And the same zealous passion for accuracy that has distinguished these and less famous historians and biographers has shown itself in other fields of intellectual endeavour. Our Queen in her desire "to get at the root and reality of things" is entirely in harmony with the spirit of her age. In scientific men we look for the ardent pursuit of difficult truth; and it would be thankless to forget how numerous beyond precedent have been in the Victorian period faithful workers in the field of science. Though some of our _savants_ in later years have injured their renown by straying outside the sphere in which they are honoured and useful and speaking unadvisedly on matters theological, this ought not to deter us from acknowledging the value of true service rendered. The Queen's reign can claim as its own such men as John Herschel, worthy son of an illustrious father, Airy, Adams, and Maxwell, Whewell and Brewster and Faraday, Owen and Buckland and Lyell, Murchison and Miller, Darwin and Tyndall and Huxley, with Wheatstone, one of the three independent inventors of telegraphy, and the Stephensons, father and son, to whose ability and energy we are indebted for the origination and perfection of our method of steam locomotion; it can boast such masters in philosophy as Hamilton and Whately and John Stuart Mill, each a leader of many. It has also the rare distinction of possessing one lady writer on science who has attained to real eminence--eminence not likely soon to be surpassed by her younger sister-rivals--the late Mrs. Mary Somerville, who united an entirely feminine and gentle character to masculine powers of mind. [Illustration: Sir James Simpson.] [Illustration: Michael Faraday.] Only to catalogue the recent discoveries and inventions we owe to men of science, from merciful anæsthetics to the latest applications of electric power, would occupy more space than we ought here to give. All honour to these servants of humanity! We rejoice to find among them many who could unite the simplest childlike faith with a wide and grand mental outlook; we exult not less to find in many Biblical students and commentators the same patience, thoroughness, and resolute pursuit of the very truth as that exemplified by the devotees of physical science. God's Word is explored in our day--the same clay which has seen the great work of the Revised Version of the Scriptures begun and completed--with no less ardour than God's world. And what vast additions have been made to our knowledge of this earth! We have seen Nineveh unburied, the North-West Passage explored, and the mysterious Nile stream at last tracked to its source. To compare a fifty-years-old map of Africa with one of the present day will a little enable us to estimate the advances made in our acquaintance with the Dark Continent alone; similar maps including the Polar regions of North America will testify also to a large increase of hard-won knowledge. [Illustration: David Livingstone.]