Noah was summoned from New York to London to take charge of the Brother's collective exhibit in the International Exhibition, popularly known as the "Healtheries." His tact and diplomacy, uniform courtesy, knowledge of every detail of his scholastic wares, and unwearied attendance to the duties of his office, won for Room No. 5 extraordinary notoriety. The Times and the Pall Mall Gazette and other sheets wrote at length about it. Dr. Fitch urged with the authority of his high position all teachers throughout the country to examine the work of the Brothers and study their methods. Indeed it became a common saying that unless you had been in "Noah's Ark," you had seen nothing of the educational section.

Small wonder then that during the great Conference Week, Brother Noah was often side by side with Lord Reay, the head of the Educational section of the Exhibition; and small wonder too, that when the time came for the Lord Mayor to entertain the distinguished representatives of the educational profession then in London, Brother Noah was among the invited.

But let us hasten to add that he accepted these and other honors not for himself but for the society which he represented. There were few traits in his frank and manly character more conspicuous than this allegiance ever and fondly paid to his Institute. He esteemed and loved it. He esteemed it for the advantages-spiritual and intellectual-which it offers its members; he loved it on account of the good it was doing among the youthful militants of the Church.

his health was anything but robust: months of work would be followed by periods of enforced rest. His high sense of duty and energetic will submitted but reluctantly to these interruptions. He wanted ever to be up and doing: examining classes, superintending publications, teaching, writing.

He had a pet subject-fortunately for him-and that was literature. It was to him what people say wood-cutting is to Gladstone and golf to Balfour, an interesting pastime, a bracing hobby. When the day's work was done, he would turn with pleasure to his silent friends and extract from their pages the refreshing essences which he needed. So, too, when abroad, he kept his hobby well in view, and he did so not only when in a Bodleian Library or a Bibliotheque Impérial, but also when

doing" a Kenilworth or a Stratford, or even while threading his way through a Strand or a Grub street.

It was these jottings by the way that gave such actuality and spice to the courses of lectures which he delivered in Manhattan College in recent years. These lectures he re-wrote at the request of his Superiors, and published a twelvemonth ago as A Manual of English Literature.

In an earlier work, Life of the Blessed De La Salle, the author shows himself as a biographer and litterateur, but he shows himself still more a Christian Brother. We find style, descriptive power, appreciation of men and things; but we find more, for every chapter shows the influence of religion in fashioning men of heroic mould and endowing them with the capacity of achieving great things for the good of others. The social and academical

standing of the Founder are touched upon in this book; but it is on his beautiful character, his virtues and educational work that the disciple fondly dwells.

The last paper from Brother Noah's pen was written at the request of Rev. Dr. McMahon for the December meeting of the Seton Reading Circle. It dealt with the poet's mission, and was read by the author though in feeble health at the time. It proved to be his last public reading, his farewell lecture.

It is true he accepted an invitation to read a similar paper before the St. Regis Circle on Sunday, January 31st, but Heaven decided otherwise. The

paper was read, but by a fellow-professor-Brother Virgil-while the author lay cold in death a few hundred yards away.

Round his grave in Calvary Cemetery, stood his brother, the Honorable Judge Curran, a few lay admirers, and a deputation from his class of '97. His brothers in religion were gathered there also, and it was while they chanted the comforting verses of the Benedictus that the mortal remains of Brother Noah were laid to rest.

To meet in Heaven! how sweet the thought
When life's short years are past;
No more to weep, no more to part,
To meet in Heaven at last.

A wave of excitement has recently passed over the Empire City. It was not a cold wave, nor yet a wave of heat; but, mirabile dictu an electric wave. It is surprising to note the number of people that were struck by it, and wrenched from their moorings of cool judgment and common sense. That the volatile and unreflecting should be excited, small wonder: but that well-balanced minds and quasi-scientific intellects should be thrown into a state of commotion by the undulation is a phenomenon which we must hand over to the psychologist for explanation.

The innocent cause of this widespread disturbance was a paper read before the New York Electrical Society by Mr. Willard E. Case, but the active agent was the wildly sensational accounts and absurdly ridiculous illustrations of certain dailies and weeklies.

B. POTAMIAN.

If such crassly ignorant writing is unblushingly offered the public by our New Journalism on subjects about which correct information is readily attainable, what are we to think of its efforts to enlighten its readers on matters ethical, philosophical, or biblical?

The theme of the lecturer was the direct conversion of the energy of carbon into the energy of the electric current. The ordinary way of effecting this conversion is very roundabout. The coal is burnt in huge furnaces: the expansive force of the evaporated water is used to drive the steam-engine which, in turn, works the dynamo. At each stage of this extensive operation, a loss of energy occurs on account of the imperfection of the machines, and also on account of the exacting demands of that inexorable second law of thermodynamics. The result is that only a small fraction of the energy available

not cheap. Besides this, the use of chlorate of potash is attended by decided inconvenience and even danger. The danger arises from the production of chlorine peroxide which is ever ready to give the unwary manipulator a proof of its explosive properties, and the inconvenience arises from the malodorous and throat-irritating qualities of the chlorine when liberated from the bonds of an unloving partner.

The writer built up a cell and exhibited it before the electrical class of Manhattan College. It rang a bell and worked a small fan quite easily. The attendant phenomena, it should be added, were a fairly good imitation of

the rumblings and thunders of a miniature volcanic eruption.

The invention of Mr. Case marks a step in the solution of the great industrial problem of the day. Much, however, remains to be done before the small experimental cell is fitted to leave the tender handling of the laboratory for the rough-and-tumble of the world of industry; and much indeed remains to be done before Mr. Case's test-tube displaces our seething boilers, and before the fires that roar in the holds of the Campania or the New York are replaced by long rows of cool cells attended by a few phlegmatic-looking electrical engineers.

VI.

FORT TICONDEROGA, August, 1896. MY DEAR KATE:-Stranded on a lone shore,-which would be an island, and thus complete the Robinson Crusoe aspect of our situation, if the sluggish water of the lake's end did not prefer an original channel-I sit me down to write to you, and enjoy myself as well. "But why from the old fort of historic fame comes this missive?" you will surely say when you read its heading. Simply a prompt boat arrival, a freight wreck between here and Fort Edward, a single track-and the impossibility of turning out with a steam engine for this chaotic impediment. We left the cliff at seven o'clock this morning. Now I say we, and this means, Carol, Mary and John Williams, Saliie Mackin, her aunt and Father Lanigan. The latter three, (choice spirits) joined us quite unex

pectedly. Sallie is bound for her cousin Kate's profession in Albany, and poor Father Lanigan to take up the struggles of life again in his hot city parish. Perhaps my sympathy is wasted upon him in this regardas he laughingly said when I expressed regrets that the Cliff Haven days of 1896 were already joining the past: "Yes, but the charm of any pleasure is greater if it is relinquished just before the spirit hints enough. Let us all hope we will come back in 1897, better, wiser and more enthusiastic men and women."

After all, there is a philosophy in this. Father Lanigan's expressions are open pages worth reading. He is, first, a gentleman, not only by birth, but by natural instinct;-cultured in heart and head and unselfishly tolerant to the rational phases of life in the world about him. Mr. Clark, who