day. So far each renewal of the Ausgleich has brought substantial modifications in favor of Hungary, and the centre of gravity has, in fact, shifted from Vienna to Buda-Pesth. The Emperor, when driven to it, might go against the German-speaking Austrians, but never against the Magyars; and the Magyars, fully realizing their power, have extorted concession after concession from their unhappy partner, have applied the screw so persistently, that it is becoming a question whether they are not as unpopular among Austrian statesmen as the very Czechs themselves.

The present troubles of the Dual Monarchy are due to the failure of the Germans to repeat in Austria the successes of the Magyars in Hungary. "You look after your hordes," said Count Beust to a Hungarian statesman when the Austrian Empire became the Dual Monarchy, "and we'll look after ours." The Czechs of Bohemia have turned to ridicule the Count's too valiant declaration. The Germans of Vienna, one must remember, are very different from the Germans of Berlin. Of all the sections of the Teutonic race they appear to have the least robustness of intellect or character and the laxest grip on practical affairs. Indolent, hypercritical, and self-satisfied, they are the emasculated editions of their northern kinsmen. From whatever cause, some paralyzing blight of lassitude and ineffectiveness seems to have eaten its way into their energies. Against their cultured fecklessness the Czechs oppose the elemental force of racial ambition, the driving power of a people that has the consciousness of a great destiny before it and feels itself on the top of the rising wave.

The Germans protest that they have educated themselves beyond the point where race is everything and cannot at this time of day be expected to return to first principles. It is of course tenable that the variety of parties into which the Germans are split up argues an advanced and broad political intelligence. At the same time it makes a poor barrier against the impact of a race that subordinates everything to a single practical end; and unless the Germans are prepared to see a great part of their old ascendency pass away, they must be ready to drop "theorizing," take up the issue that has been forced upon them, and meet their antagonists with

weapons not necessarily of their own choosing. In other words, they need simplifying if they are to combat the Czechs successfully. As it is, the Czechs for the last thirty years have been slowly driving them to the wall. City after city has fallen into their hands; Prague and Pilsen, that only a quarter of a century ago were German in tongue and sentiment, are now Slavonized down to their very street names. And in politics and industry as well as music and literature and the lighter arts, the past hundred years have seen the Czechs advance in a quite wonderful fashion. They have long ceased to fear the Germans, and with the disappearance of fear comes naturally the claim to equality.

Moreover, the Czechs have a strong historical case. Four hundred years ago what are now the crown-lands of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia formed the Czech Kingdom of St. Vacslav; and what is now Hungary was then the Kingdom of St. Stephen. The Czechs offered their crown in 1526 to the Habsburgs, at the same time, for the same reasons, and on the same conditions as the Magyars; stipulating only that they should retain their old rights of self-government. This contract, together with the Pragmatic Sanction, was the legal basis of the Hungarian rebellion of 1848. The Czechs still use it to point the justice of their demands for a resurrection of St. Vacslav's Kingdom, maintaining that their case is on all fours with that of Hungary, rests on the same documents, and is supported by the same coronation oaths. The Habsburgs, as I have said, never quite lived up to their side of the agreements. They allowed the Turks to overrun Hungary at will, and when the Reformation came and the Czechs gathered round John Huss, they stamped out the heresy in blood and established a strong German colony along the northern borders of Bohemia for the protection of the faith and the suppression of the natives.

As a matter of fact, Bohemia is another Ireland. The German-Slav duel is a minute duplication of the long Anglo-Celt conflict. In both countries the battle-ground is the same. In both we find a demand for Home Rule supported by the native population and resisted by the "foreign garrison"; in both the same bitterness of racial antipathy, ex

pressing itself in the same old wearisome manner. Even the kind of antipathy is curiously identical. The Czechs are a nation of Healys, and the excursions of that formidable family against Saxon insensibility and pigheadedness would make capital campaign literature for the Czech irreconcilables; while the Germans treat their inflammable neighbors on the "little children in a nursery" theory, which so far has been Ulster's chief contribution to English statesmanship.

