CHAPTER V.—PROHIBITION.

“Rugged or not, there is no other way.”—_Luther._

The champions of temperance have to contend with two chief

adversaries—ignorance and organized crime. The well-organized liquor

league can boast of leaders whose want of principles is not extenuated

by want of information, and who deliberately scheme to coin the misery

of their fellowmen into dollars and cents. But the machinations of

such enemies of mankind would not have availed them against the power

of public opinion, if their cunning had not found a potent ally in the

ignorance, not of their victims only, but of their passive opponents.

We need the moral and intellectual support of a larger class of our

fellow-citizens, before we can hope to secure the effectual aid of legal

remedies, and in that direction the chief obstacles to the progress of

our cause have been the prevailing misconceptions on the following points:

1. COMPETENCE OF LEGISLATIVE POWER.—There can be no doubt that the

legislative authority even of civilized governments has been frequently

misapplied. The most competent exponents of political economy agree that

the state has no business to meddle in such affairs as the fluctuation

of market prices, the rate of interest, the freedom of international

traffic. On more than one occasion European governments, having attempted

to regulate the price of bread-stuffs, etc., were taught the folly of

such interference by commercial dead-locks and the impossibility of

procuring the necessaries of life at the prescribed price, and were thus

compelled to remedy the mischief by repealing their enactments. Usury

laws tend to increase, instead of decreasing, the rate of interest, by

obliging the usurer to indemnify himself for the disadvantage of the

additional risk. The attempt to increase national revenues by enforcing

an artificial balance of trade has ever defeated its own object. It

is almost equally certain that compulsory charities do on the whole

more harm than good. On the other hand, there are no more undoubtedly

legitimate functions of government than the suppression, and the, if

possible, prevention, of crime, and the enforcement of health laws; and

it can be demonstrated by every rule of logic and equity that the liquor

traffic can be held amenable in both respects. The favorite argument

of our opponents is the distinction of crime and vice. For the latter,

they tell us, society has no remedy, except in as much as the natural

consequences (disease, destitution, etc.) are apt to recoil on the person

of the perpetrator; the evil of intemperance therefore is beyond the

reach of the law. We may fully concede the premises without admitting the

cogency of the conclusion. The suspected possession or private use of

intoxicating liquors would hardly justify the issue of a search warrant,

but the penalties of the law can with full justice be directed against

the manufacturer or vender who seeks gain by tempting his fellowmen to

indulge in a poison infallibly injurious in any quantity, and infallibly

tending to the development of a body and soul corrupting habit; they

may with equal justice be directed against the consumer, stupefied or

brutalized by the effects of that poison. The rumseller has no right

to plead the consent of his victim. The absence of violence or “malice

prepense,”[1] is a plea that would legalize some of the worst offenses

against society. The peddler of obscene literature poisons the souls

of our children without a shadow of ill-will against his individual

customer. The gambler, the lottery-shark, use no manner of force in the

pursuit of their prey. By what logic can we justify the interdiction of

their industry and condemn that of the liquor traffic? By the criterion

of comparative harmlessness? Have all the indecencies published since the

invention of printing occasioned the thousandth part of the misery caused

by the yearly and inevitable consequences of the poison vice? The lottery

player may lose or win, but the customer of the liquor vender is doomed

to loss as soon as he approaches the dram-shop. The damage sustained

by the habitual player may be confined to a loss of money, while the

habitual drunkard is sure to suffer in health, character and reputation,

as well as in purse. And shall we condone the conduct of the befuddled

drunkard on account of a temporary suspense of conscious reason? That

very _dementation_ constitutes his offense.

His actions may or may not result in actual mischief, but he has put the

decision of that event beyond his control. The man who gallops headlong

through crowded streets is punished for his reckless disregard of other

men’s safety, though the hoofs of his horse may have failed to inflict

any actual injury. A menagerie keeper would be arrested, if not lynched,

for turning a city into a pandemonium by letting loose his bears and

hyenas, and for the same reason no man should be permitted to turn

himself into a wild beast.

“Virtue must come from within,” says Prof. Newman;[2] “to this problem

religion and morality must direct themselves. But vice may come from

without; to _hinder_ this is the care of the statesman.” And here, as

elsewhere, prevention is better than cure. By obviating the temptations

of the dram-shop a progressive vice with an incalculable train of

mischievous consequences may be nipped in the bud. Penal legislation

is a sham if it takes cognizance of moral evils only after they have

passed the curable stage. “It is mere mockery,” says Cardinal Manning,[3]

“to ask us to put down drunkenness by moral and religious means, when

the legislature facilitates the multiplication of the incitements to

intemperance on every side. You might as well call upon me as a captain

of a ship and say: ‘Why don’t you pump the water out when it is sinking,’

when you are scuttling the ship in every direction. If you will cut off

the supply of temptation, I will be bound by the help of God to convert

drunkards, but until you have taken off this perpetual supply of

intoxicating drink we never can cultivate the fields. Let the legislature

do its part and we will answer for the rest.”

All civilized nations have recognized not only the right but the duty

of legislative authorities to adopt the most stringent measures for the

prevention of contagious disease; yet all epidemics taken together have

not caused half as much loss of life and health as the plague of the

poison vice.

2. MAGNITUDE OF THE EVIL.—Since health and freedom began to be recognized

as the primary conditions of human welfare, the conviction is gaining

ground that the principles of our legislative system need a general

revision. It was a step in the right direction when the lawgivers of the

Middle Ages began to realize the truth that the liberty of individual

action should be sacrificed only to urgent consideration of public

welfare, but the modified theories on the comparative importance of these

considerations have inaugurated a still more important reform. Penal

codes gradually ceased to enforce ceremonies and abstruse dogmas and

to ignore monstrous municipal and sanitary abuses. The time has passed

when legislators raged with extreme penalties against the propagandists

of speculative theories and ignored the propagation of slum diseases,

yet, after all, there is still a lingering belief in the minds of many

contemporaries that intemperance, as a physical evil, a “mere dietetic

excess,” does not justify the invasion of personal liberty. They would

consent to restrict the freedom of thought and speech rather than the

license of the rum-dealer, yet the tendency of a progressive advance

in public opinion promises the advent of a time when that license will

appear the chief anomaly of the present age. The numberless minute

prescriptions and interdicts of our law books and their silence on the

crime of the liquor traffic will make it difficult for coming ages to

comprehend the intellectual status of a generation that could wage such

uncompromising war against microscopic gnats and consent to gratify the

greed of a monstrous vampire.

3. SELF-CORRECTING ABUSES.—Modern physicians admit that various forms

of disease which were formerly treated with drastic drugs can be safely

trusted to the healing agencies of nature. Many social evils, too, tend

to work out their own cure. High markets encourage competition and

have led to a reduction of prices. Luxury leads to enforced economy

by reducing the resources of the spendthrift. Dishonest tradesmen

lose custom, and a German government that used to fine editors for

publishing unverified rumors might have left it to the subscribers to

withdraw their patronage from a purveyor of unreliable news. But there

are certain causes of disease that demand the interference of art.

_Poisons_, especially, require artificial antidotes. If a child has

mistaken arsenic for sugar, its life commonly depends on the timely

arrival of a physician. The organism may rid itself of a surfeit, but

is unable to eliminate the virus of a skin disease. Alcoholism belongs

to the same class of disorders. We need not legislate against corsets;

the absurdities of fashion change and vanish like fleeting clouds, and

their votaries may welcome the change; but drunkards would remain slaves

of their vice though the verdict of public opinion should have made

dram-drinking extremely unfashionable. The morbid passion transmitted

from sire to son, and strengthened by years of indulgence, would defy all

moral restraints and yield only to the practical impossibility to obtain

the object of its desire.

“A number of years ago,” says Dr. Isaac Jennings, “I was called to the

shipyard in Derby, to see John B., a man about thirty years of age, of

naturally stout, robust constitution, who had fallen from a scaffold in

a fit, head first upon a spike below. In my visit to dress the wounded

head, I spoke to him of the folly and danger of continuing to indulge his

habit of drinking, and obtained from him a promise that he would abandon

it. Not long after I learned that he was drinking again, and reminded him

of his promise. His excuse was, that it would not do for him to abandon

the practice of drinking suddenly. A few weeks after this he called at my

office and requested me to bleed him, or do something to prevent a fit,

for he felt much as he did a short time before having the last fit. I

said to him, ‘John, sit down here with me and let us consider your case

a little.’ I drew two pictures and held before him; one presented a wife

and three little children with a circle of friends made happy and himself

respectable and useful in society; the other, a wretched family, and

himself mouldering in a drunkard’s grave; and appealed to him to decide

which should prove to be the true picture. The poor fellow burst into

tears and wept like a child. When he had recovered himself from sobbing

so that he could speak he said: ‘Doctor, to tell you the truth, it is not

that I am afraid of the consequences of stopping suddenly that I do not

give up drinking. _I can not do it._ I have tried and tried again, but it

is all in vain. Sometimes I have gone a number of weeks without drinking,

and I flattered myself that the temptation was gone, but it returned,

and now if there was a spot on earth where men lived and could not get

spirits, and I could get there, I would start in a minute.’ I thought I

had understood something of the difficulties of hard drinkers before,

but this gave me a new impression of the matter, and most solemnly did I

charge myself to do what I could to _make a spot on earth where men could

live and couldn’t get spirits_.”

4. LESSER EVILS.—Even in a stricter form than any rational friend of

temperance would desire its enforcement, prohibition would not involve

any consequences that could possibly make the cure a greater evil than

the disease. The predicted aching void resulting from the expurgation

of beer-tunnels could be filled by healthier means of recreation.

