Bacon’s motto, “Knowledge is Power,” becomes truer every day. The proper application of science is the chief source of wealth, and, consequently, of power. Nations, do you wish to be powerful and rich? Then encourage to the utmost your learned men. I stop a day _en route_ to revisit Nuremberg, the Pompeii of the Middle Ages. I will not speak of its many interesting churches, houses, towers, of the Woolding Chamber, nor of the terrible Iron Virgin, covered inside with spikes, like Regulus’ barrel, which, in closing, pierced its victim through and through, and opened to drop the corpse into the torrent roaring a hundred feet below. Nothing gives a more vivid idea of the refined cruelty of these dark ages. But I have no wish to encroach upon Baedeker’s prerogative. A word only as to what I see before the cathedral. I observe there a small Gothic monument, which reminds me of the Roman column of Igel, on the Mosel, near Trèves. It has a niche on each of the four sides, under glass. In the first niche is a thermometer, in the second an hygrometer, in the third a barometer, and in the fourth the day’s telegrams from the observatory, and the meteorological maps. These instruments are enormous, from four to five feet in height at least, so that the figures may be large enough to be clearly legible. I have seen similar monuments in several German towns, and in Switzerland, at Geneva, in the gardens near the Rhone, at Vevey, close to the landing-stage, and at Neuchatel, on the promenade near the lake. It would be excellent if all towns would adopt them. I take every opportunity of urging this. Their cost is but trifling. A perfectly plain one can be made for £40, something more elegant might cost £80 or £100; they are a source of amusement and a means of instructing the people, and a daily lesson in physics for all classes. The laboring man learns there far better than he would do at school the practical use of these instruments, which are most useful for agricultural purposes and for sanitary precautions.