CHAPTER I.

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XLI. November, 1852. No. 5.

Table of Contents

The Dreams of Youth

The Cottage Door

Rivers

Remembered Ones

The Game of the Month

Wild Roses by the River Grow

The Song-Stream

Machinery, for Machine Making

Forgotten

Clara Gregory: or The Step-Mother

Shawls

Among the Moors

London Coffee-Houses

James Logan of Pennsylvania

Useful Arts of the Greeks and Romans

Sonnets

The Loves of an Apothecary

To My Cigar

The Trial by Battle

The Lucky Penny

A Day with a Lion

Nelly Nowlan’s Experience

November

Sonnet.--Mutability.

Ambition’s Burial-Ground

Review of New Books

Graham’s Small-Talk

Sips of Punch

Fashion Plate

Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.

[Illustration: =AGATHA.=]

* * * * *

[Illustration: =THE CASTLE OF INDOLENCE.=]

* * * * *

[Illustration: =The Dreams of Youth.=]

=THE DREAMS OF YOUTH.=

=POETRY BY CHARLES MACKAY.=

=ACCOMPANIMENTS BY SIR H. R. BISHOP.=

Air “Pray, Goody, PLEASE TO MODERATE.”

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Oh! youth’s fond dreams, like eve ’ning skies,

Are tinged with colours bright,

Their cloud-built halls and turrets rise

In lines of ling’ ring light;

Airy, fairy,

In the beam they glow,

As if they’d last

Thro’ ev’ry blast

That angry fate might blow;

But Time wears on with stealthy pace

And robes of solemn grey.

And in the shadow of her face

The glories fade away.

But not in vain the splendours die,

For worlds before unseen

Rise on the forehead of the sky

Unchanging and serene.

Gleaming,--streaming,

Thro’ the dark they shew

Their lustrous forms

Above the storms

That rend our earth below.

So pass the visions of our youth

In Time’s advancing shade;

Yet ever more the stars of Truth

Shine brighter when they fade.

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

* * * * *

Vol. XLI. PHILADELPHIA, November, 1852. No. 5.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

The Cottage Door

Those little curly-pated elves,

Blest in each other and themselves,

Right pleasant ’tis to see

Glancing like sunbeams in and out

The lowly porch, and round about

The ancient household tree.

And pleasant ’tis to greet the smile

Of her who rules this domicile

With firm but gentle sway;

To hear her busy step and tone,

Which tell of household cares begun

That end but with the day.

’Tis pleasant, too, to stroll around

The tiny plot of garden ground,

Where all in gleaming row

Sweet primroses, the spring’s delight,

And double daisies, red and white,

And yellow wall-flowers grow.

What if such homely view as this

Awaken not the high-wrought bliss

Which loftier scenes impart?

To better feelings sure it leads,

If but to kindly thoughts and deeds

It prompt the feeling heart.

* * * * *

=RIVERS.=

=BY THOMAS MILNER, M. A.=

[Illustration]

Rivers constitute an important part of the aqueous portion of the globe;

with the great lines of water, with streams and rivulets, they form a

numerous family, of which lakes, springs, or the meltings of ice and

snow, upon the summits of high mountain chains, are the parents. The

Shannon has its source in a lake; the Rhone in a glacier; and the

Abyssinian branch of the Nile in a confluence of fountains. The country

where some of the mightiest rivers of the globe have their rise has not

yet been sufficiently explored to render their true source

ascertainable. The origin of others is doubtful, owing to a number of

rills presenting equal claims to be considered as the river-head; but

many are clearly referable to a single spring, the current of which is

speedily swelled by tributary waters, ultimately flowing in broad and

deep channels to the sea. Inglis, who wandered on foot through many

lands, had a fancy, which he generally indulged, to visit the sources of

rivers, when the chances of his journey threw him in their vicinity.

Such a pilgrimage will often repay the traveler, by the scenes of

picturesque and secluded beauty into which it leads him; and even when

the primal fount is insignificant in itself, and the surrounding

landscape exhibits the tamest features, there is a reward in the

associations that are instantly wakened up--the thought of a humble and

modest commencement issuing in a long and victorious career--of the tiny

rill, proceeding, by gradual advances, to become an ample stream,

fertilizing by its exudations and rolling on to meet the tides of the

ocean, bearing the merchandise of cities upon its bosom. The Duddon, one

of the most picturesque of the English rivers, oozes up through a bed of

moss near the top of Wrynose Fell, a desolate solitude, yet remarkable

for its huge masses of protruding crag, and the varied and vivid colors

of the mosses watered by the stream. Petrarch’s letters and verses have

given celebrity to the source of the Sorques--the spring of Vaucleuse,

which bursts in an imposing manner out of a cavern, and forms at once a

copious torrent. The Scamandar is one of the most remarkable rivers for

the grandeur of its source--a yawning chasm in Mount Gargarus, shaded

with enormous plane-trees, and surrounded with high cliffs from which

the river impetuously dashes in all the greatness of the divine origin

assigned to it by ancient fable. To discover the source of the Nile, hid

from the knowledge of all antiquity, was the object of Bruce’s

adventurous journey; and we can readily enter into his emotions, as he

stood by the two fountains, after the toils and hazard he had braved.

“It is easier to guess,” he remarks, “than to describe the situation of

my mind at that moment--standing in that spot which had baffled the

genius, industry, and inquiry of both ancients and moderns, for the

course of three thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at

the head of armies; and each expedition was distinguished from the last,

only by the difference of the numbers which had perished, and agreed

alone in the disappointment which had uniformly, and without exception,

followed them all. Fame, riches and honor, had been held out for a

series of ages to every individual of those myriads these princes

commanded, without having produced one man capable of gratifying the

curiosity of his sovereign, or wiping off this stain upon the enterprise

and abilities of mankind, or adding this desideratum for the

encouragement of geography. Though a mere private Briton, I triumphed

here, in my own mind, over kings and their armies; and every comparison

was leading nearer and nearer to presumption, when the place itself

where I stood--the object of my vain-glory--suggested what depressed my

short-lived triumphs. I was but a few minutes arrived at the sources of

the Nile, through numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which

would have overwhelmed me, but for the continual goodness and protection

of Providence: I was, however, but then half through my journey; and all

those dangers, which I had already passed, awaited me again on my

return. I found a despondency gaining ground fast upon me, and blasting

the crown of laurels I had too rashly woven for myself.” Bruce, however,

labored under an error, in supposing the stream he had followed to be

the main branch of the Nile. He had traced to its springs the smaller of

the two great rivers which contribute to form this celebrated stream.

The larger arm issues from a more remote part of Africa, and has not yet

been ascended to its source.

Upon examining the map of a country, we see many of its rivers traveling

in opposite directions, and emptying their waters into different seas,

although their sources frequently lie in the immediate neighborhood of

each other. The springs of the Missouri, which proceed south-east to the

Gulf of Mexico, and those of the Columbia, which flow north-west to the

Pacific Ocean, are only a mile apart, while those of some of the

tributaries of the Amazon, flowing north, and the La Plata, flowing

south, are closely contiguous. There is a part of Volhynia, of no

considerable extent, which sends off its waters, north and south, to the

Black and Baltic seas; while, from the field on which the battle of

Naseby was fought, the Avon, Trent, and Nen receive affluents, which

reach the ocean at opposite coasts of the island, through the Humber,

the Wash, and the Bristol Channel. The field in question is an elevated

piece of table-land in the centre of England. The district referred to,

where rivers proceeding to the Baltic and the Euxine take their rise, is

a plateau about a thousand feet above the level of the sea. The springs

of the Missouri and the Columbia are in the Rocky Mountains; and it is

generally the case, that those parts of a country from which large

rivers flow in contrary directions, are the most elevated sites in their

respective districts, consisting either of mountain-chains, plateaus, or

high table-lands. There is one remarkable exception to this in European

Russia, where the Volga rises in a plain only a few hundred feet above

the level of the sea, and no hills separate its waters from those which

run into the Baltic. The great majority of the first-class rivers

commence from chains of mountains, because springs are there most

abundant, perpetually fed by the melting of the snows and glaciers. They

have almost invariably an easterly direction, the westward-bound streams

being few in number, and of very subordinate rank. Of rivers flowing

east, we have grand examples in the St. Lawrence, Orinoco, Amazon,

Danube, Ganges, Amour, Yang-tse-Kiang, and Hoang Ho. The chief western

streams are the Columbia, Tagus, Garonne, Loire and Neva, which are of

far inferior rank to the former. The rivers running south, as the

Mississippi, La Plata, Rhone, Volga and Indus, are more important, as

well as those which proceed to the north, as the Rhine, Vistula, Nile,

Irtish, Lena and Yenisei. The easterly direction of the great rivers of

America is obviously due to the position of the Andes, which run north

and south, on the western side of the continent, while the chain of

mountains which traverses Europe and Asia, from west to east, cause the

great number of rivers which flow north and south. In our own island,

the chief course of the streams is to the east. This is the case with

the Tay, Forth, Tweed, Tyne, Humber and Thames, the Clyde and Severn

being the most remarkable exceptions to this direction. The whole extent

of country from which a river receives its supply of water, by brooks

and rivulets, is termed its basin, because a region generally bounded by

a rim of high lands, beyond which the waters are drained off into

another channel. The basin of a superior river includes those of all its

tributary streams. It is sometimes the case, however, that the basins of

rivers are not divided by any elevations, but pass into each other, a

connection subsisting between their waters. This is the case with the

hydro-graphical regions of the Amazon and Orinoco, the Cassiaquaire, a

branch of the latter, joining the Rio Negro, an affluent of the former.

The vague rumors that were at first afloat respecting this singular

circumstance, were treated by most geographers with discredit, till

Humboldt ascertained its reality, by proceeding from the Rio Negro to

the Orinoco, along the natural canal of the Cassiaquaire.

Rivers have a thousand points of similarity, and of discordance. Some

exhibit an unbroken sheet of water through their whole course, while

others are diversified by numerous islands. This peculiarly

characterizes the vast streams of the American continent, and

contributes greatly to their scenical effect, of which our illustration

gives us an example, selected from the beautiful Susquehanna, the

largest Atlantic river of the United States. The St. Lawrence, soon

after issuing from the Lake Ontario, presents the most remarkable

instance to be found of islands occurring in a river channel. It is here

called the Lake of the Thousand Islands. The vast number implied in this

name was considered a vague exaggeration, till the commissioners

employed in fixing the boundary with the United States actually counted

them, and found that they amounted to 1692. They are of every imaginable

size, shape, and appearance; some barely visible, others covering

fifteen acres; but in general their broken outline presents the most

picturesque combinations of wood and rock. The navigator in steering

through them sees an ever-changing scene, which reminds an elegant

writer of the Happy Islands in the Vision of Mirza. Sometimes he is

inclosed in a narrow channel; then he discovers before him twelve

openings, like so many noble rivers; and soon after a spacious lake

seems to surround him on every side. River-islands are due to original

surface inequalities, but many are formed by the arrest and gradual

accretion of the alluvial matter brought down by the waters.

