animal races a strong inclination for a closer association of the sexes, as well among individuals as in the whole group, under which the members of a society, of the whole species or family to which they belonged, were impelled to assist each other in the struggle for existence. He had observed numerous instances in which, after the death of the male, the female died, and conversely, or parents with the greatest self-denial sacrificed themselves for the protection of their young. All such examples showed that the reproductive instinct bound groups of related animals to each other through the law which he had enunciated. The principle was not limited to sexual association, but was exhibited wherever mutual help appeared to be necessary. As an example, the case was cited of a group of beetles which would combine their forces with severe exertion to drag away a dead mouse. Further, ants and bees illustrate the operation of the law in a high degree. The principle is developed with especial prominence in mankind. Only by the most powerful cooperation could men have succeeded in reaching the degree of civilization which the race has attained.
Iceland.—Mr. C. G. W. Lock, in a recent lecture before the British Society of Arts, on Iceland, mentioned that the island, so far from being small, as it is erroneously called, is considerably larger than Ireland or Ceylon. Its situation is such that its whole northern coast is shut in nearly every year by the descent of masses of ice from the north. The southern and western shores are affected by ice in very exceptional instances only. The country is essentially volcanic and mountainous; but Hecla, which monopolizes the geographical knowledge of most students on the subject, does not possess a single characteristic to place it above its fellows. The whole central plateau is a wild waste of lava and volcanic sand, and the only habitable parts of the island are a narrow fringe of coast land and a few of the larger river valleys. The great ridge of ice-clad hills, stretching across the island, acts as a refrigerator to the moisture-laden winds from the southwest, and produces two distinct climates: the northern, generally dry; and the southern, generally wet, and more temperate than the other. The fact that colonists from Great Britain participated in the settlement of Iceland more than a thousand years ago is attested by the identity of many words that are used by the people with British words. Ponies are the chief animal product of the island. From them the stocks of the "Black Country" of England are recruited. The sheep furnish a fine mutton, and a wool which is made up into excellent fabrics at home, or is exported. Profitable trades are driven in skins, catgut, fox-fur, and eider-down; the cod-fisheries are very important, and considerable trade is carried on in cod-liver oil and shark-oil. The salmon-fishery has been shamefully abused by the excessive employment of barbarous methods of taking the fish. It, however, is the one great attraction the island offers to sportsmen; and more profit might be gained, directly and indirectly, by letting out the streams, as in Norway, to English fly-fishers, than by contracting with fish-curers. The island was at one time well wooded, and supplied itself largely, if not entirely, with cereals, but the climate has deteriorated and the soil become sterile in consequence of the cutting away of the trees, and every grain of corn is now imported from Denmark. The principal mineral product is sulphur, which is deposited in a very finely divided state around the volcanic vents by the vapors issuing through them. It is the custom to describe the sulphur-mines of Sicily and the sulphur-mines of Iceland as somewhat similar, but for all practical considerations they are as distinct as a coal-seam and a forest. The Sicilian mines consist of deposits formed in past geological ages, now lying at great depths, and utterly devoid of reproductive power; the Icelandic beds are the work of to-day, lie on the very surface of the ground, and live and grow with unabated energy, replacing the deposit as fast as it is removed. The area comprised in the Icelandic sulphur districts collectively amounts to, perhaps, a dozen square miles. The sulphur forms a layer of varying thickness, covered by an earthy crust and underlaid by clays containing sulphur mixed with various acids and salts, and is invariably wet, in consequence of the steam condensed within it. The crystals are almost absolutely pure, but impurities are mechanically mixed with them. Other mineral products
