Lady Toppingham was as serene as a harvest moon, and was evidently much amused with her visitor; and the rest looked on with an interest and a satisfaction which were manifest in their countenances.

"Your lordship does suthin' in this way, I reckon. Guess all you lords air in the lumber line; 'n' I seen some fuss-class trees inter the vacant lots raound your haouse-castle, I mean. S'pose that's the reason you don't improve. Much doin' in lumber naow?"

"Not much," said our host, with a pleasant smile. "I'm more inclined to keep my trees than to sell them, at present. But let me make you acquainted with some of my friends. Mr. Grimstone, member for Hilchester Towers."

"Haow do you do, Mr. Grimstone?" said Adams, rising; and shifting his knife to his left hand, he took the M.P.'s, and shaking it vigorously, said, "Happy to hev the pleasure of meetin' you, sir. Don't know you personally, but know you very well by reputtation.”

As our host looked next at me, I managed to convey to him an unspoken request not to be introduced, which he respected; but my friend the captain, stepping forward, was presented, with the added comment that Mr. Adams would find him well up about guns and rifles and fire-arms of all kinds; quite an authority, indeed, upon that subject.

"Dew tell? Why, I'm glad to hev the pleasure of meetin' you, sir. Look a' here! I kin show you suthin' fuss-class in that line," and putting his hand behind him, underneath his coat, he produced a large pistol, a navy revolver, which he exhibited in a demonstrative way to the captain, saying, "Naow that's suthin' satisfactory fur a gen'leman to hev about him; no little pea-shootin' thing, that you might empty into a man 'thout troublin' him more 'n so many flea-bites."

The captain looked at it with interest, while some of the other guests shrank away. After a brief examination, he returned it, saying, "Vewy fine, vewy fine, indeed; and I hear you use 'em at vewy long distances, almost like a wifle."

"Sartin," said Mr. Adams. "Look a' here! See that thar tree yonder?" and pointing to one on the other side of the garden, he threw up his left arm, and took a sight rest on it. Some of the ladies screamed, and the captain and Lord Toppingham both caught his arm, the latter exclaiming, "Beg pahdon, don't fire, please! Somebody might be passin' in the park."

"Wal, jess's you like, sir. You air to hum, 'n' I ain't. But that's the diff'kilty 'ith England. Th'r' ain't no libbuty here. You've allers got to be thinkin' 'baout somebody else."

The incident certainly created a little unpleasant excitement; yet after this had subsided, it seemed not to have diminished, but rather to have increased, the satisfaction with which Mr. Adams was regarded.

The Professor came up, and said, "Our Amerigan vrent is ferry kint sooch an exhipition of the manners and gustoms of his gountry to gif. Barehaps he vould a var-tance bareform vor the inztrugzion oond blaysure of dthe gompany."

"No, no, Professor Schlamm," said Lady Toppingham, smiling, "we won't put Mr. Adams to the trouble of a war-dance; and we've so narrowly escaped one blessure that we may well be willing to forego the other." As my hostess struck off this little spark, I observed that her French was not that of the school of Stratford atte Bowe, which continues much in vogue in England even among ladies of the prioress's rank.

Adams caught at the name as an introduction. "Is this," he said, "the celebrated Professor Schlamm?" and seizing his hand, he shook it well. "Happy to make your acquaintance, sir. Your fame, sir, is widely ex-tended over the civil-ized globe. Hev n't hed the pleasure of meetin' you before, sir, but know you very well by reputation."

The Professor, who had all the simple vanity of the vainest race in the world, beamed under the influence of this compliment, so that his very spectacles seemed to glow with warmth and light.

"You German gen'l'men air fond of our naytional plant," said Adams blandly. "Hev a cigar? Won't you jine me?" and he produced from his pocket two or three temptations.

"Dthanks; poot it might not to dthe laties pe acreeable."

"No? Wal, then, here goes fur the ginooine article. I'm 'baout tuckered aout fur some." Saying this he took from his pocket a brown plug, cut off a piece, and having shaped and smoothed a little with his huge knife, he laid it carefully with his fore finger in his cheek. Then, his knife being out, he took the opportunity to clean his nails; and having scraped the edges until our blood curdled, he returned his weapon, after a loud click, to his pocket.

A look of distress had come over the face of our hostess when Mr. Adams produced his plug; and she called a servant, who, after receiving an order from her in a low voice, went out. Mr. Adams's supplementary toilet being completed, he slouched away towards the balustrade; and after looking a few moments across the garden, he turned about, and, leaning against the stone, he began an expectorative demonstration. After he had made two or three violent and very obtrusive efforts of this kind, which, however, I must confess, did not seem to leave much visible witness before us, the servant returned hastily with a spittoon, the fabric and condition of which showed very plainly that it came from no part of the priory that rejoiced in the presence of Lady Toppingham. This the footman placed before Mr. Adams, within easy range.

"Nev' mind," said that gentleman,-" nev' mind. Sorry you took the

VOL. VIII.-2

trouble, sonny. I don't set up fur style; don't travel onto it. I'm puffickly willin' to sit down along 'th my fren's, and spit raound sociable. I know I wear a biled shirt 'n' store clothes,-that's a fact; but 's a graceful con-ciliation of and deference to public opinion, considerin' I'm a member of the legislater of the Empire State."

"Biled?" said Captain Surcingle to me, inquiringly (for we had kept pretty close together). "Mean boiled?"

"Yes."

"Boil shirts in 'Mewica?"

Always."

"Your shirt boiled?"

"N-no; not exactly. I should have said that all our wealthiest and most distinguished citizens, members of the legislature and the like, boil their shirts. I make no such pretensions."

