The Project Gutenberg eBook of Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 113, Vol. III, February 27, 1886
    
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Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 113, Vol. III, February 27, 1886

Author: Various

Release date: May 5, 2022 [eBook #67994]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: William and Robert Chambers, 1853

Credits: Susan Skinner, Eric Hutton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 113, VOL. III, FEBRUARY 27, 1886 ***





[Illustration: CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 113.—VOL. III.      SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1886.      PRICE 1½_d._]




FISSURE ERUPTIONS.


Those who have been accustomed to regard volcanoes such as Vesuvius or
Etna as the one form of volcanic action, may be somewhat startled by
the statement that lavas have sometimes been poured forth from fissures
hundreds of miles in length, and have deluged vast tracts of country
beneath sheets of molten rock, compared with which the puny lava-fields
of Italy sink into insignificance. History, romance, and legend have
been so long associated with the group of volcanoes overlooking the
quiet Tyrrhenian Sea, that from the time when Pindar sung of the
fire-floods of Etna, and Pliny died, too rashly investigating the
great eruption of Vesuvius, till Scrope, Lyell, Von Buch, and Palmieri
made them the centre of their researches, they have occupied too
large a share of attention, and have been thus regarded as the full
normal development of that volcanic activity of which they are but
a phase, and only a minor phase. Hence, when, eighteen years ago,
Richthofen described the great lava-plains of Western America, and
attributed their origin to ejection from fissures, and not from vents,
so firm a hold had been taken of the minds of geologists by nearly
twenty centuries of observation of Vesuvius and its fellows, that his
arguments were received with incredulity; and though they have been
amply verified by subsequent investigations, and have afforded the clue
to the interpretation of the vast series of volcanic rocks in other
quarters of the globe, they have not been generally circulated, and
few, outside the circle of geologists, are acquainted with them.

In this paper, we propose briefly to describe some of the most noted
of these ‘fissure’—or as Richthofen called them—‘massive’ eruptions,
selecting as types that on the Snake River in the United States, and
those in India, Abyssinia, and the north-west of Europe; and finally,
to glance at their possible connection with the form of volcanic
excitement more frequently displayed.

The one which has attracted most attention is that which formed the
plateau of the Snake River, and which covers altogether, in Idaho,
Oregon, and Washington, an extent of country equal to France and Great
Britain combined. The district is one wide verdureless waste of black
basalt, stretching westwards from the mountains by which it is bounded
on the north and east, as an apparently boundless desert, black and
bare, as though it had but recently cooled. Except for the shifting
sand-dunes and slight ridges of basalt extending like long low waves or
ground swells—to which Professor Geikie compares them—the surface would
be quite level, the lava having either been poured over a plain, or
having buried the undulations of the country beneath hundreds of feet
of stone. The columnar structure, so often adopted by basalt, is here
largely developed, and to it is due the tesselated appearance of the
rock, which adds another to the many striking features in the scenery
of the district. The only river in the district is the Snake River,
which winds its way to the Pacific through a cañon seven hundred feet
deep, and which is joined, through underground courses, by the few
streams that flow on to the basalt from the neighbouring mountains, and
soon sink beneath the surface.

The Director-general of the Geological Survey visited the district five
years ago, and his graceful pen has thus described his first view of
this great lava desert: ‘We had been riding for two days over fields of
basalt level as lake bottoms among the valleys, and on the morning of
the last day we emerged from the mountains upon the great sea of black
lava which seems to stretch illimitably westwards. With minds keenly
excited by the incidents of the journey, we rode for hours by the side
of that apparently boundless plain. Here and there, a trachytic spur
projected from the hills, succeeded now and then by a valley, up which
the black flood of lava would stretch away into the high grounds. It
was as if the great plain had been filled with molten rock, which had
kept its level, and wound in and out along the bays and promontories of
the mountain slopes, as a sheet of water would have done.’