[Illustration: =The Susquehanna.=]

There is great diversity in the length of rivers, the force of their

current, and the mass and complexion of their waters; but their peculiar

character is obviously dependent upon that of the country in which they

are situated. As it is the property of water to follow a descent, and

the greatest descent that occurs in its way, the course of a river

points out generally the direction in which the land declines, and the

degree of the declination determines in part the velocity of its

current, for the rapidity of the stream is influenced both by its volume

of water and the declivity of its channel. Hence one river often pours

its tide into another without causing any perceptible enlargement of its

bed, the additional waters being disposed of by the creation of a more

rapid current, for large masses of water travel with a swift and

powerful impetus over nearly a level surface, upon which smaller rivers

would have only a languid flow. In general, the fall of the great

streams is much less than what would be supposed from a glance at their

currents. The rapid Rhine has only a descent of four feet in a mile

between Shaffhausen and Strasburg, and of two feet between the latter

place and Schenckenschauts; and the mighty Amazon, whose collision with

the tide of the Atlantic is of the most tremendous description, falls

but four yards in the last 700 miles of its course, or one-fourth of an

inch in 1¼ mile. In one part of its channel the Seine descends one foot

in a mile; the Loire, between Pouilly and Briare, one foot in 7,500, and

between Briare and Orleans one foot in 13,596; the Ganges, only nine

inches; and, for 400 miles from its termination, the Paraguay has but a

descent of one thirty-third of an inch in the whole distance. The fall

of rivers is very unequally distributed; such, for instance, as the

difference of the Rhine below Cologne and above Strasburg. The greatest

fall is commonly experienced at their commencement, though there are

some striking exceptions to this. The whole descent of the Shannon, from

its source in Loch Allen to the sea, a distance of 234 miles, is 146

feet, which is seven inches and a fraction in a mile, but it falls 97

feet in a distance of 15 miles, between Killaloe and Limerick, and

occupies the remaining 219 miles in descending 49 feet. When water has

once received an impulse by following a descent, the simple pressure of

the particles upon each other is sufficient to keep it in motion long

after its bed has lost all inclination. The chief effect of the absence

of a declivity is a slower movement of the stream, and a more winding

course, owing to the aqueous particles being more susceptible of

divergence from their original direction by impediments in their path.

Hence the tortuous character of the water-courses, chiefly arising from

the streams meeting with levels after descending inclined planes, which

so slackens their speed that they are easily diverted from a

right-onward direction by natural obstacles, to which the force of their

current is inferior. The Mæander was famed in classical antiquity for

its mazy course, descending from the pastures of Phrygia, with many

involutions, into the vine-clad province of the Carians, which it

divided from Lydia near a plain properly called the Mæandrian, where the

bed was winding in a remarkable degree. From the name of this river we

have our word meandering, as applied to erratic streams.

[Illustration: =The Rhine at Oberweisel.=]

This circumstance increases prodigiously the extent of their channels,

and renders their navigation tedious, but the absence of that velocity

of the current which would make it difficult is a compensation, while a

larger portion of the earth enjoys the benefit of their waters. The

sources of the Mississippi are only 1250 miles from its mouth, following

a straight line, but 3200 miles, pursuing its real path; and the Forth

is actually three times the length of a straight line drawn from its

rise to its termination. The rivers which flow through flat alluvial

plains frequently exhibit great sinuosities, their waters returning

nearly to the same point after an extensive tour. The Moselle, after a

curved course of seventeen miles, returns to within a few hundred yards

of the same spot; and a steamer on the Mississippi, after a sail of

twenty-five or thirty miles, is brought round again, almost within hail

of the place where it was two or three hours before. In high floods, the

waters frequently force a passage through the isthmuses which are thus

formed, converting the peninsulas into islands, and forming a nearer

route for the navigator to pursue. By the “grand cut off” on the

Mississippi, vessels now pass from one point to another in half a mile,

in order to accomplish which they had formerly a distance of twenty

miles to traverse.

Rivers receive a peculiar impress from the geological character of the

districts through which they flow. Those of primary or transition

countries, where sudden declivities abound, are bold and rapid streams,

with steep and high banks, and usually pure waters, owing to the surface

not being readily abraded, generally emptying themselves by a single

mouth which is deep and unobstructed. The streams of secondary and

alluvial districts flow with slow but powerful current, between low and

gradually descending banks, which, being composed of soft rocks or

alluvial grounds, are easily worn away by the waters, and hence great

changes are effected in their channels, and a peculiar color is given to

their streams by the earthy particles with which they are charged. Many

rivers have their names from this last circumstance. The Rio Negro, or

Black River, which flows into the Amazon, is so called on account of the

dark color of its waters, which are of an amber hue wherever it is

shallow, and dark brown wherever the depth is great. The names of the

two great streams which unite to form the Nile, the Bahr-el-Abiad, or

White River, from the Mountains of the Moon, and the Bahr-el-Azrek, or

Blue River, from Abyssinia, refer to the color which they receive from

the quantity of earth with which they are impregnated. The united

rivers, for some distance after their junction, preserve their colors

distinct. This is the case likewise with the Rhine and the Moselle; the

St. Lawrence and the Ottawa. The Upper Mississippi is a transparent

stream, but assumes the color of the Missouri upon joining that river,

the mud of which is as copious as the water can hold in suspension, and

of a white soapy hue. The Ohio brings into it a flood of a greenish

color. The bright and dark red waters of the Arkansas and Red River

afterward diminish the whiteness derived from the Missouri, and the

volume of the Lower Mississippi bears along a tribute of vegetable soil,

collected from the most distant quarters, and of the most various

kind--the marl of the Rocky and the clay of the Black Mountains--the

earth of the Alleghanies--and the red-loam washed from the hills at the

sources of the Arkansas and the Red River. Mr. Lyell states that water

flowing at the rate of three inches per second will tear up fine clay;

six inches per second, fine sand; twelve inches per second, fine gravel;

and three feet per second, stones of the size of an egg. He remarks,

likewise, that the rapidity at the bottom of a stream is everywhere less

than in any part above it, and is greatest at the surface; and that in

the middle of the stream the particles at the top move swifter than

those at the sides. The ease with which running water bears along large

quantities of sand, gravel, and pebbles, ceases to surprise when we

consider that the specific gravity of rocks in water is much less than

in air.

It is chiefly in primary and transition countries that the rivers

exhibit those sudden descents, which pass under the general denomination

of falls, and form either cataracts or rapids. They occur in secondary

regions, but more rarely, and the descent is of a more gentle

description. The falls are generally found in the passage of streams

from the primitive to the other formations. Thus the line which divides

the primitive and alluvial formations on the coast of the United States,

is marked by the falls or rapids of its rivers, while none occur in the

alluvial below. Cataracts are formed by the descent of a river over a

precipice which is perpendicular, or nearly so, and depend, for their

sublimity, upon the height of the fall, and the magnitude of the stream.

Rapids are produced by the occurrence of a steeply-inclined plane, over

which the flood rushes with great impetuosity, yet without being

projected over a precipice. The great rivers of England--the Thames,

Trent and Severn--exhibit no example of either cataract or rapid, but

pursue a generally even and noiseless course; though near their sources,

while yet mere brooks and rivulets, most of our home streams present

these features in a very miniature manner. A true rapid occurs in the

course of the Shannon, just above Limerick, where the river, forty feet

deep, and three hundred yards wide, pours its body of water through and

above a congregation of huge rocks and stones, extending nearly half a

mile, and becomes quite unnavigable. Inglis had never heard of this

rapid before arriving in its neighborhood; but ranks it in grandeur and

effect, above either the Welsh water-falls or the Geisbach in

Switzerland. The river Adige, in the Tyrol, near Meran, rushes, with

resistless force and deafening noise, down a descent nearly a mile in

length, between quiet, green, pastoral banks, presenting one of the most

magnificent spectacles to be met with in Europe. The celebrated

cataracts of the Nile are, more properly speaking, rapids, as there is

no considerable perpendicular fall of the river; but for a hundred miles

at Wady Hafel, the second cataract reckoning upward, there is a

succession of steep descents, and a multitude of rocky islands, among

which the river dashes amid clouds of foam, and is tossed in perpetual

eddies. It is along the course of the American rivers, however, that the

most sublime and imposing rapids are found, rendered so by the great

volumes of water contained in their channels. The more remarkable are

those of the St. Lawrence, the chief of which, called the Coteau de Luc,

the Cedars, the Split Rock, and the Cascades, occur in succession for

about nine miles above Montreal and the junction of the Ottawa. At the

rapid of St. Anne, on the latter river, the more devout of the Canadian

_voyageurs_ are accustomed to land, and implore the protection of the

patron saint on their perilous expeditions, before a large cross at the

village that bears her name. The words of a popular song have

familiarized English ears with this habit of the hardy boatmen:--

“Faintly as tolls the evening chime,

Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.

Soon as the woods on shore look dim,

We’ll sing at St. Ann’s our parting hymn.

Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,

The Rapids are near, and the daylight’s past.

“Utawa’s tide! this trembling moon

Shall see us float over thy surges soon.

Saint of this green isle hear our prayers,

Oh, grant us cool heavens and favoring airs.

Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,

The Rapids are near, and the daylight’s past.”

[Illustration: =Kaaterskill Falls.=]

The Kaaterskill Falls here represented are celebrated in America for

their picturesque beauty. The waters which supply these cascades flow

from two small lakes in the Catskill Mountains, on the west bank of the

Hudson. The upper cascade falls one hundred and seventy-five feet, and a

few rods below the second pours its waters over a precipice eighty feet

high, passing into a picturesque ravine, the banks of which rise

abruptly on each side to the height of a thousand to fifteen hundred

feet.

In the grandeur of their cataracts, also, the American rivers far

surpass those of other countries, though several falls on the ancient

continent have a greater perpendicular height, and are magnificent

objects. In Sweden, the Gotha falls about 130 feet at Trolhetta, the

greatest fall in Europe of the same body of water. The river is the only

outlet of a lake, a hundred miles in length and fifty in breadth, which

receives no fewer than twenty-four rivers; the water glides smoothly on,

increasing in rapidity, but quite unruffled, until it reaches the verge

of the precipice; it then darts over it in one broad sheet, which is

broken by some jutting rocks, after a descent of about forty feet. Here

begins a spectacle of great grandeur. The moving mass is tossed from

rock to rock, now heaving itself up in yellow foam, now boiling and

tossing in huge eddies, growing whiter and whiter in its descent, till

completely fretted into one beautiful sea of snowy froth, the spray,

rising in dense clouds, hides the abyss into which the torrent dashes;

but when momentarily cleared away by the wind, a dreadful gulf is

revealed, which the eye cannot fathom. Upon the arrival of a visitor at

Trolhetta, a log of wood is sent down the fall, by persons who expect a

trifle for the exhibition. It displays the resistless power of the

element. The log, which is of gigantic dimensions, is tossed like a

feather upon the surface of the water, and is borne to the foot almost

in an instant. In Scotland, the falls of its rivers are seldom of great

size; but the rocky beds over which they roar and dash in foam and

spray--the dark, precipitous glens into which they rush--and the

frequent wildness of the whole scenery around, are compensating

features. The most remarkable instances are the Upper and Lower Falls of

Foyers, near Loch Ness. At the upper fall, the river precipitates

itself, at three leaps, down as many precipices, whose united depth is

about 200 feet; but, at the lower, it makes a descent at once of 212

feet, and, after heavy rains, exhibits a grand appearance. The fall of

the Rhine at Schaffhausen is only 70 feet; but the great mass of its

waters, 450 feet in breadth, gives it an imposing character. The

Teverone, near Tivoli, a comparatively small stream, is precipitated

nearly 100 feet; and the Velino, near Terni, falls 300, which is

generally considered the finest of the European cataracts. This “hell of

waters,” as Byron calls it, is of artificial construction. A channel was

dug by the Consul Carius Dentatus in the year 274 B. C., to convey the

waters to the precipice, but having become filled up by a deposition of

calcareous matter, it was widened and deepened by order of Pope Paul IV.

“I saw,” says Byron, “the Cascata del Marmore of Terni twice at

different periods; once from the summit of the precipice, and again from

the valley below. The lower view is far to be preferred, if the traveler

has time for one only; but in any point of view, either from above or

below, it is worth all the cascades and torrents of Switzerland put

together.”

[Illustration: =Falls of Trolhetta.=]

In the Alpine highlands, the Evanson descends upward of 1200 feet, and

the Orco forms a vertical cataract of 2400; but in these instances the

quantity of water is small, and the chief interest is produced by the

height from which it falls. At Staubbach, in the Swiss Canton of Berne,

a small stream descends 1400 feet, and is shattered almost entirely into

spray before it reaches the bottom.

