when toothache has established itself. A dentist is not a mere cosmetic or beauty-artist, as he is too commonly regarded ; he is a phy- sician who works by giving effect to ordinary powers of diges- tion instead of physic. The importance of mastication as a preliminary to digestion can hardly be overstated; and, of course, the perfection of this mechanical act will be correla- tive with the perfection of teeth. The remark is common enough that dentists are not what they should be ; not reliable as men of honour ; chiefly more intent on running-up long bills. The opprobrium is far too sweeping ; there are honour- able and dishonourable dentists, as there are honourable and dishonourable doctors and lawyers. Wherever many oppor- tunities for cheating exist, many provocatives to dishonour, there some men will be found to take advantage of them. As regards dentists, the proposition may in a general way be laid down, that the higher-priced men are in the end the cheapest. The work of such may ever be relied upon as the best ; and to patients who may be unable to pay the full honorarium, such gentlemen are ever. considerate. One class of dentists are to be avoided those who exhibit specimen-cases in druggists' shops, and put brass-plates on druggists' doors. These practitioners, vaunting themselves as being economical, are the very reverse; they are most expensive ; and it could not well be otherwise, as they have to divide profits with the exhibiting druggists. In teeth- economy the principle should be established of keeping a tooth THE TEETH. 97 as long as it is useful, but no longer. When a tooth has ceased to be good for mastication or for ornament, the sooner it is removed the better. When removed, an artificial tooth should be established in its place. The time has gone by for natural-artificial teeth to have preference ; and the consider- ation of this fact should do away with the hesitation that some people have for using false teeth. Sentiment is a very power- ful influence in this world. Keason about it as we like, sen- timent is a feeling that must and will be respected. But for sentiment, the utilitarianism of life might attain to a wider development. We might eat cat's-meat to make flesh and blood ; we might convert our dead into smelling-salts, prus- sian-blue, lucifer-matches, skin door-mats, gloves, boots and shoes, and perhaps a hundred other useful products. Senti- ment restrains us even the most philosophical ; and the sen- timent against fixing the teeth of dead human beings in the mouths of living ones is undoubtedly potent. There is now no need for doing this, so many excellent materials of non- human origin standing in aid. Taken all in all, artificial teeth of hard enamel are chiefly to be recommended, and those of American manufacture are the very best known. The par- ticular sort of teeth, however, will depend a good deal on the shape of the palate and the number to be set in a block. Ex- cellent sets are made of hippopotamus ivory; that of the elephant is too soft, and stains too rapidly, to be of any great use to the dentist. As a matter of sentiment, the advantages of enamel or porcelain teeth, as we may call them, need no expatiation. Being wholly non-absorbent, they never stain or otherwise change colour. This leads up to an observation and a precept ; one that wearers of this sort of artificial teeth should more frequently remember than they do. It is this natural teeth are never white. Except sometimes in early childhood they have not the faintest claim to w r hiteness. A miniature-painter, or others having a discriminating eye for colour, would not fail to discover in by far the majority of H 98 COSMETICS. natural teeth those mingled tints of green, blue, yellow, &c. that, taken together, go to make-up a general result of gray- ness of some preponderating shade. If this be so of natural teeth naturally, by how much more will the tint of teeth be varied from white by the thousand contingencies of coloured food and drink, of physic, and perhaps of smoking ? A common failing with middle-aged and elderly, nay too often young, people is, that they choose artificial teeth of the most brilliant whiteness they can find. Nothing can be more absurd. To commit this error is to reveal to any apprehen- sion of ordinary acuteness the secret of false teeth. Another common error is that of having artificial teeth more regular and more block-like than is ever seen in nature. If the most regular set of naturally-grown teeth be examined as to abso- lute mechanical evenness, they will be found deficient in this quality, and still that very defect shall conduce to the general result of beauty. The fact is certain, though the foundation of it lies too deep for easy revelation maybe for any that some degree of irregularity of feature is needed to awaken in an appreciative mind the highest sentiment of beauty. Few of us but can remember to have seen faces so wholly regular, so feature by feature unexceptionable, that the result fell tame and unimpressive on the eye. As regards the teeth, it will generally be found that the most pleasing expression, male and female nay, the highest types of male and female fea- ture-beauty is correlated with some sort of irregularity in the teeth. In one the precise irregularity is, perhaps, that a tooth slightly overlaps; in another the front teeth are slightly parted, it may be. Of whatever sort the natural peculiarity may have been, the dentist should be allowed to follow it in his copy. Here, too, in a general way, the remark may be made, that if by any chance a set of teeth gives admiration for its pure white tint and general evenness of run, when seen on a table or under a case, that set will not be satisfactory when placed to do duty, for beauty and utility, in the mouth. THE TEETH. 