The feature, however, that most struck Professor Geikie, as it had
done previous observers, was the absence of ash and scoria, and of
any crater where the eruption could have occurred. There are indeed
a few cinder cones, but they are analogous—as he says—to the smaller
cones on the flanks of a volcano, or more so to those around the
vapour-vents on the surface of lava-streams. Such vast masses of lava
were certainly not ejected from these, nor in the ordinary method of
volcanic emission. We are therefore forced to accept Richthofen’s
theory, that they are due to a series of eruptions from fissures which
stretched across the country for several hundreds of miles, but are now
hidden by the sheets of stone in which, since no very remote period,
the district has been enwrapped. Geologically speaking, this must have
been recent, as is evidenced by the lava-floods having covered the
present valleys, and having sealed up the gravel and silt of their
lakes and rivers; but sufficient time has elapsed to have allowed of
the erosion of the picturesque ravine of the Snake River; and in so dry
a climate and on so hard a rock, this must have been slow work, though
in all probability it does not carry back the date of the event beyond
the human occupation of the continent. It is by no means impossible
that man may have witnessed the last of these eruptions from the summit
of the trachyte hills at the base of which was eddying this ocean of
molten rock.

Another series of volcanic rocks that has long been a source of
perplexity to geologists is that which, covering two hundred thousand
square miles of India, is known as the Deccan Traps. Though the
separate lava-flows are of no great thickness, they attain a total
of six thousand feet, exclusive of the ‘intertrappean’ fresh-water
deposits with which they are associated. The rock is mainly dolerite
or basalt, but is very variable, and in many places it exhibits
spheroidal or columnar structure; unlike, however, that of the Snake
River, volcanic ash is common. The plateau formed by these deposits
consists of a vast undulating plain, and of flat-topped hills with
occasional ‘scarps’ or cliffs, which in the Sahyadri range are four
thousand feet high, the whole being marked by terraces along the
outcrop of the horizontal layers of basalt. In many points, the scenery
of this district is much like that of the Snake River; but, owing
to the greater age of the beds—belonging to the Cretaceous or chalk
group—they are more weathered, and covered by a thin soil formed by the
disintegration of the rock beneath, bear a slight vegetation. This,
however, heightens the monotony, as it consists of a simple covering of
straw-coloured grass; though, from March, when the grass is burnt, till
the commencement of the rainy season in June, the black soil, the black
rocks, and the black ashes of the vegetation, combine to produce a
scene of the most solemn desolation. The scene can be well viewed from
the railway between Bombay and Nagpur, which traverses this plateau for
five hundred and nineteen miles without once leaving the lava.

Many ingenious theories have been started to explain the origin of
these lava-fields. Some writers, as Newbold, hold that the beds were
ejected from submarine volcanoes; but this is conclusively disproved,
since no marine fossils are associated with them, and as the minute
dust—due to the shattering of the ash and ejected masses by the sudden
cooling—so characteristic a feature in subaqueous eruptions, is wholly
absent. According to another school, of which Hislop and Carter were
the leaders, the lavas were poured over the bottom of an enormous lake,
in places ‘so shallow as to allow the igneous rock to rise above its
surface into the atmosphere,’ thus giving rise to beds of ash; but as
this assumes the existence of a vast fresh-water lake hundreds of miles
long and broad and shallow throughout, for which no evidence has been
adduced, this theory is discredited. One of the latest writers upon the
subject—Mr W. T. Blanford of the Indian Geological Survey—rejecting the
former hypotheses, argues for the former existence of volcanic foci
in Cutch, in the lower Narbada valley and near the Sahyadri range,
to the east and north-east of Bombay, though he admits that if his
theory be true, the lava must have flowed for immense distances, and
hence postulates its excessive fluidity. The possibility, however,
of the rock having done so on a surface quite horizontal, and in the
semi-fluid viscous condition in which most basic lavas are erupted,
presents insuperable difficulties, and there is now hardly any doubt
that these Deccan Traps were ejected in the same manner as were those
of the Snake River.