The grief of the superseded poison-mongers would not outweigh the

mountain-load of misery and woe which the abolishment of their cursed

trade would lift from the shoulders of the nation. When the state of Iowa

declared for prohibition the opponents of that amendment bemoaned the

loss entailed by the departure of “so many industrious and respectable

citizens,” _i. e._, from the exodus of the rumsellers! We might just

as well be asked to bewail the doom of the Thugs[4] as the subversion

of a prosperous industry. We might as well be requested to sympathize

with the respectable bloodhound-trainers and knout-manufacturers whom

the abolition of slavery threw out of employment. The liquor dealer

has no right to complain about the rigor of a law that permits him to

depart with the spoils of such a trade. We are told that the mere rumor

of Maine laws has deterred many foreigners from making their homes with

us; that the Russian peasants decline to come without their brewers and

distillers, and that by general prohibition we would risk to reduce our

immigration from every country of northern Europe. We must take that

risk, and let Muscovites rot in the bogs of the Volga if they can not

accept our hospitality without turning our bread corn into poison. Our

utilitarian friends would hardly persuade us to legalize cannibalism in

order to encourage a larger immigration of Fiji islanders. The absence

of such guests might not prove an unqualified evil. I shall not insult

the intelligence of my readers by repeating the drivel of the wretches

who would weigh the reduction of revenues against the happiness of a

hell-delivered nation, and I will only mention the reply of a British

financier who estimates that the increase of national prosperity would

offset that reduction _in less than five years_.

5. EFFICACY OF PROHIBITION.—Will prohibition prevent the use of

intoxicating liquor? Not wholly, but it will answer its purpose. It will

banish distilleries to secret mountain glens and hidden cellars. It will

drive the man-traps of the poison-monger from the public streets. It

will save our boys from a hundred temptations; it will help thousands

of reformed drunkards to keep their pledge; it will restore peace and

plenty to many hundred thousand homes. More than a century ago the

philosopher Leibnitz[5] maintained that the plenary suppression of the

liquor traffic would be the most effectual means for reforming the moral

status of civilized nations, and experience has since fully demonstrated

the correctness of that opinion. A memorandum endorsed by a large number

of statistical vouchers describes the effect of prohibition in Sweden:

“The nation rose and fell, grew prosperous and happy, or miserable and

degraded, as its rulers and law-makers restrained or permitted the

manufacture and sale of that which all along the track of its history has

seemed to be the nation’s greatest curse.” … “The vigorously maintained

prohibition against spirits in 1753-1756, and again in 1772-1775, proved

the enormous benefits effected in moral, economical, and other respects,

by abstinence from intoxicating spirits.” … “This it is which has so

helped Sweden to emerge from moral and material prostration, and explains

the existence of such general indications in that country of comfort and

independence among all classes.”

From the Edinburgh _Review_ for January, 1873, we learn that in

eighty-nine private estates in England and Scotland, “the drink traffic

has been altogether suppressed, with the happiest social results. The

late Lord Palmerston[6] suppressed the beer shops in Romsey as the leases

fell in. We know an estate which stretches for miles along the romantic

shore of Loch Fyne,[7] where no whiskey is allowed to be sold. The

peasants and fishermen are flourishing. They have all their money in the

bank, and they obtain higher wages than their neighbors when they go to

sea”—a proof that a small oasis of temperance can maintain its prosperity

in the midst of poison-blighted communities.

Here and there the wiles of the poison-mongers will undoubtedly succeed

in evading the law, but their power for mischief will be diminished as

that of the gambling-hell was diminished in Homburg and Baden,[8] where

temptation was removed out of the track of the uninitiated till the host

of victims dwindled away for want of recruits. Not the promptings of an

innate passion, but the charm of artificial allurements is the gate by

which ninety-nine out of a hundred drunkards have entered the road to

ruin. It would be an understatement to say that the temptation of minors

will be reduced a hundred fold wherever the total amount of sales has

been reduced as much as five fold—a result which has been far exceeded,

even under the present imperfect system of legal control. “In the course

of my duty as an Internal Revenue officer,” says Superintendent Hamlin of

Bangor, “I have become thoroughly acquainted with the state and extent

of the liquor traffic in Maine, and I have no hesitation in saying that

the beer trade is not more than one per cent. of what I remember it to

have been, and the trade in distilled liquors is not more than ten per

cent. of what it was formerly.” “I think I am justified in saying,”

reports the Attorney-General, “that there is not an open bar for the

sale of intoxicating liquor in this county” (Androscoggin, including

the manufacturing district of Lewiston—once a very hotbed of the rum

traffic). “In the city of Biddeford, a manufacturing place of 11,000

inhabitants, for a month at a time not a single arrest for drunkenness

has been made or become necessary.” And from Augusta (the capital of the

state): “If we were to say that the quantity of liquor sold here is not

one-tenth as large as formerly, we think it would be within the truth;

and the favorable effects of the change upon all the interests of the

state are plainly seen everywhere.”

“It is perhaps not necessary,” says the Boston _Globe_, of July 29, 1875,

“to dwell on the evils of intemperance, and yet people seldom think how

great a proportion of these might be prevented by driving the iniquity

into its hiding places, and preventing it from coming forth to lure its

victims from among the unwary and comparatively guileless. Few young men

who are worth saving, or are likely to be saved to decency and virtue,

would seek it out if it were kept from sight. But when it comes forth in

gay and alluring colors, it draws a procession of our youth into a path

that has an awful termination. Nor does the evil which springs from an

open toleration of the way in which this vice carries on its traffic of

destruction fall only on men. A sad proportion of its victims is made

up from shop girls and abandoned women who are not so infatuated at the

start that they would plunge into a life of infamy if its temptations

were strictly under the ban, and kept widely separated from the world

of decency. But it intruded itself upon them. Its temptations and

opportunities are before their eyes, and the way is made easy for their

feet to go down to death.”

“To what good is it,” says Lord Brougham,[9] “that the legislature

should pass laws to punish crime, or that their lordships should occupy

themselves in trying to improve the morals of the people by giving

them education? What could be the use of sowing a little seed here

and plucking up a weed there, if these beer shops are to be continued

to sow the seeds of immorality broadcast over the land, germinating

the most frightful produce that ever has been allowed to grow up in a

civilized country, and, I am ashamed to add, under the fostering care of

Parliament.”

The prohibition of the poison traffic has become the urgent duty

of every legislator, the foremost aim of every moral reformer. The

verdict of the most eminent statesmen, physicians, clergymen, patriots

and philanthropists, is unanimous on that point. We lack energy, not

competence, nor the sanction of a higher authority, to gain the votes of

the masses.

“We can prove the success of prohibition by the experience of our

neighboring state,” writes Dr. Herbert Buchanan, of Portsmouth, New

Hampshire; “all the vicious elements of society are arraigned against

us, _but I have no fear of the event if we do not cease to agitate the

subject_.”

Agitation, a ceaseless appeal to the common sense and conscience of our

fellowmen can, indeed, not fail to be crowned with ultimate success. The

struggle with vice, with ignorance and mean selfishness may continue, but

it will be our own fault if our adversaries can support their opposition

by a single valid argument, and the battle will be more than half won if

a majority of our fellow-citizens have to admit that we contend no longer

for a favor, but for an evident right.

STUDIES IN KITCHEN SCIENCE AND ART.

V. TEA, COFFEE, AND CHOCOLATE.

BY BYRON D. HALSTED, SC. D.

We have here to consider the sources of the three leading dietetic

beverages. They are very unlike in general appearance, but all possess

the same vegetable principle, called an alkaloid,[1] though known under

different names. Thus modern chemistry has proved the identity of the

theine of the tea, the caffeine[2] of the coffee and the theo-bromine[3]

of the chocolate. This same vegetable alkaloid, remarkable for its large

per cent. of nitrogen, is found in small quantities in a few other

plants, most of which have been used to some extent for the making of

an exhilarating drink. It answers our purpose best to treat each of our

three subjects under its respective head.

TEA (_Thea viridis_[4]).—The tea of commerce is the prepared leaves of

a shrub belonging to the order Camelliaceæ[5] represented in the United

States by loblolly bay[6] and Stuartia.[7] Perhaps the most familiar

near relative of the tea plant is the camellia of our green houses and

window gardens. The wild tea shrub grows from twenty to thirty feet high,

and is found native in China and Japan. When under cultivation the shrub

is pruned so as to not exceed six feet in height. The flowers are large,

white and fragrant; they are produced in clusters in the axils of the

simple, oblong, evergreen, serrate leaves. China and Japan are among the

leading tea-growing countries, its cultivation being chiefly confined

between twenty-five and thirty-five north latitude. Tea was in general

use in China in the ninth century, but it was not until the seventeenth

century that it was introduced into Europe. About the middle of this

century the East India Company imported tea into England, since which

time it has become the regular beverage of many millions of people in all

parts of the world. The importations of tea into the United States for

the year ending June 30th, 1884, were 67,665,910 pounds. It will be seen

that this gives somewhere near a pound and a quarter of tea for each man,

woman and child in this country. Most of our China tea trade is carried

on with Shanghai, Foo Chow and Amoy.

In China the tea shrub is grown chiefly on the southern slopes of hills

in poor, well watered soil, to which manure is applied. The seeds are

dropped in holes at regular intervals, and during the third year the

first crop is obtained. In from seven to ten years the shrubs are cut

down and shoots spring up from the stumps, which continue to yield crops

of leaves. A single plant produces on an average between three hundred

and three hundred and fifty pounds of dried leaves. The leaves are picked

three times a year, in April, May, and June or July. The young, tender

leaves of the first gathering make the best tea, and this is very largely

consumed in its native country. The older leaves of the second and third

pickings make a poorer quality of tea which abounds in tannin,[8] and

contains but a small per cent. of the best elements of superior tea.

