_October_ 1852.
The death of the great Duke has for a time kept other subjects of
conversation in abeyance; but by slow degrees the old hero slides into
the past, and the tongues and pens of thousands are busily recalling
the words, works, and exploits by which he won for himself
'imperishable renown.' His life presents itself to us in different
aspects, wherein the lowliest as well as the loftiest may find
something exemplary; and all may learn a lesson in that virtue of
virtues--persevering straightforwardness. By and by, we shall have a
magnificent funeral; and then, as new events follow, we shall find
whether new men are to come capable of meeting them; whether there are
to be heroes after Agamemnon as well as before.
The remains of the Great Exhibition building are fast disappearing
from Hyde Park, under the busy hands of the troops of workmen engaged
in the business of taking down and removal. Heavily-laden wagons are
continually departing from each entrance, and every hour the
prodigious mass of materials is diminished. The spectacle is a
striking one in many respects, and would be a melancholy one were it
not for the certainty of restoration. Already the grass is beginning
to grow on the ground, worn bare by millions of feet; and before many
months are over, the greensward will again cover the site of the
world's Temple of Industry.
Among the objects of most interest to be comprised in the new Palace,
are galleries of Classic and Mediæval Art, a Nineveh and Egyptian
Court, Etruscan Restorations, Hall of the Alhambra, Court of
Inventions, besides complete illustrations of the races of Man, to be
arranged by Dr Latham, which will afford valuable aid to the student
of ethnology; and of natural history and geology, all to be
superintended by able professors. Seeing that there is talk of
enlarging the British Museum, which is not half large enough for its
purpose, might not some of its long-hidden contents be transferred,
under proper regulations, to the Palace at Sydenham?
The present year has been as remarkable for storms as the last was for
fine weather, and in parts of the world widely separated--the
continent of Europe and the United States of America, as well as our
own country. Meteorologists say, that the frequent atmospheric
disturbances will furnish us with valuable facts for theoretical and
practical use. In many places, the storms have been followed by
destructive floods, particularly in France, the effects of which, it
is said, are greatly aggravated by the spirit of modern improvement,
leading to the cutting down of trees and forests; so that the more the
land is cleared, the fiercer become the floods. It would be
interesting to test this fact by what takes place under similar
circumstances in America, where forest is in excess. The subject has
been brought before the Geological Society by Mr Prestwich, as regards
the Holmfirth flood, with a view to collect data as to the power of
moving water, the height of the flood, the time in which the water ran
off, together with exact measurements of the fall of the ground, and
the amount of denudation. All these are questions of great scientific
value in geology, because arguing from the effects produced by so
small a body of water comparatively, we may arrive at satisfactory
conclusions concerning the great floods of other ages. In the instance
here referred to, from 40,000 to 50,000 tons were carried from the dam
by the sudden rush, the greater part of which was deposited within the
first 300 feet. Lower down, from one to two feet of deposit was laid
over the meadows; rocks, weighing from five to twenty tons, were
transported to a considerable distance; and at seven miles from the
outbreak, near Huddersfield, a stratum of sand was laid over the
fields. The mention of these facts may be of service to those who have
had opportunities for observation elsewhere.
