Notes On Literature, Science, And Art.

Dr . Copland , in his lately published work On the Forms , Complications , Causes , Prevention , and Treatment of Consumption and Bronchitis , remarks of physical diagnosis : — " It has recently been paraded , over-estimated , and lauded . Owing to this one-sided study , to the fallacies inseparable from its nature , and to those which arise from varying conditions of vital influences and action , from different states of secretion and excretion , from numerous

disturbing causes appearing contingently , and from habits of dogmatising , with a view of exhibiting a precision of acquirement , and knowledge beyond wdiat has been previously reached , the cultivation , if not the advancement of physical diagnosis , to the neglect of the intimate observation of constitutional and physiological changes , has been generally attempted . Manipulations ¦ which strike the senses of the attendants , and more than one sense of the patient—examinations which may be seen , felt , and talked

about—have a much more impressive and lasting influence upon both patients and spectators than the close observation of symptoms and the pertinent inquiries of the profound and comprehensive thinker . The former are lights which the possessor places upon an eminence for his own advantage ; the latter are intended entirely to benefit the person for whose safety they are employed . The one method strikes and impresses the patient and those around him ; the other is , at best , but imperfectly estimated , or even altogether unheeded . "

The election to the professorship of Arabic and Hindustanee , in the University of Dublin , is to take place on Thursday , October 10 th . We have heard much of the Coolie Immigration from India . The following remarks on the subject are from Mr . W . S . Sewell ' s recent workFree Labour in the West Indies : — "Private

, speculation has no directing voice in the scheme . It was not started for the aggrandisement of the planter , but to stimulate his prostrate energies , to benefit coolie as much as much as Creole , and to multiply resourses that slavery , during long years of sore trial , was powerless to develope . The immigrants , then , are under the close surveillance of Government , and no planter , were he so disposed , can wrong them with impunity . A

superintendent , or agent general of Immigrants is appointed , and is invested with special powers . He acts on behalf of the Government as the immigrant ' s protector . He indentures them to their emloyers ; keeps a register , with the names and other particulars of both parties to the contracts ; provides food for those immigrants who are not employed immediately on their arrival ; sees that husbands are not separated from wives , or children from parents ; visits and

inspects the condition of the immigrants on the estates ; and is recurred to obtain from the planters quarterly returns , in which the increase by birth , and decrease by death of the labourers on eaeh estate , with other specified particulars , must be fully stated . The reports are transmitted to the Government by the agent general . _ This officer has also power to cancel any immigrant ' s indenture if it shall appear to him that the man has been ill-used by his employer ^ or that the accommodation or medical attendance to which he is entitled is had or insufficient . The coolies are mrnorfced

from Madras and Calcutta at a general expense to the colony—to meet which a duty has been imposed upon rum , and at a special cost to the employer of about twenty-five dollars per head . The law provides for their free return after they have completed the term of industrial residence for which they were indentured . They are perfectly free men and women , and at their own option leave the squalid filth and misery in which they have been accustomed to live , on a promiseguaranteed bGovernmentof free to the

, y , a passage West Indies , certain employment , and fair remuneration for their services . Upon arriving here they have no thought or care about the future . They are immediately provided for . They live on the estates rent free in comfortable cottages ; if sick , they receive medical attendance without charge ; and their wages are five times more than they could earn at home . The physical appearance of a crowd Of coolie immigrants returning to India attests the beneficient

results to themselves of an industrial residence in Trinidad . Instead of being a set of naked , half-starved , gibbering savages , ready to eat any dead , putrid animal , fish , flesh , or fowl , that lay in their path , they are clothed , sleek and well fed , strong and _ able-bodied , speaking English with tolerable accuracy , and looking the intelligent people that they really are . I have seen them arrive , and I have seen them depart , and speak from actual observationAfter

