tober, 1846, a professional brother called upon
the writer of this paper. He shut the door carefully, and looked
nervously around him. Then he spoke, and told of the wondrons results of
the experiment which had just been made in the operating-room. "In one
fortnight's time," he said, "all Europe will be ablaze with this
discovery." He then produced and read a paper that he had just drawn up
for a learned society of which we were both members, the first paper
ever written on this subject. On that day not a surgeon in the world,
out of a little New-England circle, made any profession of knowing how
to render a patient quickly, completely, pleasantly, safely insensible
to pain for a limited period. In a few weeks every surgeon in the world
knew how to do it, and the atmosphere of the planet smelt strong of
sulphuric ether. The discovery started from the Massachusetts General
Hospital, just as definitely as the cholera started from Jessore, to
travel round the globe.

The advance of our civilization is still more strongly marked by the
number and excellence of musical instruments, especially pianos, which
are made in this country. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that
the piano keeps pace with the plough, as our population advances. More
striking evidence than even this is found in the fact that the highest
grade of the highest instruments used for scientific research is
produced by our artisans. One of the two largest telescope-lenses in the
world is that made by Mr. Clark, of Cambridge, whose reputation is not
confined to our own country. The microscopes of Mr. Spencer, which threw
those of the Continent into the shade at once, and challenged
competition with the work of the three great London opticians, were made
in a half-cleared district of Central New York, where, in our
pilgrimages to that Mecca of microscopists, Canastota, we found the
shrine we sought in the midst of the charred stumps of the primeval
forest. While Mr. Quekett was quoting Andrew Ross, the most famous of
the three opticians referred to, as calling "135 deg. the largest angular
pencil that can be passed through a microscopic object-glass," Mr.
Spencer was actually making twelfths with an angle of more than 170 deg..
Those who remember the manner in which the record of his extraordinary
success was deliberately omitted from the second edition of a work which
records the minutest contrivance of any English amateur,--the first
edition having al