THE MAN WITH A GRIEVANCE.
Late that same night a young man stepped from a window in one of the
rooms on the third floor in the Hotel du Louvre in Paris, and stood in
the balcony. It was a balcony in that side of the hotel which looks on
the Rue de Rivoli. The young man smoked a cigar and leaned over the
balcony.
It was a soft moonlight night. The hour was late and the streets were
nearly silent. The latest omnibus had gone its way, and only now and
then a rare and lingering _voiture_ clicked and clattered along, to
disappear round the corner of the place in front of the Palais Royal.
The long line of gas lamps, looking a faint yellow beneath the hotel and
the Louvre Palace across the way, seemed to deepen and deepen into
redder sparks the further the eye followed them to the right as they
stretched on to the Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysees. To the
left the young man, leaning from the balcony, could see the tower of St.
Jacques standing darkly out against the faint, pale blue of the
moonlighted sky. The street was a line of silver or snow in the
moonlight.
The young man was tall, thin, dark, and handsome. He was unmistakably
English, although he had an excitable and nervous way about him which
did not savor of British coolness and composure. He seemed a person not
to take anything easily. Even the moonlight, and the solitude, and the
indescribably soothing and philosophic influence of the contemplation of
a silent city from the serene heights of a balcony, did not prevail to
take him out of himself into the upper ether of mental repose. He pulled
his long moustaches now and then, until they met like a kind of strap
beneath his chin, and again he twisted their ends up as if he desired to
appear fierce as a champion duellist of the Bonapartist group. He
sometimes took his cigar from his lips and held it between his fingers
until it went out, and when he put it into his mouth again he took
several long puffs before he quite realized the fact that he was puffing
at what one might term dry stubble. Then he pulled out a box of fusees
and lighted his cigar in an irritated way, as if he were protesting that
really the fates were bearing down upon him rather too heavily, and that
he was entitled to complain at last.
"Good evening, sir," said a strong, full British voice that sounded just
at his elbow.
The young man, looking round, saw that his next-door neighbor in the
hotel had likewise opened his window and stepped out on his balcony. The
two had met before, or at least seen each other before, once or twice.
The young man had seen the elder with some ladies at breakfast in the
hotel, and that evening he and his neighbor had taken coffee side by
side on the boulevards and smoked and exchanged a few words.
The elder man's strong, rather under-sized figure showed very clearly in
the moonlight. He had thick, almost shaggy hair, of an indefinable dark
brownish color--hair that was not curly, that was not straight, that did
not stand up, and yet could evidently never be kept down. He had a rough
complexioned face, with heavy eyebrows and stubby British whiskers. His
hands were large and reddish-brown and coarse. He was dressed
carelessly--that is, his clothes were evidently garments that had cost
money, but he did not seem to care how he wore them. Any garment must
fall readily into shapelessness and give up trying to fit well on that
unheeding figure. The Briton did not seem exactly what one would at once
assume to be a gentleman. Yet he was not vulgar, and he was evidently
quite at his ease with himself. He looked somehow like a man who had
money or power of some kind, and who did not care whether people knew it
or did not know it. Our younger Briton had at the first glance taken him
for the ordinary English father of a family, travelling with his
womankind. But he had not seen him for two minutes at the breakfast
table before he observed that the supposed heavy father was never in a
fuss, had a way of having all his orders obeyed without trouble or
misunderstanding, and for all his strong British accent talked French
with entire ease and a sort of resolute grammatical accuracy.
"Staying in Paris?" the elder man said--he too was smoking--when the
younger had replied to his salutation.
"No; I am going home--I mean I am going to England--to-morrow."
"Ay, ay? I almost wish I were too. I'm taking my wife and daughters for
a holiday. I don't much care for holidays myself. I hadn't time for
enjoyment of such things when I could enjoy them, and of course when you
get out of the way of enjoying yourself you never get into it again;
it's a sort of groove, I suppose. Anyhow, we don't ever enjoy much, our
people. You are English, I suppose?"
"Yes, I am English."
"Wish you weren't? I see."
Indeed, the tone in which the young man answered the question seemed to
warrant this interpretation.
"Excuse me; I didn't say that," the young man said, a little sharply.
"No, no; I only thought you meant it. We are not bound, you know, to
keep rattling up the Rule Britannia always among ourselves."
"I can assure you I am not at all inclined to rattle the Rule Britannia
too loudly," the young man said, tossing the end of his cigar away and
looking determinedly into the street with his hands dug deeply into his
pockets.
The elder man smoked for a few seconds in silence, and looked up and
down the long straight line of street.
"Odd," he said abruptly. "I always think of Balzac when I look into the
streets of Paris, and when I give myself time to think. Balzac sums up
Paris to me."
"Yes," said the younger man, talking for the first time with an
appearance of genuine interest in the conversation; "but things must be
greatly changed since that time even in Paris, you know."
"Changed? Not a bit of it. The outsides of course. The Louvre was half a
ruin the other day, and now it's getting all right again. That's change,
if you like to call it so. But the heart of things is just the same.
Balzac stands for Paris, believe you me."
"I don't believe a word of it--not a word! I mean--excuse me--that I
don't agree with you."
"Yes, yes: I understand what you mean. I'm not offended. Well?"
"Well--I don't believe a bit that men and women ever were like that. You
mean to tell me that people were made without hearts in Paris or
anywhere else? Do you believe in a place peopled by cads and sneaks and
curs--and the women half again as bad as the men?"
The young man grew warm, and the elder drew him out, and they discussed
Balzac as they stood in the balcony and looked down on silent
moonlighted Paris. The elder man smoked and smiled and shrugged his
shoulders good-humoredly. The younger was as full of gesture and
animation as if his life depended on the controversy.
"All right," the elder said at last. "I like to hear you talk, but Paris
is Balzac to me still. Going to be in London some time?"
"I suppose so: yes," in a tone of sudden depression and discontent.
"I wish we might meet. I live in London, and I wish you would come and
see me when we get back from our--holiday we'll call it."
The young man turned half away and leaned on the balcony as if he were
looking very earnestly for something in the direction of the Champs
Elysees. Then he faced his companion suddenly and said,
"I think you had much better not have anything to do with me: I should
only prove a bore to you, or to anybody."
"How is that?"
"Well--in short, I'm a man with a grievance."
"Ay, ay? What's your grievance? Whom has it to do with?"
The young man looked up quickly, as if he did not quite understand the
brusque ways of his new acquaintance, who put his questions so directly.
But the new acquaintance seemed good-humored and quite at his ease, and
evidently had not the least idea of being rude or over-inquisitive. He
had only the way of one apparently used to ordering people about.
"My grievance is against the Government," the young man said with a
grave politeness, almost like self-assertion.
"Government here: in France?"
"No, no: our own Government."
"Ay, ay? What have they been doing? _You_ haven't invented anything--new
cannon--flying machine--that sort of thing?"
"No: nothing of the kind--I wish I had--but how did you know?"
"How did I know what?"
"That I hadn't invented anything?"
"Why, I knew it by looking at you. Do you think I shouldn't know an
inventor? You might as well ask me how I know a man has been in the
army. Well, about this grievance of yours?"