99 Persons who select artificial teeth of greater whiteness than is ever seen in nature will perhaps be surprised to learn at what cost of trouble and ingenuity varying tints are imparted by the manufacturer of artificial teeth to naturally white materials. Yellow tints are given by titanium; blue by platinum; bright blue by cobalt; bluish yellow by tita- nium and platinum mingled. It would be altogether too tech- nical to particularise here the exact composition of mineral teeth. The best general exposition will consist in the state- ment that they are made-up of a material holding felspar, borax, clay, occasionally flint-glass though that is not advis- able and silica. They are moulded either in plaster-of-paris, porous stone, or metal ; the last being preferable. They are next burned in a furnace like any ordinary porcelain. Some- times whole blocks of this latter material are moulded, gums included ; but whether blocks or single teeth, the process of enamelling is necessary. It closely resembles the enamelling or glazing of porcelain, especially real porcelain, of which New Sevres is typical, and it is conducted in the same manner as the glazing of porcelain, but more delicately. If the very whitest natural tooth be carefully examined, three distinct shades of tint at least will be noticed upon it. First there is the tint belonging to the general body of the tooth; then that of the crown, or bearing-edge, or surface ; lastly, of the part running into the gum. All these three tints must be imi- tated and indicated by the true dental artist. Occasionally entire blocks several teeth, gums and all are made in one piece of this porcelain or enamel material. In this case, be- sides the three tints appertaining to the teeth proper, the roseate aspect of the gum must be represented. To accom- plish this the colouring-matter used is gold ; to which also are due the lovely red tints we admire so much in certain pieces of Bohemian glass. On the whole, block-teeth are not to be recommended, whatever the material of them may be. Far more efficient 100 COSMETICS. are teeth mounted on either metal or vulcanite. The metals used for this purpose are gold, palladium, and sometimes plati- num the only objection to which last is its extreme weight. Silver, considered as a metal for dentistry purposes, would be wholly objectionable, on account of the facility with which it blackens when brought into contact with sulphur, or things holding sulphur; an alloy of silver and palladium, however, is good. In saliva there is much of sulphur ; no inconsiderable amount in many varieties of food. Among condiments, mus- tard teems with sulphur ; and perhaps, with the single excep- tion of salt, no article of either food or condiment is wholly de- void of sulphur. From all this it follows that pure silver would not serve the dentist's purpose at all. Occasionally teeth are filled with silver instead of gold-leaf; concerning which prac- tice all the chemist can record is pity dentists don't know better. In respect to gold, whether employed in mounting den- tistry, or for any other constructive purpose, the fact need hardly be explained that the noble metal is never used pure ; absolutely pure gold is scarcely more rigid, hard, and mechani- cally enduring than absolutely pure lead. It needs alloy to give mechanical hardness and impart endurance. The gold coins of this realm are composed of twenty-two parts gold to two parts copper in twenty-four. Hence, in technical lan- guage they are said to be twenty-two carats fine. No gold for dentistry purposes should have a lower quality than twenty carats ; in other words, should hold more than four parts of copper or other alloy in the twenty-four. Gold-foil for filling teeth should be made of absolutely pure gold; in technical language, gold of four-and-twenty carats fine. Toothache one needs must touch on. Why the two fell tortures of gout and toothache are so commonly regarded as ailments absolved from pity, I know not of my own know- ledge, and never found any one who did. Toothache has this advantage over gout, that it is always alleviable, and that in THE TEETH. 101 most instances without removing the tooth. Few, very few, aching teeth will resist the application of aconite judiciously used; and though aconite be a poison, and the treatment sounds poisonous, yet in any but the most careless hands it may be used to stop toothache with impunity. The best mode of application is this : having immersed some cotton-wool in tincture of aconite poured into a dish and set in a warm place, wait until the tincture has evaporated and left the cot- ton-wool impregnated with aconite paste. This paste-mixture of cotton and aconite is what the tooth is to be filled with. Pain usually departs in about ten minutes. It is not intended that the patient shall swallow any part of this aconite paste or its products ; but even if deglutition do occur, no poisoning will ensue, the quantity of the active principle of aconite thus capable of finding its way to the stomach being insufficient to develop any bad consequences. There is an incorporation of arsenic and morphia slightly more efficacious than aconite for alleviating toothache; but it is altogether too dangerous for domestic or private use. THE METAMORPHOSES OF MATTER. So far as the discoveries of chemistry have hitherto gone, the elementary bodies of terrestrial creation, and probably' of the entire universe, are no more than about 63.