ingenious experiments, that they arise from the irregular refraction of
the rays of light, in passing through contiguous portions of air, of
different densities. One of these experiments he was so good as to shew
us; and as it is so simple, that Marianne can easily try it, I will
endeavour to describe it here.
He put a little clear syrup into a square phial, and then poured about
an equal quantity of water into it, over the syrup. The phial was set on
the table, and having placed a printed card about an inch behind it, he
made us observe that when we looked through the syrup, or through the
water, the letters on the card appeared _erect_; but, that when they
were seen through that part where the two fluids were gradually mixing
together, the letters were equally distinct, but _inverted_. A similar
effect, he said, may be produced with hot and cold water, or even by two
portions of cold and heated air; and to shew us this, he performed
another very easy experiment. He placed two of the library chairs back
to back, and about a foot apart; he connected the tops of the chairs
with two bits of strong wire, and on the wires he laid the kitchen
poker, the square end of which he had made red hot. Exactly in the
direction of the poker he pinned a large printed A upon the wall, which
was about ten feet distant; and then desired us to look at it along the
heated poker. We did so, and we all distinctly saw three images of the
A, the middle one being inverted, and the two others erect.
Dear mamma, how this reminded me of the day when you first explained to
us the meaning of _refraction_, and shewed us the pretty little
experiment of the stick, which appeared to bend just at the surface of
the water. How often I now feel the benefit of all your patient
instruction, and how often I wish I had your excellent memory, which
enabled you to teach us so many things, without having any books to
assist you!
_20th._--My cousins like Eastern tales just as much as I do--and my
uncle speaks of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments as if he was still a
boy. He thinks that they are not only very ingenious, but that many of
the apparent wonders, which are related as supernatural, may be easily
explained, by means of the chemical and philosophical knowledge which is
too generally supposed to be the result of late discoveries. I should
like to read over all my favourite tales with him, for the benefit of
his explanations. What brought them into my mind now, was a pretty
little anecdote which I once heard him tell Grace, and which she has
just been repeating to me.
In Khorasân, there was a certain old caravanserai, called Zafferounee,
which was once so very extensive, as to contain seventeen hundred
chambers, besides baths and shops, and besides accommodation for
thousands of cattle within its walls. It is said to have been erected by
one of those wealthy Eastern merchants, who delighted in perpetuating
their names by acts of public utility. While it was building, and a
large quantity of straw and clay were mixing up for that purpose on the
road near it, a cafilah, consisting of a hundred camels, loaded with
saffron, chanced to pass; and one of them, slipping into the clay, fell,
and was disabled. Their owner inveighed bitterly against those who by so
carelessly doing their work on the public road, had occasioned such a
serious loss to him. The merchant, who was himself superintending the
progress of the building, on hearing these complaints, inquired what
might be the value not only of the camel, which had been disabled, but
of all the rest; and purchasing the whole on the spot, ordered the
saffron to be tumbled into the clay, and worked up with it, instead of
chopped straw. It was from this that the caravanserai obtained the name
of Zafferounee, or Saffron.
This rich merchant, however, fell afterwards into difficulties, as might
have been expected, from his extravagance, and at last became a beggar.
Travelling in search of subsistence, into foreign countries, he happened
to visit the place where the camel-driver, now grown immensely rich,
lived in splendour. It came to the ears of the latter, that a stranger,
in poverty, who spoke of his former riches in Khorasân, was living
wretchedly in the town; and suspecting that this might be his old
benefactor, he invited him to his house; and after feasting him
superbly, induced him to relate his history: when, in concluding it, the
unhappy Khorasânee described his destitute condition, the other
interrupted him, saying, “How can you call yourself poor, when you are,
in reality, a man possessed of great riches?” “Ah! no,” replied the
other; “once, indeed, I had much wealth, but all is gone; and I am now a
beggar!” On this his host carried him to a secret chamber, which was
full of money--“This,” said he, “is all yours; it is the price of the
saffron which you so liberally purchased from me: I have traded upon it
and become rich, but the original sum I have always reserved as
belonging to you; take it now, and live happily.”
