There are instances of kings, both Pagan and Jewish, who were described,
long before their birth, by those holy men, whom the Lord inspired; but
we do not find that any prophet was ever foretold by an antecedent
prophet; this pre-eminence was peculiar to the promised Deliverer.
“Several prophecies in the Old Testament plainly ascribe the destruction
of the Jewish church and nation to their rejection of the Messiah. The
words in Deuteronomy xviii. 19 are remarkably strong. ‘Whosoever will
not hearken unto my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will
require it of him.’ Daniel expressly assigns this as the cause of the
destruction of their city and temple; and Zechariah describes the future
repentance and mourning of the whole nation for their sin of ‘piercing’
or crucifying Christ, as preparatory to their general restoration.
“And,” added my uncle as he finished, “Let us hope that the time is fast
approaching, when instead of a wandering and despised people, we may
see the whole Jewish nation repenting of their former obduracy, and
yielding up their unbelief to a full though tardy conviction.”
_24th._--We claimed my uncle’s promise this evening of describing the
mode of polishing the glass. “When the grinding operation,” said he,
“has been completed on both sides of the glass, it is again secured in
plaster on a flat table, and the surface is rubbed with a block of wood
covered with several folds of woollen cloth. The workmen supply the
cloth with polishing powders, such as crocus, tripoli, and putty,
beginning with the coarsest, and changing gradually to the finest.”
Wentworth observed that he had never seen putty in a powdered state.
“The putty of which you are thinking,” my uncle replied, “is a mixture
of chalk, or whiting with linseed oil, for the use of glaziers; but the
putty to which I alluded is the oxide of tin. Crocus is a preparation of
the brown oxide of iron; and tripoli is a natural earth, which was
formerly imported from Tripoli in Africa, but is now found in other
countries. Both the grinding and polishing of plate glass is performed
in the large manufactories by the steam-engine.”
We begged of my uncle to describe to us the process of silvering, so as
to make looking-glasses. “The coating a plate of polished glass with a
thin pellicle of quicksilver, in order to give it the power of
reflecting, is a very pretty and easy operation. I think Wentworth might
readily perform it on a small piece of glass. Blotting paper is first
spread on the table and sprinkled with powdered chalk; and over the
paper is laid a sheet of tin foil; that is, tin beaten out in the same
manner as gold leaf. On the tin foil quicksilver is poured and equally
distributed, and cleaned from every speck by means of a hare’s foot.
Over that a sheet of thin smooth paper is to be spread: fan paper is the
best; and on this paper the glass is placed. With the left hand you are
to press down the glass, while with the right the paper is drawn out,
and with it most of the superfluous quicksilver. The plate is then to be
loaded with a great weight, to squeeze out more of the mercury; and
lastly the glass is set nearly upright that every particle that is not
amalgamated with the tin may ooze out; for the thinner the coating of
mercury, the more perfectly the metal adheres to the glass.”
If ever I should be in the neighbourhood of a plate-glass manufactory I
will endeavour to see the whole process; in the mean time even the
little knowledge one can pick up from a general description is better
than entire ignorance. Wentworth lost no time in making an experiment
of the silvering operation. My uncle furnished him with tin foil and
quicksilver; my aunt supplied paper, and a small rubber of cloth instead
of the hare’s foot; and we all assisted. There was a little bungling at
first, but after a few trials we succeeded in making a scrap of
looking-glass, which Wentworth intends to frame for Grace’s doll.
“As glass was comparatively a late invention, uncle, what were the
looking-glasses which are mentioned in Scripture?”
“The word,” said my uncle, “should have been translated mirrors; they
were formerly made of brass, or of a mixture of brass and silver, which
takes a very high polish; and this inadvertence of the English
translators is the more singular, because the context removes every
difficulty. In the passage of Exodus[2], to which you refer, the laver
is described to be made ‘of brass of the looking-glasses.’ Glass could
not possibly have been converted into brass; but if the word be rendered
by mirrors, the sense would be complete; that is, the laver and the foot
of it were made of brazen mirrors.