* Considering the immense diversity of material things with- in our cognisance, the existence of a far greater number of material elements would have seemed probable ; and feelings of surprise rise to their culminating point when individuals not versed in chemistry are informed that even of the 63 ele- mentary bodies know^n, Nature somewhat fantastically as it might seem has decreed that nearly two-thirds of the ma- terials of the earth's accessible crust should be made up of two elements alone, these being oxygen and silicon. Nor is the surprise thus begotten likely to be diminished by the as- surance that chemical analysis of animal and vegetable beings demonstrates the fact, that the main elements the bulk of their composition are only four: viz. hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon. Belief in the immutability of chemical elements may be regarded as the axiomatic basis of modern chemistry, as distinguished from ancient and mediaeval al- chemy ; nevertheless, within the last quarter of a century, some curious revelations have been made that seem almost at variance with the dogma. Of these a very cursory notice must on this occasion suffice ; seeing that the scheme and tenden- cies of this paper lead us in another direction. Perhaps the best popular illustration of the mutation of aspect and qualities of which an element may be susceptible without combination, is that afforded by the element phosphorus. * The number is not exactly determined. THE METAMORPHOSES OF MATTEB. 103 In the year 1849, Professor Schrotter of Vienna astonished the chemical section of the British Association, holding its seance at Birmingham, by the substance he called ' amorphous' or ' allotropic' phosphorus : a substance that, though wholly different from common phosphorus in appearance and many qualities, may nevertheless be transformed into ordinary phos- phorus by mere elevation of temperature ; a substance which, torture it, analyse it as you will, reveals the presence of no second element. It is phosphorus under another form, but nevertheless phosphorus. To present some illustrations of the points of distinction between ordinary and allotropic phos- phorus, consider well the following : Ordinary phosphorus is a body so highly inflammable that it must be stored away in water ; allotropic phosphorus is so devoid of inflammability at the temperature of the human body, that the Viennese chemist produced a specimen of it out of his waistcoat-pocket. Ordinary phosphorus is light yellow in colour, and of the con- sistence of bees'-wax; allotropic phosphorus is puce-coloured, and, when not in powder, very hard. Ordinary phosphorus is readily soluble in bisulphide . of carbon, when thus in solution constituting the liquid denominated by Captains Disney and Norton * liquid fire;'* whereas allotropic phosphorus is not soluble in that liquid at all. Finally, whereas ordinary phos- phorus is so dangerously poisonous, that even the fumes of it, as breathed in the operation of manufacturing lucif er-matches, prove rapidly fatal, allotropic phosphorus is wholly devoid of any poisonous quality. Whether a material capable of assuming states so diverse is to be regarded as simple or compound, as constituted of one element or more than one, may indeed involve some nice points of metaphysical inquiry, may suggest to philosophers the propriety of looking narrowly at their definitions. For the chemist, it only remains to speak of things as he may find them according to his evidence; and in this case he is im- * More lately Charleston and Fenian fire. 104 THE METAMOEPHOSES OF MATTER, pelled to proclaim that ordinary and allotropic phosphorus, elementarily considered, are one and the same. He has de- vised the word ' allotropism' to designate the second aspect which phosphorus and certain other elements may assume, and having done this, not much, indeed, the man of real science, humble as every votary of real science needs must be, proclaims the rest a mystery. This casual notice and illustration of the mystery of allo- tropism will suffice at the time being. The exemplifications of this property are rare, after all. Most of the myriad varieties of form and quality under which matter presents itself to our senses are clearly traceable to results of combi- nation. Matter is ever combining and recombining. Nothing cer- tainly in this world, of the materials of which alone we have full chemical cognisance, perpetually rests. Rather let us say, nothing for an instant rests in all its parts. Even the rocks slowly disintegrate and decay. They yield up their elemental parts to other forms, assuming other states of com- bination. But it is when contemplating the living beings of the world, that the full grandeur of elemental combination becomes apparent. To die is the destiny of all that