Grace is always encouraged to repeat to others the little stories which
are told to her: I wish you could have heard her relating this to us
before tea.
_22d._--Well, I am in actual possession of the old quarry. Having
settled all my plans, I at once set to work, and my uncle was so good as
to let me have one of the workmen to help me, because he said my ideas
were rational. The opening of the quarry fronts the south-west; the
rock at the back is high and steep, and a spring, which trickles from
it, keeps the part which had been most deeply worked constantly full of
water. In this I have put several pretty water-plants--Mr. Biggs, I
know, lays a quantity of peat compost in his pond; but though I have not
been able to obtain that yet, I have planted the white and the yellow
water lily, which the gardener found for me a few miles off. A thick
skreen of shrubs has been planted by my uncle’s directions, above the
rocks to the north, but no forest trees, for in a short time they would
outgrow the place which they ornament only while young.
The middle and southern parts of the quarry are to be sloped and
dressed; all the briars have been already taken out, and the loose
splinters of the quarry are spread on the surface of the bank. Upon
these, the gardener has laid a mixture of peat earth and sand, which he
had to spare; and here I intend to have an incomparable bed of
strawberries.
South of these, and where the rocky bank sinks, I am filling up the
hollow and uneven spots with the same mixture and rotten leaves; for Mr.
Biggs says that the natural soil of the beautiful North American shrubs
is chiefly formed of decayed vegetables.
Groups of _rhododendron_, _azalea_, _kalmia_, and many more, which, as
I have learnt from that delightful book, Miller’s dictionary, are suited
to that soil and aspect, are to flourish there; and by Mary’s advice,
they are to be mixed with some of the Scotch roses. These are rather
scarce here; but Mr. Biggs has been so generous as to send me a small
piece of the root of each of his own rose bushes. There are a few fibres
on them, and he assures me they will sprout in spring--so it will be a
good experiment at least. I shall also have a little grass plat, with a
few small beds for choice flowers, which I expect will blossom very
early in this little snug spot.
I have planted some of the _lobelia fulgens_, and a _hydrangea_, which
is a native of marshy ground, near the edge of the pond--and when spring
comes, I hope to execute many other grand plans which I have formed,
from hearing Mr. Biggs. My cousins approve of them, and all help me, and
Mary wonders she never thought of adorning the old quarry before.
I am now very busy in making a bed for _ixia_, _gladiolis_,
_lachenalia_, and _oxalis_--they are usually in a greenhouse, but I hear
that, if planted late in October, in a soil composed of peat earth, and
sharp sand, and over this, if a layer of peat, eight inches thick, be
laid, to prevent the frost from reaching them, they will be in beautiful
blossom in spring. I will try this--my uncle encourages experiment; he
says it is the high road to truth--and he assists all who wish to travel
on it.
_23rd._, _Sunday._--I asked my uncle this morning to tell me the meaning
of Noah’s prediction, “God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in
the tents of Shem.” In reply, he told us the opinions of a very learned
person, for whose writings he has a high respect; and I will endeavour
to give you the substance of what he said.
“The most obvious meaning of the expression is, that Providence would
bless Japhet with a numerous progeny, which should not only spread over
an ample tract of country, but that they would afterwards encroach on
the territory of Shem’s descendants. And this sense of the words is
supported by history; for the whole of Europe, and a considerable part
of Asia, was originally peopled, and has been always occupied, by
Japhet’s offspring, who, not contented with their own possessions, have
repeatedly made encroachments on the sons of Shem; as, for instance,
when Alexander the Great, with an European army, attacked and overthrew
the Persian monarchy; when the Romans subjected a great part of the
East; and still more, when the Tartar conquerors of the race of Genghis
Khan destroyed the empire of the Caliphs, took possession of their
country, and made settlements in all parts of Asia. Tamerlane also led
his Moguls, who were another branch of Japhet’s progeny, into Hindostan;
and their descendants gradually obtained possession of that immense
country, a part of Shem’s original inheritance. These events, and others
of the same nature, may be considered as the accomplishment of that
prophecy; not only because they answer to the natural import of its
terms, but because they have had great influence on the state of true
religion in various parts of the world; so that in this interpretation
we find the two circumstances which are the characteristics of a true
interpretation,--an agreement with the facts recorded in history, and a
connection of the particular prediction with the general system of the
prophetic word.