“In Turkey, the common domestic mirrors at this day are made of brass;
but I have heard that in Persia they are sometimes made of steel, and
slightly convex. The metallic mirror, or speculum, which is now used in
a reflecting telescope, is composed of about two parts of copper and one
of tin; but what metals were employed by the ancients in their burning
mirrors is not known.”
“You allude, I suppose, papa,” said Frederick, “to the famous concave
mirrors with which Archimedes destroyed the Roman fleet.”
“Long before his time,” my uncle replied, “concave mirrors had been
constructed, by which the sun’s rays were so concentrated as to burn
substances placed in the focus: but those used by Archimedes were not
concave, they had plane or flat surfaces, and it was by the combination
of a great number that the effect was produced. For you can readily
conceive that whatever portion of the solar heat can be conveyed by
reflection from a single plane surface, the effect will be doubled if
the rays from another plane surface be directed to the same spot. Five
or six times the direct heat of the sun would set dry wood on fire; but
as more than half the heat is dissipated by reflection and by other
causes, we may say that eighteen or twenty small plane mirrors would be
quite sufficient for that purpose. The Count de Buffon tried a great
many valuable experiments on this subject; with 154 mirrors he succeeded
in burning wood at the distance of seventy yards, and in fusing several
metals at eight, ten, and even twelve yards, “There was another
circumstance in your question, Bertha, on which I must set you right. It
is true that glass has been brought to great perfection by modern skill,
but glass was known in the earliest ages of which any remains of art are
now extant. The mummies, for instance, which have been brought home from
Egypt, are ornamented with beads and bits of coloured glass. Pliny
describes the manner of making it; and there are various authorities for
believing that glass was even used in windows before the third century.”
_25th._--The nightingale, the next bird that appears after the swallow,
has arrived, and I have twice had the pleasure of hearing the sweetness,
fulness, and power of its melody.
It is supposed to visit Asia during its absence from England, as it does
not winter in the south of Europe or in Africa, but is found at all
times in the East, from Persia to Japan. I must acknowledge that its
song is more agreeable than that of the bird we call nightingale in
Brazil.
The wry-neck, and the cuckoo, which I have; just heard, arrive here very
soon after the nightingale. The wry-neck is a very pretty little bird;
the neck and breast are of a reddish brown, and crossed with waving bars
of fine black. It sits so very erect on a branch, that its body appears
to bend almost backward, while it is constantly turning its neck quite
round from side to side; and it also has the power of erecting the
feathers of the head like a jay. I have seen it feeding on ants, which
it dexterously transfixes with the sharp bony end of its tongue; and the
country people say, that the young ones, while in the nest, make a
hissing sound like that of little snakes, which deters boys from
plundering their nests.
There is something very cheerful in the notes of the cuckoo and the
rail. They serve to mark one of the steps by which this changeful and
busy season of spring steals on us with all its gradations of pleasure
and interest; and which, dear mamma, I cannot help thinking preferable
to the unvarying brilliancy of Brazil.
“Now Nature, soothed, assumes her wonted charms,
And like an infant, stilled, laughs through her tears,
That glittering hang on every bloomy spray.
The birds their woodland minstrelsy renew,
In chorus universal; while the sun
Gilds with effulgence sweet the azure vault,
And paints the landscape with a thousand flowers.”
I have seen the mole cricket to-day; it is a most remarkable insect,
endowed with wonderful strength, particularly in its fore legs which are
fitted for burrowing. The shanks are broad, and terminate obliquely in
four large sharp claws, like fingers; and the foot, which consists of
three joints, and is armed at the extremity with two short claws, is
placed inside the shank so as to resemble a thumb, and to perform its
offices. The direction and motion of these hands enable the animal
effectually to remove the earth when it burrows under ground; and in wet
and swampy situations, which it loves, it excavates very curious
apartments.
There is the prettiest variety of wild flowers now in bloom all over our
part of the forest; not gaudy and dazzling, like the natives of the
Brazil forests, but small and delicate, and beautifully marked and
tinted. I am sorry to say the primroses are fading; but wild violets,
the wood anemone, and millions of cowslips with their pretty golden
bells, make up for their loss.
