that of astronomy. M. Chasles' answer to these Italian opponents is amusingly inconsequent. At this point of the discussion M. Balard moved that the documents so liberally furnished by M. Chasles be no longer published in the Comptes Rendus of the Academy. This led to a discussion, participated in by a large number of the members. Although the general sense of the Academy was decidedly against the genuineness of the documents, yet the desire for fair play prevailed, and the motion was rejected; so that M. Chasles continued to hold the lists against all comers.

[To be continued.]

A NEW BEARING OF AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY.

ONE of the most interesting of Dr. McIlvaine's series of lectures in the Hall of the University, delivered at the instance of our new Social Science Association, was on the growing productiveness of the earth. The original English political economists-Adam Smith, Ricardo and Malthus-died before any thing was known of the science of agricultural chemistry. The later writers of the English school have done nothing but copy and imitate those three thinkers, John Stuart Mill being an eminent example of this species of plagiarism. The founders. of the school supposed, as did every one in their times, that the substance and sustenance of trees and plants were derived wholly, or almost so, from the earth, and that the continual cropping of any soil necessarily caused its gradual exhaustion, thereby diminishing year by year the capacity of the earth to sustain human life.

Liebig and his school of agricultural chemists have utterly exploded this theory, although Mr. Mill and others go on copying it. They have shown that only a very small part of the substance of any plant or tree comes from the soil, and that its main bulk is derived from the air and from rain. At the beginning, the world possessed no soil at all, i. e., no mixture of inorganic matter with decayed tissues. The lower orders of

plants, such as lichens and mosses, which can live on inorganic matter, first appeared, and by their decay formed an inferior kind of soil, in which plants of orders just above them could find sustenance. These again decayed, and formed soil of a higher grade; and so the process went on through long ages, until a soil adequate to the support of the cereals was produced. The same process is going on still, so that the soil of the earth is increasing every year, and her power of supporting human life is increasing with the growth of the race. The Western prairie, when left unbroken and covered with wild grass, rose perceptibly year by year, through the growth and decay of the mere grass, showing the method in which the prairie itself had been formed in the lapse of the geologic ages. The process is going on in the valley of the Amazon at such a prodigious rate, through the immense amount of heat and moisture available, that man is, as yet, unable to master the processes of nature in that region, and make them subserve his own uses. But it is not to be supposed that he will always be defeated in that quarter, and the prospect that he will become master of that vast and immensely fertile region must be taken into account in estimating the prospects of our race in the ages to come.

The main sustenance of vegetable life, then, comes from the air and from water, sources which may be safely counted on as inexhaustible. The proportion is so great that even deducting for the return of part of the decayed plant to the air, it is safe to say that nine-tenths of its bulk is clear gain to the soil. Curious instances of this were given, as where a willow tree weighing sixty-five pounds was found to have taken but a very few ounces from the soil in which it was planted. [A stranger case is, where a tree has been found growing in the cleft of a rock, subsisting on air and rain, without any soil at all.] The element taken from the air is mainly carbonic acid, with which our atmosphere was, at the first, so thoroughly charged that human beings and animals could not have lived by breathing it in the earlier geological ages. There is probably still an excess of it in our atmosphere, and its diminution by the increase of the vegetable kingdom, and of the soil on which they live, will therefore increase the external means of human health and happiness. The absorption of it by plants was especially great in the carboniferous periods, and nature has stored away the results in our coal-mines, our limestone rocks, and in other vast

granaries. From this man is bringing it forth for the benefit of the vegetable world, as well as for the direct uses for which he employed it. Every pound of coal burned gives off four pounds of carbonic acid, which is mainly absorbed by the plants, becomes vegetable tissue, and then decays into soil.

On the other hand, while there is this great natural increase of soil, there is no necessary diminution of it by the use of the fruits of the soil for food. Not an atom of food is destroyed or lost by its being used as food; with wise management it goes back to the soil with increase. Thus, in Belgium, cattle are kept in stall simply for the sake of their manure, that being worth much more than is their food.