“It would seem, however, that some amicable intercourse between parts of
those two great families is implied by the expression, ‘Japhet’s
dwelling in the tents of Shem’; for the settlements made by the
Portuguese, English, Dutch, and French in different parts of India,
which was a part of Shem’s inheritance, may be taken in this sense. And
consequences cannot but arise of great importance, from such numerous
and extensive settlements of Christians, in countries where the light of
the Gospel has been for ages extinguished.
“There is still a third sense: but in order to make it more apparent,
it will be proper to consider the precise meaning of Shem’s blessing--a
blessing obliquely conveyed in this emphatic ejaculation, ‘Blessed be
Jehovah, the God of Shem!’ This evidently implied that Jehovah was to be
more peculiarly the God of Shem; and in the same sense that he
afterwards vouchsafed to call himself the God of one branch of Shem’s
progeny--of Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob, and of their descendants the
Jewish people. Although the universal Father of all the nations of the
earth, he may be said to have more particularly adopted the descendants
of Shem, in choosing them to be the depositaries of the true religion,
while the rest of mankind were sunk in idolatry and ignorance. Among
them he preserved the knowledge and worship of himself, by a series of
miraculous dispensations; to them he confided the representative
priesthood, the type of the Messiah; and when the destined season came,
he raised the Messiah himself from among the offspring of that chosen
family.
“But the expression, ‘the tents (or tabernacles) of Shem,’ alludes to
the Jewish tabernacle, which was one of the external means of preserving
the worship of the true God. The word in Hebrew is the same for both
tent and tabernacle. This holy tent was Shem’s tabernacle, because it
was entrusted to his descendants, and because none but them might bear a
part in its sacred service. Now this tabernacle, and this service, were
undoubtedly emblems of the Christian church and Christian worship. It
appears, then, that in the mention of the tents of Shem, Noah was
inspired to make allusion to the Jewish tabernacle, as the symbol of the
Christian dispensation; and that the dwelling of Japhet in those tents
of Shem, took place when the idolatrous nations of Japhet’s line became
converted to the faith of Christ, and worshipped the God of Shem in
Shem’s tabernacles; that is, worshipped God in the truth and spirit of
revealed religion.
“This prediction, therefore, bears directly upon the general object of
all the prophecies--the union of all nations in the faith of Christ. And
the fact is notorious, that the Gospel has, from the beginning to the
present time, made the greatest progress in Europe, where the early and
wide-spreading conversions of the idolaters of Japhet’s line (among whom
were our own ancestors) soon led to encroachments on the territory of
Shem.
“How grateful should we be,” my uncle added, “to those learned men who
thus elucidate the difficult passages in Scripture, and shew the
beautiful harmony of the whole prophetic system!”
_24th._--I am reading “Bartram’s Travels in North America.” It is not a
late publication, but very interesting to me, as I like to compare the
productions of North and South America.
Among all the beautiful trees of our Southern regions, I do not
recollect having seen or heard of the deciduous cypress, the majestic
grandeur of which, he says, is surprising. It generally grows in low
flat grounds, that are covered, part of the year, with water. The lower
part of the stem, which is frequently under water, enlarges into
prodigious buttresses; and they project on every side to such a
distance, that several men might hide in the recesses between them. The
stem is generally hollow as high as the buttresses reach, where it
forms, as it were, another beginning, and rises, in a straight
uninterrupted column, to the height of 80 or 90 feet. There it throws
out its noble branches like an umbrella; eagles securely build their
nests in them; they are the abode of hundreds of parroquets, who delight
in shelling the seeds; and even the hollow stem is not untenanted, as it
affords spacious apartments for the wild bees.
