A class of _Mathematicians_ still continues to publish papers and pamphlets on squaring, cubing, and trisecting. On this subject, the reader might find some amusement in the critiques of Professor De Morgan, who wrote several papers in the _Athenæum_, 1865, under the title of _A Budget of Paradoxes_. _Mechanics_ are still living who firmly believe in the possibility of realizing a mechanical perpetual motion,--to spin, pump, or drive carriages or machinery, by means of a constantly descending weight. And, year by year, many such schemes, find their final resting place in the archives of the Patent Office. It is melancholy to reflect on the waste of mental energy, inflicted on society by such vanities as Astrology, Alchemy, and their kindred empirical employments. Look at the centuries wasted, and worse than wasted, in studying such intellectual abortions, and in writing thousands of volumes of inanity to uphold falsehood and delude the unwary. What the sword has done physically, the pen and the wand of the sorcerer have done mentally, in prostrating the intellectuality of mankind. It would tend to promote the progress of society at large, if education were so far general that the acquirements of the middle and lower classes should act on the upper classes as a stimulant to the pursuit of those higher branches of study, which mostly fall to the lot of the nobility and men of fortune: whose birth and ample means otherwise relieve them from all incitements other than such as are fostered by the necessities of public office. With title and fortune, and no ambition to hold public employment, any education is thought to be sufficient that serves to obtain the usual dignities, and to give that polish which completes the accomplished gentleman. To the spread of education alone, can we look with any reliance for the downfall, or at least the diminishing of the hold on the human mind which Chimeras of every order usurp in our own, in common with every other country. Among other works that might be consulted by the curious in such matters, in the Libraries of the British Museum, the Patent Office, Chetham College Manchester, &c.; may be named, on ASTROLOGY,--B. Porta's Works, folio, 1616;--The Compost of Ptolomeus, Prince of Astronomie, 1645;--W. Ramsey's Vox Stellarum, 8vo., 1652;--The Geomancie of Maister Christopher Cattan, 4to., 1608;--Dr. John Dee's Work on Spirits, folio, 1659;--J. Goad's Astro-Meteorologica, folio, 1686;--Godfridus's Work on the Effects of the Planets, &c., 1649;--M. Manilius's System of the Ancient Astronomy and Astrology, &c., 8vo., 1697;--John Merrifield's Catastasis Mundi, 4to., 1684;--Jo. Holwells's Catastrophe Mundi, 4to., 1682;--with many others of modern date.