The Society have also had their attention called to disturbances of
another sort--earthquakes; of which not a few have occurred of late in
many parts of the world, our own island among them. The shocks appear
to have been most severely felt in the south-west--Cornwall, for
instance, and the neighbourhood of Bristol, where they extended over
an area of more than thirty miles. The effects have now been
accurately described: one of the shocks lasted two seconds; the other,
from ten to twelve seconds, accompanied by a rumbling noise. The line
of disturbance was from north to south, striking the Mendips, and
traversing parts of the shires of Somerset and Gloucester. 'The chief
focus of oscillation was at Cheddar, where the hill is said to have
waved to and fro during several seconds; and in the alluvial flat or
marsh below Cheddar, some houses had the plaster of the ceilings
cracked; while in others, the clocks struck, doors slammed, bells
rung, &c.' With such commotions taking place in the solid earth,
geologists will not fail of sources of interest in their favourite
study. There is yet another geological fact worth mentioning--the
finding of footprints in what is called Potsdam sandstone, near
Montreal, in Canada. This sandstone is the 'lowest member of the
lowest Silurian rocks;' and the discovery is good evidence that there
were living creatures walking on the land at the very oldest periods
hitherto revealed by geology--thus carrying back the appearance of
organic life to a time more remote than had been supposed. Professor
Owen, who has examined the slabs and casts, says, that no idea of the
creature that made the tracks can be formed from any animal at present
existing, for instead of the prints being in successive pairs, an odd
one is found to intervene. He considers it to have had three legs on
each side, and to have been neither tortoise-like nor vertebrate; and
after naming it _Protichnites_, adds: 'I incline to adopt, as the most
probable hypothesis, that the creatures which have left their tracks
and impressions on the most ancient of known sea-shores, belonged to
an articulate and probably crustaceous genus.' The fact is an
important one in a scientific point of view, and presents a new
standpoint for inquirers.
There is advancement, too, in other quarters. Faraday has been
diligently pursuing his investigations into the phenomena of
electricity and magnetism through greater part of the dead season, and
will be prepared erelong to make the results public. And Professor
Stokes's researches and experiments on light, which have been laid
before the British Association and the Royal Society, are regarded by
competent judges as the most remarkable and fruitful that have been
made for many years. Another means of advance will perhaps be found in
the new process for 'illuminating' glass, by which lenses of all
sizes, from spectacles to telescopes, may be made so much brighter and
more transparent, as to increase their power and utility to an
extraordinary degree. We are shortly to have further particulars
concerning this improvement, which, if it be such as described, and
applicable to microscopes, will perhaps enable Ehrenberg to verify the
opinions he has lately formed concerning the atmosphere--namely, that
it is not less full of organic and inorganic life than the ocean, or
any other part of creation.
Mr Westwood has read a paper before the Zoological Society, 'On the
Destructive Species of certain Insects known in Africa,' in which he
shows the probability of their having been the insects of the fourth
plague recorded in the Pentateuch. Some of them are the _Oestridæ_;
and one kind known in Africa as _Tsetse_, is so fierce and venomous,
that a few of them are sufficient to sting a horse to death: they are
the same as the _Zimb_, of which Bruce gives such a striking account.
Their presence appears to be mainly determined by the nature of the
soil, for they are seldom found away from the black earth peculiar to
the Valley of the Nile. Among the carvings on the ancient tombs, this
insect is supposed to be represented. With regard to another species
of insect, Dr Macgowan states, that the insect-wax of China, of which
400,000 pounds are produced annually, is not, as has long been
believed, a 'saliva or excrement,' but 'that the insect undergoes what
may be styled a ceraceous degeneration, its whole body being permeated
by the peculiar produce in the same manner as the _Coccus cacti_ is by
carmine.'
The Agricultural Society have announced that they will give 'L.1000
and a gold medal for the discovery of a manure equal in fertilising
properties to the Peruvian guano, and of which an unlimited supply can
be furnished to the English farmer at a rate not exceeding L.5 per
ton.' Also, 'fifty sovereigns for the best account of the geographical
distribution of guano, with suggestions for the discovery of any new
source of supply, accompanied by specimens.' To be adjudged in 1854.
They offer, likewise, fifty sovereigns for the best essays on farming
in the counties of Hereford, Surrey, and Derby; and thirty sovereigns
for the best essays on the 'management of heavy lands;' 'of light
lands;' on 'beans and peas;' 'on hereditary diseases and defects in
pigs and sheep.' These to be decided in 1853. It is something to see
agriculture thus trying to stand on its own legs.