The captain looked at me doubtfully. But our talk and Mr. Adams's performances were brought to a close by the announcement of luncheon, and an invitation from our host to the dining-room. This mid-day repast is quite informal; but, comparatively unrestrained as it is by etiquette, rank and precedence are never quite forgotten at it, or on any other occasion, in England; and there being no man of rank present, except our host, and Sir Charles being far down the terrace, talking hunt and horse with another squire, Mr. Grimstone was moving toward Lady Toppingham, with the expectation of entering with her, when Mr. Adams stepped quickly up, and saying, "Wal, I don't keer ef I dew jine you; 'low me the pleasure, ma'am," he offered her his arm. She took it, Mr. Grimstone retreated in disorder, and we all went in somewhat irregularly. As we passed through the hall, and approached the dining-room, it occurred to Mr. Adams to remove his hat; and he then looked about, and up and down, in evident search of a peg on which to hang it. A servant stepped forward and held out his hand for it. After a brief hesitation he resigned it, saying, "Ain't ye goin' to give me no check for that? Haow do I know I'll git it agin? Haowever, it's Lord Toppingham's haouse, an' he's responsible, I guess. That's good law, ain't it, your Lordship?"

"Excellent," said our host, evidently much pleased that Lady Toppingham had taken this opportunity to continue on her way to the dining-room, where we found her with Mr. Grimstone on her right hand, and a vacant seat on her left, between her and her cousin, to which she beckoned me; Mr. Adams, the Professor, and the two authoresses forming a little group near Lord Toppingham.

"I hope," said the M. P. to me, as we settled ourselves at table, "that you are pleased with your Mr. Washington Adams. I, for one, own that such a characteristic exhibition of genuine American character and

manners is, if not exactly agreeable, a very entertaining subject of study."

The taunt itself was less annoying than its being flung at me across our hostess; but as I could not tell him so without sharing his breach of good manners, I was about to let his remark pass, with a silent bow, when a little look of encouragement in Lady Toppingham's eyes led me to say, "As to your entertainment, sir, I have no doubt that you might find as good at home without importing your Helots. As to Mr. Adams being my Mr. Washington Adams, he is neither kith nor kin of any of my people, to whom he would be an occasion of as much curious wonder as he is to any person at this table."

"Oh, that won't do at all. He is one of your legislators,-the Honorable Washington Adams. You Americans are a very strange people; quite incomprehensible to our poor, simple English understandings." I did not continue the discussion, which I saw would be as fruitless as, under the circumstances, it was unpleasant, and indeed almost inadmissible, notwithstanding the gracious waiver of my hostess.

Edward Livingston Poumans.

BORN in Coeymans, N. Y., 1821. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1887.

A TERSE STATEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF FORCES.

[Introduction to "The Correlation and Conservation of Forces." 1865.]

TOWA

OWARD the close of the last century the human mind reached the great principle of the indestructibility of matter. What the intellectual activity of ages had failed to establish by all the resources of reasoning and philosophy, was accomplished by the invention of a mechanical implement, the balance of Lavoisier. When nature was tested in the chemist's scale plan, it was first found that never an atom is created or destroyed; that though matter changes form with protean facility, traversing a thousand cycles of change, vanishing and reappearing incessantly, yet it never wears out or lapses into nothing.

The present age will be memorable in the history of science for having demonstrated that the same great principle applies also to forces, and for the establishment of a new philosophy concerning their nature and relations. Heat, light, electricity, and magnetism are now no longer regarded as substantive and independent existences-subtile fluids with peculiar properties, but simply as modes of motion in ordinary matter;

forms of energy which are capable of mutual conversion. Heat is a mode of energy manifested by certain effects. It may be transformed into electricity, which is another form of force producing different effects. Or the process may be reversed; the electricity disappearing and the heat reappearing. Again, mechanical motion, which is a motion of masses, may be transformed into heat or electricity, which is held to be a motion of the atoms of matter, while, by a reverse process, the motion of atoms, that is, heat or electricity, may be turned back again into mechanical motion. Thus a portion of the heat generated in a locomotive is converted into the motion of the train, while by the application of the brakes the motion of the train is changed back again into the heat of friction.

These mutations are rigidly subject to the laws of quantity. A given amount of one force produces a definite quantity of another; so that power or energy, like matter, can neither be created nor destroyed: though ever changing form, its total quantity in the universe remains constant and unalterable. Every manifestation of force must have come from a preëxisting equivalent force, and must give rise to a subsequent and equal amount of some other force. When, therefore, a force or effect appears, we are not at liberty to assume that it was self-originated, or came from nothing; when it disappears we are forbidden to conclude that it is annihilated: we must search and find whence it came and whither it has gone; that is, what produced it and what effect it has itself produced. These relations among the modes of energy are currently known by the phrases Correlation and Conservation of Force.

The present condition of the philosophy of forces is perfectly paralleled by that of the philosophy of matter toward the close of the last century. So long as it was admitted that matter in its various changes may be created or destroyed, chemical progress was impossible. If, in his processes, a portion of the material disappeared, the chemist had a ready explanation-the matter was destroyed; his analysis was therefore worthless. But when he started with the axiom that matter is indestructible, all disappearance of material during his operations was chargeable to their imperfection. He was therefore compelled to improve them-to account in his result for every thousandth of a grain with which he commenced; and as a consequence of this inexorable condition, analytical chemistry advanced to a high perfection, and its consequences to the world are incalculable. Precisely so with the analysis of forces. So long as they are considered capable of being created and destroyed, the quest for them will be careless and the results valueless. But the moment they are determined to be indestructible, the investigator becomes bound to account for them: all problems of