[Illustration: =Falls of Terni.=]

Waterfalls appear upon their grandest scale in the American continent.

They are not remarkable for the height of the precipices over which they

descend, or for the picturesque forms of the rocky cliffs amid which

they are precipitated, like the Alpine cataracts; but while these are

usually the fall of streamlets merely, those of the western world are

the rush of mighty rivers. The majority are in the northern part of the

continent, but the greatest vertical descent of a considerable body of

water is in the southern, at the Falls of Tequendama, where the river of

Funza disembogues from the elevated plain or valley of Santa Fe de

Bogota. This valley is at a greater height above the level of the sea

than the summit of the great St. Bernard, and is surrounded by lofty

mountains. It appears to have been formerly the bed of an extensive

lake, whose waters were drained off when the narrow passage was forced

through which the Funza river now descends from the elevated inclosed

valley toward the bed of the Rio Magdalena. Respecting this physical

occurrence Gonzalo Ximenes de Quesada, the conqueror of the country,

found the following tradition disseminated among the people, which

probably contains a stratum of truth invested with a fabulous legend. In

remote times the inhabitants of Bogota were barbarians, living without

religion, laws, or arts. An old man on a certain occasion suddenly

appeared among them of a race unlike that of the natives, and having a

long, bushy beard. He instructed them in the arts, but he brought with

him a malignant, although beautiful woman, who thwarted all his

benevolent enterprises. By her magical power she swelled the current of

the Funza, and inundated the valley, so that most of the inhabitants

perished, a few only having found refuge in the neighboring mountains.

The aged visitor then drove his consort from the earth, and she became

the moon. He next broke the rocks that inclosed the valley on the

Tequendama side, and by this means drained off the waters. Then he

introduced the worship of the sun, appointed two chiefs, and finally

withdrew to a valley, where he lived in the exercise of the most austere

penitence during 2000 years. The Tequendama cataract is remarkably

picturesque. The river a little above it is 144 feet in breadth, but at

the crevice it is much narrower. The height of the fall is 574 feet, and

the column of vapor that rises from it is visible from Santa Fe at the

distance of 17 miles. At the foot of the precipice the vegetation has a

totally different appearance from that at the summit, and the traveler,

following the course of the river, passes from a plain in which the

cereal plants of Europe are cultivated, and which abounds with oaks,

elms, and other trees resembling those of the temperate regions of the

northern hemisphere, and enters a country covered with palms, bananas,

and sugar-canes.

In Northern America, however, we find the greatest of all cataracts,

that of the Niagara, the sublimest object on earth, according to the

general opinion of all travelers. More varied magnificence is displayed

by the ocean, and giant masses of the Andes and Himalaya; but no single

spectacle is so striking and wonderful as the descent of this sea-like

flood, the overplus of four extensive lakes. The river is about

thirty-three miles in length, extending from lake Erie to lake Ontario,

and three-quarters of a mile wide at the fall. There is nothing in the

neighboring country to indicate the vicinity of the astonishing

phenomenon here exhibited. Leaving out lake Erie, the traveler passes

over a level though somewhat elevated plain, through which the river

flows tranquilly, bordered by fertile and beautiful banks; but soon a

deep, awful sound, gradually growing louder, breaks upon the ear--the

roar of the distant cataract. Yet the eye discerns no sign of the

spectacle about to be disclosed until a mile from it, when the water

begins to ripple, and is broken into a series of dashing and foaming

rapids. After passing these, the river becomes more tranquil, though

rolling onward with tremendous force, till it reaches the brink of the

great precipice. The fall itself is divided into two unequal portions by

the intervention of Goat Island, a façade near 1000 feet in breadth. The

one on the British side of the river, called the Horse-Shoe fall, from

its shape, according to the most careful estimate, is 2100 feet broad,

and 149 feet 9 inches high. The other or American fall is 1140 feet

broad, and 164 feet high. The former is far superior to the latter in

grandeur. The great body of the water passes over the precipice with

such force, that it forms a curved sheet which strikes the stream below

at the distance of 50 feet from the base, and some travelers have

ventured between the descending flood and the rock itself. Hannequin

asserts that four coaches might be driven abreast through this awful

chasm. The quantity of water rolling over these falls has been estimated

at 670,250 tons per minute. It is impossible to appreciate the scene

created by this immense torrent, apart from its site.

“The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain,

While I look upward to thee. It would seem

As if God poured thee from his hollow hand,

And hung his bow upon thine awful front;

And spoke in that loud voice which seemed to him

Who dwelt in Patmos for his Saviour’s sake,

The sound of many waters; and had bade

Thy flood to chronicle the ages back,

And notch his centuries in the eternal rocks.

Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we,

That hear the question of that voice sublime?

Oh! what are all the notes that ever rung

From war’s vain trumpet, by thy thundering side?

Yea, what is all the riot man can make,

In his short life, to thy unceasing roar?

And yet, Bold Babbler! what art thou to Him,

Who drowned a world, and heaped the waters far

Above its loftiest mountains?--a light wave,

That breaks, and whispers of its Maker’s might.”

It has been remarked that at Niagara, several objects composing the

chief beauty of other celebrated water-falls are altogether wanting.

There are no cliffs reaching to an extraordinary height, crowned with

trees, or broken into picturesque and varied forms; for, though one of

the banks is wooded, the forest scenery on the whole is not imposing.

The accompaniments, in short, rank here as nothing. There is merely the

display, on a scale elsewhere unrivaled, of the phenomena appropriate to

this class of objects. There is the spectacle of a falling sea, the eye

filled almost to its utmost reach by the rushing of mighty waters. There

is the awful plunge into the abyss beneath, and the reverberation thence

in endless lines of foam, and in numberless whirlpools and eddies; there

are clouds of spray that fill the whole atmosphere, amid which the most

brilliant rainbows, in rapid succession, glitter and disappear; above

all, there is the stupendous sound, of the peculiar character of which

all writers, with their utmost efforts, seem to have vainly attempted to

convey an idea. Bouchette describes it as “grand, commanding and

majestic, filling the vault of heaven when heard in its fullness”--as “a

deep, round roar, and alternation of muffled and open sounds, to which

there is nothing exactly corresponding.” Captain Hall compares it to the

ceaseless, rumbling, deep-monotonous sound of a vast mill, which, though

not very practical, is generally considered as approaching near to the

reality. Dr. Reed states, “it is not like the sea; nor like the thunder;

nor like any thing I have heard. There is no roar, no rattle; nothing

sharp or angry in its tones; it is deep, awful--One.” The diffusion of

the noise varies according to the state of the atmosphere and the

direction of the wind, but it may be heard under favorable circumstances

through a distance of forty-six miles: at Toronto, across Lake Ontario.

To the geologist the Niagara falls have interest, on account of the

movement which it is supposed has taken place in their position. The

force of the waters appears to be wearing away the rock over which they

rush, and gradually shifting the cataract higher up the river. It is

conceived that by this process it has already receded in the course of

ages through a distance of more than seven miles, from a point between

Queenstown and Lewiston, to which the high level of the country

continues. The rate of procession is fixed, according to an estimate,

mentioned by Mr. M’Gregor, at eighteen feet during the thirty years

previous to 1810; but he adds another more recent, which raises it to

one hundred and fifty feet in fifty years.

The following account of a visit to the Falls of Niagara has been

communicated to us by Mr. N. Gould. It forms a part of his unpublished

_Notes on America and Canada_.

“My attention had been kept alive, and I was all awake to the sound of

the cataract; but, though within a few miles, I heard nothing. A cloud

hanging nearly steady over the forest, was pointed out to me as the

‘spray cloud;’ at length we drove up to Forsyth’s hotel, and the mighty

Niagara was full in view. My first impression was that of

disappointment--a sour sort of deep disappointment, causing, for a few

minutes, a kind of vacuity; but, while I mused, I began to take in the

grandeur of the scene. This impression is not unusual on viewing objects

beyond the ready catch of the senses; Stonehenge and St. Paul’s

cathedral seldom excite much surprise at first sight; the enormous

Pyramids, I have heard travelers say, strike with awe and silence on the

near approach, but require time to appreciate. The fact is, that the

first view of Niagara is a bad one; and the eye, in this situation, can

comprehend but a _small_ part of the wonderful scene. You look _down_

upon the cataract instead of _up_ to it; the confined channel, and the

depth of it, prevent the astounding roar which was anticipated; and, at

the same time, the eye wanders midway between the water and the cloud

formed by the spray, which it sees not. After a quarter of an hour’s

gaze, I felt a kind of fascination--a desire to find myself gliding into

eternity in the centre of the Grand Fall, over which the bright green

water appears to glide, like oil, without the least commotion. I

approached nearly to the edge of the ‘Table Rock,’ and looked into the

abyss. A lady from Devonshire had just retired from the spot; I was

informed she had approached its very edge, and sat with her feet over

the edge--an awful and dangerous proceeding. Having viewed the spot, and

made myself acquainted with some of its localities, I returned to the

hotel (Forsyth’s) which, as well as its neighboring rival, is admirably

situated for the view; from my chamber-window I looked directly upon it,

and the first night I could find but little sleep from the noise. Every

view I took increased my admiration; and I began to think that the other

Falls I had seen were, in comparison, like runs from kettle-spouts on

hot plates. I remained in this interesting neighborhood five days, and

saw the Fall in almost every point of view. From its extent, and the

angular line it forms, the eye cannot embrace it all at once; and,

probably, from this cause it is that no drawing has ever yet done

justice to it. The grandest view, in my opinion, is at the bottom, and

close to it, on the British side, where it is awful to look up through

the spray at the immense body as it comes pouring over, deafening you

with its roar; the lighter spray, at a considerable distance, hangs

poised in the air like an eternal cloud. The next best view is on the

American side, to reach which you cross in a crazy ferry-boat: the

passage is safe enough, but the current is strongly agitated. Its depth,

as near to the falls as can be approached, is from 180 to 200 feet. The

water, as it passes over the rock, where it is not whipped into foam, is

a most beautiful sea-green, and it is the same at the bottom of the

Falls. The foam, which floats away in large bodies, feels and looks like

salt water after a storm: it has a strong fishy smell. The river, at the

ferry, is 1170 feet wide. There is a great quantity of fish,

particularly sturgeon and bass, as well as eels; the latter creep up

against the rock under the Falls, as if desirous of finding some mode of

surmounting the heights. Some of the visitors go _under_ the Falls, an

undertaking more curious than pleasant. Three times did I go down to the

house, and once paid for my guide and _bathing_ dress, when something

occurred to prevent me. The lady before alluded to performed the

ceremony, and it is recorded, with her name, in the book, that she went

to the farthest extent that the guides can or will proceed. It is

described as like being under a heavy shower-bath, with a tremendous

whirlwind driving your breath from you, and causing a peculiarly

unpleasant sensation at the chest; the footing over the _débris_ being

slippery, the darkness barely visible, and the roar almost deafening. In

the passage you kick against eels, many of them unwilling to move, even

when touched: they appear to be endeavoring to work their way up the

stream.”

Supposing the cataract to be receding at the rate of fifty yards in

forty years, as it is stated by Captain Hall, the ravine which extends

from thence to Queenstown, a distance of seven miles, will have required

nearly ten thousand years for its excavation; and, at the same rate, it

will require upward of thirty-five thousand years for the falls to

recede to Lake Erie, a distance of twenty-five miles. The draining of

the lake, which is not more than ten or twelve fathoms in average depth,

must then take place, causing a tremendous deluge by the sudden escape

of its waters. In addition to the gradual erosion of the limestone,

which forms the bed of the Niagara at and above the falls, huge masses

of the rock are occasionally detached by the undermining of the soft

shale upon which it rests. This effect is produced by the action of the

spray powerfully thrown back upon the stratum of shale; and hence has

arisen the great hollow between the descending flood and the precipice.