"I dare say you will know my name," the young man said with a sort of
reluctant modesty, which contrasted a little oddly with the quick
movements and rapid talk which usually belonged to him. Then his manner
suddenly changed, and he spoke in a tone of something like irritation,
as if he had better have the whole thing out at once and be done with
it--"My name is Heron--Victor Heron."
"Heron--Heron?" said the other, turning over the name in his memory.
"Well, I don't know I'm sure--I may have heard it--one hears all sorts
of names. But I don't remember just at the moment."
Mr. Heron seemed a little surprised that his revelation had produced no
effect. He had made up his mind somehow that his new friend was mixed up
with politics and public affairs.
"You'll remember Victor Heron of the St. Xavier's Settlements?" he said
decisively.
"Heron of the St. Xavier's Settlements? Ah, yes, yes. To be sure. Yes, I
begin to remember now. Of course, of course. You're the fellow who got
us into the row with the Portuguese or the Dutch, or who was it? About
the slave trade, or something? I remember it in the House."
"I am the fool," Mr. Heron went on volubly--"the blockhead, the idiot,
that thought England had principles, and honor, and a policy, and all
the rest of it! I haven't lived in England very much. I'm the son of a
colonist--the Herons are an old colonial family--and you can't think,
you people always in England, how romantic and enthusiastic we get about
England, we silly colonists, with our old-fashioned ways. When I got
that confounded appointment--it was given in return for some old
services of my father's--I believe I thought I was going to be another
sort of Raleigh, or something of the kind."
"Just so; and of course you were ready to tumble into any sort of
scrape. You are hauled over the coals--snubbed for your pains?"
"Yes--I was snubbed."
"Of course: they'll soon work the enthusiasm out of you. But that's a
couple of years ago--and you weren't recalled?"
"No. I wasn't recalled."
"Well, what's your grievance then?"
"Why--don't you see?--my time is out--and they've dropped me down. My
whole career is closed--I'm quietly thrown over--and I'm only
twenty-nine!" The young man caught at his moustache with nervous hands
and kicked with one foot against the rails of the balcony. He gazed into
the street, and his eyes sparkled and twinkled as if there were tears in
them. Perhaps there were, for Mr. Heron was evidently a young man of
quicker emotions than young men generally show in our days. He made
haste to say something, apparently as if to escape from himself.
"I am leaving Paris in the morning."
"Then why don't you go to bed and have a sleep?"
"Well, I don't feel like sleeping just yet."
"You young fellows never know the blessing of sleep. I can sleep
whenever I want to--it's a great thing. I make it a rule though to do
all my sleeping at night, whenever I can. You leave Paris in the
morning? Now that's a thing I don't like to do. Paris should never be
seen early in the morning. London shows to the best advantage early; but
Paris--no!"
"Why not?" Mr. Heron asked, stimulated to a little curiosity.
"Paris is a beauty, you know, a little on the wane, and wanting to be
elaborately made up and curled and powdered and painted, and all that.
She's a little of a slattern underneath the surface, you know, and
doesn't bear to be taken unawares--mustn't be seen for at least an hour
or two after she has got out of bed. All the more like Balzac's women."
Perhaps the elder man had observed Mr. Heron's sensitiveness more
closely and clearly than Heron fancied, and was talking on only to give
him time to recover his composure. Certainly he talked much more volubly
and continuously than appeared at first to be his way. After a while he
said, in his usual style of blunt but not unkind inquiry--
"Any of your people living in London?"
"No--in fact, I haven't any people in England--few relations now left
anywhere."
"Like Melchisedek, eh? Well, I don't know that he was the most to be
pitied of men. You have friends enough, I suppose?"
"Not friends exactly--acquaintances enough, I dare say--people to call
on, people who remember one's name and who ask one to dinner. But I
don't know that I shall have much time for cultivating acquaintanceships
in the way of society."
"Why so? What are you going to London to do?"
"To get a hearing, of course. To make the whole thing known. To show
that I was in the right, and that I only did what the honor of England
demanded. I trust to England."
"What's England got to do with it? England is only so many men and women
and children all concerned in their own affairs, and not caring twopence
about you and me and our wrongs. Besides, who has accused you? Who has
found fault with you? Your time is out, and there's an end."
"But they have dropped me down--they think to crush me."
"If they do, it will be by severely letting you alone; and what can you
do against that? You can't quarrel with a man merely because he ceases
to invite you to dinner, and that's about the way of it."
"I'll fight this out for all that."
"You'll soon get tired of it. It's beating the air, you know. Of course,
if you want to annoy the Government, you could easily get some of us to
take up your case--no difficulty about that--and make you the hero of a
grievance and a debate, and so on."
"I want nothing of the kind! I don't want any one to trouble himself
about me, and I don't care to be taken in hand by any one. If Englishmen
will not listen to a plain statement of right, why then----But I know
they will."
The conviction itself was expressed in the tone of one who by its very
assertion protests against a rising doubt and tries to stifle it.
"Very good," said the other. "Try it on. We shall soon see. I have a
sort of interest in the matter, for I had a grievance myself, and I have
still, only I went about things in a different way--looking for redress,
I mean."
"What did you do?"
"It's a longish story, and quite a different line from yours, and it
would bore you to hear, even if you understood it. I got into the House
and made myself a nuisance. I put money in my purse; it came in somehow.
I watch the department that I once belonged to with the eye of a lynx.
Well, I shall look out for you and give you a hand if I can, always
supposing it would annoy the Government--any Government--I don't care
what."
Mr. Heron looked at him with wonder and incredulity.
"Terrible lack of principle, you think? Not a bit of it; I'm a strong
politician; I stick to my side through thick and thin. But in their
management of departments, you know--contracts, and all
that--governments are all the same; the natural enemies of man. Well, I
hope to see you. I am going to have a sleep. Let me give you my
address--though in any case I think we are certain to meet."
They parted with blunt expression of friendly inclination on the one
side and a doubtful, half-reluctant acknowledgment on the other. Heron
remained standing in his balcony looking at the changes of the moonlight
on the silent streets and thinking of his career and his grievance.
The nearer he came to England the colder his hopes seemed to grow. Now
upon the threshold of the country he had so longed to reach, he was
inclined to linger and loiter and to put off his entrance. Everything
that was so easy and clear a few thousand miles off began to show itself
perplexed and difficult. "When shall I be there?" he used to ask himself
on his homeward journey. "What have I come for?" he began to ask himself
now.
Times had indeed changed very suddenly with Victor Heron. He had come
into the active world perhaps rather prematurely. When very young, under
the guidance of an energetic and able father who had been an
administrator of some distinction in England's service among her
dependencies, he had made himself somewhat conspicuous in one of the
colonies; and when an opportunity occurred, after his father's death, of
offering him a considerable position, the Government appointed him to
the administration of a new settlement. It is hardly necessary for us to
go any deeper into the story of his grievance than he has already gone
himself in a few words. Except as an illustration of his character, we
have not much to do with the story of his career as an administrator. It
was a very small business altogether; a quarrel in a far off, lately
appropriated, and almost wholly insignificant scrap of England's
domains. Probably Mr. Heron was in the wrong, for he had been stimulated
wholly by a chivalrous enthusiasm for the honor of England's principles
and a keen sense of what he considered justice. The Government had
dealt very kindly with him in consideration of his youth and of his
father's services, and had merely dropped him down.