I had almost forgotten to tell you that the buds and leaves of the
branches I had in water, have all withered away; ashamed, I suppose, to
appear now that there are abundance of real leaves.
_27th._--My aunt has been extremely interested by an account she read of
the progress of Christianity in the Sandwich islands.
It is almost a singular instance of a nation by general consent
destroying their idols, and being sensible of the insufficiency of their
own religion. The small opposition made to the change, and the manner in
which many of the chiefs publicly professed Christianity, give one every
reason to hope that it will take root in the minds of the people, and
that the progress of Christianity and civilization will advance
together. It appears to have been a spontaneous act of those intelligent
and amiable islanders; and when the Blonde frigate arrived there in
1825, the new faith they had adopted had already materially purified
their morals and improved their manners.
Besides wooden idols, the uninstructed natives had long worshipped the
deities of their island at the foot of the stupendous mountain of Mouna
Roa, imagining their favourite abode to be in the volcanoes it
contained. Offerings were frequently made to court their favour; and at
every fresh eruption of lava hogs were thrown alive into those fiery
gulfs, to appease the anger of Peli, the principal deity. To put an end
to these superstitions, Kapiolani, the wife of a chief of high rank who
had recently embraced Christianity, determined to descend into the great
crater, and, by thus braving the volcanic deities in their very home,
she hoped to convince the people that they existed only in their
imagination. A crowd of her friends and vassals accompanied her up the
mountain, to the first precipice that bounds the sunken plain: there
most of them stopped or turned back; and at the second, her remaining
companions earnestly implored her to desist from her dangerous
enterprise, which could only serve to tempt the vengeance of the
deities whose sanctuary she was about to violate. She proceeded,
however, to the verge of the crater, and being again assailed with their
entreaties, she calmly replied, “I am resolved to descend; and if I do
not return safe, then continue to worship Peli;--but, if I come back
unhurt, you must learn to adore the God who created Peli.”
Few of her attendants had sufficient courage to follow this heroic
woman; but she steadily persevered, and at length reaching the bottom of
the dreadful chasm, she triumphantly thrust a stick into the burning
lava, and for ever dissolved the spell of superstition which till that
moment had bound the minds of the astonished spectators. Those who had
expected to see the incensed goddess burst forth and destroy the daring
intruder, were awe-struck; they instantly acknowledged the superiority
of the God of Kapiolani; and from that time no reverence has been paid
to the fires of Peli.
_28th._--When I came down to the library early this morning, my uncle
asked me several historical questions: taken thus by surprise, I should
some months ago have been unable to answer, though, perhaps, I might
have been acquainted with the facts; but now I conquered my difficulties
in a tolerably satisfactory manner; and my uncle congratulated me on
the improvement of my memory, or rather of my recollection.
“I believe, uncle, it is more from my not being quite so much frightened
as I used to be at being examined; and besides, since I have been in
this house, I have gained more knowledge.”
“Yes, my dear, you have gained more knowledge, but of what avail would
it be if your memory could not supply you with a key to it? You have
materially improved your recollection; and I will tell you how: first,
by increased _attention_, the foundation of all memory; and next by
_exercise_, for every power of body and mind may be strengthened by
constantly, though moderately, applying them to their proper purposes.
You have also, I think, wisely aided your memory by some of the
expedients that I formerly hinted to you.”
“Do you mean, uncle, the classification of one’s knowledge; and the
endeavour to connect detached ideas?”
“Yes,” said he; “I have carefully observed you, Bertha--and I perceive
that you have in some degree acquired the faculty of catching the points
by which ideas are related to each other, and thus of associating them
in your mind with some one common principle. This is the true way of
strengthening the memory, and, indeed, at the same time, of improving
the understanding. Every one who steadily pursues it will find, that the
facility of this kind of arrangement increases every day, till at length
it becomes so habitual as to be performed almost mechanically; that is,
without the intervention of the will. The advantage is obvious; every
new fact, every new idea becomes a catch-word to some other; and when
referred to the common principle by which they are all combined, the
mind rapidly and almost unconsciously runs through every link in the
chain, and literally _recollects_ those which may be wanted for the
subject under consideration.”
