as supplemented a year or two ago by
a most excellent and readable article on eccentric literature, by
Mr. John Fiske, which appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly." Here the
author discussed the subject so well that I do not feel like saying
much about it, beyond giving a little of my own experience.

Naturally the Smithsonian Institution was, and I presume still is,
the great authority to which these men send their productions.
It was generally a rule of Professor Henry always to notice
these communications and try to convince the correspondents of
their fallacies. Many of the papers were referred to me; but a
little experience showed that it was absolutely useless to explain
anything to these "paradoxers." Generally their first communication
was exceedingly modest in style, being evidently designed to lead on
the unwary person to whom it was addressed. Moved to sympathy with
so well-meaning but erring an inquirer, I would point out wherein
his reasoning was deficient or his facts at fault. Back would come
a thunderbolt demonstrating my incapacity to deal with the subject
in terms so strong that I could not have another word to say.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science was another
attraction for such men. About thirty years ago there appeared at
one of its meetings a man from New Jersey who was as much incensed
against the theory of gravitation as if it had been the source of
all human woe. He got admission to the meetings, as almost any one
can, but the paper he proposed to read was refused by the committee.
He watched his chance, however, and when discussion on some paper was
invited, he got up and began with the words, "It seems to me that
the astronomers of the present day have gravitation on the brain."
This was the beginning of an impassioned oration which went on in an
unbroken torrent until he was put down by a call for the next paper.
But he got his chance at last. A meeting of Section Q was called;
what this section was the older members will recall and the reader
may be left to guess. A programme of papers had been prepared,
and on it appeared Mr. Joseph Treat, on Gravitation. Mr. Treat got
up with great alacrity, and, amid the astonishment and laughter of
all proceeded to read his paper with the utmost seriousness.

I remember a visit from one of these men with great satisfaction,
because, apparently, he was an exception to the rule in being
amenable to reason. I was sitting in