This to a young man like Heron was simply killing with kindness. He
could have stood up stoutly against impeachment, trial, punishment, any
manner of exciting ordeal, and commanded his brave heart to bear it. But
to be quietly allowed to go his way was intolerable, and, being accused
of nothing, he was rushing back to England to insist on being accused of
something. A chief of any kind in a small dependency is a person of
overwhelming greatness and importance in his own sphere. Every eye there
is literally on him. He diffuses even a sort of impression as if he were
a good deal too large for his sphere, like the helmet of such portentous
size in the courtyard of Otranto. To come down all at once to be an
ordinary passenger to England, an ordinary "No. 257, au 3me" at the
Hotel du Louvre in Paris, an obscure personage getting out at the
Charing Cross station and calling a hansom, nobody caring whence he has
come, or capable, even after elaborate reminder, of calling to memory
his story, his grievance, or his identity--this is something to try the
soul of a patient man. Mr. Heron was not patient.
He was a young Quixote out of time and place. He never could let
anything alone. He could not see a grievance without trying to set it
right. The impression that anybody was being wronged or cheated affected
and tormented him as keenly as a discordant note or an inharmonious
arrangement of colors might disturb persons of loftier artistic soul. In
the colonies queer old ideas survive long after they have died out of
England, and the traveller from the parent country comes often on some
ancient abstraction there as he might upon some old-fashioned garment.
Heron started into life with a full faith in the living reality of
divers abstractions which people in England have long since dissected,
analyzed, and thrown away. He believed in and spoke of progress, and
humanity, and brotherhood, and such like vaguenesses as if they were
real things to work for and love. People who regard abstractions as
realities are just the very persons who turn solid and commonplace
realities into shining and splendid abstractions. Young Heron regarded
England not as an island with a bad climate, where some millions of
florid men made money or worked for it, but as a sort of divine
influence inspiring youth to noble deeds and patriotic devotion. He was
of course the very man to get into a muddle when he had anything to do
with the administration of a new settlement. If the muddle had not lain
in his way, he would assuredly have found it.
He had so much to do now on his further way home in helping elderly
ladies on that side who could not speak French, and on this side who
could not speak English; in seeing that persons whom he had never set
eyes on before were not neglected at buffets, left behind by trains, or
overcharged by waiters; in giving and asking information about
everything, that he had not much time to think about the St. Xavier's
settlements and his personal grievance. When the suburbs of London came
in sight, with their trim rows of stucco-fronted villas and cottages,
and their front gardens ornamented with the inevitable evergreens, a
thrill of enthusiasm came up in Heron's breast, and he became feverish
with anxiety to be in the heart of the great capital once again. Now he
began to see familiar spires, and domes, and towers, and then again
huge, unfamiliar roofs and buildings that were not there when he was in
London last, and that puzzled him with their presence. Then the train
crossed the river, and he had glimpses of the Thames, and Westminster
Palace, and the embankment with its bright garden patches and its little
trees, and he wondered at the ungenial creatures who see in London
nothing but ugliness. To him everything looked smiling, beautiful, alive
with hope and good omen.
Certainly a railway station, an arrival, a hurried transaction, however
slight and formal, with a customs officer, are a damper on enthusiasm of
any kind. Heron began to feel dispirited. London looked hard and
prosaic. His grievance began to show signs of breaking out again amid
the hustling, the crowd, the luggage, and the exertion, as an old wound
might under similar circumstances, if one in his haste and eagerness
were to strain its hardly closed edges.
It was when he was in a hansom driving to his hotel that Heron, putting
his hand in his waistcoat pocket, drew out a crumpled card which he had
thrust in there hastily and forgotten. The card bore the name of
"MR. CROWDER E. MONEY,
Victoria street,
Westminster."
Heron remembered his friend of Paris. "An odd name," he thought. "I have
heard it before somewhere. I like him. He seems a manly sort of fellow."
Then he found himself wondering what Mr. Money's daughters were like,
and wishing he had observed them more closely in Paris, and asking
whether it was possible that girls could be pretty and interesting with
such an odd name.
DRIFT-WOOD.
THE SPINNING OF LITERATURE.
"Of making many books there is no end," sighed a preacher in times when
industrious readers might presumably have kept the run of current
literature. Our advantage over Solomon is the utter hopelessness of
reading the new works, not to speak of standard acres in the libraries.
In this holiday season, chief hatching-time of books, it is pleasant to
see them flocking out in numbers so vast. "Germany published 11,315
works of all classes in 1873, 12,070 in 1874, 12,516 in 1875." We rub
our hands over statistics like these, because they check any mad
ambition to master German contemporary literature; and besides, there
are "1,622 newspapers and periodical publications in the German empire."
As for the new works in our own tongue, the only way of getting through
them would obviously be to do as legislators do with the laws they
pass--"read them by title."
Earlier ages, that had not reached this happy hopelessness, produced
great bookworms. When the old monks had devoured their convent
libraries, they were fain to pay vast sums occasionally for extra
reading, as St. Jerome did for the works of Origen; whereas now a
reviewer can only glance at his "complimentary copies" of new books, so
numerous are they. Bacon argued against abridgements, as if the body of
literature could be compassed in his day. A century or two ago there
were prodigious Porsons and Johnsons; but such gluttons are now rare. It
is true that Mill, between his fourth and eighth years, read in the
original all Herodotus and a good part of Xenophon, Lucian, Isocrates,
Diogenes Laertius, Plato, and the Annual Register, besides Hume, Gibbon,
Robertson, Miller, Mosheim, and other historians; while before the age
of thirteen he had mastered the whole of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Sallust,
Thucydides, Aristotle's Rhetoric and Logic, Tacitus, Juvenal,
Quinctilian, parts of Ovid, Terence, Nepos, Caesar, Livy, Lucretius,
Cicero, Polybius, and many other authors, besides learning geometry,
algebra, and the differential calculus. But that lad was crammed
scientifically like a Strasbourg goose; our ordinary modern writers are
not walking cyclopaedias, and are rarely prodigious readers. It is no
longer a reproach even for a man not to know all the literature of his
specialty; while, as for general reading, when the "Publisher's
Circular" tells us that the different books that mankind have made are
numbered by millions, we sit down in a most comfortable despair, and
pick to our liking.
Thanks to modern fecundity, critics rarely molest authors with demands
for the _raison d'etre_ of a new book. The reviewer's question used to
be, "Why did the man publish? What need was there? What is he trying to
show?" One pontiff is said to have suggested burning up all the
different books in the world, except six thousand, so that the rest
might be read. There used to be pleas for condensations, as if people
were still fondly hoping to compass the realm of literature and science,
the blessed era of hopelessness having not yet dawned. But it is idle to
plead against diffuseness now, when writers are paid by the page or
line. "I want," said the editor of "La Situation" to Dumas, "a story
from you, entitled 'Terreur Prussienne a Francfort'--60 _feuilletons_ of
400 lines each; total, 84,000 lines." "And if it makes only 58?"
responded Dumas. "I require 60, of 400 lines each, averaging 31 letters
each line--744,000 letters." At noon of the day agreed upon, the
manuscript was in the hands of M. Hollander. If Sir Critic ever came
with foot-rule and condensing-pump to gravely detect diffusiveness in
the "Terreur Prussienne," it must have diverted the high contracting
parties.