The trunks supply excellent timber; and, when hollowed out, make large
and durable canoes. When the planters fell these mighty trees, they
erect a high stage round them, so as to reach above the buttresses; and
on these stages eight or ten men can work together, with their axes.
Another curious fact which I found in this book is, that the
inhabitants of East Florida prepare, from the root of the China briar, a
very agreeable sort of jelly, which they call _conti_. They chop the
root in pieces, which are afterwards pounded in a wooden mortar; and,
when washed and strained, the sediment that settles to the bottom dries
into a reddish flour. A small quantity of this, mixed with warm water
and sweetened with honey, becomes a delicious jelly, when cool; or,
mixed with corn flour and fried in fresh bear’s oil, it makes very nice
cakes.
_26th._--I have just found, in “Bartram’s Travels,” some particulars
that I do not think we knew before, of that curious species of the
_Tillandsia_, commonly called long moss.
It grows on all trees in the southern regions of North America; and any
part of the living plant, torn off and caught on the branches of another
tree, immediately takes root. Wherever it fixes, it spreads into long
pendent filaments, which subdivide themselves in an endless manner,
waving in the wind like streamers, to the length of twenty feet. It is
common to find the spaces between the boughs of large trees entirely
occupied by masses of this plant, which, in bulk and weight, would
require several men to carry. In some places, cart loads of it are found
lying on the ground, torn off by the violence of the wind. When fresh,
cattle and deer eat it in the winter season; and when dry, it is
employed for stuffing chairs, saddles, and beds; but to prepare it
properly for these purposes, it is thrown into shallow ponds of water,
where the outside furry substance soon decays: it is then taken out of
the water and spread in the sun; and, after a little beating, nothing
remains but a hard, black, elastic filament, resembling horse-hair.
There is a curious anecdote about the name of this plant, in “Harry and
Lucy concluded;” but I need not mention it here, because my uncle has
sent that delightful little book to you, and I am sure Marianne will
have run through it with as much eagerness as I did.
_28th._--I have just found some more instances of those strange optical
deceptions, which seem to be of the same nature as the Fata Morgana. My
aunt thinks that the term mirage only applies to the deceitful waters of
the desert.
Mr. Dalby writes in the Philosophical Transactions that, ascending a
hill in the Isle of Wight, he observed that the top of another hill, of
about the same level, seemed to dance up and down as he advanced; and on
bringing his eye down to within two feet of the ground, the top of the
hill appeared totally detached, or lifted up from the lower part, the
sky being seen under it. This he repeatedly observed; and he adds, that
as the sun was rather warm for the season, with a heavy dew, there was
a great deal of evaporation going on.
Another very singular example of these extraordinary appearances in the
atmosphere, is given by Dr. Buchan. Walking on the cliff, about a mile
east of Brighton, in the latter end of November, just as the sun was
rising, he saw the face of the cliff on which he was standing
represented precisely opposite to him, at some distance in the sea; and
both he and his companion perceived their own figures standing on the
summit of the apparent cliff, as well as the picture of a windmill near
them. This phenomenon lasted about ten minutes, when it seemed to be
elevated into the air, and to be gradually dissipated; and he remarks,
that the surface of the sea was covered with a dense fog many yards in
height, which slowly receded before the sun’s rays.
How frequently it happens, when the curiosity has been awakened by any
new subject, that chance leads one to some circumstance in books, or
conversation, that exactly applies to it! By mere accident, I opened
Scoresby’s voyage at the following passage, which I have just time to
transcribe.
After describing the amusing spectacle of some distant ships, which were
either curiously distorted, or inverted in the air, by means of this
wonderful kind of refraction, he says, “When looking through the
telescope, the coasts of ice, or rock, had often the appearance of the
remains of an ancient city, abounding with the ruins of castles,
churches, and monuments, with other large and conspicuous buildings. The
hills often appear to be surmounted with turrets, battlements, spires,
and pinnacles, while others, subjected to another kind of refraction,
seem to be large masses of rock, suspended in the air, at a considerable
elevation above the actual terminations of the mountains to which they
refer. The whole exhibition is a grand and majestic phantasmagoria;
scarcely is the appearance of any object fully examined and determined,
before it changes to something else; it is perhaps alternately a castle,
a cathedral, or an obelisk,--and then expanding and coalescing with the
adjoining mountains, it unites the intermediate vallies, though they may
be miles in width, by a bridge of a single arch, of the most magnificent
appearance.”