It was long supposed that black and green sorts of tea were made from

distinct varieties, or even species of plants; in fact, there has been

a great deal of mystery surrounding the culture and preparation of tea

until within the past score of years. Authorities now state that there

is only one species of plant yielding tea leaves, and from this all

sorts are made. The differences are natural, being some of them due to

climate and conditions of soil, etc., while others are the result of the

manipulation of the leaves after they are gathered. Black and green tea

may come from the same shrub, or even the same branch of a plant. The

leaves forming black tea undergo a fermentation before they are dried,

while those designed for green tea are at once submitted to a high heat

in iron pans, and not copper pans, as generally supposed. After the

leaves for black tea have been gathered they are placed in heaps, when

they become flaccid and turn dark from incipient fermentation. The leaves

are then rolled between the thumb and fingers or upon bamboo tables until

the desired twist is obtained. They next pass to a drying room and are

heated in an iron pan; again twisted, and afterward dried over a slow

fire. The principal difference between the preparation of black and green

tea is that in the latter the freshly gathered leaves go at once into the

heated pans. The repeated twisting and heating is nearly the same with

both classes. The green teas are sometimes artificially colored by using

turmeric[9] with gypsum or Prussian blue. A flavor is frequently given to

the tea by adding aromatic flowers, as those of the pekoe and caper.[10]

Among the leading varieties of black tea are: Bohea, a small leaf, crisp

and strong odor, with brackish taste; two sorts of Congous—the large leaf

with fine flavor, and the small leaf with a burnt smell. The Souchong is

the much prized “English Breakfast,” made from leaves of three-year-old

trees. Only a small part of the so-called Souchong is genuine. Pekoe is

made from the tenderest leaves gathered from three-year-old plants while

in bloom. Oolongs are common kinds of black teas, much used for mixing

with other sorts. Of the green teas the Gunpowder is round, like shot,

with green color and fragrant taste. The Imperial is more loosely rolled

than the Gunpowder. Young Hyson is in loose rolls, which easily crumble

to the touch; it gives a light green infusion. Old Hyson is the older

leaves in the picking for Young Hyson. Twankay consists of mixed and

broken leaves, and is of inferior quality. Japan teas are both colored

and uncolored, and come from Japan; they are very largely consumed in

this country.

The chemical composition of a fair sample of tea is; Theine, 1. to 3. per

cent.; caseine,[11] 15.; gum, 18.; sugar, .3; tannin, 26.; aromatic oil,

.75; fat, 4.; vegetable fiber, 20.; mineral substances, 5.; and water, 5.

per cent.

The tannin is an astringent, while the theine acts as a gentle excitant

upon the nervous system. This is probably enhanced by the warmth of the

infusion. The best authorities agree that tea is a valuable article of

diet for healthy, grown people. It however is not suitable for children

until growth is completed. Adults with irritable constitutions may be

injured by tea-drinking. Tea is the solace of old age. Cibber[12] wrote:

“Tea! thou soft, thou sober, sage and venerable liquid … thou female

tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wink-tippling cordial, to

whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moments of my life, let me

fall prostrate.” Waller[13] truthfully says:

“Tea doth our fancy aid,

Repress those vapors which the head invade

And keep the palace of the soul.”

Tea is extensively adulterated in many ways. In China exhausted tea

leaves and foliage of other trees are employed by millions of pounds

each year. Willow leaves are among the principal ones used for mixing

with tea. A British consul once related that at Shanghai there were at

one time 53,000 pounds of willow leaves in preparation to be sold as

tea. Mineral matters are used to color or “face” the tea. “The common

test,” states Mr. Felker, in his work “What the Grocers Sell Us,” “is

by infusion; this is poured off the leaves and examined for color,

taste, and odor, all of which are characteristic.… Impurities like sand,

iron filings and dirt may be seen among the leaves or at the bottom of

the cups. The leaves, too, betray by their coarseness and botanical

character, the nature and quality of the tea, for although the leaves

of the genuine tea differ much in form and size, yet their venation and

general structure are very distinctive.… ‘Lie tea,’ used to adulterate

Gunpowder tea, consists of tea dust mixed with mineral substances, starch

and gum, and then formed into little masses resembling tea.” Large tea

houses employ professional tea tasters who make steepings and judge upon

the flavor, purity, etc.

COFFEE.—The coffee of commerce is the seed of a shrub, _Coffea

Arabica_,[14] belonging to the order Rubiaceæ,[15] which is represented

in the United States by the charming little “bluets” of our pastures in

spring. The cape jessamine and bouvardias[16] of the green house are

near relatives of the coffee plant. The name coffee is probably derived

from the Arabic word _Kahwah_, although some authorities contend that

it is traced to Caffa, a province of Abyssinia, where the coffee plant

flourishes in the wild state. The coffee shrub is an evergreen, growing

to the height of twenty feet, with long, smooth, shining leaves. The pure

white flowers are produced in clusters in the axils of the leaves and

followed by fleshy berries which, when ripe, resemble small, dark red

cherries. Each berry usually contains two seeds embedded in the yellowish

pulp. These seeds, when separated from the pulp and papery covering, form

the raw coffee of the stores. Each seed—improperly called a berry—is

somewhat hemispherical, with a groove running through the middle of the

flat side. Sometimes one seed is abortive in the berry, and the other

becomes round, as in the Wynaad coffee from India, sometimes called “male

berry” coffee.

Coffee is cultivated in many countries lying between fifteen north and

fifteen south latitude. It may be successfully grown thirty degrees

from the equator. Like the tea plant, the coffee shrub favors the well

watered mountain slopes. The trees are set in long, straight rows, six

feet apart, and six feet from each other in the row. The coffee tree is

naturally a plant with long, straggling shoots, but under cultivation

it is pruned to make a shrub not exceeding six feet in height, with

long, lateral branches. A full crop should be obtained the third year.

The berries are gathered when the pulp begins to shrivel, and are at

once taken to the store-house, where they are pulped. The berries are

passed between large, rough rollers, which remove the pulp, but not the

parchment-like covering of the seeds. The berries with the pulp removed

are heaped up, covered with old sacking, and allowed to ferment for two

days. Water is turned on and all glutinous matter removed. The seeds are

spread out to dry, after which they are passed between wooden cylinders

that remove the thin, dry covering. The coffee seeds, after being

winnowed, are assorted into various sizes and packed ready for shipment.

A thrifty shrub yields two pounds of marketable coffee. The raw coffee

seed has a horny texture, without the peculiar aroma characteristic of

the roasted berry.

The early history of coffee is obscure. It has been in use for over a

thousand years. The knowledge of its use was first brought into Arabia

from Abyssinia in the fifteenth century. “Its peculiar property of

dissipating drowsiness and preventing sleep was taken advantage of in

connection with the prolonged religious services of the Mohametans, and

its use as a devotional antisoporific stirred up a fierce opposition on

the part of the priests. Coffee was by them held to be an intoxicant

beverage, and therefore prohibited by the Koran;[17] and the dreadful

penalties of an outraged sacred law were laid over the heads of all

who became addicted to its use. Notwithstanding the threats of divine

retribution, and though all manner of devices were adopted to check its

growth, the coffee-drinking habit spread rapidly among the Arabians,

Mohametans, and the growth of coffee as well as its use as a national

beverage became as inseparably associated with Arabia as tea is with

China.” Coffee reached Great Britain in the seventeenth century. Charles

II. attempted to suppress coffee houses by proclamation, because they

“devised and spread abroad divers false, malicious and scandalous reports

to the defamation of his Majesty’s government and to the peace and quiet

of the nation.” How different is this view from that held by those

interested in good government, peace and prosperity at the present day!

We now rejoice in the establishment of coffee houses, hoping that they

may supplant the much dreaded rum shops.

It is worthy of note here that the three dietetic beverages treated in

this article were all introduced into Europe at nearly the same time. Tea

came through the Dutch; cocoa was brought from South America to Spain,

and coffee came from Arabia by the way of Constantinople.

Coffee was for some time supplied only by Arabia, but near the beginning

of the eighteenth century its culture was introduced into Java and the

West India islands. At the present day its culture is general within the

tropics, Brazil leading the list in amount annually produced. In the

Eastern hemisphere the principal coffee regions are Java and Ceylon,

where a superior article is produced. The amount of coffee imported into

the United States during the year ending June 30th, 1884, was 534,785,542

pounds, and 18,907,627 pounds in excess of the previous year. It is seen

that these figures give nearly ten pounds for each individual in this

vast country. This amount per capita is exceeded by only a few countries.

Holland leads all European states, with an average of twenty-one pounds

per head, followed closely by Belgium, Denmark and Norway.

The dietetic value of coffee depends principally upon the alkaloid

caffeine or theine which it contains in common with tea and cocoa or

chocolate. Good coffee contains nearly one per cent. of this substance.

When obtained in a pure state it crystallizes in slender needles. The

peculiar aroma of coffee is due to the presence of caffeone,[18] which

develops in the process of roasting. It may be isolated as a brown

oil, heavier than water, by distilling roasted coffee with water. The

roasting of coffee is an operation requiring much good judgment, for by

carrying the process beyond a certain point the aroma is destroyed and a

disagreeable flavor is produced.

Roasted coffee when ground quickly deteriorates unless kept in close

vessels. Mocha coffee, which is brought from Arabia, is the best, and

that from Java ranks next. Much of the so-called Mocha coffee is raised

in Brazil, or elsewhere, and shipped to Arabia, after which it finds its

way into the markets. The berries of the true Mocha coffee are small,

dark and yellow; those of Java are a paler yellow, while the West India

and Brazilian coffees have a greenish-gray tint. The last named coffee is

usually sold under the name of Rio, an abbreviation of the leading coffee

exporting port of Brazil, namely, Rio de Janeiro; Martinique and St.

Domingo coffees are two other kinds but little known.

Coffee is principally valuable for its stimulating effects upon the

system. It produces a buoyancy of feeling, lightens the sensation of

fatigue, and sustains the muscles when under prolonged exertion. A cup

of rich, hot coffee seems to infuse new life into an o’er-tired body.

Equally with tea it is “the cup that cheers, but not inebriates.”

“Coffee which makes the politician wise

And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.”