. they are landed from the ship , not only families , but people from the same district , are kept together ; their wants are immediatel y cared for , and , the prospects of work and wages being certain , their condition is far more comfortable and encouraging than that of the mass of Irish immigrants who arrive every week in the city of New York . So jealously does the Imperial Government watch over the interests of the coolies , that no more than 350 or 360 can be carried in a first-class ship . They are not

more crowded than steerage iiassengers in an ocean steamer—not half so crowded as a regiment in a troop-ship going to the Eastand tbe mortality among them , considering their wretched and impoverished condition when placed on board , is inconsiderable . During the voyages from Madras this year the deaths among the coolies have only amounted to three quarters per cent . '

The publication of the famous Doomsday Boole , by means of photozincohgraphy , is to be continued until the entire work is out . Each county is to be issued separately , in the same manner as Cornwall has been recently . The anonymous author of Notes on Art , British Sculptors , Sculpture , and Our Public Monuments , remarks : — "How far the

custom of entrusting public works to men practically and personallyincompetent to their excution , may not assist in perpetuating the mediocrites painfully visible in many public instances where subject and available funds ought to have secured the highest talent , would appear worthy of enquiry . But it occurs , that men incapable of making a design , procure it by payment from others , and should it prove successful in a competitive election , equally

isits reputed author at the mercy of hired service for the execution of the various portions of the intended work ; there always beingmen in every professions , who , from different causes , are moreemployed on the commissions of others than works of their own . Thus Sculpture becomes degraded to a working trade , a thing for which an order is obtained by the expedition of a sort of patterncard , and workmen engaged and paid to do what the supposd artist is incapable of . The nominal author may be extending his

connection in other quarters , or looking out for future orders , whilst that , which his patrons or customers in their simplicity believe to be the result of his own skill is in reality untouched by him , and beyond , an occasional inspection of the work , in satisfaction for wages paid , knows nothing of the real merits or condition of its progress . It is of course understood that a certain amount of mere mechanical hewing and carving is always performed by workmen and assistants in the economy of labour and time . Hencedegenerating into a

, species of manufacture , the practice of certain kinds of modem Sculpture seems open to any one capable of obtaining commissions-( of this class of goods , " orders" is much the more appropriateterm ) , and possessed ' of funds for the payment of current labourwith what success recent instances painfully shew . "

The heig ht of waves has been a matter of dispute with scientific men . Dr . Karl Scherzer , in the recently published first volume of his Narrative of the Circumnavigation of the Globe by the Austrian Frigate " Novara , " thus writes : — " Hitherto the altitude of a wave has been generaUy measured merely by the eye , so that the result depended too much on the accuracy of individual observation to admit of its being exactly ascertained ; and it is for this reason

that the statements relative to the maximum height of the ocean wave are so various that they cannot be considered reliable , for , whilst some observers estimate them to be from 60 to 70 feet , others leckori them only at from SO to 40 feet . On . board the Novara the following method of admeasurement was adopted : we first determined , by a chronometer , the time that a wave takes to pass from one end . of the ship to the other , whereby the velocity of the progressive motion of the wave could be calculated in relation to

the ship ' s course and speed , regard being had to the direction and velocity of the ship against it . With this velocity ascertained , we were in a position to determine and fix the average distance between two consecutive waves . Lastly , the height of the wave was ascertained from the angle at which the frigate rose and fell in the line of its keel , by tbe influence of each successive wave and by means of the ascertained distance from the trough of the sea to the crest of the wave . Though this methodlikewisehas many difficulties ,

, , and deficiencies , yet it appears well suited to make correct comparisons between the different waves ; and , under certain favourable conditions , it yields so accurate a result , that at any rate it is to b e preferred to mere guess-work , besides that the experiment itself is susceptible of many improvements . It seems safe to assume that waves scarcely ever attain an elevation of more than 40 or 45 feet . "

Lord Brougham is named as the next president of the Royal Society . We know of no better man for the post . Monkish life in Mexico seems to be at the present time as cosy as ever it was in England in the centuries previous to the Reformation , if we may judge by the following sketch , by Mr . Edward B . Tylor , in his recent volume , Analmac ; or Mexico and the Mexicans , Ancient and Modem : — " Our young monk asked permission of his superior to take us out for a walk , and we went down together to the convent-mill . There we saw the mill , -which was