That there is actually an unnecessary waste in this matter is undeniable. The decreased fertility of several wheat regions in the Middle and Western States shows this-shows that when man carries off the fruits of the soil and makes no return to it, the soil is impoverished. For instance, when an agricultural nation exports vast quantities of food, and imports in exchange manufactured articles of much less bulk and of almost no agricultural value, then the soil must grow poorer, year by year. Such a policy is literally selling one's country to the stranger. On the other hand, when the sewage of great cities is poured into the seas and rivers in reckless waste, the same result is reached. Thus did the Cloacoe of Rome, and the Tiber into which they emptied, drain the fertile district around that city of all its agricultural wealth, and largely reduce it to a desert. Thus, too, have the cities of England and France been acting until quite recently, when the opposite policy has been adopted, and the sewage of Paris and London is now mostly saved for the farmer. It is our duty to adopt the same policy as a part of our American municipal system.

OUR attention has been called to a misstatement in our March number, in that we speak of Mr. Richard Grant White as editor of The Galaxy, and hold him responsible in some degree for a criticism on Carlyle which appeared in its March number. Mr. White is not, and never was, connected with The Galaxy's management. The animus of our comment was based purely on the character of the criticism in question, and had no personal aim.

THE

PENN MONTHLY.

MAY, 1870.

THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.

OURS is probably the most complex system of government that has ever existed; but this, so far from being a sign of defect, is among the highest proofs of its excellence. Science seeks simplifications; but nature rejoices in manifold variety. Her highest organisms are always marked by the greatest intricacy, diversity and interdependence of parts.

In the historical development of political systems, the monarchical element makes its appearance first, as being the simplest and, in that sense, the most natural; then the aristocratic element is joined with it, to limit and modify, or even control it; and lastly the democratic element, after many struggles, comes gradually to a real share in the political power, and eventually to its rightful preponderance. Our government unites all these elements, combining them in the order and proportion which must characterize the last and highest form of development-first and chief, the democratic, and then the aristocratic and monarchical. Its democracy is not a simple democracy, but takes the more complex representative form, which is essential to the preponderance of the democratic element in the government of any thing more than a single town or city. And, finally, it adds the further complication of the federal system, which is equally essential to the successful working of a democratic government in a country of a vast and indefinite extent.

The sovereignty is divided between the Federal and the State governments, each being, by express constitutional provision, re

stricted to, but left supreme in, its appropriate limits. The control of matters of general and national interest is confided to the former, and the management of those of a more domestic character is reserved to the latter; while, again, a great part of the details of practical administration is left to the various municipal organizations. Nowhere, perhaps, has the municipal system a fuller and freer development than in this country. Indeed, this system remains one of the most marked characteristics of our American republican institutions, and one of the most important means of our practical political education.

Our Federal and our State governments are all organized on a similar model. First, they are distributed into the three co-ordinate departments, legislative, executive and judicial; and then the legislative power is exercised by two co-ordinate branches or Houses. The democratic element, with its frequent elections and its constitution-making power, underlies the whole, but has its special expression in the popular branch of the Legislature. The monarchical element is feebly represented by the Executive. The Judiciary and the Senate represent still more feebly an aristocratic element. Indeed, the aristocratic element has, among us, a social rather than a political existence.

If now we inquire which of the three departments is the highest, or represents the Sovereignty of the State, we shall find it a diffcult question to answer. In some respects, and especially toward foreign nations, it is the Executive; but, in fact, his powers are exceedingly limited and mostly subordinate: he cannot make the laws, but is bound to execute them; he cannot conclude treaties, but must submit them to the Senate for ratification; he can appoint officers only by the authority of Congress, or with the advice and consent of the Senate; and he is liable to impeachment and removal from office by the action of the two branches of the Legislature. In many respects the legislative department seems to challenge the best claim to the function of Sovereignty. It makes the laws, which all citizens and all magistrates alike are bound to obey. But even here it is checked, on the one hand by the veto of the Executive, and, on the other, by the power of the Judiciary to declare its acts unconstitutional and void. Thus the Judiciary seems, after all, to be placed at the apex of the political pyramid; but then the sphere of its action is limited to cases in which the rights of persons or property may be so affected as to