An immense fragment fell on the 28th of December, 1828, with a crash

that shook the glass vessels in the adjoining inn, and was felt at the

distance of two miles from the spot. By this disintegration, the angular

or horse-shoe form of the great fall was lessened, and its grandeur

heightened by the line of the torrent becoming more horizontal. A

similar dislocation had occurred in the year 1818; and the aspect of the

precipice always so threatening, owing to the wearing away of the lower

stratum, as to render it an affair of some real hazard to venture

between the falling waters and the rock. Miss Martineau undertook the

enterprise, clad in the oil-skin costume used for the expedition, and

thus remarks concerning it:--“A hurricane blows up from the cauldron; a

deluge drives at you from all parts; and the noise of both wind and

waters, reverberated from the cavern, is inconceivable. Our path was

sometimes a wet ledge of rock, just broad enough to allow one person at

a time to creep along: in other places we walked over heaps of

fragments, both slippery and unstable. If all had been dry and quiet, I

might probably have thought this path above the boiling basin dangerous,

and have trembled to pass it; but, amidst the hubbub of gusts and

floods, it appeared so firm a footing, that I had no fear of slipping

into the cauldron. From the moment that I perceived we were actually

behind the cataract, and not in a mere cloud of spray, the enjoyment was

intense. I not only saw the watery curtain before me like tempest-driven

snow, but, by momentary glances, could see the crystal roof of this most

wonderful of Nature’s palaces. The precise point where the flood quitted

the rock was marked by a gush of silvery light, which of course was

brighter where the waters were shooting forward, than below, where they

fell perpendicularly.” There have been several hair-breadth escapes, and

not a few fatal accidents, at Niagara, the relation of which is highly

illustrative of Indian magnanimity. Tradition preserves the memory of

the warrior of the red race, who got entangled in the rapids above the

falls, and, seeing his fate inevitable, calmly resigned himself to it,

and sat singing in his canoe till buried by the torrent in the abyss to

which it plunges. The celebrated Chateaubriand narrowly escaped a

similar fate. On his arrival he had repaired to the fall, having the

bridle of his horse twisted round his arm. While he was stopping to look

down, a rattle-snake stirred among the neighboring bushes. The horse was

startled, reared, and ran back toward the abyss. He could not disengage

his arm from the bridle; and the horse, more and more frightened,

dragged him after him. His fore-legs were all but off the ground; and,

squatting on the brink of the precipice, he was upheld merely by the

bridle. He gave himself up for lost; when the animal, astonished at this

new danger, threw itself forward with a pirouette, and sprang to the

distance of ten feet from the edge of the abyss.

The erosive action of running water, which is urging the Niagara Falls

toward Lake Erie, is strikingly exhibited by several rivers which

penetrate through rocks and beds of compact strata, and have either

scooped out their own passage entirely, or widened and deepened original

tracks and fissures in the surface, into enormous wall-sided valleys.

The current of the Simeto--the largest Sicilian river round the base of

Etna--was crossed by a great stream of lava about two centuries and a

half ago; but, since that era, the river has completely triumphed over

the barrier of homogeneous hard blue rock that intruded into its

channel, and cut a passage through it from fifty to a hundred feet

broad, and from forty to fifty deep. The formation of the magnificent

rock-bridge which overhangs the course of the Cedar creek, one of the

natural wonders of Virginia, is very probably due in part to the solvent

and abrading power of the stream. This sublime curiosity is 213 feet

above the river, 60 feet wide, 90 long, and the thickness of the mass at

the summit of the arch is about 40 feet. The bridge has a coating of

earth, which gives growth to several large trees. To look down from its

edge into the chasm inspires a feeling answering to the words of

Shakspeare:

“Come on, sir; here’s the place:--stand still. How fearful

And dizzy ’tis, to cast one’s eyes so low!”

Few have resolution enough to walk to the parapet, in order to peep over

it. But if the view from the top is painful and intolerable, that from

below is pleasing in an equal degree. The beauty, elevation, and

lightness of the arch, springing as it were up to heaven, present a

striking instance of the graceful in combination with the sublime. This

great arch of rock gives the name of Rock-bridge to the county in which

it is situated, and affords a public and commodious passage over a

valley which cannot be crossed elsewhere for a considerable distance.

Under the arch, thirty feet from the water, the lower part of the

letters G. W. may be seen, carved in the rock. They are the initials of

Washington, who, when a youth, climbed up hither, and left this record

of his adventure. We have several examples of the disappearance of

rivers, and their emergence after pursuing for some distance a

subterranean course. In these cases a barrier of solid rock, overlaying

a softer stratum has occurred in their path; and the latter has been

gradually worn away by the waters, and a passage been constructed

through it. Thus the Tigris, about twenty miles from its source, meets

with a mountainous ridge at Diglou, and, running under it, flows out at

the opposite side. The Rhone, also, soon after coming within the French

frontier, passes under ground for about a quarter of a mile. Milton, in

one of his juvenile poems, speaks of the

“Sullen Mole, that runneth underneath;”

and Pope calls it, after him, the

“Sullen Mole, that hides his diving flood.”

[Illustration: =Natural Bridge, Virginia.=]

The Hamps and the Manifold, likewise--two small streams in

Derbyshire--flow in separate subterraneous channels for several miles,

and emerge within fifteen yards of each other in the grounds of Ilam

Hall. That these are really the streams which are swallowed up at points

several miles distant has been frequently proved, by watching the exit

of various light bodies that have been absorbed at the swallows. At

their emergence, the waters of the two rivers differ in temperature

about two degrees--an obvious proof that they do not anywhere

intermingle. On the side of the hill, which is overshadowed with

spreading trees, just above the spot where the streams break forth into

daylight, there is a rude grotto, scooped out of the rock, in which

Congreve is said to have written his comedy of the “Old Bachelor,” and a

part of his “Mourning Bride.” In Spain, a similar phenomenon is

exhibited by the Guadiana; but it occurs under different circumstances.

It disappears for about seven leagues--an effect of the absorbing power

of the soil--the intervening space consisting of sandy and marshy

grounds, across which the road to Andalusia passes by a long bridge or

causeway. The river reappears with greater power, after its dispersion,

at the Ojos de Guadiana--the Eyes of the stream.

[_To be continued._

* * * * *

=REMEMBERED ONES.=

=BY J. HUNT, JR.=

Not those who’ve trod the martial field,

And led to arms a battling host,

And at whose name “the world grew pale,”

Will be in time remembered most:

But they who’ve walked the “paths of peace,”

And gave their aid to deeds t’were just,

Shall live for aye, on Mem’ry’s page,

When heroes sleep in unknown dust.

* * * * *

=THE GAME OF THE MONTH.=

=BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF “FRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS,”

“FISH AND FISHING,” ETC.=

[Illustration]

=THE BITTERN. AMERICAN BITTERN.= _Ardea Minor sive Lentiginos._

=THE INDIAN HEN. THE QUAWK. THE DUNKADOO.=

This, though a very common and extremely beautiful bird, with an

exceedingly extensive geographic range, is the object of a very general

and perfectly inexplicable prejudice and dislike, common, it would seem,

to all classes. The gunner never spares it, although it is perfectly

inoffensive; and although the absurd prejudice, to which I have alluded,

causes him to cast it aside, when killed, as uneatable carrion; its

flesh being in reality very delicate and juicy, and still held in high

repute in Europe; while here one is regarded very much in the light of a

cannibal, as I have myself experienced, for venturing to eat it. The

farmer and the boatman stigmatize it by a filthy and indecent name. The

cook turns up her nose at it, and throws it to the cat; for the dog,

wiser than his master, declines it--not as unfit to eat, but as game,

and therefore meat for his masters.

Now the Bittern would not probably be much aggrieved at being voted

carrion, provided his imputed carrion-_dom_, as Willis would probably

designate the condition, procured him immunity from the gun.

But to be shot first and thrown away afterward, would seem to be the

very excess of that condition described by the common phrase of adding

injury to insult.

Under this state of mingled persecution and degradation, it must be the

Bittern’s best consolation that, in the days of old, when the wine of

Auxerre, now the common drink of republican Yankeedom, which annually

consumes of it, or in lieu of it, more than grows of it annually in all

France, was voted by common consent the drink of kings--he, with his

congener and compatriot the Heronschaw, was carved by knightly hands,

upon the noble deas under the royal canopy, for gentle dames and

peerless damoiselles; nay, was held in such repute, that it was the wont

of prowest chevaliers, when devoting themselves to feats of emprise most

perilous, to swear “before God, the bittern, and the ladies!” an honor

to which no quadruped, and but two plumy bipeds, other than himself, the

heron and the peacock, were admitted.

Those were the days, before gunpowder, “grave of chivalry,” was taught

to Doctor Faustus by the Devil, who did himself no good by the

indoctrination, but exactly the reverse, since war is thereby rendered

less bloody, and much more uncruel--the days when no booming duck-gun

keeled him over with certain and inglorious death, as he flapped up with

his broad vans beating the cool autumnal air, and his long,

greenish-yellow legs pendulous behind him, from out of the dark

sheltering water-flags by the side of the brimful river, or the dark

woodland tarn; but when the cheery yelp of a cry of feathery-legged

spaniels aroused him from his arundinaceous, which is interpreted by

moderns reedy, lair; when the triumphant whoop of the jovial falconers

saluted his uprising; and when he was done to death right chivalrously,

with honorable law permitted to him, as to the royal stag, before the

long-winged Norway falcons, noblest of all the fowls of air, were

unhooded and cast off to give him gallant chase.

If, when struck down from his pride of place by the crook-beaked

blood-hound of the air, his legs were mercilessly broken, and his long

bill thrust into the ground, that the falcon might dispatch him without

fear of consequences, and at leisure, it was doubtless a source of pride

to him, as to the tortured Indian at the stake, to be so tormented,

since the amount of the torture was commensurate with the renown of the

tortured; besides--for which the Bittern was, of course, truly

grateful--it was his high and extraordinary prerogative to have his legs

broken as aforesaid, and his long bill thrust into the ground, by the

fair hand of the loveliest lady present--thrice blessed Bittern of the

days of old.

A very different fate, in sooth, from being riddled with a charge of

double Bs from a rusty flint-lock Queen Anne’s musket, poised by the

horny paws of John Verity, and then ignobly cast to fester in the sun,

among the up-piled eel-skins, fish-heads, king-crabs, and the like, with

which, in lieu of garden-patch or well-trained rose-bush, the south-side

Long Islander ornaments his front-door yard, rejoicing in the effluvia

of the said decomposed piscine _exuviæ_, which he regards as

“considerable hullsome,” beyond Sabæan odors, Syrian nard, or

frankincense from Araby the blest!

Being eaten _is_ being eaten after all; whether it be by a New Zealand

war-chief, a New York alderman, a peerless lady, or a muck-worm; and I

suppose it feels much the same, after one is once well dead; but, if I

had my choice, I would most prefer to be eaten by the damoiselle of high

degree, and most dislike to be battened on by the alderman, as being

more ravenous and less appreciative than either Zealander or muck-worm.

The Bittern, however, be it said in sober earnest, although like many

other delicious dishes prized by the wiser ancients, but now fallen into

disuse, if not into disrepute--to wit, the heronschaw, the peacock, the

curlew, and the swan--all first-rate dainties to the wise--is a viand

not easily to be beaten, especially if he be sagely cooked in a

well-baked, rich-crusted pastry, with a tender and fat rump-steak in the

bottom of the dish, a beef’s kidney scored to make gravy, a handful of

cloves, salt and black pepper _quantum suff._, a dozen hard-boiled eggs,

and a pint of scalding-hot port wine poured in just before you serve up.

