On 17th February the Austrian skipper offered ten pounds for a passage to Harris in the new boat, for himself and men. The St Kildans accepted the offer, and arranged to send seven of their own men to bring her back. They would not allow the Austrians to go alone, being afraid that they (the St Kildans) might be left without a boat, and have no means of getting seed-corn and provisions. They drew lots who were to go, and it was stipulated that I was to be one of them. All was settled except the weather. We were waiting for a promising day, when, on the 22d, about seven in the morning, as I was lying in bed and thinking of getting up to make my breakfast, I was startled by hearing the sound of a steam-whistle. I lay back again muttering: 'It was the wind;' when hark! the whistle is repeated. I leaped up, ran to the door, and saw, sure enough, a steamer in the bay! Huddling on my clothes, I rushed barefoot up the village, rattling at every door, and shouting 'Steamer—strangers!' In a few minutes all the people were astir and hurrying to the shore. I had just time to throw the articles that lay handy into my trunk and to get on board the steamer's boat, which I saw belonged to Her Majesty. Then I discovered that I had left my purse and other property in the house; but the surf was too great to allow me to land again. I got on board the steamer, which I found to be the Jackal. 'How did you know we were here?' I inquired of one of the officers who stood on the quarter-deck. 'From the letter you wrote and put into the bottle lashed to the life-buoy.' I ran to the side of the ship muttering to myself: 'There is a Providence that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will;' and bawled to the St Kildans in the boat alongside: 'It was the life-buoy brought this steamer here, you incredulous people;' for they had smiled, although good-humouredly, at my efforts to send a letter home. A small supply of biscuits and oatmeal was given to them; and waving an adieu to my good St Kildan friends, we were speedily receding from the island.

I found all the officers extremely friendly and agreeable, and here beg to return my hearty thanks. I was made to feel quite at home. The shipwrecked captain and I were accommodated in the cabin. The Austrian sailors were well taken care of forward, and seemed particularly delighted at again having as much tobacco as they could use. We had been all smoking dried moss.

The wind had risen and the sea become rough; and if the Jackal had been half an hour later, she would have been obliged to return with her errand unexecuted; for it would have been impossible for a boat to approach the shore. We reached Harris the same evening, and anchored in the Sound all night. But as this part of the journey has appeared in the newspapers, I need not repeat it. Suffice it that I arrived barefoot and penniless, but in good health and spirits, in Greenock on the 26th. Here my narrative ends.

[Many of the facts related in the foregoing narrative were published in various newspapers in the early part of the present year, and led to considerable discussion. Stormy seasons, as we have seen, may set in, and communication with the proprietor or his factor be rendered impossible; the most anxious efforts to transmit provisions may be rendered abortive, and famine, if not actual starvation, be the result. Various hints for the melioration of the poor St Kildans have been thrown out, amongst others that those isolated beings should quit the island for good, and seek a new home in the more civilised Hebrides or elsewhere. One thing is sufficiently obvious, if the people are to remain on the island, they should be taught to speak and write English. Their adherence to Gaelic condemns them to innumerable privations, above all it excludes them from communication with the outer world, on whose sympathy they are forced to rely. Half a century ago, Dr John Macculloch lamented this exclusive use of Gaelic; and we echo all he said on the subject. We have no objection to Gaelic being made a philological study, but its continuance as a spoken language is in all respects to be regretted.—Ed.]

[THE MONTH:]
SCIENCE AND ARTS.

The 'season' is at its busiest: crowds of sightseers are looking at the pictures in the Royal Academy, the Grosvenor Gallery, and in other resorts, and painting and sculpture are everywhere talked about; while fine art rejoices in its annual holiday, and 'art sales' (which are too often artful) draw throngs of competing buyers. The debates in parliament on reform of our universities have revived the education question; and sanguine talkers who believe that education can do everything, have had to be reminded once more that endowments however ample cannot create genius; that our greatest achievements in science, art, or literature have been wrought by unendowed men, and that nature will not produce a larger proportion of highest quality brain even though schools be multiplied. Meanwhile the experiment for the promotion of scientific research initiated by government has advanced a stage, and the investigators recommended by the Council of the Royal Society have received grants of money from the Paymaster-general to enable them to carry on their work. As this experiment is to be continued for five years, we may reasonably expect that it will assist in resolving the endowment question.

The cost of the expeditions sent out by this country in 1875 to observe the transit of Venus has been ascertained: it is forty thousand pounds; the estimate was twenty thousand pounds. As will be remembered, other nations engaged in the work as well as ourselves; and we have it on the authority of the Astronomer-royal that the total expenditure 'may amount to two hundred thousand pounds.' This is a large sum to pay for the endeavour to solve the problem of the earth's distance from the sun; but the problem is one of essential importance in astronomical science, and there is reason to hope that when all the computations are completed the true answer will appear. Remembering as we do the eclipse expeditions assisted by the Treasury and the Admiralty, and the expensive and abortive Arctic expedition, we agree with the learned functionary above referred to that 'the government has been very liberal.'

By a method known to astronomers, observations of the planet Mars can be made available for determining our distance from the sun. Sir George Airy speaks of this method as 'the best of all;' and as Mars is this year in the most favourable position for these special observations, a private expedition is to be sent to St Helena or to Ascension to make them. The expense will be about five hundred pounds; and this is to be provided by gifts from scientific men, and by a contribution from the Royal Astronomical Society.

The formation of meteorites is a question which has long been discussed by mineralogists and physicists. Professor Tschermak, after much study, has come to the conclusion that the active agent in the process is volcanic. He points out that the meteorites which fall to the earth are angular in form, that they have no concentric structure even in their interior, that their external crust is not an original characteristic, and that they are evidently fragmentary. Examination of the crust has shewn that during the later stages of flight, disruption of the meteorite itself sometimes takes place; and it is a fact worth record, that guided by the appearance of the crust and peculiarity of shape, Professor Maskelyne once succeeded in reconstructing a meteorite from fragments which had fallen miles apart.