willow or poplar wood. The amount of money they represented was noted on them by means of notches cut in the side of the flat tally. These were easily split, and the counter-tally served as a check upon the original one. Such is the life in old customs in England, that were it not that the accidental firing of one of these bundles of tallies set fire to the old House of Commons it is quite possible that the tally system might still have been in vogue. Among the curious examples of old oak, showing the power of this wood to resist change, may be mentioned a portion of a pile of old London Bridge, taken up in 1827, which must have been in use 650 years, and yet seems as sound as the day it was put down. Some of the bog oaks are also very curious; and a portion of the Maria Rose,' lost at Spithead in the reign of Henry VIII., is still perfectly good. Museum No. 2 is at the bottom of the Herbaceous Garden, and is appropriated to specimens of the products of those plants which are commonly regarded as not bearing flowers, such as mosses, ferns, sea-weeds, lichens, and mushrooms. There are only two floors to this museum, In the rooms of the ground floor are many curious specimens which are interesting. Let us note ivory nuts from the Vegetable Ivory Palm, with specimens of chessmen and other ornaments cut out of the ivory. The method of carrying tea in Paraguay in the skin of the great ant-eater, specimens of wood stained green by Peziza aruginosa, and used for the manufacture of Tunbridge-ware. Here also we may see specimens of the gulf-weed which forms such immense masses in the eddy of the Atlantic to the west of the Azores, as to offer impediments to the navigation of vessels. It may be asked how Kew Garden has fulfilled the scheme of such a natural garden as was foreshadowed by the late Dr. Lindley: what imperial purposes has it served; what has it done towards proving itself a nursing mother to our Colonial possessions? This is a very important question, and we think the Director can with pride reply. From these Gardens have issued the Cinchona plants which are now clothing the hills of India, and from the produce of which quinine is now largely manufactured in the Nilghiri mountains, and in the Sikkim Himalaya. The importance of the introduction of this life-giving drug to the holders of India, and to all fever-stricken populations, cannot be exaggerated. The cultivation of ipecacuanha in the same country from seeds sent from Kew and under the care of Kew gardeners, is another fact which cannot be dwelt upon with too much pride by Dr. Hooker. It was made known as early as 1648 by the physician Piso that this powder was a cure for dysentery, but this knowledge seems to have been forgotten until the present time, when it was found to be really a specific for the disease when taken in large doses. The value of such a drug as this and the Cinchona bark to Europeans in the East is certainly incalculable; but the Director of Kew Gardens, with the large view he has taken of the true value of such a botanical centre as he directs, has made efforts to disseminate throughout our wide domains many other valuable plants, valuable in a commercial as well as in a medical sense. He has recognised in the reports that he annually issues the remarkable fact that, notwithstanding the extent of our colonies in tropical countries, not one of them produces tobacco! To meet this great want he has sent gardeners to cultivate this invaluable herb in Jamaica, and we hear that the produce is equal to the best grown in Cuba. In Natal, through his instrumentality, plantations have sprung up, and now, we hear, they are sufficient to supply the demands of the gold diggers in their neighbourhood. The island of Bermuda has, by his direction, been planted with valuable products. In short, the nursing mother at Kew has done good service in enriching our colonies with valuable plantations, which will conduce to the welfare of their inhabitants for all future generations. The method of transferring plants where it is necessary to do so, is by means of the convenient Wardian cases, in which the most tender plants can be conveyed safely and in good condition. Before these were invented plants were conveyed in a ship's hold, subject to all the impurities of salt water and air that such places of carriage are liable to, which rendered the safety of transport of delicate trees and shrubs very problematical. Now, with a little care, the most delicate growths are conveyed from one hemisphere to another quite safely. For years the exchange of floras has been going on; trees as well as settlers are migrating to our colonies, and the vegetable world of the far distant temperate zone is slowly making a footing in our fields and pastures. Of this imperial work the public know nothing; it is carried on systematically and in silence, and the mere holiday folk who throng to these Gardens, imagining that the beauty they see is merely for their gratification, would be astonished to find that from this heart, so to speak, every dependency of the empire is nourished and supplied with the plants and vegetation that is useful to them. And not only our colonists are so supplied, but the home demand is also considerable. From the nurseries of Kew Gardens Battersea, Hyde, and the Victoria Parks have been planted and renewed with trees, One of the best testimonies to the smooth working and the beneficial action of this public establishment under the present Directorship is the harmony that exists between it and the proprietors of different private nurseries in the country. The profusion of gifts of rare flowers and shrubs constantly flowing in from them not only shows the high estimation in which Kew is regarded as a botanical garden, but the liberal manner in which its resources have been judiciously dispensed among themselves. Of the estimation in which the Gardens are held by the public it is scarcely necessary to speak. The crowded steamers that pass up the river on every holiday and on Sundays and Mondays are a sufficient answer. A few figures, however, will suffice to show the boon the opening of these Gardens has been to the public as a mere pleasure-ground to all classes of the people, for we scarcely know which class seems the most thoroughly to enjoy them. During the first year, 1841, after the grounds were opened to the public, the number