What you say, is perfectly true, my dear madam, cooked in that manner an

old India rubber shoe is good; not only would be, but _is_. But you’d

better believe it, a Bittern is a great deal better. If you don’t

believe me, try the Bittern, and then if you prefer it, adhere to the

shoe.

But now to quit his edible qualifications and turn to his personal

appearance, habits of life, and location, and other characteristics, we

will say of him, in the words of Wilson, that eloquent pioneer in the

natural history of America, that the American Bittern, whom it pleases

the Count de Buffon to designate as _Le Butor de la Baye de Hudson_, “is

another nocturnal species, common to all our sea and river marshes,

though nowhere numerous. It rests all day among the reeds and rushes,

and, unless disturbed, flies and feeds only during the night. In some

places it is called the Indian Hen; on the sea-coast of New Jersey it is

known by the name of _dunkadoo_, a word probably imitative of its common

note. They are also found in the interior, having myself killed one at

the inlet of the Seneca Lake, in October. It utters at times, a hollow,

guttural note among the reeds, but has nothing of that loud, booming

sound for which the European Bittern is so remarkable. This

circumstance, with its great inferiority of size, and difference of

marking, sufficiently prove them to be two distinct species, although,

hitherto, the present has been classed as a mere variety of the European

Bittern. These birds, we are informed, visit Severn river, at Hudson’s

Bay, about the beginning of June; make their nests in swamps, laying

four cinereous green eggs among the long grass. The young are said to

be, at first, black.

“These birds, when disturbed, rise with a hollow _kwa_, and are then

easily shot down, as they fly heavily. Like other night birds, their

sight is most acute during the evening twilight; but their hearing is,

at all times, exquisite.

“The American Bittern is twenty-seven inches long, and three feet four

inches in extent; from the point of the bill to the extremity of the

toes, it measures three feet; the bill is four inches long; the upper

mandible black; the lower, greenish yellow; lores and eyelids, yellow;

irides, bright yellow; upper part of the head, flat, and remarkably

depressed; the plumage there is of a deep blackish brown, long behind

and on the neck, the general color of which is a yellowish brown, shaded

with darker; this long plumage of the neck the bird can throw forward at

will, when irritated, so as to give him a more formidable appearance;

throat, whitish, streaked with deep brown; from the posterior and lower

part of the auriculars, a broad patch of deep black passes diagonally

across the neck, a distinguished characteristic of this species; the

back is deep brown, barred, and mottled with innumerable specks and

streaks of brownish yellow; quills, black, with a leaden gloss, and

tipped with yellowish brown; legs and feet, yellow, tinged with pale

green; middle claw, pectinated; belly, light yellowish brown, streaked

with darker; vent, plain; thighs, sprinkled on the outside with grains

of dark brown; male and female, nearly alike, the latter somewhat less.

According to Bewick, the tail of the European Bittern contains only ten

feathers; the American species has, invariably, twelve. The intestines

measured five feet six inches in length, and were very little thicker

than a common knitting-needle; the stomach is usually filled with fish

or frogs.[1]

“This bird, when fat, is considered by many to be excellent eating.”

It is on the strength of Mr. Wilson’s statement as above that I have

given among the vulgar appellations of this beautiful bird that of

_Dunkadoo_; though I must admit that I never heard him called a

_Dunkadoo_, either on the sea-coast of New Jersey or any where else; and

further must put it on record, that if the sea-coasters of New Jersey

did coin the said melodious word as _imitative of its common note_, they

proved much worse imitators than I have found them in whistling bay

snipe, hawnking Canada geese, or yelping Brant. They might just as well

have called him a _Cockatoo_, while they were about it.

The other name, _Quawk_, by which it _is_ generally known both on the

sea-coast of New Jersey, and every where else where the vernacular of

America prevails, is precisely imitative of the harsh clanging cry with

which he rises from the reeds in which he lurks during the day-time, and

which he utters while disporting himself in queer clumsy gyrations in

mid air, over the twilight marshes in the dusk of summer evenings; and

how nearly _Quawk_ approaches to _Dunkadoo_, that one of my readers who

is the least appreciative of the comparative value of sweet sounds, can

judge as well as I can.

In England the Bittern, who there is possessed of a voice between the

sounds of a bassoon and kettle-drum, with which he makes a most

extraordinary booming noise, which can be heard for miles, if not for

leagues, over the midnight marshes, a noise the most melancholy and

unearthly that ever shot superstitious horror into the bosom of the

belated wayfarer, who is unconscious of its cause, has also been

designated by the country people, from his cry, “the bog-bumper,” and

the “bluttery bump”--but as our bird--the United Stateser, I mean, or

Alleghanian, as the New York Historical Society Associates would

designate their countrymen--Bittern never either booms, blutters or

bumps, but only quawks; a quawk only he must be content to remain,

whether with the sea-coasters of New Jersey, the south-siders of Long

Island, or my friends, the Ojibwas of Lake Huron.

In another respect I cannot precisely agree with the acute and observant

naturalist quoted above, as to its ungregarious nature, since on more

occasions than one I have seen these birds together in such numbers, and

under such circumstances of association, as would certainly justify the

application to them of the word _flock_.

One of these occasions I remember well, as it occurred while

snipe-shooting on the fine marshes about the _riviere aux Canards_ in

Canada West, when several times I saw as many as five or six flush

together from out of the high reeds, as if in coveys; and this was late

in September, so that they could not well have been young broods still

under the parental care.

At another time I saw them in yet greater numbers and acting together,

as it appeared, in a sort of concert. I was walking, I cannot now

recollect why, or to what end, along the marshes on the bank of the

Hackensack river, between the railroad bridge and that very singular

knoll named Snakehill, which rises abruptly out of the meadows like an

island out of the ocean. It was late in the summer evening, the sun had

gone quite down, and a thick gray mist covered the broad and gloomy

river. On a sudden, I was almost startled by a loud quawk close above my

head; and, on looking up, observed a large Bittern wheeling round and

round, now soaring up a hundred feet or more, and then suddenly diving,

or to speak more accurately, _falling_, plump down, with his legs and

wings all relaxed and abroad, precisely as if he had been shot dead,

uttering at the moment of each dive a loud _quawk_. While I was still

engaged in watching his manœuvres, he was answered, and a second Bittern

came floating through the darksome air, and joined his companion.

Another and another followed, and within ten or twelve minutes, there

must have been from fifteen to twenty of these large birds all gamboling

and disporting themselves together, circling round one another in their

gyratory flight, and making the night any thing, certainly, but

melodious by their clamors. What was the meaning of those strange

nocturnal movements I cannot so much as guess; it was not early enough

in the spring to be connected in any way with the amatory propensities

of the birds, or I should have certainly set it down, like the peculiar

flight, the unusual chatter, and the drumming, performed with the

quill-feathers, of the American snipe--_Scolopax Wilsonii_--commonly

known as the English snipe, during the breeding season, as a preliminary

to incubation, nidification, and the reproduction of the species--in a

word, as a sort of bird courtship. The season of the year put a stopper

on that interpretation, and I can conceive none other than that the

_Quawks_ were indulging themselves in an innocent game of romps,

preparatory to the more serious and solemn enjoyment of a fish and frog

supper.

The Bittern, it appears, on the Severn river, emptying into Hudson’s

Bay, makes its nest in the long grass of the marshes, and there lays its

eggs and rears its black, downy young; but several years ago, while

residing at Bangor, in Maine, while on a visit to a neighboring heronry,

situated on an island covered with a dense forest of tall pines and

hemlocks, I observed a pair of Bitterns flying to and fro, from the

tree-tops to the river and back, with fish in their bills, among the

herons which were similarly engaged in the same interesting occupation

of feeding their young. One of these, the male bird, I shot, for the

purpose of settling the fact, and we afterward harried the nest, and

obtained two full-grown young birds, almost ready to fly.

Hence, I presume, that, like many other varieties of birds, the Bittern

adapts his habits, even of nidification, to the purposes of the case,

and that where no trees are to be found, in which he can breed, he makes

the best he can of it, and builds on the ground; but it is my opinion

that his more usual and preferred situation for his nest is in high

trees, as is the case with his congeners, the Green Bittern, the blue

heron, the beautiful white egret, the night heron, which may be all

found breeding together in hundreds among the red cedars on the sea

beach of Cape May. The nest, which I found in Maine, was built of

sticks, precisely similar to that of the herons.

The Bittern is a more nocturnal bird than the heron, and is never seen,

like him, standing motionless as a gray stone, with his long slender

neck recurved, his javelin-like bill poised for the stroke, and his keen

eye piercing the transparent water in search of the passing fry.

All day he rambles about among the tall grass and reeds of the marshes,

sometimes pouncing on an unfortunate frog, a garter-snake, or a mouse,

for, like the blue heron, he is a clever and indefatigable mouser; but

when the evening comes, he bestirs himself, spreads his broad vans,

rises in air, summoning up his comrades by his hoarse clang, and wings

his way over the dim morasses, to the banks of some neighboring rivulet

or pool, where he watches, erect sentinel, for the passing fish,

shiners, small eels, or any of the lesser tribes of the cyprinidæ, and

whom he detects, wo-betide; for the stroke of his sharp-pointed bill,

dealt with Parthian velocity and certitude by the long arrowy neck, is

sure death to the unfortunate.

Mr. Giraud, in his excellent book on the birds of Long Island, thus

speaks of the American Bittern, and that so truthfully and agreeably

withal, that I make no apology for quoting his words at length.

“This species is said to have been the favorite bird of the Indians, and

at this day is known to many persons by the name of “Indian Hen,” or

“Pullet,” though more familiarly by the appellation of “Look-up,” so

called from its habit, when standing on the marshes, of elevating its

head, which position, though probably adopted as a precautionary

measure, frequently leads to its destruction. The gunners seem to have a

strong prejudice against this unoffending bird, and whenever opportunity

offers, seldom allow it to escape. It does not move about much by day,

though it is not strictly nocturnal, but is sometimes seen flying low

over the meadow, in pursuit of short-tailed or meadow-mice, which I have

taken whole from its stomach. It also feeds on fish, frogs, lizards,

etc.; and late in the season, its flesh is in high esteem--but it cannot

be procured in any number except when the marshes are overflowed by

unusually high tides, when it is hunted much after the manner the

gunners adopt when in pursuit of rail. On ordinary occasions, it is

difficult to flush; the instant it becomes aware that it has attracted

the attention of the fowler, it lowers its head and runs quickly through

the grass, and when again seen, is usually in a different direction from

that taken by its pursuer, whose movements it closely watches; and when

thus pursued, seldom exposes more than the head, leading the gunner over

the marsh without giving him an opportunity to accomplish his purpose.

“When wounded, it makes a vigorous resistance, erects the feathers on

the head and neck, extends its wings, opens its bill, and assumes a

fierce expression--will attack the dog, and even its master, and when

defending itself, directs its acute bill at its assailant’s eye. It does

not usually associate with other herons, nor does it seem fond of the

society of its own species. Singly or in pairs it is distributed over

the marshes, but with us it is not abundant.”

The geographical range of this bird is, as I have before stated, very

extensive, extending from the shores of Hudson’s Bay, in the extreme

north, so far south at least as to the Cape of Florida, and probably yet

farther down the coasts of the Mexican gulfs.

That fanciful blockhead, the Count de Buffon--for he was a most almighty

blockhead when he set himself drawing on his imagination for facts--with

his usual eloquent absurdity, describes the species as “exhibiting the

picture of wretchedness, anxiety, and indigence; condemned to struggle

perpetually with misery and want; sickened with the restless cravings of

a famished appetite;” a description so ridiculously untrue, that were it

possible for these birds to comprehend it, it would excite the

risibility of the whole tribe.

