owed such strength of technique that his landscapes were accepted almost
at once as masterpieces.

[Sidenote: International expositions]

In England, a period of great prosperity had set in, notwithstanding
several great labor strikes, among them that of the London cabmen, and of
many thousands of operatives at Stockport and Preston. The success of the
Crystal Palace Exhibition had been such that another great Industrial
Exhibition was held at Dublin. It was made the occasion of Queen Victoria's
second visit to Ireland. International expositions were likewise held at
Berlin and in New York.

[Sidenote: President Pierce inaugurated]

The change of Administration in the United States of North America gave a
new tone to affairs there, and incidentally brought America into closer
touch with the East. Congress had counted the electoral vote on February 9,
giving to Pierce 254 and 42 to Scott. Franklin Pierce was forty-nine years
of age when he became President, and was the youngest man who had been
elected to that office. During the Mexican war he had fought with credit
under Scott. William L. Marcy became Secretary of State, and Guthrie,
McClelland, Jefferson Davis, Dobbin, Campbell and Cushing completed the
Cabinet. It was said that Pierce came into office with no bitter
opposition and went out with none. In his inaugural message he spoke with
doubt concerning his own powers. In truth, he proved himself the tool of
different managers.

[Sidenote: Kane's Arctic voyage]

The American Government also assisted Grinnell in fitting out a second
expedition to the Arctic under charge of Dr. Kane, who was surgeon and
naturalist of the former expedition. The ships were frozen fast on the
shores of Greenland. Kane's crew, without waiting for relief, set out to
return in open boats, and after a voyage of 1,300 miles reached a Danish
settlement in Greenland, where a relief expedition met them. They reached
New York on October 11, 1855, where they were welcomed as men risen from
the dead. They brought no news concerning Sir John Franklin.

[Sidenote: Death of Arago]

Dominique Francois Arago died on October 2, at the age of sixty-seven.
Scientists remember him chiefly for his experiments and discoveries in
magnetism and optics. He was one of the few men who championed Fresnel
during the controversy which raged at the time when the undulatory theory
of light was first announced. As a popular expounder of scientific facts,
Arago