would be practicing only the handwriting of his art. The considerations which we have enumerated above give him a grammar and a composition—the power to express himself—the power of being understood.
The process of selecting, arranging, subduing and accenting the forms, tones, colors, movements and interests of his work, so that they will produce the mood or set forth the idea which he is endeavoring to present, so that they will give unity and through it the "perfect repose"—this the artist calls composition.
Compressed Air. The first scientific knowledge of the power of air was gained in the sixteenth century by Galileo. Air under pressure increases in density and heat, and exerts an increased power in every direction. Hence compressed air is applied in locomotives; and its power is employed in many machine-plants, such as those of mines and water-works. An air-compressor or air-pump is a cylinder fitted with a piston and rod, and with valves at which the free air may enter and with others at which the compressed air may be applied, together with the needful connections of this apparatus with the driving power. In most compressed air "plants," the pressure which is employed is about 80 pounds to the square inch. Air may be liquified at a temperature of 312° below zero. This temperature may be got under a pressure of 1,200 pounds or upwards to the square inch; but the process is thus far not profitable from a commercial standpoint, although there are several ways in which liquid air may be applied.
Compromise of 1850, a measure designed by Henry Clay and, largely through his efforts, adopted by both houses of Congress in August, 1850. Its chief purpose was to satisfy the conflicting demands of the north and the south in the matter of slave and free territory. The leaders for the south were attempting to have the recently acquired Mexican domain organized into states all of which should permit slavery (The Clayton Compromise); were trying to have the Missouri Compromise line extended through to the Pacific; were backing Texas in her demand either for a money indemnity or the Rio Grande as a western boundary; were demanding an effective fugitive-slave law; were demanding that no free state should be admitted unless paired with a slave state. The leaders for the north were backing California's demand to be admitted as a free state; were attempting to have slavery abolished in the District of Columbia; were seeking to prohibit interstate commerce in slaves; were justifying the personal-liberty laws which made just about useless the fugitive-slave law; were resisting the demands of Texas. There was a deadlock, and to many civil war seemed certain. It was at this juncture that Clay introduced his compromise. In one form or another it was debated for nearly five months, but was finally passed about as Clay had designed it. It provided that California be admitted with her free constitution; that there should be no slavery prohibition in the organization of territorial governments founded in the Mexican domain (which included the territories of New Mexico and Utah); that Texas should receive her indemnity; that slaves might be held in the District of Columbia; that there should be no slave-trading in the District of Columbia; that the fugitive-slave law should be enforced; and that the interstate slave-trade should not be interfered with. Passed to avert a clash at arms, the measure was one of the shortest-lived and least successful compromises in history. The fugitive-slave law in its operation rapidly turned the whole north into abolitionists, and so hastened the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill which made the whole compromise a dead letter.
Com′stock Lode, a ledge of silver to which Virginia City, Nev., largely owes its growth. Discovered in 1859, the lode has yielded at times over $10,000,000 yearly. The shaft is 2,300 feet deep; but work is now only done on the upper levels, the workmen having been driven from the depths by the great heat (120° F.) and by the suffocating gas produced by the action of the air on the sulphurous rock cut at different levels.
Comte (kônt), Auguste, was born Jan. 19, 1798, at Montpellier, France. In philosophy he was for six years a pupil of St. Simon. In 1826 he began lectures which grew into his treatise on positive philosophy. He is the founder of that school of philosophy called positivism. Comte died at Paris on Sept. 5, 1857.
Comus, a masque by Milton, contains perhaps the most beautiful and tender appreciation of the beauty of purity and holiness which is to be found in all poetry. Its moral is:
"Mortals, that would follow me,
Love virtue; she alone is free;
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or, if virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself would stoop to her."
Comus, the god of revel, is not mentioned in the classical myths; but in the 3rd century A. D. he is referred to in connection with art. In Milton's poem a maiden, parted from her brothers in the wood where Comus holds his revels, is saved from the swinish cup which is offered to her by her own constancy and innocence. Among the greatest lines are these:
"So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity,
That, when a soul is found sincerely so,