It is said that a dialogue of Dumas the elder created a revolution in
the French mode of paying romance literature. Dumas, who was reckoned by
the line, one day introduced, they say, into his _feuilleton_ this
thrilling passage:
My son!
My mother!
Listen!
Speak!
Seest thou?
What?
This poniard!
It is stained--
With blood!
Whose?
Thy father's.
Ah!!!
After that Dumas was paid by the letter. To say sooth, the same
incident, with a different catastrophe, is related of Ponson Du Terrail,
who, one day, in his "Resurrection de Rocambole," filled about a column
with dialogue of this character:
Who?
I.
You?
Yes.
He shuddered.
Accordingly, as the story goes, the author being summoned before the
editor of the "Petit Journal," was notified that if this monosyllabic
chat went on, he would be paid by the word. "Very well," replied the
obliging novelist, "I will change my style;" and next day, M. Millaud
was astounded to find the _feuilleton_ introducing a pair of stammerers
talking in this agreeable fashion:
"Wou-wou-would you de-de-de-deceive me, you wr-wr-wretch?" said
the old corsair in a tone of thunder.
"I ne-ne-ne-never de-de-de-deceived an-an-an-anybody,"
exclaimed Baccarat, imitating the other's defect in
pronunciation.
"Wh-wh-wh-where is Ro-ro-rocam-bo-bole?"
"You ne-ne-never will kn-know."
"He will make all his characters stutter soon," said Millaud. "We had
better pay him by the line." Of course this is a story _faite a
plaisir_, as is also the one that as soon as Dumas made his first
contract by the line, enchanted with the arrangement, he invented dear
old Grimaud, who only opened his mouth to utter "yes," "no," "what?"
"ah!" "bah!" and other monosyllables; but when the editor, who knew the
cash price of "peuh" and "oh," declared he would only pay for lines half
full, Grimaud was slaughtered the next morning. However, these yarns
show that the French can satirize their jerky, staccato style of
_feuilleton_, with each sentence staked off in a paragraph by itself,
like some grimacing clown, who expects each particular joke or
handspring to be observed individually, and to be greeted with separate
applause. Across the channel we of course find the English journals
going to the other extreme, in insular pride, and packing distinct
subjects into the same paragraph.
Greek and Roman Tuppers used, no doubt, to "reel off a couple of hundred
lines, standing on one foot;" but the veneering of a thin layer of ideas
upon a thick layer of words is naturally the special trait of our age of
cheap ink and paper, of steam printing, and of paying for writing by
long measure. The "Country Parson" is a favorite writer of this sort,
whose excellence is in "the art of putting things," rather than in
having many things to put. The essays of the "Spectator," "Guardian,"
"Tatler," "Rambler," rarely gave only a pennyworth of wit to an
intolerable deal of words; but our modern periodical essay achieves
success by taking some such assertion as "Old maids are agreeable," or
"Old maids are disagreeable," and wire-drawing it into sundry yards of
readable matter. Macbeth's
The Devil damn thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon!
Where got'st thou that goose-look?
would supply a modern playwright with a square foot of gold-beaten
invective. "True poems," said Irving, "are caskets which enclose in a
small compass the wealth of the language--its family jewels." But when
poems are paid by the line, bards are pardonable for diffuseness. And
then, besides diffuseness, our age has wonderful literary fecundity. Few
people know how much painters paint, and how much great writers write;
for the bards of a single poem, as Mr. Stedman shows, are exceptional,
and rich quantity as well as rich quality is the usual rule for
greatness, whether of novelist, poet, essayist, metaphysician, or
historian. So here we come upon another source of the accumulated floods
of literature. The other day I was looking through a prodigious list of
the works of Alexandre Dumas, _pere_. There were 127 of them, mostly
novels--"Monte Christo," "Three Musketeers," "Bragelonne," and the rest
that we used to read. They made 244 volumes; but the plays were not
included, and many slighter miscellanies did not seem to be there; and
the posthumous work on cookery was certainly not there; and of course
there was no effort to collect everything from "Le Mois," "La Liberte,"
and the half dozen other journals he edited or wrote in; so that I doubt
not the writings of this illustrious man, if ever brought together in a
complete edition, would make at least 150 works of 300 or 400 stout
volumes. And in English literature we have many Salas and Southworths. I
remember an announcement in the "Lancet" that "Mr. G. A. Sala is
completely restored to health, and in the full discharge of his
professional duties." An expressive term, that "full discharge"!
Again, some popular authors employ apprentices to do the bulk of their
work, only touching it up with mannerisms, and so turn out much more
than if they wrought it all. The world, too, has now accumulated a
myriad handbooks of facts and compilations of statistics, which enable
writers with a fondness for theory, like Buckle, to have all their
material ready to spin into generalization. Then there is a popular
education toward prolixity in the telegraphic part of newspapers. The
associated press writers from Washington seem to be selected for their
inability to be terse and pithy, and dribble out the simplest fact with
pitiful iteration. The special news-writers, being often at their wits'
end for their dole of day's work, can hardly be asked to be laconic. The
special messages which the ocean wires bring, doubtless with exquisite
terseness and picturesqueness, are most carefully interwritten and
diluted; so that, for example, the words "Thiers spoke at Coulmiers"
become "M. Adolphe Thiers, president of the French Republic before the
accession of the present Chief Executive, Marshal MacMahon, delivered an
address, or rather made some remarks partly in the nature of an oration
or speech on subjects connected with matters of interest at the present
time, at the town of Coulmiers, which is situated"--and here follow a
dozen lines from the Cyclopaedia, but dated at Paris, giving the
geography, history, and commerce of Coulmiers. One can fancy in the
"Atlantic cable" columns of the "Morning Meteor" the tokens of a
standing prescription to dilute foreign facts with nine parts domestic
verbiage; and this kind of "editing" educates mankind to padding and
patching with superfluous material.
It is harder for French writers to be prolix. The French writer is
inevitably epigrammatic first, and, if diffusive afterward, it is with
malice aforethought. If we compare, for example, publicists like Guizot
and Gladstone, while each has that perfect command of his material,
instead of letting the material command him, which marks the skilful
writer, yet the Englishman sometimes seems to require two or three
consecutive sentences to bring out his thought, whereas M. Guizot packs
it into one. But Guizot deliberately goes on to put the identical
statement into two or three paraphrased forms. For example, in the
"History of Civilization in Europe" there is usually a terse sentence or
two in each paragraph which contain the whole of it, packed into
briefest compass; were these key sentences repeated on the side of the
page as marginal notes, the reader could master the book by mastering
the margins. When an English writer is diffuse, he cannot help it; when
a French writer is diffuse, he effects it by sheer effort at repetition.
And we humble hack scribblers, who confidingly slip our daily, and
weekly, and monthly mites into the vast mass of current reading turned
out for an omnivorous public--let us hope that the world's maw may long
remain unsated and the market unglutted.
GROWTH OF AMERICAN TASTE FOR ART.
While to many it has seemed a pity that the Johnston gallery should be
broken up, yet this distribution of its treasures scatters the seeds of
art education. Besides, the prices obtained at the sale must impress
many wealthy men with a conviction valuable to the interests of art;
namely, that pictures, like diamonds, are a safe investment, as well as
a source of enjoyment and fame. Considering that the times are hard, and
that pictures are luxuries, the sum thus paid for art treasures, so soon
after the centennial purchases, is a proof of the number of good patrons
that can be counted on when works of value are for sale. But the works
must be of value. At a former auction in New York "old masters" brought
these prices: Madonna Del Correggio, $30; two Murrillos, $160 and $90; a
landscape of Salvator Rosa, $55; a Tintoretto, $115; a Guido, $35; "St.