Coffee is the subject of many adulterations, usually when sold in the

ground state. Several kinds of seeds resembling coffee in size have been

employed to adulterate the whole coffee, some of which need to be colored

before they will pass for the genuine. Many kinds of roots are sliced,

dried and roasted for the adulteration of coffee, among the leading ones

of which are chicory, carrot and the beet. Spent tanbark and even dried

beef’s liver have been thus employed. Many of these fraudulent additions

can be detected with the microscope. Ground coffee floats on water, while

most of the adulterations will sink or discolor the water. There is said

to be a machine in England for making false berries out of vegetable

substance.

CHOCOLATE.—The chocolate of the shops is derived from a small evergreen

tree, native of South America, Mexico, and West Indias. This tree,

_Theobroma cacao_, has large, pointed leaves and rose-colored flowers,

which are followed by fruit pods six to ten inches long. The first part

of the botanical name is from the Greek meaning “food for the gods,”

and the second or specific word _cacao_ is the old Mexican name for the

tree. The order Sterculiaceæ[19] to which the theobroma or chocolate

tree belongs is not represented in our flora. It however is known to

many by a species of Mahernia[20] from the cape of Good Hope, cultivated

in conservatories. The order contains about 520 species, nearly all of

which are tropical. The long pods, while green, resemble cucumbers, and

when ripe contain from thirty to an hundred seeds, arranged in rows, and

of the size of sweet almonds. During the season of ripening the pods are

gathered daily, laid in heaps until they have fermented, when they are

opened by hand and the seeds spread in the sun to dry, after which they

are ready for market. Before the Spaniards visited Mexico the natives

made a beverage from the seeds, which they called _chocalat_, and from

this we derived our word chocolate. The Spaniards have the credit of

introducing this beverage into Europe. In the manufacture of chocolate

the _cocoa_ (which is a corruption of the original Mexican _cacao_) beans

are roasted similar to the roasting of coffee, and after the husk is

removed they are reduced to a paste. This paste is afterward mixed with

equal quantities of sugar and heated and turned into cakes of various

shapes familiar to all housekeepers. Cacao nibs are the bruised and

broken seeds, and cocoa shells are the thin coverings of the seeds or

beans which are separated before the seeds are ground to powder. Broma is

chocolate prepared for the market in a certain way, and is a trade name.

The importations of chocolate for the year ending June 30th were

12,235,304 pounds, being an increase of nearly thirty-five per cent. over

the previous year.

Of the three leading beverages herein briefly described tea is the only

one that has been grown as a crop in the United States. In a reply to an

inquiry recently addressed to the Commissioner of Agriculture, it was

stated that the tea plant is hardy at Washington, D. C., and that the

tea plantations near Summerville, South Carolina, are doing well. “There

is no trouble about growing the plant, but the question of profitable

culture for the manufacture of tea is quite another thing.… The purpose

of the Department of Agriculture … is to cheapen the present methods

or possibly suggest the placing of the teas on the market in a wholly

different shape from what is done at present.” We may be able to supply

our own demands for tea, but it is not likely that the same will be true

of coffee and chocolate.

HOUSEHOLD BEVERAGES.

At the breakfast table of a friend not long ago I heard the gentleman of

the house remark over his fragrant coffee:

“I laughed at my wife when she went into the cooking school last summer,

I thought her a model cook before; but for some reason she has improved.

I never tasted such coffee as this.”

My hostess answered: “The reason is simple enough. I had always cooked

by rule before. I learned in my studies in cookery to reason. It makes a

great difference.”

It does make a difference, and never a greater than in preparing tea,

coffee and chocolate. There is rarely a cup of any one of these beverages

on our tables which is fit to drink; our coffee is bitter and muddy, tea

is either insipid or too strong, and chocolate has failed to become the

popular drink which it deserves to be, because so rarely well prepared.

Few cooks understand the nature of either the coffee berry or the tea

leaf, and consequently do not know how to treat them in order to extract

their delicious flavor, aroma, and nerve-bracing qualities.

Few cooks have an idea of the extreme delicacy of these articles, of how

scientifically, even artistically, they must be treated. To extract an

oil or flavor is one of the nicest experiments of the laboratory, and

one for which a chemist selects his materials with the greatest care,

attends strictly to the cleanliness of his vessels, watches every change

in temperature, and counts even seconds in time. Making these beverages

is nothing less than performing a delicate chemical experiment, and yet

we are so ignorant or careless about this important work that we attend

strictly to neither heat nor time, and often take just what we can most

easily get to work with.

If you would have good tea, coffee and chocolate begin your care with

your buying. Tea is a most troublesome article to purchase. There are

so many varieties on the market, and so much adulteration that the

probability is that unless you are taking extreme precautions you are

getting an inferior article. Adulteration is astonishingly common,

poor teas being manipulated to make them appear like the first-class

grades; inferior black teas colored to look like high-priced green

teas, “lie tea” sold in vast quantities, and made-over teas[1] made to

pass for fresh. How to obtain the genuine article is the housewife’s

first problem. Careful examination may be made under the microscope for

coloring matter, the tea may be soaked to see if it unrolls into true

leaves, or after washing it in a little water the liquid may be tested

with chemicals for foreign substances. But all this means trouble that

few housewives care to take. Probably the most practical plan is to find

by careful experiment a thoroughly reliable[2] tea-house and then confine

your patronage to it. A pound of tea bought here and another there, as

convenience may dictate or some friend advise, will insure you nothing

but adulteration. The only safe plan is to find a house which sells

good tea. Your tea bought, it must be prepared. In making a cup of tea

the chemical composition and the effect of each step in its preparation

must be observed or your draught will be ruined. The constituents in the

leaf which you must look after are the theine, the aromatic oil, and

the tannin. Your tea must be treated in such a way that the first two,

which give to the drink its flavor and aroma, will be extracted, but that

the bitter tannin will be left undeveloped. The theine and oil are both

volatile substances, so that if your tea is steeped too long, or if it

is boiled, they will literally fly away, while the tannin extracted will

turn your cup into a bitter, herby drink. A rule is easily formulated

from this bit of science:

Into a perfectly clean tea-pot, just scalded with boiling hot water,

put a heaping tablespoonful of tea for each person, and upon it pour a

cup and a half of boiling water for each spoonful. Cover your pot with

a “cosy”[3] if you have one, and let it stand on the back of the range,

where it will not boil, for from five to ten minutes. The length of time

required to steep each variety of tea must be determined by experiment,

some varieties taking longer than others. The exact length each housewife

must determine when she tries a new kind; and it may be said of the

exact proportion of tea to water that it as well must be determined by

experiment. No rule in cooking is inflexible. It must always be modified

by the good sense and the scientific care of the cook.

The English custom of making tea on the table is the prettiest and the

most satisfactory. They pour upon the tea required a small quantity of

boiling water, this is placed upon the table, covered with the “cosy;” a

pot of water taken when boiling from the stove is kept hot by a spirit

lamp, and when the tea is steeped as much boiling water as the quantity

of tea used demands is poured into the tea-pot. It is allowed to stand

about three minutes and then poured into the cups and on the cream.

Remember, cream should always be poured into the cups first for both tea

and coffee, and tea is as much improved by cream as is coffee.

The purchase of coffee is beset with the same trouble as that of

tea—adulteration. You may get a manufactured berry, you may get chiccory;

to avoid this careful tests must be applied and only reliable firms

patronized. Nothing but unbrowned coffee should be bought; the roasting

should be done at home. This process requires particular care. The coffee

berry is hard and horny, water has no effect upon it even when it has

been ground. It must be roasted in order that certain constituents may

become soluble. These constituents are a fragrant volatile oil called

caffeone, and the caffeine, which is identical with the theine of

tea. By roasting the oil is distributed through the berry and so made

soluble, while the caffeine is developed so that it may be absorbed by

water. Just the right amount of roasting must be done or the essential

constituents will be expelled and the bitter qualities will be made to

predominate. I have said that the roasting should be done at home. It may

be done in the shops, of course, but the operation there is carried on so

unscientifically that the aroma is lost on the town instead of being shut

up in the berry. Only a few days ago, passing up a business street of a

city, I was astonished to find the air heavy with the delicious aroma

of coffee. It scented the air for a square, and only when I came to a

large grocery store was the mystery explained. The grocer was browning

his coffee, and its odor was serving for an advertisement, effective,

perhaps, among the ignorant, but which would warn every wise housewife

not to purchase roasted coffee. The process is best carried on in one

of the very nearly perfect coffee roasters to be found in the shops; if

these are not at hand an ordinary dripping pan may be used. It should

be covered to prevent loss of aroma, and should be continually shaken

to prevent burning. The entire attention of one person should be given

the coffee during this operation. When turned to a rich chestnut brown

remove, keeping covered until quite cool. If left open the aroma escapes

very rapidly from warm coffee, but if kept covered much of that made

volatile by the heat is re-absorbed. A tight dish—an air-tight canister

is best—must be ready to keep it in.

When using, grind only what you need, and take care that it is not left

coarse, when the strength can not be extracted, or that it is not too

fine, when the liquor will be muddy in spite of you; in this, as always,

experiment until you know the degree of fineness which ground coffee

should have. A heaping tablespoonful of ground coffee to a cup and a half

of water is the ordinary proportion for making strong coffee—the only

kind which should ever be prepared, by the way, the diluting ought always

to take place in the cup; to the required amount of coffee add the white

and shell of an egg and cold water to thoroughly wet the whole; stir up

these ingredients in your coffee pot and pour upon them the required

amount of _boiling_ hot water. Let it boil from ten to fifteen minutes,

pour in half a cup of cold water and remove to the side of the stove

where it can not boil. Do not boil longer than the exact time which you

have found necessary for the kind of coffee you are using, if you do

you lose your flavor and extract in its place a bitter principle which

is ruinous. Remember always what one of our famous cooks says: “There

comes a time in baking, frying or broiling when injured nature revolts

and burns up, but a thing may boil until not a vestige of its original

condition remains, and unless the water evaporates, it may go on boiling

for hours without reminding one by smell or smoke that it is spoiled.”