But the Czechs have two tremendous advantages over the Irish nationalists. The case for Home Rule would be irresistible and would have been yielded long ago if the Irish still spoke Erse or if Ireland's geographical position were anything but what it is. The Czechs have kept their native tongue alive, and just across their borders-imagine Ireland within two hours' sail of Washington —are their kinsmen of the Russian Empire. The card of Russian sympathy is too easy not to be played for all it is worth, and after every fresh frustration of their national hopes follows the spectacle of five and a half million Czechs cautiously sounding the Czar's "racial instinct." It is this that lends color to the common charge that the Czechs are disloyal, but it is to be noticed that when the situation is reversed and the Emperor makes even the shortest step toward Home Rule, the Germans at once adopt their opponents' tactics, throw themselves into the arms of their Prussian brethren, and vow that sooner than stay and be swamped by a hated and inferior race, they would willingly exchange the Habsburgs for the Hohenzollerns and enroll themselves among Kaiser Wilhelm's subjects. The suspicion cannot be avoided that these dramatics are at bottom intended for home consumption, and that the tune would be quickly changed if the Czar or Kaiser were to listen too seriously.

The whole history of the Dual Monarchy goes to show that real consolidation and unity can be effected only by the seemingly paradoxical method of allowing each nationality the widest possible freedom. Justice toward and equal treatment of all races is the only sure road to peace and permanency. It is a hard one for the Germans to tread, for it means the overthrow of an ascendency once paramount in every corner of the realm; but

unless universal suffrage brings to the front an entirely new set of problems, trod it must be.

The interplay of these racial ambitions has been complicated, sometimes retarded and sometimes acutely emphasized, by a hundred differences of religious, economic, and purely political interests, all of which have representatives in the Reichsrath. They act upon one another under the shadow of the racial issues in a way that no foreigner can disentangle. The confusion of the country is worthily reproduced in the fifteen distinct parties and the seven or eight languages that crop up in the Vienna Parliament. AustriaHungary is a polyglot chaos in which even Austrians do not profess to see more than a half light.

The prophecies of disruption may therefore appear at least plausible. But it is one of the many paradoxes of the Dual Monarchy that it seems unable to break up. In part it is protected, as I have said, by the very diversity and number of the antagonisms it is obliged to house. A more visible bond of union is the army, in which all must serve, which is of all races and creeds, and therefore of none, and the atmosphere of which is broadly and impressively Imperial. What its actual effectiveness will prove to be like, should it ever be tested, is one of the most interesting military problems of the day. The only force with which it can be compared in the excellence of its units and the variety of its nationalities and tongues, is the allied army that rescued the Pekin legations; and the parallel is not altogether hopeful. A polyglot army must of necessity be to some extent a disorganized army, and while the forces of the Dual Monarchy use German as the language of military command, the rank and file and the bulk of the officers retain their own speech for general purposes. The heterogeneous character of its composition has had a steadying influence on the internal struggles of the Dual Monarchy, however much it may hamper its efficiency on the battle-field. The army has kept itself largely aloof from politics, and though the Czechs did once attempt to transfer the racial bitterness to the parade ground by answering the roll-call in their own tongue, a sharp rebuke from the Emperor was enough to bring them to reason.

A second and equally powerful bond of union is the Monarchy. Not only is it accepted everywhere, but the idea of upsetting it in favor of any other form of government has never yet been broached. Even the Kossuth irreconcilables, who would like to see the Ausgleich abolished and Hungary direct her own fiscal policy a quite possible dea quite possible development and manage her own foreign affairs, still do not propose to sever the personal tie that binds the two countries. And

not only is the monarchy secure in the affections of the people, but the dynasty is equally popular. So long as there is a throne it is not conceivable that any one but a Habsburg should occupy it. This twofold devotion to monarchy and to the dynasty has been greatly strengthened of late years, partly by the breakdown of Parliamentary government and the weariness which has made the people look to the throne as an escape from the turmoil and wranglings of small groups, and partly through the patience and wisdom, the sterling fair-mindedness and competency, of the present Emperor as well as the ghastly tragedies of his private life.