If the count had seen the Quawks, as I did, at their high jinks, by the

Hackensack, he would have scarce written such folly; and had he been a

little more of a true philosopher, and thorough naturalist, he would

have comprehended that whatsoever being the Universal Creator hath

created unto any end--to that end he adapted him, not in his physical

structure only, but in his instincts, his appetites, his tastes, his

pleasures and his pains; and that to the patient Bittern, motionless on

his mud-bank, that watch is as charming, as is the swift pursuit of the

small bird to the falcon, of the rabbit to the fox, of the hare to the

greyhound, of all the animals devoured to all the devourers; and that

his frog diet is as dear to _Ardea Lentiginosa_, as his flower dew to

the humming-bird, or his canvas-backs, in the tea-room, to an alderman

of Manhattan.

As for the Bittern starving, eat a fat one in a pie, and you’ll be a

better judge of that probability, than any Buffon ever bred in France;

and as for all the rest--it is just French humbug.

At another opportunity, I may speak of others of this interesting tribe.

Sportsmen rarely go out especially to hunt them, except in boats, as

described by Mr. Giraud, but in snipe and duck-shooting in the marshes

they are constantly flushed and shot.

Pointers and setters will both stand them steadily, and cocking spaniels

chase them with ardor. Their flight is slow and heavy, and their tardy

movements and large size render them an easy mark even to a novice. They

are not a hardy bird, as to the bearing off shot; for the loose texture

of their feathers is more than ordinarily penetrable, and a light charge

of No. 8, will usually bring them down with certainty.

When wing-tipped they fight fiercely, striking with their long beaks at

the eyes of the assailant, whether dog or man, and laying aside

resistance only with their lives.

Early in the autumn is the best time both for shooting him and eating

him, and for the latter purpose he is better than for the former; but

for the noble art of falconry, the mystery of rivers, he is the best of

all. _Avium facile princeps_; easily the Topsawyer of the birds of

flight, unless it be his cousin german heronshaw, whom the princely Dane

knew from a hawk, when the wind was nor-nor-west.

-----

[1] I have taken an entire water-rail from the stomach of the European

Bittern.--Ed.

* * * * *

=WILD ROSES BY THE RIVER GROW.=

=BY CAROLINE F. ORNE.=

Wild roses by the river grow,

And lilies by the stream,

And there I pulled the blossoms fair

In young love’s happy dream.

The lilies bent upon the stem

In many a graceful twine,

But lighter was the slender form

Of her I dreamed was mine.

The wilding-rose hath fairer hues

Than other flowers have known,

But lovelier tints were on the cheek

Of her I called mine own.

I pulled my love the wilding-rose,

The lily-bell so frail,

Sudden the flowers were scattered far,

Reft by the envious gale.

So from my life was reft away

Love’s flower; I dwell alone,

Far severed by relentless fate

From her I called mine own.

Still by the river blooms the rose,

The lily by the stream,

I pull no more the blossoms fair,

Fled is love’s happy dream.

* * * * *

=THE SONG-STREAM.=

=BY ELLEN MORE.=

“My right to love, and thine to know,

The life-stream, in its seaward flow,

Glides, chainless, ’neath the drifted snow.”

Wherever it listeth the free-born wind bloweth:

Wherever it willeth the stream of song floweth:

It revels in twin-light--its lone threads run single;

It passeth calm seas with wild Caspians to mingle.

If blest with true life-mate, in roughest of weather,

They join their glad voices and rush on together;

If lost in a lake whose fair surface is calmer,

It but hides in its bosom to warble there warmer.

If Spring lay a couch all enameled with flowers,

It lingers, enrapt, with the soft rosy hours,

And lists the wood-birds, and the meek insect-hummer,

Through the soft, growing idless of thought-teeming Summer.

And when Fall strews a carpet of brown o’er the meadow

It rests in the dusk of some mountain’s vast shadow;

Laughs out at the vain who look in for their faces,

For it mirrors great groups of the Nations and Races.

Though the Song-stream must cease all its rich, liquid flowing

When Time’s boreal breath o’er cold icebergs is blowing,

While closed the chill surface its depths who shall number,

Or the beats of its heart through the long polar slumber!

For the stream of true song hath a far-reaching mission;

It but gropeth while here, like sick sleeper in vision;

Or like volatile babe, its first word-lessons taking,

It catches faint glimpse of the vastness awaking.

As whither it listeth the free-born wind bloweth,

Wherever God willeth the true Song-stream floweth:

From all Dead Seas it holdeth its crystal wave single,

Till it riseth from earth with sky-dews to commingle.

* * * * *

=MACHINERY, FOR MACHINE MAKING.=

=MESSRS. LEONARD, BROS. MACHINISTS.=

= MATTEAWAN WORKS, FISHKILL, DUCHESS COUNTY, NEW YORK.=

=MACHINERY DEPOT 109 PEARL AND 60 BEAVER STREET, NEW YORK.=

[Illustration: =NO. 1.--IMPROVED POWER PLANER.=]

Of all the leading characteristics of the present age, the most

remarkable, and that which is evolving results of the greatest moment,

is the general prevalence, and almost universal application of

labor-saving machines, of one sort or another, which are gradually but

surely bringing about a thorough revolution in all the forms of human

industry.

Horse-power, man-power, nay! but almost wind and water power also, are

rapidly becoming things almost obsolete and disused; while the giant

might of the labor-imprisoned steam is pressed into services the most

multifarious and diverse; now speeding the mighty ship with a regularity

of time and pace exceeded only, if exceeded, by that of the chronometer;

now whirling along, through the ringing grooves of iron, trains, the

weight of which must be reckoned not by hundreds nor by thousands, but

by tens of thousands of tons, measuring miles by minutes, and almost

annihilating time and space; now drilling the smallest eye of the finest

needle, turning the most delicate thread of the scarce visible screw,

drawing out metallic wires to truly fabulous fineness, or spinning the

sea island cottons of the South to threads, beside which the silkiest

hair of the softest and most feminine of women waxes apparently to the

thickness of a cable.

Henceforth it is apparent that of man, the worker, the skill and the

slight, no more the sinews and the sweat, are to be called into

requisition; that the head, and not the hand, is to be the chief

instrument; that the intellectual and no longer the physical forces are

to predominate, even in the merest labor.

To direct, not to wield, the power is henceforth to be the principal

duty of the mechanic, even of the lowest grade; and in no respect is the

progression, set in movement by the progress of science, more real than

in this--that increased intelligence, increased capacity of

comprehension, increased application to study, is hourly becoming more

and more essential to the working-man of the present and the coming

ages.

To be as strong as an elephant and as patient as a camel, with an

average intelligence inferior probably to that of either animal, will no

longer suffice to the swart smith, who now wields, by simple direction

of a small spring or tiny lever, forces ten thousand times superior to

any power that could be effected by the mightiest of sledge-hammers

swung by the brawniest of human arms.

It is worthy of note, that at all periods, from the first introduction

of labor-saving machinery, fears have been entertained, even by

scientific men and political economists of high order, that the vast

increase of working power would exert an injurious influence against the

human worker; as if production were about to outrun demand and

consumption, so that there would not in the end be enough of labor to be

done to employ those seeking to exercise their industry or ingenuity,

and depending on that exercise for the support of themselves and their

families. Panics have, moreover, arisen among the workmen of the

manufacturing classes, as if the machinery were about to rob them of

their daily labor, whence their daily bread; and the consequences have

been, especially in the large English manufacturing towns, fearful

riots, conflagrations of mills and factories, destruction of much

valuable machinery, the ruin of owners and employers, and--as a natural

consequence of the cause last named--stagnation in business,

deterioration of the laborer’s condition, and actual loss of life.

Now, it is not to be denied that on the first introduction into any

factory, or class of factories, of any new labor-saving machine, by

which perhaps one man is enabled to perform the work of a dozen or

twenty, a large number of hands must necessarily be thrown out of work,

and more or less immediate distress arise therefrom; neither is it to be

admired, or held as an especial wonder, that poor men, ignorant of the

operation of great principles, suffering the extremes of poverty,

smarting under the idea that their right to be employed and to earn is

superseded and usurped forever by the twin colossi, capital and

machinery, and goaded to frenzy by the gross folly of socialist editors

and journalists, should attempt to abate, what they naturally esteem

dangerous and aggressive nuisances, by physical violence.

But it is certain that they do so wrongfully as regards theoretical

rights, wrongfully as regards general principles and the general good,

and not least wrongfully as regards their own particular welfare.

For not only is it manifestly unjust that the great mass of mankind, as

consumers, throughout the universe, should be deprived of the

incalculable benefit of increased supplies of necessaries at decreased

prices, in order to advance the interests of a certain class of

producers--not only is it manifestly absurd to dream of a return to

first principles, either in arts, manufacture or science, to fancy that,

once invented, elaborated and rendered public, labor-saving machinery

can be abolished and thrown into compulsory disuse--but it can be shown,

evidently enough, that the condition of the mechanical and manufacturing

laborer is in fact improved, not deteriorated, by every successive step

gained in saving labor and lowering the prices of production by the

agency of machines.

Their intellectual capacity is improved; their powers of production are

increased, in a much more rapid progression than their prices are

lowered; and, above all, so infinitely and incalculably is the

consumption of products augmented, in excess of the decrease of money

values, that, the demand increasing in a ratio far greater than any

arithmetical progression, the call for laborers, the increased prices of

the entire production, and the command of wages by ability, skill and

intellect, increase _pari passu_. Nor is this all; for it cannot be

denied that the mechanic, the artisan and the manufacturer must

necessarily rise in position, in self-respect, in social esteem, and in

the natural scale of humanity, as a higher range of qualifications are

required of him, and as he is compelled to advance in his own

attainments and capacities, in order to keep up with the advances of the

age and nation.

This is the true solution of the great problem of the laboring classes,

their prospects and their condition; and this is the true reply to all

the imbecile jargon of the pseudo-philosophical socialists of the French

school, concerning the nobility of manual labor, and the equality, or I

believe, _superiority_ of the hand-worker to the head-worker; of the

delver, the ditcher, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, to the

thinker, the inventor, the creator--or in other words, of the equality,

or superiority, accordingly as it may be claimed, of mere physical

force, unguided by any thing of judgment or intellect, to the highest

cultivation of the thinking powers, to the completest development of the

loftiest human capabilities, to the largest expansion of those qualities

in which, after the affections, we approximate the nearest to divinity.

But there is no such thing, nor ever will be. There is no nobility,

whatsoever, in the mere act and exercise of bodily labor, or even of

patient industry--although in the causes, which stimulate to that

exertion and lend endurance to that industry, there may be much of the

very noblest.

There is, in the nature of things, no possible show of equality, much

less of superiority, as between physical and intellectual ability,

between the head-worker and the hand-worker; because, in the latter, the

utmost powers that man can put forward are as the toils of a pigmy, a

mere Lilliputian, to the enormous forces of the elephant or of the

camel; while in the former, the genius of the man, and the grasp of his

mental attainments, are a little lower only than those of the angels;

and these are hourly making progress toward that perfectionment which

never will be attained in this world; whereas, in those there has been

no increase, but probably the reverse, from the days of the patriarchs

to the present hour.

The world neither does, nor ever will, accept of any equality between

mental and physical labors and abilities; and the only hope of raising

the condition and social scale of the working-classes lies not in

striving impotently to drag down those naturally, constitutionally and

educationally their superiors to the lower level, but by encouraging the

inferiors to aspire to the like elevation, to cultivate on every

occasion their higher faculties, to aim at the attainment of capacity

for head-labor in their degree, to learn to think, and not to act only,

to strive, in fact, to resemble less the beasts that perish, and more

the men who live forever.

Encouragement may do this, kindling the worker to a hope of better

things, and showing him that such a hope is not the vain imagination of

a dream, but a real, tangible possibility.

Making him discontented with his lot; leading him to misapprehend his

own position and to undervalue that of his superior, can tend only to

render him a very bad member of society, and a very unhappy member of

the human family.