Your coffee will settle in about five minutes. Now if you _must_ use a

different coffee urn, gently pour off the liquor so as not to disturb the

grounds. The settling of coffee is an essential point. The regulation

method of stirring an egg into the freshly ground berry is undoubtedly

best, but another and more economical practice may take its place. After

your freshly roasted berries are cool enough to be easily handled, add

to each pound a fresh egg and stir it in until each kernel is coated

smoothly with the mixture. Care must be taken that the coffee be not warm

enough to cook the egg. When eggs are expensive an economical method is

to wash the shells before they are broken, and use with cold water to

settle the coffee.

After all these precautions there are still other points to guard. Not

the least is the condition of the inside of the coffee pot; it should

never be stained, burnt or coated, but kept perfectly bright by being

washed, and, if necessary, scoured after each meal. It would be a gain

in aroma if your coffee pot could always be kept perfectly tight so that

none could escape, and if it could go to the table in the same dish. The

pleasant, suggestive odors which precede a meal are always signs that

the most delicious flavors of your coming breakfast, dinner or tea are

escaping, that through the unskillfulness of your cook you are losing

what should give the greatest charm to your meal.

_Café au lait_[4] is an excellent drink and easily prepared. Make in the

usual way a pint of strong coffee, and into your table urn or a pitcher

pour a cup and a half of fresh milk, scalding hot; to this add the coffee

and let the whole stand for five minutes in a hot place, or in a kettle

of hot water.

Chocolate is a most delicious drink if properly prepared; it is, however,

so often raw, muddy and strong that we have not been able to educate

ourselves to its peculiar disagreeableness. Make it by the following

rule and you will find it both nutritious and pleasant: Select with care

the best make of chocolate, and into a little cold water rub smooth

five tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate; be sure that it be rubbed in

smoothly, a hard particle of chocolate is as unwelcome a visitor in your

cup as floating tea leaves or black bobbing bits of coffee berries. So

rub it smooth and stir it slowly into five cups of boiling water. Let it

boil for about five minutes, and in the meantime heat two cups of milk;

this must be stirred into the boiling chocolate and the whole allowed to

simmer for a few minutes longer. You may sweeten it on the fire or in the

cup.

HUXLEY ON SCIENCE.[C]

All the time that we are awake we are learning by means of our senses

something about the world in which we live and of which we form a part;

we are constantly aware of feeling, or hearing, or smelling, and, unless

we happen to be in the dark, of seeing; at intervals we taste. We call

the information thus obtained sensation.

When we have any of these sensations we commonly say that we feel, or

hear, or smell, or see, or taste something. A certain scent makes us say

we smell onions; a certain flavor, that we taste apples; a certain sound,

that we hear a carriage; a certain appearance before our eyes, that we

see a tree; and we call that which we thus perceive by the aid of our

senses a thing or an object.

Moreover, we say of all these things, or objects, that they are the

causes of the sensations in question, and that the sensations are the

effects of these causes. For example, if we hear a certain sound, we

say it is caused by a carriage going along the road, or that it is the

effect, or the consequence, of a carriage passing along. If there is a

strong smell of burning, we believe it to be the effect of something on

fire, and look about anxiously for the cause of the smell. If we see a

tree, we believe that there is a thing, or object, which is the cause of

that appearance in our field of view.

In the case of the smell of burning, when we find on looking about, that

something actually is on fire, we say indifferently either that we have

found out the cause of the smell, or that we know the reason why we

perceive that smell; or that we have explained it. So that to know the

reason why of anything, or to explain it, is to know the cause of it.

But that which is the cause of one thing is the effect of another. Thus,

suppose we find some smouldering straw to be the cause of the smell of

burning, we immediately ask what set it on fire, or what is the cause

of its burning? Perhaps we find that a lighted lucifer match has been

thrown into the straw, and then we say that the lighted match was the

cause of the fire. But a lucifer match would not be in that place unless

some person had put it there. That is to say, the presence of the lucifer

match is an effect produced by somebody as cause. So we ask, why did any

one put the match there? Was it done carelessly, or did the person who

put it there intend to do so? And if so, what was his motive, or the

cause which led him to do such a thing? And what was the reason for his

having such a motive? It is plain that there is no end to the questions,

one arising out of the other, that might be asked in this fashion.

Thus we believe that everything is the effect of something which preceded

it as its cause, and that this cause is the effect of something else, and

so on, through a chain of causes and effects which goes back as far as

we choose to follow it. Anything is said to be explained as soon as we

have discovered its cause, or the reason why it exists; the explanation

is fuller, if we can find out the cause of that cause; and the further

we can trace the chain of causes and effects, the more satisfactory is

the explanation. But no explanation of anything can be complete, because

human knowledge, at its best, goes but a very little way back toward the

beginning of things.

When a thing is found always to cause a particular effect, we call that

effect sometimes a property, sometimes a power of the thing. Thus the

odor of onions is said to be a property of onions, because onions always

cause that particular sensation of smell to arise, when they are brought

near the nose; lead is said to have the property of heaviness, because

it always causes us to have the feeling of weight when we handle it; a

stream is said to have the power to turn a waterwheel, because it causes

the waterwheel to turn; and a venomous snake is said to have the power

to kill a man, because its bite may cause a man to die. Properties and

powers, then, are certain effects caused by the things which are said to

possess them.

A great many of the things brought to our knowledge by our senses, such

as houses and furniture, carriages and machines, are termed artificial

things or objects, because they have been shaped by the art of man;

indeed, they are generally said to be made by man. But a far greater

number of things owe nothing to the hand of man, and would be just what

they are if mankind did not exist—such as the sky and the clouds; the

sun, moon and stars; the sea with its rocks and shingly or sandy shores;

the hills and dales of the land; and all wild plants and animals. Things

of this kind are termed natural objects, and to the whole of them we give

the name of Nature.

Although this distinction between nature and art, between natural and

artificial things, is very easily made and very convenient, it is needful

to remember that, in the long run, we owe everything to nature; that

even those artificial objects which we commonly say are made by men, are

only natural objects shaped and moved by men; and that, in the sense

of creating, that is to say, of causing something to exist which did

not exist in some other shape before, man can make nothing whatever.

Moreover, we must recollect that what men do in the way of shaping and

bringing together or separating natural objects, is done in virtue of the

powers which they themselves possess as natural objects.

Artificial things are, in fact, all produced by the action of that part

of nature which we call mankind, upon the rest.

We talk of “making” a box, and rightly enough, if we mean only that we

have shaped the pieces of wood and nailed them together; but the wood is

a natural object and so is the iron of the nails. A watch is “made” of

the natural objects gold and other metals, sand, soda, rubies, brought

together, and shaped in various ways; a coat is “made” of the natural

object, wool; and a frock of the natural objects, cotton or silk.

Moreover, the men who make all these things are natural objects.

Carpenters, builders, shoemakers, and all other artisans and artists, are

persons who have learned so much of the powers and properties of certain

natural objects, and of the chain of causes and effects in nature, as

enables them to shape and put together those natural objects, so as to

make them useful to man.

A carpenter could not, as we say, “make” a chair unless he knew something

of the properties and powers of wood; a blacksmith could not “make” a

horseshoe unless he knew that it is a property of iron to become soft and

easily hammered into shape when it is made red-hot; a brickmaker must

know many of the properties of clay; and a plumber could not do his work

unless he knew that lead has the properties of softness and flexibility,

and that a moderate heat causes it to melt.

So that the practice of every art implies a certain knowledge of natural

causes and effects; and the improvement of the arts depends upon our

learning more and more of the properties and powers of natural objects,

and discovering how to turn the properties and the powers of things and

the connections of cause and effect among them to our own advantage.

Among natural objects, as we have seen, there are some that we can get

hold of and turn to account. But all the greatest things in nature and

the links of cause and effect which connect them, are utterly beyond our

reach. The sun rises and sets; the moon and the stars move through the

sky; fine weather and storms, cold and heat, alternate. The sea changes

from violent disturbance to glassy calm, as the winds sweep over it with

varying strength or die away; innumerable plants and animals come in

being and vanish again, without our being able to exert the slightest

influence on the majestic procession of the series of great natural

events. Hurricanes ravage one spot; earthquakes destroy another; volcanic

eruptions lay waste a third. A fine season scatters wealth and abundance

here, and a long drought brings pestilence and famine there. In all such

cases, the direct influence of man avails him nothing; and, so long as he

is ignorant, he is the mere sport of the greater powers of nature.

But the first thing that men learned, as soon as they began to study

nature carefully, was that some events take place in regular order and

that some causes always give rise to the same effects. The sun always

rises on one side and sets on the other side of the sky; the changes of

the moon follow one another in the same order and with similar intervals;

some stars never sink below the horizon of the place in which we live;

the seasons are more or less regular; water always flows down-hill; fire

always burns; plants grow up from seed and yield seed, from which like

plants grow up again; animals are born, grow, reach maturity, and die,

age after age, in the same way. Thus the notion of an order of nature and

of a fixity in the relation of cause and effect between things gradually

entered the minds of men. So far as such order prevailed it was felt that

things were explained; while the things that could not be explained were

said to have come about by chance, or to happen by accident.

But the more carefully nature has been studied, the more widely has

order been found to prevail, while what seemed disorder has proved to

be nothing but complexity; until, at present, no one is so foolish as

to believe that anything happens by chance, or that there are any real

accidents, in the sense of events which have no cause. And if we say that

a thing happens by chance, everybody admits that all we really mean is,

that we do not know its cause or the reason why that particular thing

happens. Chance and accident are only _aliases_[1] of ignorance.

