The Princess had fainted; but ere long she recovered, and was able to tell her version of the story. She had been completing the pedigree; she had almost arrived at the last link, when the whole chain had been snapped by this hideous discovery. She would never get over the shock. To think that after all she was a nobody! It was too dreadful!
They led her to her own room, and in time succeeded in calming her. Then, in order to convince himself, Charlie carefully examined the parchment. Its statements could not be gainsaid. The Stuarts of Balquhalloch had no connection with royalty; and he would not now be required to seize the throne of Great Britain. To him the revelation came, it must be remarked, as a welcome relief; but for days and weeks it made his poor aunt miserable; and when she finally reconciled herself to her lot, it seemed as if her energy and pleasure in life had departed for ever. Indeed, she never entirely got over the blow, and at the beginning of this year she died.
Charlie and Catharine were with her to the last, and she bequeathed everything to them. Balquhalloch, therefore, is now theirs; and Tom Checkstone, who, rightly or wrongly, regarded himself as Charlie’s good genius, holds sway as his friend’s secretary, man of business, chum, and general factotum.
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
On the 27th of August, the British Association commenced its fifty-fourth annual meeting—not this year, however, on British soil, but at Montreal in Canada. Some hundreds of members travelled from this country to be present at the meeting. Both on the part of the city and of the Dominion, the reception of the Association has been everything that could be desired by its members. Montreal itself raised forty thousand dollars towards defraying the expenses of the visit, and three hundred of the members were, besides, received as guests into private houses. The new President, Lord Rayleigh, Professor of Experimental Physics in the University of Cambridge, delivered the opening address, in which he sketched the progress that had been made in certain important branches of science. The final meeting of the Association was held on the afternoon of September 3, and was largely attended, about two thousand persons being present. Lord Rayleigh in addressing the assembly, said that no meeting had been held in which the Association had been provided with such spacious rooms. Resolutions in favour of the erection of a free public library in Montreal, as a memorial of the visit, were then passed, and a large amount of money was immediately promised in aid of this object, among the donations being one of ten thousand pounds. The total money grants in favour of scientific investigations made at the Montreal meeting were fifteen hundred and fifty pounds. The tickets issued for members of the Association for this session numbered seventeen hundred and thirty, and the money received amounted to eighteen hundred pounds.
Within the last twenty-five years, and more especially since the Franco-German war, when the French made such good use of balloons, there have been somewhat frequent rumours that the problem of aërial navigation, comprised in the possibility of guiding and propelling a balloon in a given direction, had been solved. The machine in each case is carefully described, and generally it is represented as having risen gracefully in the air, travelled about a little, and then returned to its starting-point. Then, nothing more is heard of it. Such an event is said to have occurred last month in France. The gas-vessel—it can hardly be called a balloon, for it is cigar-shaped—is nearly two hundred feet long. A platform is hung below, upon which is a screw propeller, worked by a dynamo-machine and a large rudder. This description tallies almost exactly with the form of so-called steerable balloons which have been constructed, tried, and found useless by M. Giffard, M. Tissandier, and others in previous years. The French government have spent much money in experimental ballooning, and this last achievement is the result. Perhaps the authorities were obliged to show something for the money that was being spent, but we fear that that something is not anything new or profitable. Until an aërial machine be produced which shall make its way against strong currents, balloon navigation will remain as it has hitherto been.
Here is a clever American notion, and one which will probably have a wide application. It consists of a noiseless door-closer. In the ordinary metal or india-rubber spring, so commonly fixed to doors, the greatest energy is exerted at first, and the door generally slams with a noise which is very distressing to any one with nerves. In the new arrangement, the spring is fixed to the piston attached to a small air-cylinder, so that as the door closes, the resistance of the air in the cylinder checks its motion before the terrible bang arrives. A small opening in the cylinder then lets in the air, so that the spring once more asserts its authority with sufficient persuasion to gently close the door.
After the terrors excited by the alleged danger of using arsenical wall-papers, it is rather a relief to read the opinion of Mr R. Galloway, who has written an article upon the subject in the Journal of Science. ‘Has it,’ he asks, ‘ever been proved that persons who inhabit rooms the wall-paper of which is stained with emerald green, suffer from arsenical poisoning?’ He then points out that the injurious effects, if any, must be due to the mechanical detachment of the pigment from the paper, and that such homœopathic doses of the substance as could be carried by the air, would be totally different from the effects which arise from larger doses of arsenic. Moreover, he has made inquiry as to any cases of poisoning occurring during the packing of this finely divided pigment—during which operation the packers are surrounded by clouds of its dust—and could hear of none. Mr Mattieu Williams, a well-known writer on Science, is also of opinion that ‘arsenical wall-papers’ are practically harmless. We are glad to record these opinions, for the tendency of the present time is to point out lurking dangers in every direction, until one is apt to wonder how our forefathers, in their happy ignorance of sanitation, ever contrived to reach adult age.
At Reading, this autumn, a honey-fair is to be held, when prizes will be distributed to beekeepers who work on humane and advanced principles, and also to those who can show the greatest amount of unadulterated honey raised in a Berkshire hive. Such a show as this is worthy of every encouragement, for honey fetches a high price, and so does wax, even in these days of cheap sugar and composite candles. It thus becomes possible for the intelligent cottager to add considerably to his scanty means; and if he can be taught that honey can be won without periodical destruction of bees and comb, so much the better. There is some complaint that the newfangled hives, efficient though they be, are too expensive to supersede the old straw skep. The British Beekeepers’ Association might well turn their attention to this aspect of the matter.
Last year, Professor Huxley stated it as his opinion that no act of man could possibly influence the increase or decrease in the number of sea-fish. This was in answer to the gloomy anticipations of many that the herring and other fisheries would be gradually annihilated unless our fishermen were compelled by law to observe certain conditions. So far as herrings are concerned, the recent enormous catches have shown that there are fish as good and plentiful in the sea as ever yet came out. Last month, we saw these fish in splendid condition being sold at the Farringdon Fish Market, London, at one penny per dozen. By the way, can any one explain why, in these days of refrigerators and cheap ice, eighty-six tons of fish should be allowed in one month to become—at Billingsgate—unfit for human food?