Fortunately, other and far higher causes are at work, than the Utopian

dreams of visionary sophists and the sentimental false philosophy of

world-reforming lunatics, for the ameliorating the condition, both

physical and social, of the laborer. And one of these--nor that the

least--when superadded to the increasing purposes and enlarged

principles of the times--will be found, I believe, in the necessity

arising from the general use of complicated machines, which is

compelling the mechanic and hand-laborer to educate his head as well as

to harden his hands; to develop his soul as well as his sinews, and to

become himself head-worker no less than handy-craftsman. In this most

desirable change, not a false pride and real ignorance of their own real

position, but a clear perception and humble estimate of their own

deficiencies and of the means of overcoming them, are requisite to the

working-classes; and he is their true friend who insists to them on the

former and assists them toward the latter--not he who mendaciously and

mischievously asserts to them--as is now too frequently done--that a

hodman is at least equal if not superior to a Herschel, an Irish ditcher

to a Descartes or a Newton, and the meanest stoker that fires up a

furnace to him whose intellect combined the various principles, and

conceived the vast system, of that motive power which, in the last

quarter of a century has revolutionized the world of art and science,

joined ocean shores by bridges of almost continuous steamboats, and

linked continents together by the iron groves and metallic wires which

speed the space-annihilating messengers of steam and electricity from

hemisphere to hemisphere unhindered.

To these considerations we are naturally led when we envisage the fact

that these very labor-saving machines are themselves created by other

machines of like principles and scarcely inferior powers, such as we

purpose to introduce to our readers, by a series of cuts, with some

brief explanation of their uses and principles of action, in this

present article.

The unparalleled extension of rail-roads in this country, so peculiarly

calculated for their creation by its natural configuration and

geological structure, has called for a supply of rail-road materials,

both raw and manufactured, to a degree almost inconceivable even at the

present day; and so great have been the improvements recently introduced

into machinery, so enormous the weight of the persons and freight to be

transported, and so extraordinary the speed expected, and in fact

demanded, by the traveling public, that nothing short of perfection in

finish and strength will suffice, whether for marine engines,

locomotives, or in fact, any power machines.

This will easily be admitted when it is considered that on all the

really good and well supported lines of road, in the Eastern states more

especially, the rate of travel averages from thirty to fifty miles per

hour, at an average cost to each passenger of about one-and-a-half cent

per the mile of distance.

We of course do not here take into account such miserable effete

monopolies as some of our own interior, and some of the Southern roads,

or that of the New Jersey Rail-Road and Transportation Company, the

rates of which do not exceed fourteen miles to the hour, at a charge of

something exceeding three cents per mile--since these are the exceptions

to the rule, arising from the mistaken policy of the states through

which they pass, in granting them exclusive privileges, enabling them

with a minimum of speed, punctuality, civility, cleanliness, safety and

comfort, to exact a maximum of fare from all who are so unfortunate as

to be compelled to travel by them.

These unimproved concerns, retrogressive in the very centre of the most

brilliant progression, may, however, count their days as numbered, their

unhallowed and enormous gains as arrested. The latter rail-road, never

exceeding the average speed of good stage-coach travel, is now so

seriously rivaled by heavy omnibuses running on a plank-road, that its

locomotives to-day barely draw an average of three empty cars, where six

weeks since they drew from eight to ten, filled to discomfort.

Hitherto all their underhand attempts to buy up this road, by means of

individual stockholders, in order to destroy its efficiency and raise

the prices, have failed so signally, that it is evident that the people

over whom they have so long driven roughshod will endure their insolent

tyranny no longer, and they must either tranquilly submit to pass away

into contempt, bankruptcy and abeyance, or they must make their road

_reasonably cheap_, as speedy, punctual and convenient to passengers as

others--which they can readily do by diverting a portion of their

colossal gains from dividends and personal profits to the exigencies of

the public, in laying proper tracks, adopting improved engines,

employing clean, comfortable and roomy cars, guided by capable and civil

conductors, all at the ordinary price of rail-road transportation on the

best, fleetest, and most favored lines.

To produce this excellence and finish, tools of peculiar quality--in the

form of power-machines, adapted for planing, turning, and drilling iron,

cutting gears, and the like--have become actually necessary; doing their

work at an incalculably lower price, and greater celerity than the

ablest human hands, and with a mathematical regularity and precision

which no human experience or dexterity could possibly equal.

It is the creation of these various power-tool-machines, which, as I

have stated, is indispensable for the building of power-machinery of any

kind; from the marine-engine, which drives the huge steamships of Cunard

or Collins over the wild surges of the Atlantic, with all the

punctuality, and nearly all the speed of birds of passage; from the

locomotive, with its team of iron chargers, bringing the farthest west

to our very doors in the oceanic cities, to the fast power-presses,

which roll off the news, collected from the uttermost ends of the earth

by the agency of steam and lightning, at the rate of 20,000 copies to

the hour--and intellectually feeding their hundred thousand hungry

readers or ere the paper is well dry--freighted with the fates of

nations.

And it is to the creation of these, in their best form and utmost

perfection, that the great works at Matteawan, a lovely spot, embosomed

in the grandest part of the Highlands of the Hudson, are devoted; while

the Depots in New York are intended to keep, at all times, on hand a

large supply of tools, required by machinists of all classes,

particularly needed in the railroad and machine shop, and such, in a

word, as cannot be dispensed with by any of those artificers, who work

upon the tough and stubborn produce of the mines.

All these tools are either manufactured by the Messrs. Leonard

themselves at the “Matteawan works,” employing some three hundred and

fifty hands, or furnished from the “Lowell machine shops,” where from

five hundred to a thousand hands are constantly employed in this class

of business; or, again, from “The Great Hadley-Falls shop,” at Holyoke;

all of which establishments are represented by the same firm, and all of

which turn out work, which--it is believed--cannot be surpassed, if

equalled, in the world.

The first of these machines which we propose to notice, a representation

of which stands at the head of this paper, is perhaps one of the most

important, if not the most important of all the tools employed in the

machine shop.

This engine has already been noticed in Graham, as employed in the noble

press-works of Messrs. Hoe & Co., of New York--vol. XL., No. 6, p. 576.

It is used for finishing the surfaces of whatever portions of the

machinery must be brought to a smooth and polished face. This is done by

the propulsion of the pieces of iron to be planed in a horizontal and

longitudinal direction against cutting edges, which again move

horizontally across the moving planes, and are pressed downward on them

vertically, so as to effect the planing to the uniform depth required.

The abraded portions of the metal are thrown off--from the surface of

cast iron in a sort of scaly dust, from that of wrought iron in long

curled shavings--and the planes can be wrought up to almost any

desirable degree of smoothness and finish.

It is but a short time, comparatively, since this machine was first

introduced: it is one of the most important among mechanical tools; and

it is indeed a triumph of art to see one of these machines under the

direction of one person, performing the usual labor of some fifteen or

twenty mechanics in former times with their chisels and files. Art

observes, and experience confirms the fact, that machinery can and does

perform work much more accurately than the most skillful mechanic; and,

perhaps, in no instance is this general principle so happily illustrated

as in the performance of these machines. The usual cost of motive power

is about twenty-five cents per day, per horse power, and allowing one

horse to be equivalent to five men, we shall have the labor of one

mechanic furnished for five cents a-day. From this it will be seen how

important every invention or improvement becomes to the machine-builder,

which tends to perform the usual labor on the machine by machinery.

The above cut represents a very excellent planer. There is a great

degree of taste and finish employed in its design; indeed the builder

may flatter himself that he has one of the best machines built in this

country.

This machine, according to its size, weight, and cost, is divided into

Nos. 4, 5, and 6, capable of planeing metal from four feet long, by

eighteen inches wide and high, to six feet six inches long, by

twenty-four inches wide and high--and weighs respectively 1000, 2,600,

and 3,500 pounds.

The machine from which the design at the head of this paper is taken may

be seen at No. 60 Beaver Street, New York.

[Illustration: =NO. 2.--IMPROVED ENGINE LATHE.=]

This again is a highly valuable and ingenious machine; its special

operation is, as its name implies, the turning of any iron work to its

required round circumference and requisite degree of polish, whether it

is a perfect cylinder, or of various diameters at various points.

By it, all round work for engines is formed and finished--as rods,

shafts, and the like. The action of the machine is simple, easy and

almost noiseless. The piece of metal is fixed in the spindle, shown in

the cut above in contact with the right elbow of the spectator, and

secured, longitudinally of the machine, on the sharp point proceeding

from the fixture at the left end of the Lathe, behind the operator’s

shoulder.

To this, the object of operation, a rapid rotatory movement on its own

axis is given by steam-power, and the cutting is produced by its

rotation against two steel edges impinging on it laterally, and made to

travel horizontally and longitudinally on a bed, so as to cut the bar,

submitted to its agency, equally throughout all its length. This

instrument is also directed by one man only, while acting with the

combined power of very many, and performs its work with an ease equalled

only by its great exactitude.

[Illustration: =NO. 3.--IMPROVED GEAR CUTTING ENGINE.=]

For the benefit of those of our readers, who have no previous

acquaintance with mechanism, we shall merely premise that a gear is a

wheel with a toothed circumference, like watch-wheels, or what in ruder

mechanism are known as cogged-wheels; and those gears, known as level

gears, are such as have the toothing on the circumference not

perpendicular to the plane of the diameter, but at an acute angle to it,

so that when two gears of a peculiar degree of bevil are set in contact,

a horizontal rotatory movement may be communicated to one by a

corresponding perpendicular rotation of the other. This will be rendered

comprehensible by a careful examination of the motive power of the borer

in the representation of the instrument, No. 5.

The above cut represents a very cheap and simple gear-cutter. Its

principal novelty consists in the use of the large gear-wheel instead of

the common graduated table. It is extremely simple, and at the same time

possesses all the advantages of the old machine. It will be observed

that the crank is connected to the large wheel by a set of intermediate

gears, every revolution of which is made to correspond with the number

of teeth in the wheel to be cut. This is accomplished by a set of change

gears, which accompany the machine.

The changes are made in the opposite end of the Crank Shaft.

It will be observed that one revolution of the crank bears the same

relation to the number of teeth in the large wheel, as one tooth in the

wheel to be cut bears to the whole number it is to contain. The number

of teeth and the pitch of the wheel is consequently derived from the

change gears.

When level gears are cut, the head is then set at the proper

inclination, and secured by the screw which projects at the rear of the

head.

The cheapness of this machine more particularly recommends it, the price

being but $250, while its efficiency and regular operation are so well

established as to require no further comment.

[Illustration: =NO. 4.--THE UPRIGHT DRILL.=]

This is another admirable engine for diminishing and simplifying human

labor. It is applied to the boring of all kinds of iron-work for

machinery.

The perpendicular drill, as will be readily observed, is worked with a

swift, rotatory movement, by means of the bevil gears at its upper

extremity. By a wheel--the circumference of which only is displayed in

the cut--acting upon the thread of a screw midway its length, it is

pressed down upon the piece of work to be drilled.

This piece is secured upon a horizontal table placed under the point of

the rotary drill, which table may be elevated or depressed at pleasure,

by aid of the small lever projecting backward, which acts on a geared

wheel playing on the thread of the great perpendicular screw of the main

shaft.

[Illustration: =NO. 5.--ENGINE LATHE.=]

The nature, operation, and application of power in this engine are

precisely similar to those shown and explained at No. 2. But it is

employed only for the cutting of screws and screw bolts, and the boring

of plates, pulleys, etc., which latter operations it performs by aid of

Fairmen’s Universal Chuck, which will be described hereafter. In working

this lathe, the implement last named is attached to the spindle,

immediately under the right hand of the operator.

The engine itself is of unusual neatness and finish.