But it is a curious delusion to argue that just because Francis Joseph is so adequate and well beloved and comes so near to Walter Bagehot's ideal of what a constitutional monarch should be, therefore the Empire must go to pieces when his moderating and persuasive influence is withdrawn. Such a reign as his is far more than a merely personal triumph it is the consecration of a system; it exalts the monarchy as well as the monarch, and it smooths out the path for his successors by bequeathing to them an office made more illustrious by his example and memory, more powerful and more deeply based in the hearts of the people. So far from being a signal for dismemberment, the close of the present Emperor's reign is more likely to witness a splendid rally round the house and throne of the Habsburgs.

But the final and irrefutable argument that should give pause to the facile prophets of disruption was summed up by Palacky, the Czech historian, when he wrote that "even if it were not already in existence, an Austrian empire would have to be established, not only to insure the welfare of the numer

ous nationalities involved, but also to secure the peace of Europe." The peace of Europe would indeed be jeopardized in the event of a scramble for the fragments of the Dual Monarchy. But no such catastrophe is likely, for the reason that it is to no one's interest to bring it about. It is not for secession from, but for the fullest liberty within, the Empire that "the numerous nationalities involved" are struggling. The only genuine secessionists are Herren Wolf and Schönerer and their followers, who wish to incorporate Germanspeaking Austria with the German Empire. It is possible that their wishes may ultimately be gratified, but not in our time, not till after the next European war, if even then, and not till the Clericalism of Austrian Germans has considerably toned down. What the Czechs and the other races want, is the same independence as the Magyars possess, and such independence is as inconsistent with Russian as with German domination.

In other words, it is against their interests to break away from the Habsburgs. Dismemberment would mean for them the very fate of absorption each and all are most anxious to avoid, and a final answer, from which there could be no appeal except by insurrection, to their dreams of autonomy. The day of small States has gone by, and a lonely Czech kingdom could not exist for a year by the side of Russia. It is a fact which the partition-mongers singularly overlook, that the racial agitation in Austria-Hungry has its subconscious limits very rigidly fixed. The jarring elements that make up the Dual Monarchy may find it hard to live side by side, but they have a pretty shrewd suspicion that they would find it harder to live at all if they parted company.

The foreign politics of Austria-Hungary hardly extend beyond the Balkans, and so long as the present agreement with Russia to maintain the status quo in that fiery cockpit lasts, they are not likely to be of much moment. A conflict with Russia is the greatest of all dangers. Austria-Hungary, therefore, cleaves anxiously to the Triple Alliance, and faces a difficult future with the hope, for which she has good reason, that the present international deadlock may be long maintained.

T

WENTY-THREE great wrecks of the past century caused a loss of 7642 lives. Each one of these was a world-stirring disaster, and for that reason stands vividly in the memory of men. And yet awful as these figures may seem, the reports of the various governmental hydrographic offices show them to be but an insignificant mite in the sum total of ocean mortality. In the old days when civilization was concentrated on one-half of the earth, and only adventurers braved the sea, this would not have mattered so much; but now that the world is rapidly becoming one large country and our globe-trotting population is increasing every year, the question of safety at sea becomes one of the important questions of the age.

During the last few years the United States Patent Office has been deluged with applications for patents on life-saving devices, and quite recently the general interest has been stimulated by a prize offered for the best invention of this sort. And yet even this interest, like many another world movement, was aroused only when a tragical romance brought it home keenly to the public mind. Among those who went down with the illfated Bourgogne was Anthony Pollock, who was then on his way to France to obtain a patent on a life-saving invention in which he was interested. His heirs have offered the prize ($19,000) "for the best appliance for the saving of life in case of maritime disaster." The competition is now closed, but the decision has not yet been made. Probably this is because of the really remarkable wealth of idea and invention from which the judges have to choose.

mechanics, electricity, and other sciences has been called to the help of these inventors. And the principles involved are based on all the causes of disaster: the proximity of vessels or icebergs, the quelling of stormy waves, the dissipation of fog, the automatic stoppage of leaks each man has his idea, and the men range in caliber from the unknown enthusiast to such past masters in the art of invention as Thomas A. Edison and Professor Oliver Lodge. If any one of the leading devices can be made uniformly practicable, we may shortly bid "good-by" to all fear of such calamities as the sinking of the Bourgogne, the Ertogrul, or the Princess Alice.