_29th._--We have been visiting Franklin’s farm to-day, and have had a
very pleasant walk, late as it is in the year. He is so diligent, that
he has done a great deal to it since we were last there. Between it and
the next land he has made a ditch, with a high firm fence of flat stones
placed edgeways, in three rows, each row sloping a little, and all
supported by a bank of earth behind them; between the two upper rows of
stones, he has planted quick-thorns, and on the top of the bank a few
young oak and elm trees. The deep ditch will serve to carry off the
water from some drains that are to be made in a part of the ground which
is wet and marshy. These drains are to be covered with earth; and
something must be done to keep them from filling up. Some people line
them with stone, but that is too expensive; and as he has just clipped
some of his hedges, he intends, I believe, to put the branches of the
thorn-bushes into the bottom of the drains, which will also prevent the
sides from falling in.
Springs are formed in the bosom of the earth, my uncle says, by the rain
water which sinks through the surface, and which, gently oozing, or
_percolating_, as he calls it, through the sand or gravel, or through
other porous strata, continues to descend till it is intercepted by some
bed of clay or rock. No longer being able to descend, it follows the
course of this impassable bed, and if thus conducted to the outside of
the ground, lower down the hill, it forms then a spring. But if
prevented by any obstacle from flowing freely out of the ground, it
diffuses itself under the surface, and produces swamps and marshes. My
uncle has been of great use to Franklin, not only by teaching him how to
discover from the form of the ground where it is most likely to meet
with and _tap_ these concealed springs, but by laying out the drains for
him with a levelling instrument, so that they should have sufficient
fall into the main ditch, or into a little rivulet which skirts his
farm. I could not have conceived that science might be made so useful
even in common agriculture.
Franklin is also ploughing a field for wheat--and is going afterwards to
plough up another field that looks all rough and ugly--but which is to
be left unsown the whole winter; he intends to plough it two or three
times, and then in Spring, after it has lain fallow in this way, he will
sow it with barley. Another grand operation is the preparing a piece of
ground for an orchard; my uncle has promised him some nice young
fruit-trees for it; and Franklin, very prudently, brought over some
American apple-trees, which he says are very productive.
The blind basket-maker sometimes walks to the farm with the assistance
of Bessy’s arm; and it is impossible to see the happiness of the whole
family without feeling the strongest interest in their welfare. She now
looks quite blooming and healthy; and she is so industrious that besides
her in-door occupations, she has persuaded her husband to give her an
acre of ground for flax, with which she hopes to do a great deal. This
will be a very uncommon crop in this country, but I am sure, from what
my uncle says, that it will be very profitable.
_30th._, _Sunday._--We had a conversation this morning on the character
of Joseph, which my uncle thinks a fine example of all the Christian
virtues. “If we follow him,” said my uncle, “from his youth to the
height of his preferment, we see him, in every part of his life,
virtuous and religious; patient and courageous under misfortune; modest
and temperate in the greatest success. He suffered injustice from his
master who imprisoned him, though he had been just and faithful; but
under this great trial he had the comfort of knowing that he was
innocent. He had the still greater comfort of confiding in the support
of God, who, in his own good time, delivered him from prison, and
permitted him to be raised to a high situation, where his integrity
might be made manifest. Then, if we consider his generous forbearance
towards his brethren, how highly does it raise our admiration of his
truly amiable disposition! When they were in his power--in just
resentment of their former cruelty, he thought it right to mortify and
humble them--but no sooner did he see that they were penitent, than his
anger ceased.--And when he discovered himself to them, with what
kindness and magnanimity he endeavoured to make them less dissatisfied
with their former conduct!
“‘Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither; for
God did send me before you to preserve life: to preserve you a posterity
in the earth. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God.’