At this present moment, as I look out of my window, it is raining and

blowing hard, and the branches of the trees are waving wildly to and

fro. It may be that a man has taken shelter under one of these trees;

perhaps, if a stronger gust than usual comes, a branch will break, fall

upon the man, and seriously hurt him. If that happens it will be called

an “accident,” and the man will perhaps say that by “chance” he went out,

and then “chanced” to take refuge under the tree, and so the “accident”

happened. But there is neither chance nor accident in the matter. The

storm is the effect of causes operating upon the atmosphere, perhaps

hundreds of miles away; every vibration of a leaf is the consequence of

the mechanical force of the wind acting on the surface exposed to it; if

the bough breaks, it will do so in consequence of the relation between

its strength and the force of the wind; if it falls upon the man it will

do so in consequence of the action of other definite natural causes; and

the position of the man under it is only the last term in a series of

causes and effects, which have followed one another in natural order,

from that cause, the effect of which was his setting out, to that the

effect of which was his stepping under the tree.

But, inasmuch as we are not wise enough to be able to unravel all these

long and complicated series of causes and effects which lead to the

falling of the branch upon the man, we call such an event an accident.

When we have made out by careful and repeated observation that something

is always the cause of a certain effect, or that certain events always

take place in the same order, we speak of the truth thus discovered as

a law of nature. Thus it is a law of nature that anything heavy falls

to the ground if it is unsupported; it is a law of nature that, under

ordinary conditions, lead is soft and heavy, while flint is hard and

brittle; because experience shows us that heavy things always do fall if

they are unsupported, that, under ordinary conditions, lead is always

soft, and that flint is always hard.

In fact, everything that we know about the powers and properties of

natural objects and about the order of nature may properly be termed a

law of nature. But it is desirable to remember that which is very often

forgotten, that the laws of nature are not the causes of the order of

nature, but only our way of stating as much as we have made out of that

order. Stones do not fall to the ground in consequence of the law just

stated, as people sometimes carelessly say; but the law is the way of

asserting that which invariably happens when heavy bodies at the surface

of the earth, stones among the rest, are free to move.

The laws of nature are, in fact, in this respect, similar to the laws

which men make for the guidance of their conduct toward one another.

There are laws about the payment of taxes, and there are laws against

stealing or murder. But the law is not the cause of a man’s paying his

taxes, nor is it the cause of his abstaining from theft and murder.

The law is simply a statement of what will happen to a man if he does

not pay his taxes, and if he commits theft or murder; and the cause of

his paying his taxes, or abstaining from crime (in the absence of any

better motive) is the fear of consequences which is the effect of his

belief in that statement. A law of man tells what we may expect society

will do under certain circumstances; and a law of nature tells us what

we may expect natural objects will do under certain circumstances. Each

contains information addressed to our intelligence, and except so far as

it Influences our intelligence, it is merely so much sound or writing.

While there is this much analogy between human and natural laws, however,

certain essential differences between the two must not be overlooked.

Human law consists of commands addressed to voluntary agents, which

they may obey or disobey; and the law is not rendered null and void by

being broken. Natural laws, on the other hand, are not commands, but

assertions respecting the invariable order of nature; and they remain

laws only so long as they can be shown to express that order. To speak

of the violation, or the suspension, of a law of nature is an absurdity.

All that the phrase can really mean is that, under certain circumstances

the assertion contained in the law is not true; and the just conclusion

is, not that the order of nature is interrupted, but that we have made a

mistake in stating that order. A true natural law is a universal rule,

and, as such, admits of no exceptions.

Again, human laws have no meaning apart from the existence of human

society. Natural laws express the general course of nature, of which

human society forms only an insignificant fraction.

If nothing happens by chance, but everything in nature follows a definite

order, and if the laws of nature embody that which we have been able to

learn about the order of nature in accurate language, then it becomes

very important for us to know as many as we can of these laws of nature,

in order that we may guide our conduct by them.

Any man who should attempt to live in a country without reference to the

laws of that country would very soon find himself in trouble. And if he

were fined, imprisoned, or even hanged, sensible people would probably

consider that he had earned his fate by his folly.

In like manner, any one who tries to live upon the face of this earth

without attention to the laws of nature will live there for but a very

short time, most of which will be passed in exceeding discomfort; a

peculiarity of natural laws, as distinguished from those of human

enactment, being that they take effect without summons or prosecution. In

fact, nobody could live for half a day unless he attended to some of the

laws of nature; and thousands of us are dying daily, or living miserably,

because men have not yet been sufficiently zealous to learn the code of

nature.

It has already been seen that the practice of all our arts and

industries depends upon our knowing the properties of natural objects

which we can get hold of and put together; and though we may be able

to exert no direct control over the greater natural objects and the

general succession of causes and effects in nature, yet, if we know

the properties and powers of these objects, and the customary order of

events, we may elude that which is injurious to us, and profit by that

which is favorable.

Thus, though men can nowise alter the reasons or change the process

of growth in plants, yet having learned the order of nature in these

matters, they make arrangements for sowing and reaping accordingly; they

can not make the wind blow, but when it does blow they take advantage

of its known powers and probable direction to sail ships and turn

wind-mills; they can not arrest the lightning, but they can make it

harmless by means of conductors, the construction of which implies a

knowledge of some of the laws of that electricity of which lightning is

one of the manifestations. Forewarned is forearmed, says the proverb;

and knowledge of the laws of nature is forewarning of that which we may

expect to happen, when we have to deal with natural objects.

No line can be drawn between common knowledge of things and scientific

knowledge; nor between common reasoning and scientific reasoning. In

strictness all accurate knowledge is science; and all exact reasoning

is scientific reasoning. The method of observation and experiment, by

which such great results are obtained in science, is identically the

same as that which is employed by every one, every day of his life, but

refined and rendered precise. If a child acquires a new toy, he observes

its characters and experiments upon its properties; and we are all of us

constantly making observations and experiments upon one thing or another.

But those who have never tried to observe accurately will be surprised to

find how difficult a business it is. There is not one person in a hundred

who can describe the commonest occurrence with even an approach to

accuracy. That is to say, either he will omit something which did occur,

and which is of importance, or he will imply or suggest the occurrence of

something which he did not actually observe, but which he unconsciously

infers must have happened. When two truthful witnesses contradict one

another in a court of justice, it usually turns out that one or other, or

sometimes both, are confounding their inferences from what they saw with

that which they actually saw. A swears that B picked his pocket. It turns

out that all A really knows is that he felt a hand in his pocket when B

was close to him; and that B was not the thief, but C, whom A did not

observe. Untrained observers mix up together their inferences from what

they see with that which they actually see in the most wonderful way; and

even experienced and careful observers are in constant danger of falling

into the same error.

Scientific observation is such as is at once full, precise, and free from

unconscious inference.

Experiment is the observation of that which happens when we intentionally

bring natural objects together, or separate them, or in any way change

the conditions under which they are placed. Scientific experiment,

therefore, is scientific observation, performed under accurately known

artificial conditions.

It is a matter of common observation that water sometimes freezes.

The observation becomes scientific when we ascertain under what exact

conditions the change of water into ice takes place. The commonest

experiments tell us that wood floats in water. Scientific experiment

shows that, in floating, it displaces its own weight of the water.

Scientific reasoning differs from ordinary reasoning in just the same way

as scientific observation and experiment differ from ordinary observation

and experiment—that is to say, it strives to be accurate; and it is just

as hard to reason accurately as it is to observe accurately.

In scientific reasoning general rules are collected from the observation

of many particular cases; and, when these general rules are established,

conclusions are deduced from them, just as in everyday life. If a boy

says that “marbles are hard,” he has drawn a conclusion as to marbles

in general from the marbles he happens to have seen and felt, and

has reasoned in that mode which is technically termed induction. If

he declines to try to break a marble with his teeth, it is because

he consciously or unconsciously performs the converse operation of

deduction from the general rule “marbles are too hard to break with one’s

teeth.”

You will learn more about the process of reasoning when you study logic,

which treats of that subject in full. At present, it is sufficient

to know that the laws of nature are the general rules respecting the

behavior of natural objects, which have been collected from innumerable

observations and experiments; or, in other words, that they are

inductions from those observations and experiments. The practical and

theoretical results of science are the products of deductive reasoning

from these general rules.

Thus science and common sense are not opposed, as people sometimes fancy

them to be, but science is perfected common sense. Scientific reasoning

is simply very careful common reasoning, and common knowledge grows into

scientific knowledge as it becomes more and more exact and complete.

The way to science then lies through common knowledge; we must extend

that knowledge by common observation and experiment, and learn how to

state the results of our investigations accurately, in general rules

or laws of nature; finally, we must learn how to reason accurately

from these rules, and thus arrive at rational explanations of natural

phenomena, which may suffice for our guidance in life.

FOOTNOTES

[C] From Science Primers. Introductory. By Prof. T. H. Huxley,

F.R.S.

THE CIRCLE OF THE SCIENCES.

Science means classified knowledge. There may be much general knowledge

that is not science. It attains to that dignity only when the particular

facts known are generalized, and arranged in some order, instead of being

jumbled together, and lying about loosely in the memory, to be taken up

at random. Especially must the basal facts of the science be verified,

not assumed.

Information that is general and assured, though as yet lacking system and

a proper ordering of the elementary facts, may, and usually will in time

advance to the dignity of science. History warrants this expectation.

Only let not the boast be made, or the honor conferred prematurely.

Geography, chemistry, and political economy are all now sciences. The

first has been recognized among the sciences from an early day, though

it has advanced rapidly during the present century. The last two are

comparatively new members, having held their place in the “Circle”

scarcely a hundred years. True, many of the facts of chemistry, and

the principles of political economy had been known for ages, but the

knowledge men had of them lacked either system or certainty, or both. So,

also, in respect to mineralogy, botany, and zoölogy, a store of known

facts had been for ages accumulating, before they could rightly be called

sciences. To reach that distinction the quality and orderly arrangement

of the things known are as necessary as the quantity.

