mittee by Sir Thomas Pears, late Secretary of the Military Department at the India Office, that there is no official record that the influence which would be exercised on the finances of India by the short-service system was ever considered by the English Government.3

Although it may be fairly contended that, whatever reforms in administration are introduced, a considerable time must elapse before such great items of charge as those just referred to can be materially reduced, yet an important saving might at once be effected if the work of retrenchment were vigorously taken in hand. An examination of the home charges will at once show that a year never elapses without various acts of extravagance being sanctioned. In some instances the amounts involved may be small, but it not unfrequently happens, that the want of due economy is most strikingly brought to light by some transaction in which the expenditure involved is not large. I might quote almost innumerable examples to show this. Looking over the latest accounts of the home charges, it will be found that India is charged 1,200l. for the Passage and Outfit of a Member of the Council of the Governor-General.' In the same year she is charged 2,450l. for the Passage and Outfit of the Bishops of Calcutta and Bombay and their Chaplains.' But if any one requires to have brought home to him the lavishness with which the money of India is spent, it is only necessary to pay a visit to the India Office, and remember, as we pass along its spacious corridors, that that palatial building was erected by the Indian Government, and its costly establishment is maintained, at the expense and for the use of one of the poorest countries in the world.

6

In thus directing attention to the great importance of reducing the home charges, it must not be supposed that this policy of retrenchment ought alone to be carried out with regard to the expenditure of Indian revenues in England. I have, however, in a previous article, referred to the general costliness of Indian administration, and I have thought it important to make here special reference to the home charges, because the chief object which the Government seem anxious to obtain is a diminution of the loss by exchange, and there is, I believe, no hope that the exchange will become more favourable, unless the home charges are reduced. I trust it will not be thought that I underrate the difficulties which will have to be encountered, in carrying out a policy of rigid economy in the administration of Indian finance. Many who, until quite lately, always spoke of India as a country which could scarcely be administered on too liberal a scale, are now going to the opposite extreme, and express the most alarmist views as to her. future financial position. In some of the leading English journals scarcely a week elapses, without reference being made to the hopeless embarrassment of the finances of India, and her future insolvency is alluded to as if it could not be averted.

See Report of East India Finance Committee, 1874, p. 53.

Although I do not share these desponding views, yet it must be evident that, unless something is promptly done, the financial condition of India will indeed soon become one of hopeless embarrassment. It is not more certain that a stone, if it is not checked in its fall, will gather increased momentum, than it is that the system, which has received its greatest development during the present year, of perpetually adding to the indebtedness of India, will, if it is not arrested, soon burden her with charges which she will be powerless to meet. The simple truth cannot be too persistently insisted upon, that India, throughout every department, has of late years been far too expensively governed. Although great economies may be effected, the smallest saving should not be neglected, and to those who are responsible for the management of Indian finance the fact should ever be present, that India is so poor that the waste of a shilling of her money may be of far more serious consequence than the waste of a pound of the money of England.

As I have now considered three of the four financial proposals of the Indian Government for the present year, namely, the reduction of the cotton duties, the raising of 3,500,000l. in India, and the borrowing of 10,000,000l. in England, it only remains to say a few words on the last of the four proposals-the advance of 2,000,000l. by England to India, free of interest, as a contribution towards the expenses of the Afghan war. This advance may be regarded from two entirely distinct points of view. In the first place, it may be considered as a gift or a charitable offering; and, secondly, it may be looked on as a discharge of an obligation legally and equitably imposed on England to bear some share of the cost of the Afghan war. If no such obligation really rests on England, then this advance of 2,000,000l., without interest, is a gratuitous sacrifice on the part of England on behalf of India. It is scarcely necessary to remark that the consequences involved in the grant of such a subvention are most serious. The financial relations between England and India are at once placed on an entirely new footing. The Indian Government, by the acceptance of such an eleemosynary loan, virtually confess that the strain now put on the finances of India is more than she can bear, and that she is obliged to come to England for assistance. Not only is it an admission of financial exhaustion, but the granting of such assistance may produce a most disastrous effect upon the future financial administration of India. If the idea is once permitted to spread that the Indian authorities, whenever they are pressed for money, can draw upon the English Exchequer, every guarantee for economy will be swept away, and an incalculable injury may be inflicted both upon England and upon India. It will, however, be probably said that the advance of this 2,000,000l. is not intended in any way as a gift, but that it must be solely regarded as a contribution, which India is legally bound to make, towards the expenses of the Afghan war. By the fifty-fifth section of the Government of India Act of 1858 it is distinctly pro

