which is greater the greater the tension; in fact, it becomes impossible to detect any elongation with the feeblest magnetizing forces.

Dr. Schuster, following out a suggestion of Gauss, has been investigating the records of the diurnal variations of the earth's horizontal magnetic force, in order to determine whether the disturbances are due to causes acting above or below the earth's surface. His results indicate that the causes of these variations have their seat outside the surface of the earth, and are consistent with a certain distribution of electric currents in the higher regions of the atmosphere. These currents are far too feeble to cause luminosity, and the lines along which they flow preserve their position nearly unchanged with respect to the sun as the earth rotates.

In connection with electric lighting an important point has been raised at South Kensington Museum. The effect of direct sunlight in destroying water-colour is well known. It is mostly due to the very refrangible rays lying in, or beyond, the violet end of the spectrum. The electric arc light is particularly rich in these rays, and even incandescent lamps will radiate a considerable amount of them when intensely heated. Such lights must therefore be regarded as dangerous to water-colour drawings, though there is probably nothing to be feared from incandescent lamps when not driven above their nominal candle power.

WILLIAM GARNETT.

II.-GENERAL LITERATURE.

BIOGRAPHY.-TO Lake literature "Dorothy Wordsworth" is a pleasant addition. There can be no doubt that his sister Dora was to the poet a fount of blessing, but her biographer is inclined to over-estimate the intellectual influence of so devoted and interesting a personality on the famous poems. It does not appear from her own rhymes that she had the poetical faculty, and her reverence for her brother's work came from sympathy rather than any co-ordinate genius. Her prose has some skill, especially in the description of natural scenery; but it was probably as the eager companion of his long walks, and the most unselfish of household managers, that Wordsworth had reason to appreciate the inspiration of her life-long presence. Mr. Lee wanders widely for his materials, and his many-quoted pieces of verse and prose are rather hackneyed, though much deficiency can be forgiven him because of the evident love he has of his delightful subject.-Susannah Wesley's claim to belong to the "Eminent Women Series"† is not entirely evident; but she was the mother of nineteen children, some of them distinguished reformers, and lived a life of consistent piety and industry in the most straitened circumstances. Mrs. Clarke has rather avoided the sectarian side in her biography, and has cut down Mrs. Wesley's theological correspondence; but the spirit of a systematic and almost stern religiousness breathes in all her writing. The authoress herself has perhaps caught a little of the pedantic tone of her heroine. * "Dorothy Wordsworth: the Story of a Sister's Love. By Edmund Lee. London: James Clarke & Co. By Eliza Clarke. London: W. H. Allen & Co.

Many of the Wesley family are described as poets, but the instances produced by Mrs. Clarke give very little support to this theory, nor reflect much credit upon her own good taste. The letters are the best part of the book, and Mrs. Wesley's advice to her sons is always strong, and even noble.

MISCELLANEOUS.-Every traveller to Norway visits the scene of the massacre at Kringelen, by the boors, of an army of Scots under Colonel George Sinclair of Stirkoke; and the "History of the Scottish Expedition to Norway in 1612"* not only propounds a new theory of leadership, but contains as appendix a series of valuable historical documents from the archives of England, Scotland, Denmark, and Sweden. The author, with, it is to be feared, too much of the prevailing spirit, has attempted to upset the hitherto unquestioned Norwegian traditions of the one-sided battle; but the remarkable papers which he has been fortunate enough to meet with do not support him in his destructive criticism. The Danish Chancellor's official report of the time, in manuscript, now at Copenhagen, shows that on August 19, or next day, two Scottish ships arrived off Romsdalen, and disembarked about 550 soldiers, though some said 350. On August 26 they reached Kringelen, marching to join Gustavus Adolphus, and were destroyed in an ambush at a precipitous slope over the Langen river, the eighteen who survived being sent prisoners to the King of Denmark. Norwegian patriotism will not readily substitute a Lieutenant Ramsay for Sinclair as leader, and the fresh matter, however interesting, by no means demands such a sacrifice of consecrated national story.-In the face of the elaborate works in Italian, French, German, and English about the buried towns on the skirts of Mount Vesuvius, Mr. Butler's short essay, Pompeii,"+ does not seem to have much reason for its existence. He plods on in a rather vague description of the walls, streets, forum, water supply, statues, baths, frescoes, remarkable houses, mosaics, fountains, furniture, and art of the famous third-rate Roman town of about thirty thousand inhabitants; but to vigorous treatment of a most suggestive subject he is manifestly unequal. A guide-book would have been at least definite, and there is no philosophy in this tractate to elevate it into the higher class of productions. It is true, there is knowledge shown of some of the Latin poets, and ancient patriotism is contrasted depreciatively with Christian individualism; but it takes several of such swallows to make a thinking summer. His putting of Gothic above Greek architecture marks his art standpoint, as well as his idea that the best works of the early Italians in sculpture are not unworthy of being put beside the noblest Greek statuary. He is disappointed that Christianity has not improved us more, "the habits of men being now pretty much the same as the habits of the Pompeians were.” History of the Scottish Expedition to Norway in 1612." By Thomas Michell, C.B., Her Majesty's Consul-General for Norway. London and Edinburgh : T. Nelson & Sons.

66

+"Pompeii, Descriptive and Picturesque." By W. Butler. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood & Sons.

THE ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT.