lives or shall live ; but death and dying, how shorn of the terrible are the words when understood, as the philosopher alone can understand them under the meaning of change of elemental parts : the upspringing of new developments ! Out of four elements alone, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, variously combined, the bulk of living beings, ani- mal and vegetable, is made up ; though, in small proportions, other elements are so widely diffused, and so invariable in their localities of diffusion, that to regard them as casualties would be highly unphilosophical. Thus iron is a constituent of all blood : so is manganese. Phosphorus, that highly com- bustible element and deadly poison, enters so largely into the composition of animals, that from bones and certain animal THE METAMORPHOSES OF MATTER. 105 fluids it was, until recently, always extracted.* Sulphur, too, is so invariably present in the animal world, that chemical tests can reveal its presence in the merest bit of feather, or scrap of the oldest blanket. Eggs contain so large an amount of sul- phur, that the presence of it is revealed by the silver egg- spoon, which turns black (a well-known chemical function of sulphur) under the natural operation for the performance of which egg-spoons are made and appointed. A gas, holding sulphur for one of its constituents (sulphuretted hydrogen), is continually evolved from the hair, and hence the philosophy of certain modern hair-dyes. Lead and lead compounds, bis- muth and bismuth compounds, blacken, like silver and silver compounds, under the influence of sulphur ; whence it follows that, if litharge (oxide of lead) be made into a paste, and the latter mingled with the hair, blackness follows. Silica, or the matter of flint, is another curious constituent of vegetables and animals. The shiny part of the stalk of grasses is nearly pure silica, and the teeth of animals hold it in considerable pro- portions. According to Decandolle, the violet and the vine always contain gold in minute proportions ; and copper is said to be an invariable constituent of tobacco. These examples will show how widely diffused, in small quantities, are certain elements in living organisms. The list might readily be extended; and perhaps in no case should be closed without taking some cognisance of the curious me- tallic elements potassium and sodium. Curiously enough, though the metal now hardly a curiosity aluminium is a constituent of clay, and perhaps of every variety of soil, no vegetable or animal has ever yet been known to reveal alumi- nium as one of the elements of its constituent organisation. Passing away from these, and many more curious con- stituents of living beings, we find on near examination, as be- fore announced, that carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen constitute the great material staple of all things that, endowed * For the present source of phosphorus see ante, pp. 13-16. 106 THE METAMORPHOSES OF MATTER. with organisation, are raised to the dignity of life and its attendant death. To trace the metamorphosis of these four elements, com- bining, separating, recombining, living, dying, then springing into life only to die and live again, is only possible to the chemist. Neither of these elements can exist alone in any living form. Oxygen and hydrogen always unite together when they can, the result of union being water. Eetrospect and calculation alone can bring into evidence the enormous extent to which the fluid water enters into living beings, and is necessary to the condition of vitality. The loss of weight experienced by all animal and vegetable bodies under the pro- cess of desiccation is always considerable, in some cases enor- mous. Even the materials of an adult human body lose at least three-fifths when wholly deprived of their constituent water; and medusae, or marine jelly-fish, when dried, shrivel almost into nothing ; water constituting at least ninety-nine hundredths of their miscalled substance. Of all the metamorphoses that the four chief elements of living things can undergo, those of carbon are the most re- markable. It is curious enough to know that charcoal and the diamond are one and the same element another example of allotropism, by the way, or existence of one element under two forms. But the metamorphoses of carbon by combination are still more extraordinary when united with hydrogen ; sometimes in varying quantities, at other times in identical percentage quantities ; generating results, nevertheless, which are diverse amongst each other, owing to a sort of complex allotropism.. Carbon is the very Proteus of creation. United with hydrogen in one proportion (or rather perhaps in one of several possible proportions), it becomes ordinary illuminative gas. Combination effected with hydrogen in other propor- tions, the result may be oil or fat :. then consider the all but innumerable varieties of oily and fatty bodies ! Carbon and hydrogen joined again in wedlock, we have the oils of turpen- THE METAMORPHOSES OF MATTEE. 