Among minor matters, the wire-lace recently invented at Nottingham has
been talked about, and is said to be as tasteful and rich as it is
novel, for it admits of being electroplated. Shall we wear metal
clothing by and by, as well as live in metal houses? Dr Payerne has
been making experiments in submarine steam navigation at Cherbourg,
and with such success as to be able to sink his vessel at any moment,
to live in it under water, and to propel it in any given direction.
Are we to be invaded by a fleet of these artful contrivances, or is it
a preparation for the escape of the future emperor from St Helena?
There are one or two interesting facts from Australia, although not
about gold: the bodies of Dr Leichardt and some of his exploring
party, are said to have been discovered near Moreton Bay, where they
had been murdered by the natives; and Sir Thomas Mitchell, the
well-known surveyor-general, has invented a steam-propeller on the
principle of the _boomerang_, which, when applied to a boat, answered
expectation. Further experiments are to be made; meanwhile, the
inventor says, 'that the weapon of the earliest inhabitants of
Australia has now led to the determination mathematically of the true
form by which alone, on the screw principle, high speed on water can
be obtained.' The _Ericsson_ caloric ship is launched; but if a new
projector is to be believed, the maker may save himself all further
trouble, for Mr Burn proposes to build square ships, with the bottoms
constructed as double inclined planes, which shall cross from England
to America in forty-eight hours! When this scheme is realised,
travelling and flying will become synonymous terms. We are to have
another electric telegraph across the Channel: it is underground as
well as submarine, the wires being laid in wooden tubes under the old
turnpike-road from London to Dover, independent of the railway, thus
reopening a shorter as well as a competing route. The possibility of
an electric telegraph from England to America is again talked about,
and will doubtless be talked about until it is accomplished, in the
same way that the French, by dint of trying, seem determined to
succeed at last in aërial navigation, the latest exploit of that kind
having been the turning round of a cylindrical balloon in the air at
Paris by means of a small steam-engine, carried up by the apparatus.
Meanwhile, Denmark is going to link her states together by wires,
which will stretch from Copenhagen to Elsinore and Hamburg, and
include Schleswig, Zealand, and Holstein. Loke would stand no chance
now in the old Scandinavian land against the thought-flasher. The
Swedish exploring expedition is making satisfactory progress in the
southern hemisphere, and Captain von Krusenstern is fitting out a
vessel at his own cost to explore the coast of Siberia--an enterprise
which the Russians have often attempted with but partial success. The
Americans, too, are thinking of another expedition, to make such
observations and discoveries as may be useful or possible round Java,
in the China Sea, as it is called, the Kurile Islands, and Behring
Strait. Their state of California is still resorted to by the Chinese,
who now number 50,000 in their new country, and conduct themselves as
orderly and industrious citizens. There is some talk of introducing
tea-culture, for the sake of giving them employment, as their presence
at the diggings is scarcely tolerated. We are soon to know more than
at present of the geography and people of Borneo, for Madame Ida
Pfeiffer has travelled further into that country than any other
European, and is preparing a narrative of her adventures. Nearer home,
Lieutenant Van de Velde, of the Dutch navy, has been exploring the
Holy Land, in a very complete manner, and in some parts heretofore
unvisited; and when our Geographical Society meets, we shall doubtless
be informed of the chief results of his twelvemonth's toilsome and at
times dangerous travel. If Captain Allen's scheme, as laid before the
British Association, could be carried out, we should be able to
approach the region by another sea as well as the Mediterranean; for
he proposes to cut a channel from the head of the Gulf of Akabah to
the Valley of the Dead Sea, and allow the water to pour through until
the vast basin be filled to the depth of some hundreds of feet, and of
course the hollows of the surrounding country, whereby, as the
projector states, we should get a new navigable route towards India.
He omits to say whether the Arabs would want compensation for loss of
territory.
