It may be a good change. It may be an evil one. It may be a
neutral one. We do not know. Shallow observers may treat the matter
as one which can be disregarded, but one who like myself is
possessed of the deeper intelligence of the true philosopher
will understand that the possibilities of the universe are
incalculable and that the wisest man is he who holds himself
ready for the unexpected. To take an obvious example, who would
undertake to say that the mysterious and universal outbreak of
illness, recorded in your columns this very morning as having
broken out among the indigenous races of Sumatra, has no
connection with some cosmic change to which they may respond
more quickly than the more complex peoples of Europe? I throw
out the idea for what it is worth. To assert it is, in the
present stage, as unprofitable as to deny it, but it is an
unimaginative numskull who is too dense to perceive that it is
well within the bounds of scientific possibility.

"Yours faithfully,
"GEORGE EDWARD CHALLENGER.

"THE BRIARS, ROTHERFIELD."


"It's a fine, steemulating letter," said McArdle thoughtfully,
fitting a cigarette into the long glass tube which he used as a
holder. "What's your opeenion of it, Mr. Malone?"

I had to confess my total and humiliating ignorance of the
subject at issue. What, for example, were Fraunhofer's lines?
McArdle had just been studying the matter with the aid of our