In the heading of this series of articles, “Circle” does not suggest the

rim of a wheel, or a curved line all the points of which are equally

distant from the center around which it is drawn, but rather a group

of sciences, just as “social circle,” and “circle of friends” indicate

the amicable relations of the persons without saying anything of their

positions in the place of their meeting. It is a goodly group, this

family of the sciences, and the members now so numerous and having

such distinctive characteristics will be introduced, not as a body but

severally, and in five classes: The Mathematical, Physical, Mental,

Moral, and Social Sciences. They hold such intimate relations with each

other, mutually giving and receiving aid, that we will not attempt to

keep the members of classes from mixing occasionally in our account of

them, as they often do in reality.

Mathematics is the science of quantities and numbers. Its principles are

of the first importance, and are of service in all the departments of

science. In several of its subdivisions, of which brief mention will be

made, it uses known quantities for the determination of those unknown,

reasoning from certain relations existing between them. The qualities

it discusses are represented by diagrams, figures, or symbols, adopted

for the purpose. It is customary to speak of _pure_ and _mixed_, or

_abstract_ and _applied_ mathematics; the former treating of laws,

principles, and relations in the abstract, or without any special

reference to anything as actual or existing. The latter discusses the

principles, laws and relations in connection with existing phenomena. The

operations with numbers and symbols in pure mathematics, dealing only

with abstract quantities, do not necessarily imply the idea of matter.

Those of the science as applied have much to do with material phenomena.

The elements that enter into the calculations in both cases are axioms or

self-evident truths, things that are known intuitively, or grasped by the

reason soon as presented, only in applied mathematics, used more or less

in all sciences, these same axiomatic, self-evident truths are employed

in the discussion of natural objects, the laws, properties, and relations

of which are learned mostly by experience and induction.

The sciences classed as pure mathematics are Arithmetic, Geometry,

Algebra, Analytical Geometry and Calculus. Arithmetic is eminently the

science of numbers, and treats of, or practically illustrates their

nature and uses. It employs the nine Arabic digits or figures with

the addition of the cipher, giving them various positions to express

numerical values, and not the native qualities or functions of the things

to which they are applied. The methods are the same, and the results

obtained equally true, whatever may be the nature of the quantities about

which inquiry is made. The elementary or fundamental idea in arithmetic

is unity, expressed by the figure 1, from which, with the help of the

other eight digits, and the individually valueless cipher, 0, expressions

for all the other values, whole or fractional, are formed.

As arithmetical processes underlie, or enter into, the work of nearly all

mathematical calculations, its great importance as a science is evident;

though as often taught in our schools and used in business, it is simply

a method of reckoning or computation.

Algebra is a kindred science, that, by the use of letters and symbols,

enables us to solve more readily all difficult questions relating to

numbers. It is, indeed, a kind of universal arithmetic. In the ordinary

arithmetic the numbers or figures employed, taken separately, have always

the same value, and the result, when, sometimes by a tedious process,

obtained, is applicable only to the particular question proposed, but

in solving the problem by algebra, since we employ letters to which any

values may be attributed at pleasure, the result obtained is largely

applicable to all questions of a particular class. Thus, having the sum

and difference of two quantities given, we readily obtain an algebraic

expression for the quantities themselves. By the new method the goal

is reached speedily, and the cabalistic terms, that may, at his first

attempts, perplex and discourage the young student, become his delight;

and in many difficult processes greatly shorten the work, enabling him

with ease to solve problems that to the common arithmetician are tedious,

if not impossible.

Geometry, one of the oldest of sciences, measures extension, treats of

order and proportion in space. Its working elements are not numbers or

symbols, but points, and lines, either straight or curved, and surfaces,

with volumes, or solids. The simpler problems, when successfully

demonstrated, are used in solving those more complicated, making the

progress easy.

Lines are made up of points, and have extension only in one direction.

Surfaces have length and breadth, and are distinguished as triangles,

quadrilaterals, polygons, etc., according to the number of lines that

circumscribe them. Solids have length, breadth, and thickness. From

a few elementary facts, much geometrical science has been deduced,

by very simple, logical processes. It is intimately related to other

sciences, and of much practical importance; but, if there were no other

advantage derived, as a discipline of the reasoning faculty there can

be nothing better. To pursue the study profitably there is little need

of an instructor. Class recitations are helpful, but let any one intent

on personal culture, and having only a little time for the work, get

a good elementary treatise on plane and solid geometry, and study it.

The exercise will become a delight, will give strength and grip to the

faculties, and furnish protection against the mental dissipation caused

by spending much time in the hasty, careless reading of what is fitly

called light literature.

Analytical geometry is that branch which examines, discusses and develops

the properties of geometrical magnitudes by the use of algebraic symbols.

The questions or problems are solved, not, as in plane geometry, by

diagrams or figures drawn to show certain relations of magnitudes, but by

making algebraic symbols represent them, and thus solving the problems.

Analysis is much used in simple algebraic processes, but more in

analytical geometry, and in differential and integral calculus, which has

been called the transcendental analysis. It is useful as a higher branch

of the science, and without it the best achievements of the greatest

mathematicians would scarcely have been possible. These last named

branches are generally best pursued in our higher academies and colleges.

A college course would be sadly deficient without them, but only for

exceptional cases would it be advisable to put them in a course of study

to be pursued privately.

If this brief mention of the higher mathematics kindles desire for

further knowledge, and you hesitate to grapple with them alone, by

all means go to college, and after a proper introduction, wherein the

chief embarrassment is felt, even calculus will be found an agreeable

acquaintance.

Under the head of “Mixed Mathematics,” applicable to both laws or

abstract principles and facts, the discussion of things as actual

and possible, we have first, mechanics, the science that treats of

the various forces and their different effects. By _force_ is meant

any power that tends to prevent, produce, or modify motion. Three

are recognized—(1) gravitation, or the attraction of bodies toward

each other; (2) the cause, whatever it may be, of light, heat, and

electricity; (3) life, an equally mysterious power producing the actions

of animals and the growth of plants. These forces, though entirely unseen

and their causes unknown, are definite quantities. We readily conceive

of one force as equal to, or greater than another, and know that equal

forces, applied in opposite directions, balance each other. To everything

that moves there is force applied greater than the resistance to be

overcome. A number of forces may act on an object at the same time,

accelerating, retarding, or changing the direction of the motion given

to it. When the forces are so balanced as to hold the body on which they

act in a state of equilibrium, their action and consequent phenomena

are investigated under the head of STATICS, or the science which treats

of bodies at rest. When motion is produced, DYNAMICS considers the laws

that govern the moving bodies and the phenomena that result. These

branches of mechanical science are of great practical importance, and a

knowledge of them would save from many blunders and failures resulting

from incompetence. The same laws govern in the movement of all bodies,

whether solid or liquid. Hydrostatics, Hydrodynamics, Hydraulics, etc.,

are branches of the same science, and worthy of separate mention only

because they apply the general principles of statics and dynamics to the

phenomena of rest or motion in liquids. The foundation for all that is

peculiar in these branches with the lengthened names, and that together

may be called Hydro-mechanics, lies in the properties that distinguish

the liquid from other states of material bodies, whether gaseous or

solid, viz.: in the presence of cohesion, but with great mobility of

parts and more or less elasticity. Some peculiarities are so noteworthy

as to deserve mention even in this limited presentation. Because of the

only slight cohesive attraction, and entire freedom of motion among the

particles, liquid bodies possess no definite form of their own, but adapt

themselves to the form of the excavations or vessels containing them.

They, of course, vary much in their fluidity, the mobile liquids, as

water and alcohol, flowing more readily than molasses, heavy oils, and

tar. Fluids at rest press equally in all directions, upward, downward,

and laterally. In this, also, they differ from solids that press only

down, or in the direction of the center of gravitation. If not confined

they can not be heaped up, but their particles seek a common level. An

absolute water level is, of course, possible only when the area covered

is so limited that lines joining all the points on the surface with

the center of gravity are practically parallel, or their convergence

an inappreciable quantity. In large bodies of water, as the ocean, the

surface corresponds with the general rotundity of the earth.

The fact of the equal pressure of liquids in all directions, and with

the same intensity, is found of great importance in practical mechanics.

The strong pressure of a small column of water is finely illustrated

by simple experiment with the water bellows, or hydraulic paradox, in

which one pound of water in a tube lifts a hundred pounds on the top

of the bellows, and the greater the disproportion between the diameter

of the tube and that of the top of the bellows, the greater weight it

will raise. More than two hundred years ago Pascal showed the enormous

pressure exerted by a lofty column of water in a small tube. A strong

cask was filled with water, and a small tube forty feet high closely

fitted in its head, when a few pints of water poured into it burst the

cask, and would have done so if it had been made of the strongest oaken

staves and bound with hoops of iron. This is the power used in the

hydraulic press, a very simple machine of much value in the industrial

arts when there is a demand for great force that can be slowly and

steadily applied, as in compressing cloth, oil cake, paper, gunpowder

and numerous other things. Its parts are so few that it can be described

without a model to represent it. A small, upright cylinder, with a

closely fitting piston used as a pump to draw and force the water, and

connected at the base by a tube with a much larger cylinder directly

under the substance to be pressed, in which there is also a piston to

be moved upward, though water tight. The whole is secured in position

by powerful frame work. Beneath the piston the water is received. And

knowing the principles of hydrostatics we can estimate its power. If

the areas of the lower surfaces of the two pistons are to each other as

one to four hundred square inches, one pound pressure on the small one

will deliver to the lower surface of the large one a pressure equal to

four hundred pounds weight. But let the arms of the lever used as the

force pump handle be to each other as one to fifty. Then when a force

of fifty pounds is applied at the end of the long arm of the lever it

will descend with a force of 50×50=2,500, and there will be delivered on

the lower surface of the large piston a power to raise it expressed by

50×50×400=1,000,000. Some allowance must be made for friction or other

impediments, say one fourth, which is more than enough, and still a man

or boy at the end of that pump handle would be able to lift at least

three hundred and seventy-five tons.