entering the gates was 9,174. A gradual increase took place year by year until 1850, when 179,627 passed the gates. The next year, the Great Exhibition year, saw the number increased to 327,900. Even this large number very speedily became surpassed by the visitors of ordinary years, the number during 1872 being 553,249. No doubt the figures for the entire present year will give the largest number of visitors Kew Gardens has yet received. The Director, thoroughly taken up as he is with the scientific character of the Gardens, yet has not neglected their popular character. The broad avenue leading towards the Palm-house, during the early spring and summer months, is a triumph of floriculture, as regards mere masses of colour. The rhododendron beds, when in bloom, are perfectly matchless, and the turf beside them a carpet of the most brilliant dyes. However ardent a botanist, this much Dr. Hooker wisely concedes to the vast crowds who come here merely to enjoy the delights of a glorious garden, set in a still more glorious pleasure-ground and park. We heartily rejoice to think that the temporary differences which had arisen between this truly eminent man and one of the departments of Government are now entirely at an end, by the transfer to another office of the person who had occasioned them. But however trying it may have been to Dr. Hooker to be engaged in so unworthy a contest, he was backed in it by the strenuous support of the whole scientific world, and he received the strongest assurances of the confidence and gratitude of the public. ART. IX.—1. Der alte und der neue Glaube; ein Bekenntniss. A QUARTER of a century ago a great thinker and statesman, * 6 whose name was then a household word in England as well as in his own country, Germany, published it as his deliberate opinion that a war of religion' was impending upon Europe. His opinion was ridiculed at the time. But the events which have lately occurred in France and in Germany -especially since the defeat at Sedan and the capitulation of Paris-have rendered Baron Bunsen's words more likely of fulfilment than most people, even five years ago, could have believed to be possible. Indeed, in view of the late pilgrimagemovement in France, an intelligent eyewitness does not hesitate to declare that a renewal of the wars of religion is not a flattering prospect; but it is one which many persons in this 'country [France] seem neither to shrink from nor to repudiate.' And certainly if the near approach of two great hostile camps, bristling with weapons and burning with mutual hatred, has always been regarded as a sure presage of coming war, then a religious war à outrance, of some kind, must not be far off. For never, within the memory of the present generation, have the Jesuits been so busy, the Pope so impracticable, or the clerical party everywhere so bent on doing mischief. And never, on the other hand, has the socalled Rational party shown itself so utterly irrational, so deaf to the remonstrances of common sense, so determined to push its present trifling advantages to the bitter end, so oblivious of any other than bare intellectual necessities, so ignorant that an irreconcilable reign of terror' is sure to produce ere long a disastrous reaction, ruinous to both the good causes of safety and of progress. At the same time veracity compels us to add, never probably, since the great Reformation in the sixteenth century, have questions emerged involving so much inevitable contradiction, or imperilling interests so dear to the whole human race. Science nowadays claims boldly to have undermined the foundations of religion; and religion, for her part, pretends * Bunsen, 'Die Zeichen der Zeit,' II. 235 (2nd edit., 1856). loftily to do without science. The reign of law' proclaims publicly that it has rendered obsolete the reign of God;' and, for their part, the ministers of God are endeavouring to reorganise His reign on the basis of miracles and wonders, and to confront the claims of law' by an equally extreme and monstrous assertion of the Divine caprice and unreason. The result is by a strange conjunction of the most opposite theories-that Pius IX. and Dr. Strauss perfectly agree together, and proclaim with one consent that religion ought not to reconcile itself to and agree with modern civilisation;'* for ' religion and civilisation occupy a contradictory position in regard to each other, so that with the progress of the one the other retreats.' After beholding such a conjunction as this, who can be surprised at the reported alliance between Carlists and Intransigentes' in Spain? Yet how singular that on the spiritual as well as on the temporal arena, at this moment, the party of moderation and good sense should find itself violently attacked from two opposite quarters of the horizon, and should be compelled to do battle on either hand with the (usually irreconcilable) forces of despotism and of anarchy ! Over one of these two camps a banner has, for some years past, been publicly flaunted; and it has now received a solemn consecration as infallible' at the hands of the pseudo-Vatican Council. We refer, of course, to the Jesuit, clerical,' or Ultramontane banner of the Papal syllabus. Above the other camp -the camp of bitter, uncompromising hostility to everything that religious people hold dear-a corresponding banner may now at last be seen openly unfurled, in the book of Dr. Strauss whose title stands at the head of the present article. Here we have the counter-syllabus of the destructive criticism; a work, not exactly of authority, but written in the name of a certain 'we' whom the author claims to represent, and whom he describes in the following manner: Side by side with this majority there exists, however, a minority not to be overlooked. It considers that if you once admit a distinctive difference between the clergy and the laity, you must likewise be prepared to give your adherence to the dogma of an infallible Pope. And in like manner, if you no longer consider Jesus as the Son of God, but as a man, however excellent, it thinks that you are no longer justified in praying to Him, in cleaving to Him as the centre of a creed, in year after year preaching about His actions, His fortunes, and His utterances; more especially when you discern the most important of these actions * Papal Syllabus, § 10. † Strauss, Eng. trs. p. 158. |