“Do you not think, too,” said I, “that as we increase our knowledge,
those links become more numerous; and therefore, that the more new facts
we learn the more easily we can recollect the old ones?”
“In some measure,” he replied; “but it is not merely by the new facts or
ideas that we acquire that our real increase of knowledge must be
estimated; it is by the number of relations which they bear to those
already in the mind. _New_ knowledge does not merely consist in our
having access to a new object, but in forming new combinations of the
ideas which it excites with our former ideas of similar objects; it is
not by loading the memory with insulated facts, but by putting those
facts in their right places, that we augment our stock of knowledge.”
“Indeed, my dear uncle, I feel the truth of that every day; for the more
I know, the more my curiosity is excited, and I ramble on from one thing
to another, till my head contains nothing but a confused heap of
unconnected facts. Then, when I go back and try to put them in some sort
of order, I find that the most useful circumstances are forgotten, and
only those well remembered which happened to connect themselves with
things long known.”
“That leads me,” said he, “to another point, which I would earnestly
press on your attention;--_discrimination_--or the selecting from the
necessarily confused mass of new ideas which are constantly presenting
themselves those of the greatest importance. By grasping at all, you
lose the real acquisitions within your reach; and though the sacrifice
may at first appear great, you will be a gainer in the end. Every day
your selection will be more judicious, and in time more abundant; and
your knowledge of useful and connected truths will advance gradually and
securely, because you will have learnt to hinge them properly together,
without encumbering your mind with those that are insignificant.”
I then asked him if he approved of my writing this journal, and whether
he advised me to continue it.
“Certainly I do, Bertha, because I am sure it is highly satisfactory to
your mother, not only to know what you are doing, but to trace the
progress of your mind. Besides, though I suspect that no young lady can
write a great deal without introducing a little desultory matter, yet,
from the pages you have occasionally shewn me, I am sure there is much
in your journal that may be advantageous to Marianne. Indeed I am glad
you mentioned it, for I think it forms no bad illustration of the
unconnected manner in which knowledge presents itself in every-day life;
and if our present conversation finds a place in it, tell your sister,
from me, to attend to what I have said about discrimination, and to try
her skill in selecting, and classifying in her memory, the many useful
topics on which you have touched.
“The benefit to _yourself_ of committing to paper the detailed knowledge
that you acquire, is quite another question. As a help to which the
memory may refer I am inclined to think that it is injurious; except in
so far as the time occupied in writing forces one to dwell sufficiently
on the ideas, to perceive their analogy with others. But you may, I
think, make a common-place book really useful, by stating your general
impressions of the books you read, and of the discussions you hear; and
by sometimes recording those passing thoughts which suggest themselves
to every reflecting person. By thus frequently marking the state of your
mind, you can hereafter judge of its progress; and you will be able to
correct the prejudices which may have impeded its steady improvement.”
_29th._--I begged of my uncle to describe some more of the remarkable
animals that have been found in a fossil state. He readily complied; and
as it is possible that I may one day have an opportunity of seeing some
of these curious petrifactions in the museums, I carefully noted what he
told us.
“One of those huge oviparous quadrupeds to which the name Monitor has
been given, was found at Maestricht, in soft limestone rock mixed with
flints. The skeleton was about twenty-four feet long; the head four
feet; and from the great breadth and strength of the tail, the animal is
supposed to have inhabited the sea.
“There are but two living species of sloths known; and two fossil
animals have been found which seem nearly allied to them. One of these
animals, the megalonix, is of the size of an ox; and was first
discovered in a limestone cave in Virginia. The other, the megatherium,
is as large as a rhinoceros; its remains have been found only in South
America; and it is a curious fact, that greatly as these animals exceed
the sloth and the ant-eater in size, they not only appear to belong to
the same family, but their bones are found only in America, the very
country inhabited by sloths and ant-eaters.
