98. Q. What coloring matters are obtained from the liquids produced by these processes? A. Alzorine, affording Turkey red and other colors, and the well known analine colors.
99. Q. To what quantity does silicon exist in our globe? A. In a quantity equal to about one fourth its entire weight, including its atmospheres and its oceans.
100. Q. What is the principal earthy matter of our planet? A. The compound of silicon and oxygen, existing either alone in the form of sand, quartz crystal, and similar minerals, or else in combination with other well known abundant earth materials, such as oxides of calcium, magnesium, and aluminum.
EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.
PUBLIC MEN IN LITERATURE.
Until recently Americans have had good grounds for complaining that their public servants were almost a minus quantity in literature. The complaint had an especially sharp edge in view of the fact that at an earlier period our Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, and others, had been among the foremost writers of the country; and it was still further aggravated by the contrast we seemed to present to France, England, and Germany, where a public man is usually also a literary man. The rule in France is that an eminent politician is an author, and the most distinguished statesmen and princes have written books. Even Louis Napoleon wrote a book on Cæsar, and one of the best accounts of our late war is the stately volumes of Count de Paris. In England, the rule is the same. The queen herself takes pride in the books she has produced. John Bright is almost alone in having no literary tastes, but his speeches will long survive in the volumes they will fill. Disraeli and Gladstone, Bulwer and Macaulay, Fawcett and Dilke, are only a few contemporary names in along list of distinguished statesmen who have excelled as writers for periodicals and as producers of books. In this country, from about 1830 to 1880, our public men wrote little. Benton’s “Thirty Years,” Webster’s speeches, and Sumner’s orations, and some other less famous works, do indeed redeem the half century; but when we have said all that can be said in praise of exceptions, the rule seems to have been that an American politician was not a writer, and a phrase of contempt attributed to an eminent Senator expresses the feelings of our politicians against “them literary fellers” in a form which is full of a significance from which we prefer to turn away our ears. Too many of our public men have despised literature, and justified literature in returning the sentiment with interest.
We are entering upon a happier period. The American statesman is returning to authorship. It is a wholesome change. Mr. Blaine’s history will occur to many readers as an illustration. It is hardly less noteworthy that his late associate on the Republican ticket has written for The Chautauquan able papers on a public question which is a living issue. A very long list might be made of public men who are in good fame as writers. The witty S. S. Cox will at once occur to all our memories, and another eminent Democrat is said to be writing a history of his times. General Grant finds relief from the terrible strain of his financial misfortunes in writing the history of his battles. We have employed some of our most gifted authors as diplomats; as, for example, Motley, the historian, James Russell Lowell, the poet and literary critic, and George P. Marsh, the man of universal knowledge; but it may, probably will, come to pass that some of their stamp will more and more appear in our public life at home. We have kept poets, philosophers, and novelists alive by giving them clerkships in Custom Houses. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Howells, “Ik Marvel” (Donald G. Mitchell), and others, rose to the dignity of consulships. Francis Lieber was tolerated in a Custom House clerkship in New York. We are probably coming to the time when such men may be members of Congress and shape the legislation of the country. Literary men are usually the most practical of men; that they are dreamers of impossibilities is the strangest of our popular delusions. A few exceptions have been carelessly considered as making the rule for the class. The sort of practicality—tempered by philosophy—which the literary man brings to affairs is what our public life most needs. All clean knowledge is a light where it abides, and the value of unclean knowledge (such as some practical politicians boast themselves in), is a forlorn minus quantity.