vided, that when the Indian army is employed for imperial purposes beyond the frontiers of India the cost shall be borne by England, and when for Indian purposes the cost shall be borne by India. There seems to be no room for doubt that the present war has been undertaken, in part at least, for imperial purposes, and, therefore, India cannot be legally called upon to bear its entire cost. It has, in fact, been most distinctly stated by the Prime Minister that the military expedition into Afghanistan was not simply an Indian war, but was undertaken for imperial purposes; for, in a speech which he made in the House of Lords on the 10th of December, he said: "This is not a question of the Khyber Pass merely, and of some small cantonments at Dakka or at Jellalabad. It is a question which concerns the character and the influence of England in Europe.' As no one would for a moment think of throwing upon India the entire cost of maintaining the influence and character of England in Europe, no other conclusion is possible, than that the advance of 2,000,000l., without interest, to India is intended to be England's contribution towards the expense of an expedition which has been undertaken in the interest of the two countries. This being the case, it will be desirable to explain the exact share of the expense which will be borne by England and India respectively. As the 2,000,000l., which England can borrow at 3 per cent., is to be repaid by seven equal annual instalments, and as the first instalment will become due at the end of next year, the amount which England will contribute by foregoing the interest on the loan is somewhat less than 320,000l. This sum, therefore, represents the amount which England will pay towards the expense of an expedition which, it is officially stated, will cost 2,600,000l., and which, in the opinion of almost all independent military authorities, will greatly exceed this amount. But, assuming that the official estimate should prove strictly correct, it appears that India will pay 2,280,000l. and England 320,000l. India, therefore, will contribute more than seven pounds for every pound that is contributed by England. It is scarcely credible that a proposal should have been brought forward which would lead to such a result. It is, perhaps, only fair to conclude that when the real nature of the scheme is understood it will be promptly abandoned. At any rate it is difficult to suppose that it will ever be sanctioned by Parliament. The English people, whatever may be their faults, have never been charged, even by their bitterest detractors, with meanness. But it is not easy to see how we can escape from such a charge, if, when an expedition has been undertaken, not simply in the interest of India, but to maintain the ‘influence and character of England in Europe,' we compel the Indian people, whether they wish it or not, surrounded as they are with poverty and financial embarrassment, to pay more than seven times as much as is contributed by all the wealth of England.

HENRY FAWCETT.

RECENT SCIENCE.

(PROFESSOR HUXLEY has kindly read, and aided the Compilers and the Editor with his advice upon, the following article.)

Ir is not only to the geologist, to the physicist, and to the astronomer that speculations as to the probable nature of the interior of the earth are full of interest. So fascinating a subject appeals to a circle of inquirers far outside the pale of the special sciences. Every thoughtful man naturally feels curious to know something about the nature of the innermost parts of this earth on which we dwell. Is our globe a stony sphere, solid to its very core? Or is it made up of a hollow shell, with a mass of molten matter within? Or is there nothing but compressed gas inside the hollow sphere? Or, finally, is there a solid crust on the outside and a solid nucleus in the centre, separated from each other by an intermediate layer of liquid? Each of these views, in turn, has found its advocates; and each has been supported by arguments of more or less weight. As direct observation of the earth's interior is manifestly impossible, except to a depth which is utterly insignificant in comparison with the magnitude of the earth, all reasoning on this subject must needs be based on evidence of an indirect kind. The arguments which have been advanced are drawn principally from the figure of the earth, from its mean density, from the increase of temperature which is observed on descending to accessible depths, and especially from the widely occurring phenomena of vulcanicity. A noteworthy contribution to the subject from the volcanic side has recently been made by Herr Siemens, whose investigations will be found recorded in a paper recently published in the monthly reports of the Berlin Academy.1

In seeking an explanation of the phenomena which he witnessed during a visit to Vesuvius last May, the author has been led to some general studies in vulcanology which have far more than local interest. At the time of his visit steam, or other vapour, was being ejected in explosive puffs from the cone in the centre of the great crater. Sharp explosions succeeded each other at tolerably regular

Physikalisch-mechanische Betrachtungen, veranlasst durch eine Beobachtung der Thätigkeit der Vesuvs im Mai 1878.' Monatsbericht der k. preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1878, pp. 558-582.

intervals of two or three seconds, and gave rise to rotating rings which, widening as they rose into the air, formed a crown of vapour around the summit of the mountain. It is by no means easy to explain how such rapidly recurring explosions, with the accompanying jets of steam, could be produced. Assuming that steam or gas may be suddenly generated at great depths, it might fairly be expected that its ejection would be accompanied by the outflow of much lava; and that after each explosion sufficient time must be given for the accumulation of fresh lava in the chimney of the volcano before the next expulsion could occur. It may be suggested, indeed, that as water at a very high temperature is dissociated into its components, the magma or molten rock beneath the volcano might contain an explosive mixture of oxygen and hydrogen gases; then on any considerable diminution of pressure these gases would recombine and again form water. It is, however, highly improbable that, under the enormous pressure to which the magma must be subjected, anything like dissociation should occur; for the author's own experiments have shown that a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen, when subjected to a very high pressure, will explode. Dismissing, then, the idea of dissociation, the author is driven to the conclusion that hydrogen gas, or it may be combustible compounds of hydrogen, rise from below, and, mingling with atmospheric oxygen, form an explosive mixture which is burnt in the upper part of the volcanic chimney. From the large quantity of steam generated by the explosions, it is probable that hydrogen is the principal combustible constituent of the gases, but it is not easy to decide whether the hydrogen exists in a free state, or combined with sulphur, carbon, and other elements. The presence of much sulphurous acid gas among the products renders it likely, however, that sulphuretted hydrogen is one of the burning gases.

That water and perhaps hydrogen should be contained in the magma, whence the volcanic products arise, appears highly probable on the well-known nebular hypothesis. It is generally conceded that the nearest approach which has yet been made to a rational explanation of the formation of our earth is to be found in the bold hypothesis which was conceived by Kant and elaborated by Laplace. On this assumption the earth and all the other planetary bodies have resulted from the condensation of nebulæ. Thousands of these faintly luminous cloud-like bodies have been detected in the heavens, and the spectroscope has shown that some of them contain glowing hydrogen. On the condensation of a nebula, by attraction of its particles, great heat would necessarily be developed. Chemical forces would then come into play during the contraction, and such compounds would be formed as were capable of existing under the given conditions of temperature and pressure. On increase of pressure by contraction, and on reduction of heat by radiatior, a liquid magma