“The gigantic fossil elks of Ireland are also an extinct species: they
are found under bogs, or in deep marl pits; and generally in an erect
position, as if the herd had been suddenly overwhelmed by the mass in
which they are imbedded, while it was in a fluid state. The distance
between the tips of the horns of a skull, now in the museum of the Royal
Society of Dublin, is eleven feet and ten inches; and I have heard that
a still larger specimen has been discovered in that country.
“The skull of the fossil ox, or buffalo of Siberia, cannot be identified
with any of the known species of this animal; and it is conjectured to
have lived at the same time with the fossil elephant and rhinoceros, as
it is found in the same alluvial tracts.
“Two distinct species of elephant are at present known; the African and
the Asiatic; but only one fossil species has hitherto been discovered,
which has been called the mammoth, a name borrowed from the Russians.
Though differing from both the existing species, principally in the
structure of the teeth, it more nearly resembles the Asiatic than the
other. The remains of this animal have been found also in the alluvial
soil round London, and in a great many parts of England, and even in
this county. In Ireland also, in Sweden and Norway, and in almost every
country of Europe, they have been discovered. Humboldt found their teeth
in South America; the North American naturalists have also found them;
and lately, Lieutenant Kotzebue, the Russian navigator, perceived them
in an _iceberg_ near Behring’s Straits. But it is in Asiatic Russia that
they occur in the greatest abundance: there is scarcely a river there
with alluvial banks that does not afford remains of the mammoth, and
generally accompanied by marine shells.”
My uncle then was so good as to go to the library for an account of a
fossil elephant that was found in a state of perfect preservation,
though its great antiquity is evident, from the whole race to which it
had belonged being now extinct. The account was drawn up by the
celebrated M. Cuvier, from observations made on the spot by Mr. Adams.
“In the year 1799, a portion of an ice-bank, near the mouth of the river
Lena in the north of Siberia, having fallen down, a Tungusian fisherman
perceived a strange shapeless mass projecting from the remaining cliff
of ice, but at a height far beyond his reach. The next year it was a
little more exposed, by the dissolving of the ice; and in the end of the
summer of 1801 he could distinctly see that it was the frozen carcase of
some enormous animal. He continued to watch it till the year 1804, when
the ice having melted earlier and to a greater degree than usual, the
carcase became entirely disengaged, and fell down from the ice-cliff on
an accessible part of the shore. The fisherman carried away both the
tusks, and so well had the ice preserved the ivory, that he sold them
for fifty rubles. This circumstance having come to the knowledge of Mr.
Adams in 1806, he travelled to the spot to examine the animal, but he
found the body greatly mutilated; much of the flesh had been taken away
by the natives to feed their dogs, and one of the fore legs had been
carried off, probably by the white bears. The rest of the skeleton was
entire; the head was uninjured, even the pupil of the eye was still
distinguishable; and the ears were well covered with bristly hair. A
large quantity of the skin remained, which was extremely thick and
heavy; and there was a long black mane on the neck, the stiff bristles
of which were more than a foot in length.
“About thirty pounds weight of reddish brown bristly hair was collected
in the mud, into which it had been trampled by the bears while devouring
the carcase, as well as a quantity of coarse wool of the same colour.
The wool was evidently the same kind of covering that lies next the skin
of all the inhabitants of cold climates; and this very interesting fact
proves that the fossil elephants of Siberia were residents of that
country, and that they belonged to a race which no longer exists, which
was fitted by nature for a rigorous climate, and which could not have
endured the sultry regions where those animals are at present found, and
where their skin is nearly bare.”
My uncle added that it was impossible to conjecture at what period this
elephant had been buried in the ice, but that it was evident he had been
frozen at the moment of his death, which sufficiently accounts for the
preservation of the flesh. In cold countries it is common to preserve
meat through the longest winter by freezing it; and all kinds of
provisions are sent at that season from the most remote of the northern
provinces, to St. Petersburgh.