John," by Sir Joshua Reynolds, $15--and so on. Every few months we find
a so-called Titian or Raphael going for the price of the frame. Such
auctions tell a story as emphatic as that of the Johnston gallery.
When the German painters were considering whether they should send
canvases to the Centennial Exposition the "Allgemeine Zeitung" reminded
them "that their works bring twice as much in America as in Germany."
But each successive sale here shows that most buyers now know what is
worth getting and what is not, though naturally some painters are the
rage who will be forgotten fifty years hence. Still, the cynics are
wrong in decrying the eagerness to buy painters who are in fashion. What
harm in a millionaire's ordering a picture _d'ameublement_, to suit a
particular room or panel, or in his ordering from the bookseller a
hundred volumes of current novels? If the picture be good, whether
bought by the foot for furnishing or whether painted under the
microscope, its sale may aid the profession of art.
Comparing the Johnston sale with some of the famous auctions of the past
four years at the hotel Drouot, we find that in the Paturle collection
twenty-eight canvases bought $90,000, being all works of masters. The
general prices were not higher than the Johnston prices, but Ary
Scheffer's Marguerites brought 40,000 and 35,000 francs; a Troyon,
63,000; and Leopold Robert's admirable "Fishers of the Adriatic," 83,000
francs. The gallery of the Pereires brought 1,785,586 francs, which was
rather higher than the Johnston total, but I believe there were more
masterpieces. A head by Greuze brought 32,500 francs. The highest prices
seemed to be carried off by the Dutch painters, who were in force, and
three works by Hobbema, a country residence, a forest scene, and a
windmill, brought respectively 50,000, 81,000, and 30,000 francs.
The prices for good pictures, taking into account agreeableness of
subject and state of preservation, seem to be much the same in New York
and Paris, though French newspapers fancy American taste for art to be
at barbarian pitch. They should learn otherwise from the American
painting and sculpture in Paris, London, Vienna, Florence, and Rome;
they might learn otherwise from the discriminating appreciation of their
own artists at such sales as Mr. Johnston's. The worst statuary as well
as by far the best at Philadelphia last year was Italian, and some of
the worst painting as well as the best was Spanish. There is some
monstrous governmental art, no doubt, with us, but as for popular taste,
there is nothing in America so vulgar as the cheap glass necklaces, tin
spangles, and painted trinkets on the sacred images in the churches of
Southern Europe. American travellers speak of the contrast between the
beautiful cathedral and its hideous painted images bedizened with trash
to which dollar-store jewels are gems of art; and the approaches to a
splendid church or castle are very likely bedecked with clumsy,
unvolatile angels, most terrestrial and unlovely. It is true that the
decoration of temples and the adoration of images, whether under heathen
or Christian auspices, has always fostered art; but American popular
taste, low as it is supposed to be, would hardly set up in churches
statues of painted wood only fit for tobacco shops. In Rome, where
American taste is looked down upon, they have annual shows of painted
wooden figures of saints and angels, in all hues, each uglier than the
other, to be sold for putting upon the altars as votive offerings. In
fact, wherever the "Latin race" is, the popular taste runs to blocks of
the Virgin and Child resembling the lay figures in a tailor's shop.
The leading thought on this subject is that art has made greater strides
in the United States within the past twenty years than for the century
preceding. Twenty years ago there was comparatively no art public at
all. There were not a quarter part as many foreign pictures here as
to-day; there were not a fourth part as many American artists. The
department of American water colors has been substantially created
within ten years. The facilities for art education have been quadrupled
within the same period, and the wealthy who form galleries have
multiplied in like proportion. American progress in science and
mechanism, though so great, falls short of American progress in taste
and American productivity in the fine arts.
PHILIP QUILIBET.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.
PROTECTION FROM LIGHTNING.
Prof. Clerk Maxwell says that the ordinary lightning rod is a great
mistake. It acts to discharge electricity from the clouds at all
possible opportunities, but these discharges are smaller than would
occur without the rod. The true method is to encase the building in a
network of rods, when it will take its charge quietly like a Leyden jar.
Taking the case of a powder mill, it would be sufficient to surround it
with a conducting material, to sheathe its roof, walls, and ground-floor
with thick sheet copper, and then no electrical effect could occur
within it on account of any thunderstorm outside. There would be no need
of any earth connection. We might even place a layer of asphalte between
the copper floor and the ground, so as to insulate the building. If the
mill were then struck with lightning, it would remain charged for some
time, and a person standing on the ground outside and touching the wall
might receive a shock, but no electrical effect would be perceived
inside, even on the most delicate electrometer.
This sheathing with sheet copper is not necessary. It is quite
sufficient to enclose the building with a network of a good conducting
substance. For instance, if a copper wire, say No. 4, B. W. G. (0.238
inches diameter), were carried round the foundation of the house, up
each of the corners and gables, and along the ridges, this would
probably be a sufficient protection for an ordinary building against any
thunderstorm in this climate. The copper wire may be built into the wall
to prevent theft, but should be connected to any outside metal, such as
lead or zinc on the roof, and to metal rain-water pipes. In the case of
a powder-mill it might be advisable to make the network closer by
carrying one or two additional wires over the roof and down the walls to
the wires at the foundations. If there are water or gas pipes which
enter the building from without, these must be connected with the system
of conducting wires; but if there are no such metallic connections with
distant points, it is not necessary to take any pains to facilitate the
escape of the electricity into the earth. But it is not advisable to put
up a tail pointed conductor.
STEAM MACHINERY AND PRIVATEERING.
Mr. Barnaby, a prominent English naval constructor, has written a
memorandum on the British mercantile marine as an adjunct to the navy in
time of war. He points out that privateering has been made obsolete, not
merely by popular feeling, but also by the progress of the arts. A
privateer, he thinks, must be prepared to meet regular ships of war of
about the same strength. This the introduction of steam machinery has
made impossible. War ships are built for security, merchant steamers for
economical work, and the different objects have necessitated different
arrangements. In a word, the machinery of war ships is carefully
disposed below the water line, that of marine vessels is usually above
the water line. The latter would therefore be much more subject to
injury from shot than the other. This state of things excludes from
service as privateers all but the swiftest vessels, and Mr. Barnaby
thinks that the use of the merchant marine "would be confined to ships
that could save themselves by their speed if they met a ship of war,
whether armored or not," and that only those which can steam eleven and
a half or twelve knots an hour can be considered serviceable for
privateering. This limits the number of vessels available for this
service to 400 or 500, and the common idea that England can, in case of
war, "cover the sea" with her ships is proved to be untrue. Even these
vessels could not be used as privateers except against certain nations.
The Government would be compelled to buy them, and this would cost, he
estimates, a hundred to a hundred and fifty million dollars. This
addition to the regular fleet he thinks would enable England to "close
up every hostile port, and the slow steamers and the helpless sailing
ships might cross the seas in such security (privateering not being
admissible) that merchandise would be as safe in the English ship as in
the neutral." The fault in all this reasoning is that a ship of inferior
speed is certain to meet with a swifter antagonist, and therefore become
a capture. Our experience with the Confederate cruisers was that the
efforts of a very large navy may be eluded and defied for years, without
regard to the sailing qualities on either side.