For our knowledge of the series of volcanic rocks that covers the
greatest part of Abyssinia, we are also largely indebted to Mr
Blanford, who explored the district during the expedition of 1867.
These rocks, widespread though they be, are but the remnants, as are
also those of Arabia, of a fissure eruption that inundated Abyssinia
and Southern Arabia to a depth of two or three thousand feet.

Nearer home, in North-western Europe, are the relics of the same form
of volcanic activity, as evidenced by those disconnected patches
of lava-streams and trap dikes, which, scattered over the north of
Ireland, the Highlands of Scotland, and the northern counties of
England, form such prominent features in the landscapes of those
districts, as in the columnar basalts of Fingal’s Cave and the Giants’
Causeway, and the igneous dikes that cross, like walls of rock, the
hills of our northern counties. The area that this eruption covered
was at least one hundred thousand square miles; while, as it probably
extended to the Faroes and Iceland, it may have been much larger. We
are not left, as in the case of the Snake River, without evidence as
to whence this mass of rock has come, for, since the Miocene Age,
when it was ejected, denudation has attacked the district, and sea,
stream, and ice have carried off most of the three thousand feet of
lava that then covered the land, and have left but a few scattered
fragments on which to reconstruct the record of the event. In doing
so, they have bared the roots of the old fissures whence this mighty
flood must once have welled; and we thus learn that we must trace its
source to the long dikes that now stretch over the district, crossing
from formation to formation, and traversing dislocations of thousands
of feet without any break or change. Such dikes can be traced from
end to end of the region, from Donegal to Fife, and from Yorkshire to
the Faroes, increasing in numbers as we approach the volcanic regions
of Antrim and the Hebrides. They did not all reach and overflow the
surface, as is conclusively proved by Scotch mining operations, and
by the fact that they sometimes disappear, to rise again elsewhere
on the same line. Such may have been the case with all those of
Yorkshire, as the evidence by which we might decide has all been swept
away. Nevertheless, we know that a vast district was covered by the
great fire-flood which was poured over the tropical forest that then
flourished on the site of the Scottish Highlands.

From this brief description of the most important of these old
fissure eruptions, we see that there is another and a grander phase
of vulcanism than that now displayed either by Vesuvius or Hecla.
This is unquestioned, and the sphere of speculation is removed to the
relation between the two classes. It is to Richthofen that we owe the
most plausible theory: he considers these massive eruptions as the
fundamental development, and ‘modern volcanic cones as merely parasitic
excrescences on the subterranean lava reservoirs, very much in the
relation of minor cinder cones to their parent volcano.’ Thus the form
regarded till recently as the one method of volcanic ejection, appears
to be of but secondary importance, being merely a safety-valve to
relieve the pressure from the lava-sources below; or may represent but
a feebler and waning condition of that volcanic excitement of which
they have so long been regarded as the type.




IN ALL SHADES.


CHAPTER XI.

It is a truism nowadays, in this age of travelling, that you see a
great deal more of people in a few weeks on board ship at sea together
than you would see in a few years of that vacant calling and dining and
attending crushes which we ordinarily speak of as society. Nora Dupuy
and the two Hawthorns certainly saw a great deal more of Dr Whitaker
during their three weeks on board the _Severn_ than they would ever
have seen of him in three years of England or of Trinidad. Nora had
had the young man’s acquaintance thrust upon her by circumstances,
to be sure; but as the Hawthorns sat and talked a great deal with
him, she was compelled to do so likewise, and she had too much good
feeling to let him see very markedly her innate prejudice against his
colour. Besides, she admitted even to herself that Dr Whitaker, for a
brown man, was really a very gentlemanly, well-informed person—quite
an exceptional mulatto, in fact, and as such, to be admitted to the
position of a gentleman by courtesy, much as Gulliver was excepted
by the Houyhnhnms from the same category of utter reprobation as the
ordinary Yahoos of their own country.