107 tine and lemons ; materials, strange to say, not only identical as to components, but also relative amounts of components. Then again all the so-called mineral oils, bodies now so ex- tensively used for illuminative purposes (and of these there are myriads), are nothing else than compounds of carbon and hydrogen. India-rubber and gutta-percha swell the list ; the number of which would fill a large volume, were they all enumerated. United with oxygen, carbon yields carbonic acid and carbonic oxide, both gases as we ordinarily obtain them, but the first capable of being solidified without farther union ; and in union with various materials, especially lime, giving rise to some of the most fixed and solid materials of our planet's crust. Add hydrogen, and another protean phase of strange metamor- phosis comes before us. Sugar and starch are materials of this constitution, both harmless in one sense nutritious ; but crys- tallised oxalic acid has exactly the same elements, only in dif- ferent proportions. Oxalic acid, again, is a deadly poison; but unite it with lime (another poison), a wholly innocuous compound results ; one that occurs naturally in each member of the rhubarb tribe. To the triad of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, add by combination nitrogen, this in its simple state the most inert of all the elements, and other series come upon the scene : quinine and cinchonine so useful in medi- cine, prussic acid, strychnine, and a host of deadly poisons. Yes, it is a strange matter for contemplation, but not more strange than true, that an old boot, the lean of a mutton-chop or a beefsteak, contains all the elements necessary to form prussic acid, and out of which prussic acid may readily, by the chemist's skill, be eliminated. The most familiar aspect under which carbon meets our view is pit-coal. Pit-coal let us contemplate it. Seen day by day, this very wonderful material is completely vulgar- ised ; but reflected upon, is soon found replete with poetry, marvel, and mystery. It is suggestive of awe-inspiring 108 THE METAMORPHOSES OF MATTER. thoughts, this pit-coal. In the first place, except Nature goes to work differently now to what she was wont to do in times of yore, every atom of carbon in pit-coal came originally from the air. Yes; the metamorphosis of carbon is one of the most curious matters of philosophic contemplation presented by the world's economy. The air, the earth, and living things upon the earth, all hold this protean element in one form or another. Start from what point we will, this curious element attends our exploratory steps, and springs up in evidence before us. Picture now an ideal scene. By some vast cata- clysm all animated nature is swept from the earth : the air is voiceless, for its birds are dead, and creatures of the water are destroyed. The world is tenantless, for the last man has gone to his narrow home. The globe is void of animated life down to the veriest atomy. The material elements of once living forms have yielded themselves up, the trammels of life cast aside. New vital forces have marshalled, or are marshal- ling, them into other forms : onward, thronging still to other destinies. What has become of these once elements of ani- mated nature? what is to become of them? Chiefly before all, what would be the destinies of carbon under the condi- tions of that life-extinction which we have assumed ? At the lowest estimation, carbon makes up seven-tenths of dry ani- mal materials. The number of human beings existing is considered to amount to about 1200 millions. The average weight of an adult human being may be considered as about 154 pounds, of which, as already remarked, about 90 pounds is water. In the remnant, that is to say the dry portion, we have to seek for carbon; and now our calculation, hitherto vague, begins to assume an aspect of almost complete certainty. Nearly 45 (say 45) parts by weight of the dry portions of an average adult human body are carbon; in other words, 45 pounds for an average adult. But inasmuch as humanity is not made up of adults, inasmuch as we must take the large and the small together, establishing an average, we may be THE METAMOKPHOSES OF MATTE K. 109 perhaps warranted in arriving at the conclusion that a medium weight of 22^- pounds is a fair carbon-estimate for every human individual. Upon this assumption, the total weight of carbon present in the bodies of living humanity amounts to the astounding figure of 12,051,212 TONS ! So much, then, for the carbon of humanity. I am not aware that any estimate has been made of the aggregate weight of animated creation as contradistinguished from mere humanity. Until a census be taken of fowls of the air and fishes of the sea, animals of all sizes and degrees, from whales and elephants to microscopic animalcules, one cannot even approach the absolute in a speculation like this. But con- sidering the teeming ocean with its giant cetacea, its fish, its molluscs large and small, and all and every sprawling thing which naturalists' drag-nets bring from the deep upwards ; considering that the upper world has double vantage over mere humanity, inasmuch as neither men, nor women, nor children of either gender fly ; considering the beasts of the field, wild and tame ; pondering on the animated masses, non- human, of living flesh, shall I be deemed to have strained a point in arriving at the conclusion, that the aggregate weight of vitalised non-human carbon is double that already eliminated as being the carbon-equivalent of living humanity? More than 24,100,000 tons. Let us adopt that estimate, and adopted, it will be seen to bear out the conclusion, that the world's full complement of animated carbon, suddenly dead and abandoned to dissolution, hither and thither dissi- pated over the face of the globe, all that once solid mass of once vitalised carbon will have to be sought for in other forms of combination. You and I will have to die some day. You and I will have to yield our carbon, no less than other elements, back to the commonwealth of nature. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust : thus is it written, and thus shall it be. Yes, proud emperor, or you, fair lady, even unto you, and this in despite of cere-cloths and lead coffins. 110 THE METAMORPHOSES OF MATTER. Lady, a word with you. You are as great as great can be, and I, what am I ? Nobody. Nobody ! I smile ; the Scytheman smiles. Nobody ! Yes, I am a body, or I have a body, put the case as you will. Calmly let us see what will become of your body, and what will become of my body. When you die, some fashionable undertaker will solder your 150 pounds of bone and blood and flesh into a leaden coffin, and pack the leaden coffin away into another coffin, decking the second out with velvet and gewgaws as befits your superior station. Then to the vault you shall be borne ; earth must not hold you. The cloistered charnel is your resting-place ; there to defy all elemental change ; braving dissolution. Alas, my lady, if you could but see, as I by the light of chemistry can see, that festering wreck of poisonous corrup- tion seething within that leaden box of yours in twelve short months or less ! Your flesh, instead of dissolving harmlessly into thin air, or crumbling little by little to mother earth, thence passing into trees and flowers, a part of their very being, the elements of your body will have fretted into poisonous compounds, the veriest breath of which bursting free, as some day it must, will speed about pestilence-breeding. There's no avoiding the common lot, my lady none. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust: thus it is written, and thus shall it be. Material elements know their destiny, and knowing must obey. To move on, combining and recombining, idle never, that is their destiny : and typical enough of what we see in life if their energies be restrained, if honest fields of energy be barred, they take to mischief. Your 150 pounds (more or less) of bodily material are only lent, my lady; held on the frailest of tenures. They are not freehold, nor even leasehold. The holding is not yearly, monthly, weekly not even daily. Asleep or awake, Dame Nature puts her physical forces in possession, and takes your very substance in kind every moment of your existence ; THE METAMORPHOSES OF MATTER. Ill and, when the God of nature dispatches Death to garner in the fruits of dissolution, think you to escape the common lot ? O, no, my lady. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust: thus is it written, and thus must it be. Fair one, this much of you ; and now of me. When I die, a plain elm coffin awaits me, and that for decency's sake. Nobody will deem it worth the w r hile to solder me up in lead or pewter. Living humanity will have had enough of me; my elements will be free to pass on. And the spirit if spirit it be that thinks within me now would never trouble any one who helped the dissolution ; liberating the elements by some process more rapid than decay. It matters not, save for the sentiment of it, but sentiment may be the spirit-life within, for aught we know, it matters not, but I fancy mine would be an unhappy ghost, could it but look down or up, as the case might be and contemplate the noxious forms that matter can assume whilst striving to be useful according to its destiny. This even when no repressive agency is at work ; the grave willing, ay ready, to resign its burden ; Na- ture caressingly luring the pure elements struggling from cor- ruption to join in her life-long revelry of change and travel, dance and rout, a life-long masquerade. The nitrogen of my substance, Nature wants it ; she will make ammonia of it, and, as smelling salts, would not a ghost, looking on, be gratified to see the pungent salt, in crystal bottled, nestled in the soft recess of a lady's bosom, or warming her delicate nose! Ay, and think of my carbon too : what destinies await it ! Diffusing sweet odours, perhaps from the petals of a rose. Tended gently by fair hands ; helping to make up a floral love-token : why not ? In some form of life and action my carbon must be passing on. Many years must roll by, and many an accident of flood and field must happen, ere that element would be likely to find a resting-place awhile in pit- coal, limestone, marble, charcoal, or the diamond : as one who, tired with dancing or the chase, has gone to sleep awhile, 112 THE METAMOKPHOSES OF MATTER. waiting for the dawn. And yet perchance it might happen sooner than assumed. The charcoal-burner might lop off some wooden stem in which the carbon of my dissolution was busy at life work. Charcoal, next to its fair allotropic sister the diamond, is perhaps the most indestructible thing in creation Nature's slow agencies alone regarded. Century after century water can flow over it without effecting one touch of dissolution. Whether free in the air or buried in the earth, charcoal never decays. Touched by fire, charcoal wakes out of its resting sleep, indeed; assumes an invisible form, and