MAN AND ANIMALS.
The influence upon animals of their association with man formed the
subject of an interesting discussion in the British Association meeting.
Mr. Shaw read a paper "On the Mental Progress of Animals During the
Human Period," and Dr. Grierson mentioned an instance of intelligence
which had come under his own notice. Five years ago a barrel was put up
in his garden at the top of a high pole. The barrel was perforated with
holes and divided in the centre. In the course of two days two starlings
visited the barrel, and returned on the following day, and in about a
week afterward two pairs of starlings came and occupied it, and brought
up their young. They were very wild starlings, and readily took flight
when any person went near the barrel. In the second year four pairs of
starlings occupied the barrel, and they were much tamer than the
previous ones, and this last year there were a number of pairs of
starlings so tame that they would almost allow him to take hold of them.
They had now changed their mode of speaking, for the starlings in his
garden frequently articulated words.
THE LIMBS OF WHALES.
Whales have rudimentary limbs, and Prof. Struthers concludes that such
muscles existed in the whale-bone whales, but in ordinary teethed whales
they were merely represented by fibrous tissue. These muscles existing
in the true bottle-nosed whale had a special interest, as the teeth in
that whale were rudimentary and functionless. He had found these muscles
in the forearms of whales largely mixed with fibrous tissue, so the
transition was easy. Prof. MacAlister of Dublin thinks that whales were
not of very ancient origin, for the existence of the rudimentary limbs
tends to show that a sufficient length of time has not elapsed since the
use of the limb was essential to the earlier animal to produce its
complete obliteration.
OUR EDUCATIONAL STANDING.
The advance which this country has made in educational facilities of all
grades within its hundred years of life was summarized as follows by
Prof. Phelps, President of the National Educational Association:
"Prior to 1776 but nine colleges had been established, and not more than
five were really efficient. Now there are more than 400 colleges and
universities, with nearly 57,000 students, and 3,700 professors and
teachers. Then little was done for the higher education of women. Now
there are 209 female seminaries, 23,445 students, and 2,285 teachers.
There are also 322 professional schools of various classes, excluding
23,280 students and 2,490 instructors. Then normal schools had no
existence. Now there are 124, with 24,405 students and 966 instructors.
There were then no commercial colleges. Now 127 are in operation, with
25,892 students and 577 teachers. Then secondary and preparatory schools
had scarcely a name by which to live. Now 1,122 are said to exist,
affording instruction to 100,593 pupils, and giving employment to 6,163
teachers. The kindergarten is a very recent importation. In 1874 we were
blessed with 55 of these human nurseries, with 1,636 pupils and 125
teachers. Now 37 States and 11 Territories report an aggregate of more
than 13,000,000 school population, or more than four times the total
population of the country in 1776. Then the school enrollment was of
course unknown. Now it amounts to the respectable figure of about
8,500,000. Then the schools were scattered and their number
correspondingly restricted. Now they are estimated at 150,000, employing
250,000 teachers. The total income of the public schools is given at
$82,000,000, their expenditures at $75,000,000, and the value of their
property at $165,000,000. The number of illiterates by the census of
1870 above the age of ten years, in round numbers, was 5,500,000. Of
these more than 2,000,000 were adults, upward of 2,000,000 more were
from fifteen to twenty-one years of age, and 1,000,000 were between ten
and fifteen years. Of the number between fifteen and twenty-one years it
is estimated that about one-half have passed the opportunity for
education."
SURFACE MARKINGS.
Mr. James Croll, in a letter to "Nature" (July 13, 1876), incidentally
mentions the lessons that may be derived from the configurations of the
earth's surface.
"Given the hardly perceptible wearing of water and time, a
canyon a mile deep, and many hundreds of miles long, has
resulted from the flowing of a stream. Given glacial 'abrasion'
and time enough, then valleys of rounded section and firths and
lake-basins of a particular kind probably resulted from the
flowing of ice.
"Where a stream flows from source to mouth on a gradual slope,
there has been no great disturbance of level since the stream
began to work. Where ice fills the dales there are no canyons.
Where ice has filled dales and has left fresh marks, canyons are
short and small. In mountain regions, where ice-marks are rare
or absent, canyons are of great depth and length, apparently
because their streams have flowed in the same channels ever
since the mountains were raised. But where canyons are marked
features, these lakes, firths, and dales of rounded section are
very rare, or do not exist. It seems therefore that hollows
which have, in fact, been carved out of the earth's surface may
be known for water-work or for ice-work by their shape, and
that firths, dales, and lakes may mark the sites of local
glacial periods; and canyons the sites of climates that have not
been glacial since the streams began to flow."
THE OLDEST STONE TOOLS.
One of the problems which geologists now propose to themselves is to
ascertain definitely whether the existence of man before the close of
the glacial epoch can be certainly proved. The method of proof consists
in the examination of formations older than those of that epoch, in the
hope of finding in them bones or implements of human origin. Mr. S. B.
J. Skertchly thinks he has done this. In the valley sides around the
town of Brandon, in England, "are preserved patches of brick-earth,
which are valuable as affording the only workable clay in the district.
Whenever these beds are well exposed they are seen to underlie the
chalky boulder-clay of glacial age. Of this there cannot be the
slightest doubt, for the glacial bed is typically developed and not in
the slightest degree reconstructed. In these beds I have been so
fortunate as to find palaeolithic implements in two places; and in one of
them quantities of broken bones and a few fresh-water shells. The
implements are of the oval type, boldly chipped, but without any of the
finer work which distinguishes the better made palaeolithic implements.
Although it would be rash to lay too great a stress upon the characters
of these implements, it is nevertheless worthy of remark that they do
belong to the crudest type. Equally rough specimens are found in the
gravels above the boulder-clay, and even among neolithic finds. Still
these very antique implements certainly do seem to belong to an earlier
stage of civilization, if we regard them as examples of the best
workmanship of their makers." These, he thinks, are the oldest specimens
of man's handiwork known, and prove him to have lived before the
culmination of the glacial epoch.
ORIGIN OF THE SPANISH PEOPLE.
An anthropologist, M. Turbino, has written a paper on the relations of
the people who inhabit Spain and Portugal, from which it appears that
those civilized races present a heterogeneity that reminds us forcibly
of the condition in which the savage tribes of America were at the time
of the discovery, and indeed are still. There is found in the Spanish
races no unity of origin or of physique. There is not only
dissimilarity, but also antithesis and opposition. M. Turbino endeavored
to show that the same diversity existed in the region of morals, in
language, in art, and in the ideas of right and law, and that thus there
is really no Spanish race and no means of establishing in the Iberian
Peninsula a centralized state.
Broca, in discussing these facts, asserted that the same state of things
exists everywhere; that the idea of race as applied to the people of
the present political divisions is untrue. The only great barriers of
states are their geographical limits.
THE ENGLISH METEORITE.
Prof. Maskelyne, of the British Museum, seems to be particularly
gratified by the fall of a metallic meteorite in England. He says:
"It is, indeed, an iron meteorite, and the special interest of
this statement lies in the fact that, though our great
collection of 311 distinct meteorites at the Museum contains
104 indubitable iron meteorites, the falls of only seven of the
latter were witnessed. The collection contains eight stony
meteorites that have fallen in the British Islands; but the
Rowton meteorite is only the second iron meteorite known as
having been found in Great Britain."