Most of the voyage was as decently calm as any one can reasonably
expect from the North Atlantic. There were the usual episodes of
flying-fish and Mother Carey’s chickens, and the usual excitement
of a daily sweepstake on the length of the ship’s run; but, on the
whole, the only distinct landmarks of time for the entire three weeks
between Southampton and St Thomas were breakfast, luncheon, dinner,
and bedtime. The North Atlantic, whatever novelists may say, is not
a romantic stretch of ocean; and in spite of prepossessions to the
contrary, a ship at sea is not at all a convenient place for the
free exercise of the noble art of flirting. It lacks the needful
opportunities for retirement from the full blaze of public observation
to shy corners; it is far too exposed, and on the whole too unstable
also. Altogether, the voyage was mostly a monotonous one, which
is equivalent to saying that it was safe and comfortable; for the
only possible break in the ordinary routine of a sea-passage must
necessarily be a fire on board or a collision with a rival steamer.
However, about two days out from St Thomas, there came a little relief
from the tedium of the daily situation; and the relief assumed the
unpleasant form of a genuine wild West Indian hurricane.

Nora had never before seen anything like it; or, at any rate, if she
had, she had clean forgotten all about it. Though the captain had
declared it was ‘too soon’ for hurricanes, this was, in fact, a very
fine tropical tornado of the very fiercest and yeastiest description.
About two o’clock in the afternoon, the passengers were all sitting
out on deck, when the sea, till then a dead calm, began to be faintly
ruffled by little whiffs and spurts of wind, which raised here and
there tiny patches of wavelets, scarcely perceptible to the blunt
vision of the unaccustomed landsman. But the experienced eye of a
sailor could read in it at once a malignant hint of the coming tempest.
Presently, the breeze freshened with extraordinary rapidity, and before
five o’clock, the cyclone had burst upon them in all its violence.
The rush of a mighty gale was heard through the rigging, swaying and
bending the masts like sapling willows before the autumn breezes. The
waves, lashed into fury by the fierce and fitful gusts of wind, broke
ever and anon over the side of the vessel; and the big _Severn_ tossed
about helplessly before the frantic tempest like the veriest cockboat
in an angry sea upon a northern ocean. Of course, at the first note of
serious danger, the passengers were all ordered below to the saloon,
where they sat in mute suspense, the women pale and trembling, the men
trying to look as if they cared very little about it, while the great
ship rolled and tossed and pitched and creaked and rattled in all her
groaning timbers beneath the mad frenzy of that terrific commotion.

Just as they were being turned off the decks to be penned up
down-stairs like so many helpless sheep in the lower cabin, Nora Dupuy,
who had been standing with the Hawthorns and Dr Whitaker, watching the
huge and ever-increasing waves bursting madly over the side of the
vessel, happened to drop her shawl at starting on to the deck beside
the companion-ladder. At that very moment, a bigger sea than any they
had yet encountered broke with shivering force against the broadside of
the steamer, and swept across the deck in a drowning flood as though
it would carry everything bodily before it. ‘Make haste, there!’ the
captain called out imperatively.—‘Steward, send ’em all down below,
this minute. I shouldn’t be surprised if before night we were to have a
capful of nasty weather.’

But even as he spoke, the wave, which had caught Nora’s shawl and
driven it over to the leeward side, now in its reflux sucked it back
again swiftly to windward, and left it lying all wet and matted
against the gunwale in a mass of disorder. Dr Whitaker jumped after it
instinctively, and tried to catch it before another wave could carry it
overboard altogether. ‘Oh, pray, don’t trouble about it,’ Nora cried,
in hasty deprecation. ‘It isn’t worth it. Take care, or you’ll get wet
through and through yourself before you know it!’

‘The man’s a fool,’ the unceremonious captain called out bluntly from
his perch above. ‘Get wet indeed! If another sea like that strikes the
ship, it’ll wash him clean overboard.—Come back, sir; I tell you, come
back! No one but a sailor can keep his feet properly against the force
of a sea like that one!’

