Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/442

426 from the most efficient form of atmospheric burners. Under the influence of such temperatures it glows with a brilliant incandescence, very white and steady. The light emitted is, at a distance, hardly distinguishable from that of a twenty-candle incandescent lamp, while a yellower light may be obtained by modifying the composition of the impregnating liquid. A saving of from fifty to seventy-five per cent of gas is made with this light, and it is, moreover, smokeless.

The "Racket" of Society.—"The Spectator," discussing the "wear and tear" or "racket" of London society, observes that "wear and tear" implies not regular and natural use and tension of the powers, but a dragging in opposite directions, "such as is produced, for example, by the attempt to combine intellectual effort with a perfectly inconsistent amount of social effort; to carry off grave anxieties with a display of vivacity; to unite an unconstrained manner which implies a mind at ease with a concentration of effort implying a mind always vigilantly preparing for its next step." It means "the simultaneousness of a strain which is comparatively easy in cases of fully concentrated effort with that interchange of feeling which is natural only when there is no prior claim on the attention; the interference of social duties with professional duties; the making time for one thing, when all the time there is is really pre-engaged for another thing; the squeezing of gayety out of a preoccupied mind, or of severe but reluctant thought out of preoccupied feeling." This "tear" could be easily avoided by taking the natural precautions. "For nothing is easier than for the busy to claim and to insist on a certain amount of seclusion sufficient for the purposes of their work, if they would but recognize fairly that a great deal of what is called amusement doubles and trebles the tension of men's work." Regarding conversational intercourse with people, "A person of any mind will get more out of two or three conversations in a week or a month with the right people than he could get out of twenty or thirty." If people only realized how little pleasure their company can give when they are exhausted by the mechanical friction of the "racket" of society, they would, even from self-respect, forbear. The best evidence that persistent society-haunting is useless or mischievous is the relief with which those are received who have been long kept by any good reason out of the vortex of society, and return to the world with a little of the clearness of mind and confidence of view which the social racket saps and ultimately destroys. Social stimulants do the same kind of mischief that alcoholic stimulants do, though in a different region; and, "like an intoxicating drink, the racket of society becomes most indispensable to the very people whom it most seriously injures."

The Brocken and its Mist-Effects.—The Brocken is the culminating point of the Harz Mountains, and in its general form represents an oval slightly inclined from northwest to southeast. Its highest elevation is 1,141 metres above the sea. In consequence of its isolation in the midst of a lowland region, it is immediately exposed to the moist winds from the North Sea, and presents some very remarkable meteorological phenomena. The mean annual temperature at the top of the Brocken is about 36°C, and nearly the same as that of Tromsö in Norway, in 70° of latitude; but while Tromsö enjoys a summer in which potatoes and barley may be grown and fruits will fully ripen, no efforts to cultivate such plants on this range have succeeded. Clear days are rare on the Brocken, and the summit of the mountain is veiled by clouds nearly every morning; but the topmost peak may often be seen above the vapors which cover the slopes below; and it is not rare for the ,fogs to be so thick and so sharply defined that a man of the ordinary stature standing among them will have his head above the vapor while the lower part of his body is still densely involved. It is under such conditions as these that the "specter of the Brocken," a celebrated attraction to travelers, may be seen at the rising and setting of the sun, particularly in winter. The spectators view their silhouettes projected, in exaggerated proportions, upon the surface of the mist, which seems to rise like an immense curtain from out of the clouds. Their heads appear to be surrounded