It weighs seven and three-quarter pounds, is angular in shape, and he
supposes that it is but the fragment of a much larger aerolite, since
one loud explosion was heard and rumbling sounds, which may have denoted
others, were heard before it fell.
THE BOOMERANG.
Mr. A. W. Howitt, after many years' observation in Australia, reports
that the boomerang, though a singular, is not the marvellous instrument
which we are told of in some books of travel; especially does he deny it
the power of continuing its flight after striking its object, and also
the power of returning with exact aim to the thrower's hand. That might
be in an instrument which was made with theoretical perfectness, but as
it is the return flight is very wild. He had a trial made by several
natives, one of them a boomerang thrower of great skill. The ground was
good, and the only drawback was a light sea breeze. He found that the
throws could be placed in two classes, one in which the boomerang was
held when thrown in a plane perpendicular to the horizon, the other in
which one plane of the boomerang was inclined to the left of the
thrower.
In the first method of throwing the missile proceeded, revolving with
great velocity, in a perpendicular plane for say one hundred yards, when
it became inclined to the left, travelling from right to left. It then
circled upward, the plane in which it revolved indicating a cone, the
apex of which would lie some distance in front of the thrower. "When the
boomerang in travelling passed round to a point above and somewhat to
the right of the thrower, and perhaps one hundred feet above the ground,
it appeared to become stationary for a moment; I can only use the term
_hovering_ to describe it. It then commenced to descend, still revolving
in the same direction, but the curve followed was reversed, the
boomerang travelling from left to right, and, the speed rapidly
increasing, it flew far to the rear. At high speed a sharp whistling
noise could be heard. In the second method, which was shown by 'bungil
wunkun,' and elicited admiring ejaculations of 'ko-ki' from the black
fellows, the boomerang was thrown in a plane considerably inclined to
the left. It there flew forward for say the same distance as before,
gradually curving upward, when it seemed to 'soar' up--this is the best
term--just as a bird may be seen to circle upward with extended wings.
The boomerang of course was all this time revolving rapidly. It is
difficult to estimate the height to which it soared, making, I think,
two gyrations; but judging from the height of neighboring trees on the
river bank, which it surmounted, it may have reached one hundred and
fifty feet. It then soared round and round in a decreasing spiral, and
fell about one hundred yards in front of the thrower. This was performed
several times. The descending curve passed the thrower, I think, three
times.
"Another method of throwing was mentioned; namely, to throw the
boomerang in such a manner that it would strike the ground with
its flat side some distance in front of the thrower. It would
then rise upward in a spiral, returning in the same. This was
not attempted, as it was decided the boomerang was not strong
enough. A final throw in a vertical plane, so that the missile
struck the ground violently fifty or sixty yards in advance,
terminated the display. It ricocheted three times with a
twanging noise and split along the centre. My black friends
said they should soon manufacture a number of the best
constructed 'wunken' to show me. I observed that the spectators
stood about a hundred yards on one side of the thrower, and
when the boomerang in its gyrations approached us, every black
fellow had his eyes sharply fixed on it. The fact stated by
them that it was dangerous was well shown in one instance,
where it suddenly wheeled and flew so close over us that I and
Toolabar fell over each other in dodging it."
A WESTERN LAVA FIELD.
Lieutenant Ruffner describes one of the great lava outflows in the West
in a way that serves to set before the reader the magnitude of the
eruptions which have made America _par excellence_ the volcanic
continent. It is in New Mexico.
From the Conejos river, in Colorado, one continuous sheet of lava covers
the face of the country to the south, for eighty miles unbroken; and
then for fifty miles further is now exhibited in outlying areas and
detached masses, separated from the main body by the exercise of the
power of erosion through prolonged ages. One hundred and thirty miles in
length, and perhaps thirty in breadth at its widest, the area of a
principality lies swallowed up for ever. From craters existing probably
in the San Antonio mountain and in the Ute Peak, near the boundary of
Colorado, and possibly from other centres, this flood poured over the
land. Reaching to the east, it was checked by the mountains of the
Sangre de Cristo range; flowing to the west, the mountains and hills of
the main divide, and the spur now between the Chama and the Rio Grande,
limited its extent. To the south it was deflected westwardly by the spur
of the mountains called the Picuris range, some fifteen miles south of
Taos. Protected by this spur, we find the east bank of the Rio Grande
for many miles free from the flux. Confined on the west by the slopes of
the Jemez mountains, the breadth of the field is narrowed. But from the
village of San Ildefonso to Pena Blanca, we find the lava on both sides
of the Rio Grande, spreading to the east as far as the Santa Fe creek.
Secondary centres in the Jemez mountains possibly contributed to this
extension, but the main force of the eruptions was probably felt further
to the north. However, in this vicinity the edges and extremity of the
field have been reached, and there has been so much erosion in places
since its deposition, that outlying masses, as in the bluffs to the west
of San Felipe, alone remain. Throughout the whole region thus depicted,
the lava field is the great and controlling element. The streams that
have eaten their way through it with untold difficulty are found in
narrow and deep canyons having no land for cultivation. A dangerous feat
for man to descend these precipices, the passage by an animal of burden
is almost impossible. The Rio Grande passes for eighty miles or more
through its black abyss, with walls of seven or eight hundred feet in
height, crowned with perpendicular cliffs of solid lava, two and three
hundred feet high. Throughout the whole region there is no agriculture.
THE PRINCIPLE OF CEPHALIZATION.
In the last of a series of papers on cephalization (or brain
development) as a fundamental principle in the development of the system
of animal life, Prof. Dana says ("American Journal," October, 1876): "I
would refer to the case among mammals for an illustration of the
principle that the lowest forms are those having their locomotive
functions located in the posterior parts of the body; and that in the
higher the forces, or force organs, are more and more forward in the
structure. For example, in the whale the tail is the propelling organ,
and is of enormous power and magnitude, and the brain is very small, and
is situated far from the head extremity in a great mass of flesh and
bone furnished with poor organs of sense; a grade up, in the horse or
ox, the tail or posterior extremity is no longer an organ of locomotion,
and is little more than a caudal whip lash, and locomotion is performed
by organs situated more anteriorly, the legs, and a well-formed head
carries a brain which is a vastly higher organ of intelligence than that
of the whale, but the legs are simply organs of locomotion, and the
hinder are the more powerful; and higher up, in the tiger or cat, the
fore legs--not the hind legs--are the organs of chief muscular force,
and these have higher functions than that of simple locomotion, and
further, the body is proportionately shortened, and the head is
shortened anteriorly, or in the jaws, and approximates thus toward the
condition of man. The existence or not of a switch-like tail, as in
ordinary quadrupeds, has little bearing on the question of the degree of
cephalization, since the organ is not an organ of locomotion, or one
indicating a large posterior development of muscular bone. But,
approaching man in the system of life, even this seems to have
significance."
CURIOSITIES OF THE HERRING FISHERY.