The sciences we have been considering under the general name of

mechanics, which is derived from a Greek word that means to contrive,

invent, construct, have much to do with machinery, with the methods of

construction, the propelling forces, and the phenomena produced. There

were machinists and some simple machines propelled by human or brute

force, by weights and springs, by falling or running water, and air in

motion before the laws of motion and forces were understood, or the rude

mechanic arts began to assume the character of a science. The machines

were, of course, imperfect, and lacked efficiency, while many of those

now in use seem nearly perfect and adapted to the work expected of them.

But notwithstanding the marvelous advance that has been made in the

manufacture of machinery, and the intelligent application of mechanical

powers, we look for still greater things as possible in the future.

It is well, however, never to forget that whatever the seeming may be,

the most perfect machine of human invention does not create force. That

is as impossible for man as it is to give life or create matter. All he

can do is to collect, concentrate and use, to the best advantage, the

forces that exist. He may by skillful appliances gain a great mechanic

advantage, and overcome very formidable resistance, but he must be

content to do it very slowly; and it has been often said that “what he

gains in power he loses in speed.” In many cases this seems a necessity,

and he must submit to it. His simplest machine, if the fulcrum is placed

very near the weight, gives a man tremendous power gained by his position

at the long arm of the machine. But the point at which he applies the

force must move much faster and a greater distance than the object

against which it is directed. So when a man with a system of pulleys

raises to the top of a tower a block of granite that four men might lift

from the ground he sacrifices in speed what he gains in the new way of

applying the force he has for the purpose.

You visit a large manufacturing establishment or the mechanical

department of a great national or international industrial exposition and

see a whole acre of machinery of all kinds, shafts, wheels, saws, lathes,

and spindles in rapid motion, and, astonished at the complications,

inquire for the power that carries the whole. You will possibly find it

is in some remote part of the premises, and shut up in the motionless

boiler where the steam is said to be generated, which only means that the

water heated expands and struggles to escape from its confinement, while

man understanding the laws of its action manages to liberate the force

under conditions that make it his servant.

The science of numbers and magnitudes, useful in discussing the

distances, measurements, and motions of terrestrial bodies, is especially

so in its application to astronomy.

Astronomy as a physical science will receive consideration in the next

number; here only the mathematical elements are noticed, and they are

everywhere manifest. The same general laws control all material bodies,

those near to us, and those seen at a distance. So the science of the

stars is not now mere theory, but has all the elements of mathematical

certainty. When dealing with such vast numbers and magnitudes as engage

the astronomer’s attention, with a few known principles or laws, and

abundant recorded telescopic observations for the basis of their work,

men can calculate even more accurately than they can count or measure.

Having once prepared their theorem, aided by the logarithms of Napier[1]

that simplify and shorten the more difficult arithmetical calculations,

they can readily determine the distance, magnitude and motions of a

planet, and know that it is done with sufficient exactness. The distances

of the heavenly bodies are generally determined by their parallax, that

is the difference between the directions of the bodies as seen from two

different points. The inclination of the lines thus drawn is the angle

of parallax. By supposing the lines prolonged to the sun, and other

lines drawn through the points selected to the center of the earth a

quadrangle is formed, all the angles and sides of which are easily found.

In measuring very minute parallaxes it may not be possible to determine

the exact position of the body as projected on the celestial sphere, but

in that case recourse can be had to relative parallax, or the difference

between the parallaxes of two bodies lying nearly in the same direction.

The best opportunity for this is afforded by the transit of Venus, and

on this account great interest is felt in that phenomenon, and extensive

preparations are made for taking accurate observations.

The figure, size and density of the celestial bodies have all been

calculated with approximate certainty. The orbits, through which they

pass in their revolutions, described, and their velocities ascertained.

There is a solar system of which the sun is the center, and in its

relation to the planets stationary, though really moving on through

infinite space; the orbits through which planets move are not circles,

but more or less elliptic, having the sun at one focus of the ellipse.

That planets move in ellipses was announced by Kepler[2] as the first law

governing their motions, and a second deduced from this and confirmed by

observations, is that they do not move with equal velocity in all parts

of their orbits; and that _a line drawn from the center of the earth to

the center of the sun passes over equal spaces in equal times_. He also

found as a third law that _the squares of the times of the revolutions of

the planets are proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from

the sun_.

Navigation shows how vessels are directed in their course upon the great

waters. In proportion as the “paths of the seas” have become open, safe

and free for all, they are found paths of knowledge and civilization. The

science, small at its beginning, has grown to its present advanced state

by slow degrees, helped by contributions from the most opposite sources.

Practical but uneducated seamen have doubtless done much, as their

ingenuity is often, in emergencies, taxed to supply means of safety and

success that are wanting. More has been contributed by scholars, secluded

philosophic men whose lives are spent “in communion with the skies,”

in observing the motions of the heavenly bodies and studying the laws

by which they are regulated. But perhaps the most valuable service has

been rendered by another class who combine an experience of the sea with

much knowledge of astronomical science, men acquainted with the needs

of seamen and qualified to meet them. The introduction of the mariner’s

compass early in the fifteenth century was an epoch in the history of

navigation, as it made seamen in a measure independent of the sun and

stars. This was an incalculable advantage, as soon became apparent to

those who adopted the compass as their guide. Of the many improvements

and helps in the science of navigation we can only name, as conspicuous,

the invention of Mercator’s chart[3] in 1569, Davis’s quadrant[4] about

1600, and Hadley’s quadrant a century later. The character of the

instruments and a glance at the Nautical Almanac will show how largely

both mathematics and astronomy enter into the science of navigation. Nor

is it quite safe to take passage with a shipmaster who has but limited

knowledge of either. He should at least thoroughly understand his

instruments and be a ready, accurate computer.

Geometry grew out of the practice of surveying, and now embodies many

of the laws and principles of the science. There are several distinct

systems of surveying, classed according to the purposes contemplated.

It is astronomically employed in determining the figure of the earth

by the actual measurement of arcs. A fair knowledge of mathematics

and trigonometry is required in what are known as coast surveys. Land

surveying is of the plainest kind, and employed in finding the contents

of areas, or in dividing large tracts into lots of smaller dimensions.

The chief difficulty is in getting the exact bearing of the lines and the

measure of the angles when the plot is an irregular polygon.

Topographical surveying, beside the measurement of lines and angles,

takes note of variations of level, that the draft may properly represent

superficial inequalities. Maritime surveying is an important branch,

fixing the positions of shoals, rocks and shore-lines. Mine surveying

determines the location of works in the mine and decides whether the

excavations conform, as required, to lines on the surface. The compass

and chain are the surveyor’s most common instruments, but others are

used according to the nature of the surveys to be made. Incompetency or

carelessness in surveys often occasions serious trouble and loss.

Fortifications for the defense of cities and the protection of soldiers

are as ancient as the existence of armies. The former, built in time of

peace, of such form and materials as military science and experience

suggest, are called “permanent fortifications;” and the temporary

works constructed as the exigencies of a campaign require are “field

fortifications.” The art and science have been practiced and studied in

all ages, and there is now an immense literature on the subject.

As methods of defense must be adjusted to those of attack the earlier

permanent fortifications, in the progress of society and after the

introduction of artillery, became nearly worthless. High stone walls are

a protection while they stand, but, however strong, they can be battered

down by heavy siege guns that have less effect when directed against

earth works, which seem less formidable. A place thoroughly fortified is

seldom taken by a sudden assault. The United States have fortified less

than most of the great European nations, but are by no means defenseless.

Previous to 1860 there had been expended on our forts more than

$30,000,000; and all the exposed positions have been greatly strengthened

within the last twenty-five years.

_End of Required Reading for February._

THE POET’S VISION.

BY MARY A. LATHBURY.

My Lady Lily, the waters sleep,

And the winds are among the clover;

Would I could hear the tale you told

The Poet once, till with voice of gold

Singing it over and over

He came to the court and cried, “O king,

My song of thy state and glory

Is dead on my lips! I am done with strife,

And courts, and conquests. A song of life

I have learned from a water lily.”

“Carol us then thy pretty song,

Sir Poet!” the king cried, sneering;

So standing stateliest of them all

The length of the royal banquet hall,

And flinging a look unfearing,

Full on the king and his court, who sat

Smiling in fine derision,

He sang or chanted as chants a seer

When sense is fading, and draweth near

The high beatific vision.

He sang of life in the soil of death,

A seed of a heavenly sowing;

Asleep in the murk and mire of earth,

In silence waiting its wondrous birth,

Of death or of life unknowing.

He sang of the Sun of Life—His quest

In our death-deeps dark and chilly;

Of love that quickens to life the dead,

As the sun rays seek in the river-bed

The germ of the water lily.

He sang of Faith—of the eye that seeks

With a sightless aspiration

The source of Love and the fount of Light,

Till far in the folds of the utmost night,

Storm-swept with fierce temptation,

A light breaks through like a faint white star,

That grows and grows like the dawning,

Till, veiled in vapors, it hangs above

The wakened soul as the face of Love,

And Life has begun its morning.

He sang of Life in the spring o’ day,

Of patience, and truth, and duty,—

The narrow ways to the full release,

When, lapped in light and a dream of peace,

It bursts as a flower to beauty.

He sang—and his words fell thick and fast—

Of the resurrection glory;

Of good from evil, of life from death,

And then, with hesitant, bated breath,

The God-man’s marvelous story.

Then silence fell on the king and court,

And out through the open portal

The poet passed with a solemn stride

Into the midnight spaces wide,

Or into the life immortal.

My Lady Lily, you will not wake,

Wrapped in your dreams Elysian,

But this is the mystic tale you hold,

Deep in your tremulous heart of gold;

And this was the Poet’s vision.

THE HOMELIKE HOUSE.

BY SUSAN HAYES WARD.