fleets about ready for other duties. More lasting is the diamond, though far from meriting the designation aSa/me, which formerly it won. Heat them enough, and diamonds burn, vanishing into thin air. Can my disembodied spirit ever hope to see the carbon-elements of that bodily frame which yielded her up in death, glittering consolidated, transformed into the most beau- tiful of all gems ? Given time enough a long time indeed that event might come to pass. It must indeed be a long time, except some ingenious chemist should take my carbon- elements in hand and bend them to his purposes. I am not sure that diamonds have not been artificially made : nay, I am not quite sure they cannot be made by more than one process. Many appearances go to beget the supposition that diamonds have crystallised out of some fluid menstruum. Occasionally little globules of fluid are to be seen within a diamond, and occasionally, when an incautious observer has exposed to heat a diamond of this sort, it has exploded with a loud noise ; the liquid wholly disappearing. Taking cognis- ance of this fact, taking cognisance, moreover, of the extreme refrangibility of this imprisoned fluid, a modern chemist has stated it as his belief, that it is nothing else than liquid car- bonic acid ; a fluid that, if the presumption of analogy do not lead the mind astray, should be capable of dissolving carbon, and furnishing conditions favourable to crystallisation. THE METAMORPHOSES OF MATTER. 113 Beyond the mere watery moisture of animal bodies, there is yet some oxygen and hydrogen to be disposed of. Circum- stances will determine the manner in which these elements shall escape, and how, amongst themselves, or with other ele- ments, they shall afterwards recombine. Wedding itself to phosphorus, hydrogen may generate a spontaneously inflam- mable gas, to dance and glimmer fairy-like about, a rollicking Will-o'-the-wisp. Wedding with sulphur, some may expand into that noxious and evil-smelling gas, hydro-sulphuric acid, reeking pestilent ; a gas so laden with the germs of death, that all who breathe an atmosphere holding no more than twelve parts of it in a hundred fall down dead, as though they had been touched by the wand of Azrael : a gas that can even kill by skin-contact ;* and which, present under a still more diluted form, as on the swampy coast of Western Africa, breeds the desolating fever of that fatal region. But the pes- tiferous gas has only a short time in which to wreak its ven- geance. Oxygen lies in wait for it, unites with it by a kind of slow combustion, and forms two other compounds water, harmless water, the one; sulphurous acid (gas of burning brimstone) the other. And to the latter is accorded a short term of existence. By union with more oxygen, oil of vitriol is next formed. Oil of vitriol must needs wed, and its spouses are many. It combines with ammonia; it combines with lime; with magnesia too : are not the marriage credentials of this acid graven on the walls of the New Palace at Westminster ? And now, my body, my flesh, my bones, but little remain of ye! Some phosphorus has fleeted away, but some, united with lime, still clings to the tomb in the form of phosphate of lime, the chief material of bones. This material in process of time is decomposed by natural agencies ; or greedy chemists, exer- cising their mystic art, may grub-up my bones and extract my * Some years ago the experiment was tried in France of enveloping a horse, all but the head, in a bag of sulphuretted hydrogen gas. The animal was killed, 114 THE METAMORPHOSES OF MATTER. phosphorus bodily. My observant ghost, looking calmly on, may see an element of its once-cherished body blazing at the end of a wooden match, doing duty in one of Sir William Armstrong's shell-fusees, or made up into phosphor-paste, luring rats to destruction. Decay and dissolution are never pleasant to think about. They are passing changes that hardly bear unveiling, save under the irradiation of the lamp of chemical knowledge; which teaches that decay dissolution is not destruction. No, decay is not pleasant to contemplate. It opens to new regions of life and beauty, but the opening process is rough. And even the very throes and travail and progeny of dis- solution, so to say, sights which chill with horror, and odours which, floating heavily on the breeze, seem like Pandora's pestilent death-scattering maladies, even all this is beau- tiful to reflect upon, as spirits may from other worlds looking down, or philosophers in this. No, corruption is not nice : bury it, then ; burn it, then. That is what Nature prompts us to do, and that is why she made it so offensive. An organism burnt, its elements are liberated at once ; and well- pleased Nature absolves the living from the pest-laden odours of the dead. Buried, corruption goes on indeed, but gently, gradually ; and, if mother Earth be not overworked, for the most part harmlessly. Not merely has earth the soil the power of absorbing emanations and yielding them up gradu- ally, but has the farther power of working chemical changes upon them, so that they may be transmuted into other forms. The most deadly poisons known to chemists are products of animal and vegetable bodies. Some of these are secreted during life, others the products of chemical union. It is a remarkable fact that all this class of poisons, without one exception, are unstable, fleeting, and evanescent. Their com- position is unstable ; their elements continually tending to fly apart. The chemist cannot in many cases lay hold of them ; they defy all his analysis. Nature seems to intimate, by the THE METAMORPHOSES OF MATTER. 