Sir John Herschel, when at the Cape of Good Hope, observed, on May 25, 1837, a spot upon the sun, the black centre of which would have allowed the globe of our earth to drop through it, leaving a thousand miles clear of contact on all sides of that tremendous gulf. ------------------ DEATH OF SIR HUMPHRY DAVY. It was at Rome, on the 20th day of February, 1829, when he was finishing his eloquent work, _The Last Days of a Philosopher_, that Sir Humphry Davy received the final warning to prepare. By dictation, he wrote to his brother, who was at Malta with the British troops--"I am dying from a severe attack of palsy, which has seized the whole of the body, with the exception of the intellectual organ. I shall leave my bones in the Eternal City." But he was to die neither then nor there. Within three weeks, his brother was by his bedside, and found him as much interested in the anatomy and electricity of the torpedo as ever, though he bade Dr. Davy "not to be grieved" by his approaching dissolution. Yet, after a day of 150 pulse-beats, and only five breathings in a minute, and of the most distressing particular symptoms, he again revived. Shortly after this, Lady Davy arrived at Rome from England, with a copy of the second edition of _Salmonia_, which Sir Humphry received with peculiar pleasure. After some weeks of melancholy dalliance with the balmy spring air of the Campagna, the Albula Lake, the hills of Tivoli, and the banks of the Tiber, they travelled quietly round by Florence, Genoa, Turin, slowly threading the flowery, sweet-scented Alpine valleys, to Geneva, where _he suddenly expired_. It was three hours beyond midnight; his servant called his brother; his brother was in time to close his eyes. It was the 29th of May, in 1829. They buried him at Geneva. In truth, Geneva buried him herself, with serious and respectful ceremonial. A simple monument stands at the head of the hospitable grave. There is a tablet to his memory on the walls of Westminster Abbey. There is a monument also, at Penzance, his birth-place. ------------------ HOMAGE TO CUVIER. When the Count de Seze replied to an eloquent discourse of Cuvier, he stated that, "since the Restoration, Cuvier was the second example of fortunate combination of literature and science, and that he had been preceded only by that illustrious geometer, (the Marquis de Laplace), whom we may call the _Newton_ of France." In referring to the European reputation of Cuvier, and to the vast extent and variety of his knowledge, he applied to him the happy observation which Fontenelle made respecting Leibnitz--that while the ancients made one Hercules out of several, we might, out of one Cuvier, make several philosophers. ------------------ FALSE ESTIMATE OF RAILWAY SPEED.