A

RECENT discussion in the House of Commons, admittedly more intelligent and practical than on such subjects is commonly experienced, has increased the interest, which for some time past has been stimulated by frequent and impassioned references in the newspapers, in the subject of the Ordnance Department. Its doings and misdoings have been the themes of animated controversy, and charges against its chiefs, of incompetence and of corruption, have been made with so much confidence and with such an air of authority as have impressed the country with misgivings of the gravest kind. The late Secretary of State for War (Mr. CampbellBannerman) appointed a Committee of Inquiry into the administration of the ordnance manufacturing establishments, with the view of ascertaining whether they were capable of being administered with greater efficiency and economy. His successor in office (Mr. W. H. Smith) has followed up this action by entrusting to a Royal Commission the investigation of complaints that have been made from time to time within the last five years as to the designs of guns and supplies of warlike stores, to the end of discovering what improvements can be introduced into the system. It is to be hoped that these inquiries, entrusted as in each case they undoubtedly are to men of capacity and experience, will not only lead to the accomplishment of valuable reforms, but will give effectual reassurance in regard to the scandalous charges which have been levelled against officials whose integrity has been heretofore unquestioned, and against a Civil Service which has been hitherto regarded in this particular by the country with confident pride.

Meantime it cannot be other than advantageous that popular attention should have been focussed upon the management of what

is really a group of departments, through the agency of which a vast and constant expenditure of public money is made, and upon the efficient conduct of which depend interests of incomparable importance. Once or twice in the course of a parliamentary session opportunity is found, in the discussion of the annual estimates, for the ventilation of the subject; the speeches made on such occasions are, however, almost uniformly by naval and military officers, and although often contributing suggestions which are politely acknowledged to be entitled to consideration, they are rather in the nature of professional hobbies, or of demands for more ample subventions, than helpful as contributions to a large and statesmanlike solution of difficulties at once vast and intricate.

Much criticism has been expended lately upon the constitution and functions of the Ordnance Committee, and writers and speakers of considerable authority have betrayed extraordinary ignorance in regard to them. It would appear, indeed, as if that body were confounded with the Board of Ordnance, an office of great administrative authority, which grew in importance with the development of artillery, and which, after an existence of four centuries, was abolished in 1855. From the time of Henry VIII. this Board had been entrusted with the control of the Ordnance services, with the responsibility of supplying the matériel for the army, and of providing adequate artillery and engineering contingents at the demand of the Commander-in-Chief. Some of the departments now included under the Ordnance control had up to the Crimean time a more or less separate existence. Among the important changes then effected were those which transferred the military functions of the MasterGeneral of Ordnance to the Commander-in-Chief, and his civil duties. to the Secretary of State for War, under whom a Control Department was entrusted with the duty of supplying the army with military stores, and with other important administrative functions, into the consideration of which it is unnecessary to enter here.

The system under which the army is now administered is in substance that established under Lord Card well's Act of 1870. The principal effect of the reforms then effected was that of unifying the responsibility for civil and military administration alike, and of confiding the control of every branch thereof to the Secretary of State. Subordinately to that Minister, the actual administration is divided between three great officers, any or all of whom may sit in Parliament-viz.,' (1) the officer commanding-in-chief, in charge of the combatant personnel of all regular and irregular forces; (2) the Surveyor-General of Ordance; and (3) the Financial Secretary, who is responsible to the Secretary of State for the estimates, and for the expenditure and audit, among other things, of the Army Pay Department.

The Surveyor-General of the Ordnance is theoretically appointed by the Secretary of State, and the province of his department may be best comprehended from the definition of his duties as determined by the Order in Council of June 1870, as submitted to Parliament, which declared that he shall be charged

“With providing, holding, and issuing to all branches of the army and reserve forces, food, forage, fuel and light, clothing, arms, accoutrements, munitions of war, and all other stores necessary for the efficient performance of their duties by such forces, of proper quality and pattern, and in proper quantities, according to the regulations governing the provision, custody, and issue of such supplies;

"With exercising a strict control over the expenditure of such supplies, and with seeing that they are properly accounted for by the several officers and others who may be charged with their custody, issue, and use;

"With the custody of all buildings in which troops are quartered, and with allotting quarters;

"With providing transport for troops, and directing land and inland water transport;

"With preparing the estimates for all the above services, and causing the expenditure for them to be duly and carefully examined;

"And with the duty of rendering such other advice and assistance as may be required of him by the Secretary of State for War."

The Ordnance Department as thus constituted comprises five sections, presided over by permanent officials of high rank entrusted with large powers. These are known severally as the Director of Artillery and Stores, Director of Transport and Supplies, Director of Contracts, Director of Clothing, and the Inspector-General of Fortifications, who is also Director of Works. To the first-named is confided the supervision of the manufacture and repair of guns and small arms, the production of projectiles, ammunition, and all kinds of warlike stores. The Inspector-General of Fortifications is answerable not only for the design and construction of strongholds, but of all military roads and buildings, for every variety of engineering work— from the balloon, which is employed in the heavens above, to the submarine mines concealed in the waters beneath, and upon which we are learning to rely so much as auxiliaries in the defence of our military ports, commercial harbours, and coaling stations. The duties of the three other departments are sufficiently indicated by the titles of their chiefs; and, from considerations of space, as well as in view of the attention just now concentrated upon the questions of contracts and armaments, it will be convenient to dismiss from purview those other branches, though they present many inviting points of interest hardly less important than those that have secured. a monopoly of public concern.

The House of Commons has voted for the "supply, manufacture and repairs of warlike and other stores for hand and sea service, during the current year, a net total exceeding two millions and a