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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
iron, on its surface, is transformed into the black oxide. Iron pipes protected by this process may be used instead of lead pipes for conveying water through houses. Iron for architectural uses may be made to resist the weather; the process may also be employed to protect cast-iron statues, which would thus be rendered as enduring as those of bronze.
| The Mystery of Pain. |
BY PROFESSOR GRANT ALLEN.
On the crimson cloth
Of my study-desk
A histrous moth
Poised, statuesque.
Of a waxen mould
Were its light limbs shaped,
And in scales of gold
Its body was draped;
While its delicate wings
Were netted and veined
With silvery strings
Or golden-grained,
Through whose filmy maze
In tremulous flight
Danced quivering rays
Of the gladsome light.
On the desk close by
A taper burned,
Toward which the eye
Of the insect turned.
In its vague little mind
A faint desire
Rose undefined
For the beautiful fire.
Lightly it spread
Each silken van.
Then away it sped
For a moment's span;
And a strange delight
Lured on its course,
With resistless might.
Toward the central source.
And it followed the spell
Through an eddying maze.
Till it staggered and fell
In the deadly blaze.
Dazzled and stunned
By the scalding pain,
One moment it swooned,
Then rose again:
And again the fire
Drew it on with its charms
To a living pyre
In its awful arms:
And now it lies
On the table here
Before my eyes
All shriveled and sere.
As I sit and muse
On its fiery fate.
What themes abstruse
Might I meditate!
For the pangs that thrilled
Through its delicate frame.
As its senses were filled
With the scorching flame,
A riddle inclose
That, living or dead.
In rhyme or in prose,
No seer has read.
"But a moth," you cry,
"Is a thing so small I"
Ah, yes, but why
Should it suffer at all?
Why should a sob
For the vaguest smart
One moment throb
Through the tiniest heart?
Why, in the whole
Wide universe.
Should a single soul
Feel that primal curse?
Not all the throes
Of mightiest mind.
Nor the heaviest woes
Of humankind,
Are of deeper weight
In the riddle of things
Than this insect's fate
With the mangled wings.
But if only I,
In my simple song.
Could tell you the why
Of that one little wrong,
I could tell you more
Than the deepest page
Of saintliest lore.
Or of wisest sage:
For never as yet
In its wordy strife
Could Philosophy get
At the Import of life;
And Theology's saws
Have still to explain
The inscrutable cause
For the being of pain:
So I somehow fear
That, in spite of both,
We are baffled here
By this one singed moth."
Prof. Hebra on the Use of the Bath.—Prof. Hebra, of Vienna, dissents from the generally-received opinions as to the benefits of frequent resort to the bath. His views on this subject, as set forth at some length in the Boston Journal of Chemistry, are to the following effect: It is not true that frequent bathing is conducive to health, and harmless: millions of men take no baths of any kind, at most only washing the face and hands, and yet live to old age in good health. It cannot be proved that