The hot weather last summer affected even the herring fishery. The
fishermen off the Scotch coast had been supplied with sea thermometers
by the Scottish Meteorological Society, and they found that during one
week, when the sea water showed a temperature of 58 deg. to 59 deg., no
fish were caught. But when the temperature fell to 55 deg. the herring
were caught in great abundance. Indeed, they flocked to the land in such
numbers that many nets were taken to the bottom with their weight, and
the fishermen lost considerable sums from this odd mishap. The action of
the Meteorological has produced important results. The entirely new
discovery has been made that the herring love cold water, and in seasons
when the temperature of the sea water rises, they keep away from the
land, in deeper water, between the fifteen to eighteen fathoms for which
the nets are calculated. The colder the weather the greater is the take
of fish; 1875, a year when the water was considerably and continuously
warmer than 1874, having been a poor year, while the latter was a better
one. This action of the fish makes it probable that it likes a given
range of temperature, neither too high nor too low. In cold water this
belt of agreeable temperature is found nearer the sun-warmed surface,
and the fish creep inshore. Many singular facts relating to this fishery
are known. If a thunderstorm occurs, the fishermen expect a good catch
on that day, but the next day they will get none except in deep water,
and the supposition is that the fish are leaving the land. The herring
has a strong sense of locality, always returning to the same ground.
Experienced dealers can tell by inspection in just what sea or loch a
given lot of fish were caught.
NATURAL GAS IN FURNACES.
A paper describing the use of natural gas in the puddling furnaces at
Leechburg, Pa., was presented by Mr. A. L. Holley to the American
Institute of Mining Engineers. This well is about twenty miles northeast
of Pittsburg, on one of the side tributaries of the Alleghany river. It
had been drilled in search of oil to a depth of 1,250 feet in 1871, but
none was found. A great flow of gas was developed, however, accompanied
by a slight spray of salt water, and this has continued with little or
no diminution to the present time. The gas in its escape has been
discharged through a five-inch pipe, and at a pressure of from sixty to
eighty pounds per square inch. The rolling mill of Messrs. Roger &
Burchfield is on the opposite side of the river, and it has been for
some years devoted to the production of fine grades of sheet iron from
charcoal pig metal, by puddling and in knobbling fires. The usual weekly
product of the mill has been thirty tons of No. 3 tin plates and fifty
tons of No. 24 to twenty-eight sheets.
The well was bought by this firm for $1,000, and the gas is led across
the river, a distance of 500 feet, through a three-inch pipe. It is
distributed through half-inch pipes, and at a pressure of about
forty-five pounds per square inch, to several of the furnaces. No
essential alteration in any of the furnaces has been found necessary in
the use of the gas fuel, except to brick up the fire bridge and to put
in the gas and air pipes. The old grate used for coal is loosely covered
with bricks and cinder, so that a slight percolation of air may take
place through them. The gas is admitted through a half-inch pipe, and
blows toward the fire-bridge through eighteen or twenty one-eighth inch
jets. The air is blown in, at about 2 lbs. pressure, through two one and
one-eighth-inch jets, obliquely down upon the centre of the hearth, and
a very perfect combustion is obtained. A great improvement is effected
in the quality of the product of the puddling furnaces by the combined
action of the gas and air blast. The air is blown in during the melting,
but it is then shut off until the boiling begins. It is then turned on
full, and a violent boiling action is maintained without any rabbling.
Many advantages result from the use of this fuel. The product of the
mill has increased about thirty per cent., from sixty to seventy tons of
coal are saved daily, besides the labor necessary to fire with it, and a
poorer quality of iron can be used in making the tin plate. Thus the
iron now used is credited to the furnace at $45 per ton, while charcoal
blooms have cost $80. These are certainly enormous advantages, and
though every mill cannot have a permanent gas well, it must be more
economical to produce such results by making coal into gas than to
continue using it in the solid form. The gas at Leechburg is used in
fourteen furnaces and under seven boilers. Its composition is carbonic
acid, 0.35; carbonic oxide, 0.26; illuminating hydrocarbons, 0.56;
hydrogen, 4.79; marsh gas, C H_{4}, 89.65; ethyl hydride, C_{2} H_{6},
4.39; specific gravity, 0.558. This analysis shows about 57 per cent. of
carbon and 42 per cent. of hydrogen. If the well discharges one million
cubic feet of gas daily, it would weigh about sixty tons, yielding
thirty-nine tons of carbon. Mr. Holley calculates that it equals about
150 tons of bituminous coal, such as is found in the Pittsburg region.
SOUTH CAROLINA PHOSPHATES.
In England the favorite source of phosphates of lime is the "Cambridge
coprolites." These are small, hard, gray nodules, obtained by washing a
stratum, of about one foot in thickness, lying in the upper greensand
formation in Cambridgeshire. Similar coprolites are found and mined in
other districts of England, but they are of inferior quality, containing
more oxide of iron and alumina. These give the tribasic phosphate of
lime, which results from the application of sulphuric acid to the
nodules, a tendency to "go back" to the insoluble condition. French
nodules are of inferior quality from another cause. They contain very
much silica, sometimes even forty per cent. The Cambridge coprolites are
so much esteemed that buyers of artificial manure often stipulate that
it shall be made from them. As a consequence the privilege of mining the
ground is costly, sometimes as much as $1,500 an acre being paid. The
yield is about three hundred tons to the acre. An English chemist
reports that the South Carolina phosphate, made in factories situated in
and near Charleston, ranks next in value to this Cambridge product. It
contains 54 per cent. of tribasic phosphate of lime, 14 per cent. of
carbonate of lime, 3-1/2 per cent. of iron oxide and alumina, 2-1/2 per
cent. of fluoride of calcium, and 15 per cent. of silica. It consists of
bone fragments derived from animal species which are now extinct. These
bones have accumulated in old river beds, and the mining operations are
compelled to follow the sinuosities of these streams. Though a supply
derived from such sources is necessarily limited, the quantity known to
be available is very great, and has been estimated to last a century
with a yearly extraction of 50,000 tons. In addition to the river
phosphate is a lighter deposit, occurring in a stratum of sand and clay
about two feet thick; but this is not so valuable, though it is softer
and easier ground. The river deposit is nearly black, and when ground
makes a very dark powder. It is a great favorite, and in some respects
the finest natural source of phosphatic manure in the world.
RARE METALS FROM OLD COINS.
The operations of the Government assay office in Frankfort during the
last year have developed the fact that gold, platinum, palladium, and
selenium are found in old silver coins and also in ores which were
formerly supposed to be nearly pure sulphides and oxides of lead and
silver. From 400,000 pounds of silver and 5,000 pounds of gold were
obtained twelve pounds of platinum, two pounds of palladium, and several
pounds of selenium. To obtain these the gold is first precipitated from
the solution by ferrous chloride, all the other metals by iron turnings.
The precipitate is first submitted to the action of ferric chloride to
dissolve the copper, and the residue is fused with charcoal and soda to
separate the selenium. The regulus from this operation is dissolved, and
a compound of selenium and palladium, or of these with platinum, is
obtained. They are composed of equal atoms of the two metals and form
hard brilliant plates. The presence of these metals in coins is less
remarkable than in such ores as those of Commern and Mechernich on the
west bank of the Rhine. These ores occur as small granules of galena in
a soft sandstone, their origin being still a mooted point. The ore
yields a very soft and pure lead, though the presence of pyrite prevents
the manufacture of the virgin lead used in making the best brands of
white paint.