Baprista Porta, who must ever hold a place with the great fathers of scientific discovery, and who is considered by some to have claims to the honour of inventing the telescope, was not ashamed to expend his ingenuity on the art of making counterfeit precious stones. It is painful to think that the "scientists," as they delight to call themselves, of this enlightened century should have anything in common with such an equivocal brotherhood as the alchemists, but those who read the account of what is called Mr. Edison's new departure must feel that there is a side to his proceedings suspiciously like that which mars the fame of the Italian. It is not
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.