The French consul at Mosul has been making further researches in the
Ninevitish ruins, and has discovered, among other curiosities, the
wine-cellar of the Assyrian kings, with large jars, in which the royal
beverage was once contained, ranged along the sides. They are now
filled with dust and rubbish, but on emptying them, a dried purple
deposit was found at the bottom of each, thus testifying to their
former use. If this deposit is in sufficient quantity to be submitted
to chemical analysis, we might learn something respecting the nature
of really old wine. Apropos of this matter, Dr Buist says, that while
we are digging up antiquities in Mesopotamia, we are neglecting those,
not less valuable, which we have at home, particularly the Runic
stones found in Scotland. Two hundred of these are known to exist
between Edinburgh and Caithness, but some have been used as gate-posts
to a church-yard, or, as near Glammis, rubbing-posts for cattle.
Sueno's pillar, in Morayshire, is the finest. The remarkable fact
concerning these stones, is the similarity, in numerous instances
complete, of the sculptures graven on them to those at Nineveh, as
though the hyperborean and the Oriental had a common origin. 'Surely,'
adds Dr Buist, 'coincidences such as these can neither be fanciful nor
accidental; they carry us far back beyond the ages of those we call
the aborigines of Britain, as the pyramids and sculptured stones of
Yucatan precede the days of the Red Men whom Cortes found peopling
America.'
The Dutch Society of Sciences at Haarlem have published their
prize-list, in which they offer 2000 florins for the most important
discovery in natural science which shall be made between the present
year and 1856; and they propose sixty-one questions, the successful
replies to obtain a gold medal worth 150 florins, and money to the
same amount. Among them are:--The best geological description of the
principal hot springs of Europe, their position, course, and quality,
so as to show if they have any relation in common, and what relation
exists between their changes and the changes caused by earthquakes,
volcanoes, &c.--Whether, in any part of the old continents, there are
dunes or sandbanks formed, at early geological periods, in the same
way as those now existing on the coast of Holland--Whether the
sea-level is higher or lower now than formerly with regard to the
land-level of the Low Countries--On the wearing of coasts in past and
present times, and the means of prevention--Whether a profitable
manufacture of iodine may not be attempted on the shores of the
Netherlands from certain marine plants and animals--Whether the
_cinchona_ can be profitably cultivated in the Dutch colonies--On
the influence of the nerves in the origin and progress of
inflammation--Whether electricity, either static or dynamic, has
anything to do with the production of Daguerreotype figures: and one
that will interest ethnologists--The Laplanders are said to be the
remains of a people who were once numerous over great part of the
north, as the Basques are and were in the south; required, a
description of the two, with peculiarities and craniological
examinations and explanations in full detail. These are important
questions, and well worth attention; the treatises may be written in
Dutch, French, Latin, German, Italian, or English, so that aspirants
to scientific honours in most parts of Europe have now the opportunity
to prove their merits.
The forthcoming publishing season promises to be a brisk one: we are
to have good books of history, travel, and science, besides something
from Carlyle and the Laureate; and in the matter of light literature
there will be no lack; Thackeray is again in the field, with three
volumes of the old-fashioned sort, so acceptable to novel readers; and
Sir Thomas Talfourd has found time for literary as well as legal work.
A learned Hindoo, after thirty-five years of labour, has just
completed a Sanscrit Encyclopædia--a desirable work for scholars; and
the United States' government have published a second volume of the
great work on the Indian tribes--a handsome book to look at, but less
valuable than it might have been had proper care been bestowed on its
contents. The Smithsonian Institution have brought out the third and
fourth volumes of their _Contributions to Knowledge_--one of the two
being a 'Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota Language,' the work of
missionaries who, eighteen years ago, settled in the Minnesota Valley,
to teach and reclaim the Sioux or Dakotas, who number about 25,000.
Among the reasons assigned for the publication of the handsome quarto,
they state: 'Our object was to preach the Gospel to the Dakotas in
their own language, and to teach them to read and write the same,
until their circumstances should be so changed as to enable them to
learn the English.' As the Smithsonian Institution distribute their
publications to most of the scientific societies of Europe, our
learned men will have ample means to avail themselves of their
contents, and thus help to promote their object--'the diffusion of
knowledge among men.'