115 frail tenure and instability of these, that the elements per- forming for a time such deadly duty shall soon be more genially employed. Pure prussic acid is so very deadly, that one breath of it into the nostrils extinguishes life in an in- stant ; and one drop of it poured into the eye of a strong dog kills the animal not less suddenly than if his heart had been torn out by a cannon-ball. Now contemplate this : if nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon had been destined to com- bine naturally, forming prussic acid to any considerable ex- tent, the existence of animated life would not have been possible. If the decomposition of animal bodies be allowed to go on gradually without impediment, as when buried under earth, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen do not unite to gene- rate prussic acid; but, let decomposition proceed under the modified circumstance of restraint, as in a lead coffin, then is that deadly compound prussic acid generated, amongst others; a sort of indication that Nature rebels against the monopoly of her elements which human pomp would enjoin. A while ago we seemed to have made out that if all the carbon present in all the bodies of animated things now living on the earth could be collected and weighed, it would be seen to amount to the enormous quantity of 24,102,424 tons ; presently we will compare it with the bulk of carbon already exhausted from the earth in the form of pit-coal; but prior to this it may not be amiss to contemplate the vast amount of carbon evolved from the lungs of humanity day by day. In the breath that we expire charcoal exists. Though under ordinary circumstances invisible (and well too, or how sooty we should be !) the chemist can make it visible can collect it, weigh it. This done, every adult human being is found on the average to evolve no less than thirteen and a half ounces of charcoal during the tw^enty-four hours, which for 1200 millions of adults would be about 23,000 tons, and which if halved, in consideration of youths, old age, and babies, would still be enormous. 116 THE METAMOKPHOSES OF MATTER. We will not pause to calculate the figure to which this carbon-evolution is raised by the breathing of animals ; the reader curious in such matters may think out the case for himself. From breathing and decay, and other sources, the air is ever supplied with carbonic acid, and as continually yields the carbon of it up to plants, wherein it becomes fixed. So far as present operations and analogy can lead us to perceive, all the carbon present in organic life must have come origin- ally from the atmosphere, and, by a parity of reasoning, all the carbon ever excavated in the form of pit-coal, or remain- ing to be excavated. This seems astounding ; but accepting Liebig's estimate, that the atmosphere holds no less than 1,332,142,857 tons of carbon dissolved under an invisible form, present as carbonic acid gas, much of the astonish- ment vanishes. In regard to the amount of pit-coal already excavated, consumed, resolved into the atmosphere, a Prussian engineer, M. de Carrnal, has made some curious calculations. The quantity of coal actually dug up to the end of 1857 amounted, according to him, to 125 millions of tons, a quantity repre- sented by a compact cubical mass of ten miles across on every face. Nineteen- twentieths of this at least are carbon ; being equal to about one-eleventh the carbon-complement of the whole world's atmosphere ; and nearly five times greater than the carbon-estimate of the amount of animated creation existing at the present time. Farther, if the world's 1200 millions of human inhabitants could live, breathing as they do now, until their breath-carbon had yielded an amount equal to the amount of coal already dug up and consumed, they would have to live and breathe away for about 5432 days and a half. PKEADAMITE MAN. THERE is hardly a topic of speculation and debate in respect of which an under-current of belief does not exist in advance of printed documents. By more in advance is not meant more truthful of necessity, that would be altogether begging the question but more outspoken, more free, and, if not necessarily more true, more like what the speaker himself be- lieves to be true. It would be perhaps impossible to indicate a topic to which the remark just enunciated more forcibly applies than that of the dawn of man upon the earth. If any time during the last half-century a geological naturalist or a physiologist had been asked by an intimate friend, in whose presence reserve was habitually thrown aside, if he had been asked whether he believed or disbelieved in the Mosaic ac- count of the creation of man, the chances are much in favour of the reply point-blank, *I do not believe.' That is one phase, the private phase, of a man's bearing in respect to the matter in debate. Had the same man the geological natu- ralist or physiologist to write a book involving in any way a reference to the same topic, he would most probably have treated it in a different way. Without absolutely changing his former