establishing for the first
time the fact of more rapid motion in the middle of the glacier,
Professor Forbes had appropriated the credit. The style is remarkably
agreeable, in description vivid, and in its scientific parts clear.
Indeed, we do not know whether we have enjoyed the narrative or the
science the most. Professor Tyndall has the uncommon gift of being
able to write science so that the unscientific can understand it,
without descending to the low level of science made easy. The Royal
Institution may well congratulate itself on having in him a man every
way qualified to succeed Faraday, whenever (and may it be long first!)
his chair is vacant.

* * * * *

ART.

MR. JARVES'S COLLECTION.

It seems an odd turn in the kaleidoscope of Fortune that associates a
Prime Minister of the Sandwich Islands--where the only pictorial Art
is a kind of illumination laboriously executed by the natives on each
other's skins, thus forming a free peripatetic gallery--with a
collection of pictures by early Italian masters. It is certainly a
striking illustration of American multifariousness. From the dawning
civilization of Hawaii Mr. Jarves withdraws to Italy, where culture
has passed far beyond its noon, and finds himself equally at home in
both. From Italy he has returned to America with by far the most
important contribution to historical Art that has ever reached us. It
is not easy to overestimate its value, whether intrinsically, or as an
aid to intelligent and refining study. We can hardly expect, it is
true, ever to form such collections of Art in this country as would
save our students the necessity of visiting Europe. This, indeed,
would be hardly desirable; since a great deal of the refining and
enlightening influence of foreign travel and observation is not
received directly from the special objects that may have drawn us
abroad, but incidentally and unexpectedly, by being brought into
contact with strange systems of government and new forms of thought.
But what we might have is such a collection as would enable those of
us who cannot travel to enjoy some of the highest aesthetic advantages
of travel, and would send our students to the galleries of the Old
World already in a condition to appreciate and profit by them. Mr.
Jarves's pictures afford the opportunity for an excellent beginning in
such an undertaking.

Mr. Jarves's object has been to form a gallery that should exhibit th