[Illustration: =NO. 6.--SMALL POWER PLANER.=]

This little engine is similar in action and principle to the cut, No. 1;

the iron, to be planed, moving horizontally and longitudinally on a bed,

across which the cutting edges move with a downward pressure and a

lateral movement, cutting and finishing the surface to the requisite

depth and degree, easily and almost to perfection.

The machine works very simply, and almost noiselessly; it is exceedingly

handy, and is directed by one person; is very portable; occupies but an

inconsiderable space, and does work precisely of the same description as

No. 1, though of inferior dimensions in all respects.

[Illustration: =NO. 7.--FAIRMAN’S UNIVERSAL CHUCK.=]

A Chuck generally is explained as being a round plate, which is fastened

on to the spindle of a lathe--see No. 5--and is used to bore holes in

round or variously shaped plates of metal. It will be observed, in the

cut above, that all the upright studs converge toward the centre by one

motion of the lever, so that the centre of the article to be bored must

correspond with the centre of the spindle. Besides all sorts of plates,

as above mentioned, the centres of gear wheels and pulleys are bored by

it.

There is a beautiful principle involved in the action of this chuck,

though its novelty is in some sort lost in its simplicity. Here, by a

simple movement of the hand, the article to be worked is brought to its

proper position; while, by the old method, the same position could only

be arrived at after a series of trials; nor, in the end, is the article

so firmly held, after its correct place shall have been ascertained.

The last representation we shall offer to our readers is the subjoined

cut of an improved borer for the wheels of railroad cars. The extreme

simplicity of its general arrangements is its most conspicuous feature,

and the small space it occupies is another highly important

consideration. It will chuck all sized wheels up to three feet diameter,

and can bolt on wheels of yet larger dimensions.

In the cut, a car-wheel is shown set on the machine; the upright spindle

which passes through it contains the cutters, and is driven by the

pulley shown on the left side of the machine, which gives to the

spindle-lathe its rotary and alternate motion.

The brief account here given of these very ingenious and simple machines

will, it is hoped, answer the desired end of conveying to the general

reader some idea of the principles of operation, the perfection, and the

immense general utility of these most emphatically labor-saving engines.

We say emphatically labor-saving, because they not only spare and

simplify labor by their own direct operation, but indirectly do so fifty

or a hundred fold, because they are applied to the creation of those

vast space-and-time-annihilating machines, which in the present day

surpass the wildest and most marvelous legends of Fairy-land, of

necromancers and magicians, as to the powers--incalculable and almost

ubiquitous--which they bestow on their possessors, and which create

wealth for the countries having sons expert to invent and use them,

surpassing the gold of Ophir, and the gems of Golconda.

[Illustration: =NO. 8.--FAIRMAN’S BORING MACHINE.=]

* * * * *

=FORGOTTEN.=

Forgotten! ’tis the sentence passed on every thing of earth;

Naught can escape the heavy doom, that in this world has birth;

The cloud that floats in azure skies, the flower that blooms so bright,

The leaf that casts a cooling shade, unnoticed pass from sight.

--Forgotten! can it be that all, the beautiful, the good,

The wise, the great, must buried be, ’neath Lethe’s waveless flood?

Must all this world’s magnificence, its splendid pomp and pride,

The fanes which man has proudly raised, and Time’s strong arm defied,

Oh! must it all return to dust, and from remembrance fade--

Will no faint memory remain, no thought, not e’en a shade?

Alas! it must; thus has it been--thus must it be again;

Who reared the lofty pyramids? Their work was all in vain!

Stricken with awe, we gaze upon those monuments to fame,

And ask, but ask unanswered, for the mighty builder’s name!

The countless tumuli outspread upon our western lands,

Who piled their shapeless forms, and why? Where are the busy hands

Which ages since heaped high those mounds? Alas! we ne’er can know;

Their names were blotted out from life long centuries ago.

And must I be forgotten thus? When earth sees me no more

Will all this working world plod on as calmly as before?

Will no sweet memory of me cling round some constant heart?

Must all remembrance of my life from every soul depart?

It must not be! Build me a tomb whose top shall pierce the cloud--

Pile high the marble! set it round with stately columns proud--

Rear me some fane, dig deep the base, outspread it far and wide,

And write my name indelibly upon its gleaming side!

Down! down! rebellious soul, not thus must thou remembered be--

Not thus a world must ages hence be taught to think of me--

Not thus would I be carried on by Time’s resistless flood;

I would not be remembered with the great, but with the good--

If in my heart one virtue live, one pure and holy thought,

If in my character one high and noble trait be wrought,

If in my life one act be found from earthly blemish free,

If one bright impulse point to Heaven, by that remember me!

C. E. T.

* * * * *

=CLARA GREGORY:=

=OR THE STEP-MOTHER.=

CHAPTER I.

“Do, dear Clara, stay at home to-night; father will be so grieved.”

“He certainly has shown no great regard for my feelings, and he cannot

expect me to be over-tender of his. I am sure I could not endure to stay

here, and my marvel is that you can.”

Clara Gregory did not observe the tear that glistened in her sister’s

eye, as she spoke these words, in a bitter tone; yet her voice was

gentler when she spoke again.

“Please, Alice, just tie my tippet for me; my hands are gloved. There,

thank you.”

She opened the hall-door, and stood for a moment listening to the moan

the leafless trees made as they shivered in the blast.

“Well, Alice, I suppose it is of no use asking you to go with me; so,

good-night!” And she slowly descended the steps, and passed down the

street.

Alice stood watching her receding form until she disappeared, and then,

with a shiver, she turned away.

“How cold it is!” she said to herself. “I must be sure to have it warm

and pleasant for them when they come. Let me see. I will have a fire in

the little back parlor; it looks so bright and cheery. I know father

will like that best.”

The fire was kindled, the rooms were lighted, and the young girl

wandered through them, again and again, to assure herself that nothing

could make them more home-like and inviting. In the large parlors, with

their rich furniture and furnace-heat, there was little for her to do.

A certain awe forbade her to interfere with “Aunt Debby’s” accustomed

arrangements, but in the “dear little back parlor” she might do as she

listed; and she found ample employment for her fairy fingers.

The fuchsia must be taught to droop its bright blossoms over the pale

calla, the door of Canary’s cage was to be set open, the father’s

slippers to be placed before his chair, the favorite books to be laid

upon the table.

All, at last, was done. The pictures on the wall, the crimson curtains,

and the carpet on the floor, reflected the streaming light of the fire

with a grateful glow of comfort. One momentous question remained to be

decided. Should the old dog be suffered to crouch as usual on the

hearth-rug, or be banished to less honorable quarters? After deep and

anxious deliberation this was also settled. Carlo was permitted to

ensconce himself in the chimney-corner, while his young mistress placed

herself in the great arm-chair before the fire and fell to dreaming.

Alice Gregory was but fifteen years old; yet, any one would have longed

to know of her dreams, who might have looked on her as she sat there,

her thoughtful eyes fixed on the glowing coals, and her youthful face

inwrought with feeling. And much she had to make her think and feel; for

Alice was a motherless child, and this night was to bring a stranger

into that place, so hallowed by the memory of her who had passed thence

into the heavens.

Two long hours did the girl sit there, awaiting her father’s return.

Sweet visions of the past, dim visions of the future, were about her.

All the saddest and the happiest hours of her brief life came back to

her. They came as old, familiar friends, sorrowful as were some of their

faces; and she clung to them, and could not bear to leave them for those

coming hours that beckoned to her with so doubtful promise.

“I hope she will love me,” mused she of the strange mother; “but she

cannot as Aunt Mary does, and nobody, nobody can ever love me as my own

dear mother did!” she sobbed, with a gush of tears. But presently they

staid in their fountain, for she thought of her mother, still loving

her, and of her Saviour, ever near, loving her more than mortal could.

“I will try to be good and gentle,” thought she, “and she _will_ love

me. Nine o’clock! Aunt Debby thought they would be here by seven, I must

go and ask her what the matter can be.”

The individual yclept “Aunt Debby” was no less a personage than Mrs.

Deborah Dalrymple, whose pride it was, that for twenty years the light

of her wisdom, and the strength of her hands, had been the dependence of

Dr. Arthur Gregory’s household. On this occasion, Alice found her in the

dining-room, seated in state, her bronzed visage graced by the veritable

cap with which she had honored the reception of the first Mrs. Gregory.

Its full double ruffle, and bountiful corn-colored bows, made her

resemble the pictures, in the primers, of the sun with puffed cheeks,

surrounded by his beams. _She_ would show no partiality, not she. What

Dr. Gregory thought was right, was right. He had been a good master to

her as ever a woman need have, and she was sure of a comfortable home

the rest of her days whoever came there. Dr. Gregory was in all things

her oracle, her admiration, her sovereign authority. The world did not

often see such a man as he, that it didn’t. But, barring the doctor, she

sensibly realized the world had no more reliable authority than Mrs.

Deborah Dalrymple. There she sat, anxiously speculating on the

approaching regime, and plying the needles on her best knitting-work

with uncommon zeal.

“Aunt Debby, do you know it is nine o’clock?”

“I heard the clock strike nine.”

“Father should have been here two hours ago.”

“I don’t know that.”

“Why! you said he would be here at seven.”

“I don’t know that.”

“What then?”

“I _expected_ him.”

“Well, what can be the reason that he does not come?”

“Great many things.”

“But what _is_ the reason?”

“He knows better than I.”

“What do you _suppose_?”

“Nothing.”

Alice came to a pause with a decidedly unsatisfied expression.

“Was it winter when he brought my mother home?”

“No.”

“Summer?”

“Yes.”

“Was it a pleasant day?”

“Yes.”

Despairing of Aunt Debby’s communicativeness, Alice returned to her

solitude, roused a vigorous flame in the grate, and sitting down on an

ottoman beside Carlo, commenced an attack on his taciturnity.

“But hark! those are father’s bells! No--yes! yes, they are come!”

Girl and dog sprang to their feet together, and ran to the door. In her

haste Alice brushed something from the work-table. It was nothing but

her mother’s needle-book, but she pressed it to her lips as she tenderly

replaced it, and passed more slowly into the hall.

The cordial greetings were over. The cloaks and furs were laid aside,

and Alice sat down in the chimney-corner to observe the new-comer, in

whose face the full radiance of the bright fire shone, while she

conversed with Aunt Debby about the journey and the weather.

“She is not pretty,” thought she. “Very unlike mother--taller and

statelier, with black eyes and hair--still, her features are noble, and

she looks good.”

She came to this satisfactory conclusion just as her father suddenly

exclaimed--

“Where did you say Clara was, Alice? Has she not returned from Belford?”

“Yes, sir; she is staying with Ellen Morgan to-night.”

“Is Ellen Morgan sick?”

How Alice wished she could say yes, or any thing else than the plain,

reluctant no--but out it must come. An expression of pain and

displeasure came over the doctor’s countenance, and he glanced quickly

at his wife. But she seemed to have no other thought than of the plants

over which she was bending.

“What sweet flowers have come to you, in the midst of the snow, Alice!”

she exclaimed, as she lifted a spray of monthly rose, weighed down with

its blossoms.

Alice’s eyes glistened with pleasure as she saw that her darlings had

found a friend.

“They were mother’s,” she began, then stopped suddenly.

“You must love them very dearly,” said Mrs. Gregory, with feeling. “But

where is the little Eddie? Shall I not see him?”

“Oh! he begged to sit up and wait, but he fell asleep, and Aunt Debby

put him to bed. Would you like to go up and look at him? He is so pretty

in his sleep!”

“Indeed he _is_ pretty in his sleep,” thought the step-mother, as she

bent over the beautiful child in his rosy dreams. She laid back his

soft, bright curls, and lightly kissed his pure cheek, gazing long and

tenderly upon him. Tears shone in her eyes as she, turning toward Alice,

said softly,

“Can we be happy together, Alice dear?”

“I am sure we shall,” answered the warm-hearted girl impulsively.

“Indeed, I will try to make you happy.”