THE TEMPERATURE OF APPROACHING OBJECTS

Devices designed to prevent collisions are, of course, most numerous. These depend on wireless telegraphy, the detection of delicate sounds, and on heat and cold. The lastnamed are, of course, especially designed to detect the proximity of icebergs. It is even now practicable to record the approach of one vessel toward another by the heat that the newcomer transmits through the atmosphere. This may seem wonderful, but not so much so when we remember that Ganot recorded in his Physics his invention of a thermopile that was sensitive to the heat of a candle held a quarter of a mile away. He also used another instrument which was sensible to the warmth of a heated penny at a distance of twenty feet. Compare these temperatures with the much greater heat from the galley of a ship or the boilers of a liner, and the possibility of the thermopile becomes very great.

In line with this Mr. Herman Herberts, a Newark scientist, has constructed a thermo

as slight as one one-millionth of a degree centigrade. Yet the thermopile is a simple instrument. For instance, if we attach a piece of German silver wire and a piece of copper wire each to a binding post of a galvanometer, we shall have naturally two loose ends of wire dangling from the instrument. If we hold the two loose ends of wire in a candle flame, a current of electricity will be generated immediately and be recorded in the galvanometer. This current is due to the heat and the dissimilarity of the two pieces of wire. But there are metals much more sensitive than these; bismuth and antimony, for instance. And selenium is so extremely sensitive that its electrical properties are seriously affected even by light. A combination of these substances is used in the Herberts thermopile. In practice one thermopile will be used on each side of a vessel. Surrounding each instrument is an outer case containing an alum solution designed to intercept the sun's heat. Above each thermopile is a revolving funnel which turns in every direction of the compass. From the thermopiles wires extend to the bridge of the vessel, where they connect with a sensitive galvanometer. Here are also two bells, one of which rings on the approach of a heated object, as, for instance, another steamer; the other of which rings on the approach of a colder object, like an iceberg. If another vessel approaches within a mile of the ship carrying the thermopiles, the delicate metals are at once affected, a current of electricity is generated which flows through the wires to the pilot-house, where it deflects the galvanometer and rings the bell. Of course the pilot can tell if the other vessel is coming toward him or moving away, by noting whether the current grows stronger or weaker. The bolometer is an instrument similar to the thermopile except that it has a current generated by an electric battery. This current also grows stronger or weaker according as it is brought in proximity with heat or cold.

Admiral Makaroff, of the Russian navy, has invented a thermopile for detecting the approach of icebergs. The device calls for a little channel or tube down in the keel of the vessel and arranged longitudinally so that a constant stream of water can flow in one end of the tube and out of the other. The ther

mopile is immerged directly in the water rushing through this tube. It is well known that water in the vicinity of an iceberg is very cold. So, if a vessel carrying the Makaroff thermopile were to steam or sail suddenly into such an area of cold water, the thermopile would immediately become affected, and a current would be generated that would r ng a bell on the bridge or quarterdeck.

TO TRANSMIT WARNING THROUGH WATE

In

Thomas A. Edison has had this question of the safety of ships in mind for years. He has even made experiments. Once in the Clootahatchee River, Florida, he conducted a series of experiments with rowboats in order to see how he could make use of the principle of induction for signalling purposes. He sat in one rowboat; his assistant sat in another, perhaps a quarter of a mile away. Above each boat floated a toy balloon which had been given a metallic coating. Signals were easily transmitted forth and back. practice, Mr. Edison proposes to use a metallic sail stretched between the masts of a ship, so that she may signal to other ships similarly equipped. But his most feasible idea utterly disregards electricity and depends on the wonderful capacity of water for transn itting sound. As the inventor points out a diver beneath the waves can always det t disturbances in the water even when at grot distances from the source of the noise. 1 e can, for instance, hear the throbbing of a steamer's engines or the noise of its propel or paddle wheels, even though the vessel e more than a mile away. Taking advantage of this phenomenon, he says an apparatus could be constructed in the keel of every vessel for transmitting and receiving sound. In the keel of the vessel he would have constructed a diaphragm operated by compressed air. An electric battery or a dynamo could operate this diaphragm so as to produce an explosive note which would travel miles. through the water and be received on the diaphragms of other vessels. If advisable, the Morse or any other code of signals could be transmitted, vessels could communicate la.itudes and longitudes to one another, and even long conversations could be carried

on.

One of the most interesting instruments for