surface which had evidently oil upon it. Later
information brought to light the fact that a brig
had started shortly before with a cargo of
cocoa-nut oil; some of the casks having been
stove in by accident, the wasted oil was pumped
out of the hold into the sea. The ships were
two hundred miles apart, and yet the oily film
reached from the one to the other. About
ten or a dozen years ago a screw steamer, laden
with corn, started from Copenhagen, to bend
round the north of Jutland into the German
Ocean. Just as she was coming near a
stormy headland, the sea became very bad; the
steamer shipped much water, the engine fires
were gradually extinguished, the engines ceased
to work, and the poor ship rolled helplessly on
the water. A schooner was descried some few
miles distant; and it was resolved that all hands
should take to the boats, and pull from the
steamer to the schooner. The crew poured
some oil on the waves as they went, and were
thus enabled to meet a somewhat less troubled
sea than would otherwise have encountered
them.

It seems to be now pretty well known how and
why the oil acts in this friendly way: although
some parts of the phenomenon still remain
obscure. If it be attempted to raise waves
upon the surface of oil in a vessel by the force of
the wind, it will be found very difficult to succeed.
The difficulty is probably due to the mutual
cohesion among the particles of oil; there may
be also less attraction between air and oil than
between air and water. The effect is obviously
far more physical than chemical. Dr. Franklin
expressed his opinion that air is gradually
frustrated, by the oil, in disturbing the
tranquillity of water. First the wind, blowing over
the water, rubs against the surface and raises
it into wrinkles; then, the wind continuing,
those wrinkles become the cause of little
waves, and the little waves of greater waves,
and so on until strong billows are the eventual
result—produced not necessarily by a violent
wind, for a moderate wind will do it if
continuous. Such is the case under ordinary
circumstances; but now for the oil. As a drop
of oil spreads into a large and wonderfully thin
film on the surface of water, there must be some
kind of repulsion at work among its particles;
but be this as it may, the thin film presents no
points or roughnesses against which the wind
may catch, no little file-teeth or saw-teeth to
produce a wrinkle. The oil moves a little with
the wind, acting as a sort of slide by the aid of
which the air glides over the water. With a
strong wind, every large wave becomes covered
with a kind of rippled armour of small waves
or wrinkles; and each of these wrinkles gives
a hold by which the wind may further act; but
if there be a film of oil on the surface, these
small wrinkles are prevented from forming,
although the large waves remain. What is
done is, not to prevent large waves from rolling
and heaving, but to arrest their increase by
new waves formed on the back of them. What
occurred to the boats off the coast of Denmark
shows pretty clearly how the prevention is
brought about. Two boats were supplied with
five gallons of oil each. While the men were
tugging at the oars, the captain, in one of the
boats, watched the advance of the waves, and at
an opportune moment, when a sea appeared
about to approach and swamp them, he caused
a gill or half a pint of oil to be poured out of the
can; the effect was as if the wave divided and
fell off on either side of the boat. The captain
economised his oil in the long boat so as
to make it last well out till he reached the
schooner; the mate in the lifeboat was a little
too lavish, got rid of his oil too soon, and
had to pull the latter part of the voyage
against a very heavy sea.

Working men in some trades know a little
of this oil subject, though not in connexion
with waves. If a solution of sugar, or any one
among a considerable number of other solutions,
be boiling in an open vessel over the fire, and
be in danger of boiling over, a little oil poured
upon the surface will immediately make the
violent bubbles subside. Still more simply, if
we draw a mark with a piece of soap, round
the interior of a vessel somewhere between the
top of the vessel and the level of the boiling
liquid, the oil in the soap forms a kind of
magic ring, which prevents, or at least,
retards, the rise of the ebullition above that
point. Noxious and unhealthy vapours may
to some extent be kept from rising by some
such means.

A MODERN FRANKENSTEIN.

You have possibly heard the story of a
foolish man who was so highly delighted with
the performance of Punch in an itinerant
show, that he immediately purchased the puppet
at an exorbitant price, and took it home
for his own private amusement. Likewise you
have heard, or if not you have conjectured,
that when the foolish man placed Punch on
the table, and found him incapable of movement,
he felt grievously disappointed.

But now I am going to tell you of something
of which you certainly have not heard.

I am the foolish man.

My disappointment, as you have heard, or
conjectured, was excessive. Without writing
my autobiography, it will be sufficient if I come
at once to the fact, that at the time of my
absurd purchase, a varied and indiscriminate
love of amusement had converted me into a
sort of Sir Charles Coldstream. The notion
of Punch jumping on the table for my sole
entertainment, had brought with it a sense of
refined selfishness that was almost overpowering.
I recollect I once saw Mr. Macready's
inimitable performance of Luke in the version
of Massinger's City Madam, entitled Riches.
Luke, a prodigal who had wasted his substance,
and had afterwards, through the supposed
death of his brother, become possessed of
immense wealth, sat at the head of an enormous
table, groaning with every sort of wine
and viand, and he sat—alone. Here was a repast