Nora and the few other passengers who had still remained on deck stood
trembling under shelter of the glazed-in companion-ladder, wondering
whether the rash mulatto would really carry out his foolhardy endeavour
to recover the wrapper. The sailor stood by, ready to batten down the
hatches as soon as the deck was fairly cleared, and waiting impatiently
for the last lingerer. But Dr Whitaker took not the slightest notice of
captain or sailor, and merely glanced back at Nora with a quiet smile,
as if to reassure her of his perfect safety. He stood by the gunwale,
just clutching at the shawl, in the very act of recovering it, when
a second sea, still more violent than the last, struck the ship once
more full on the side, and swept the mulatto helplessly before it right
across the quarter-deck. It dashed him with terrific force against the
bulwarks on the opposite side; and for a moment, Nora gave a scream
of terror, imagining it would carry him overboard with its sudden
flood. The next second, the ship righted itself, and they saw the young
doctor rising to his feet once more, bruised and dripping, but still
not seriously or visibly injured. The sea had washed the shawl once
more out of his grasp, with the force of the shock; and instead of
rushing back to the shelter of the ladder, he tried even now to recover
it a second time from the windward side, where the recoil had again
capriciously carried it. ‘The shawl, the shawl!’ he cried excitedly,
gliding once more across the wet and slippery decks as she lurched
anew, in the foolish effort to catch the worthless wrapper.

‘Confound the man!’ the captain roared from his place on the bridge.
‘Does he think the Company’s going to lose a passenger’s life for
nothing, just to satisfy his absurd politeness!—Go down, sir—go down,
this minute, I tell you; or else, by jingo, if you don’t, I shall have
you put in irons at once for the rest of the voyage.’

The mulatto looked up at him with a smile and nodded cheerfully. He
held up his left hand proudly above his head, with the dripping shawl
now waving in his grasp like a much bedraggled banner, while with his
right he gripped a rope firmly and steadily, to hold his own against
the next approaching billow. In a second, the big sea was over him once
more; and till the huge wall of water had swept its way across the
entire breadth of the vessel, Nora and Marian couldn’t discover whether
it had dashed him bodily overboard or left him still standing by the
windward gunwale. There was a pause of suspense while one might count
twenty; and then, as the vessel rolled once more to port, Dr Whitaker’s
tall figure could be seen, still erect and grasping the cable, with the
shawl triumphantly flourished, even so, in his disengaged hand. The
next instant, he was over at the ladder, and had placed the wet and
soaking wrapper back in the hands of its original possessor.

‘Dr Whitaker,’ Nora cried to him, half laughing and half pale with
terror, ‘I’m very angry with you. You had no right to imperil your life
like that for nothing better than a bit of a wrapper. It was awfully
wrong of you; and I’ll never wear the shawl again as long as I live,
now that you’ve brought it back to me at the risk of drowning.’

The mulatto, smiling unconcernedly in spite of his wetting, bowed a
little bow of quiet acquiescence. ‘I’m glad to think, Miss Dupuy,’
he replied in a low voice, ‘that you regard my life as so well worth
preserving.—But did you ever before in all your days see anything so
glorious as those monstrous billows!’

Nora bit her lip tacitly, and answered nothing for a brief moment.
Then she added merely: ‘Thank you for your kindness,’ in a constrained
voice, and turned below into the crowded dining saloon. Dr Whitaker did
not rejoin them; he went back to his own stateroom, to put on some dry
clothes after his foolhardy adventure, and think of Nora’s eyes in the
solitude of his cabin.

There is no position in life more helplessly feeble for grown-up men
and women than that of people battened down in a ship at sea in the
midst of a great and dangerous tempest. On deck, the captain and the
officers, cut off from all communication with below, know how the
storm is going and how the ship is weathering it; but the unconscious
passengers in their crowded quarters, treated like children by the
rough seafaring men, can only sit below in hopeless ignorance, waiting
to learn the fate in store for them when the tempest wills it. And
indeed, the hurricane that night was quite enough to make even strong
men feel their own utter and abject powerlessness. From the moment
they were all battened down in the big saloon, after the first fresh
squall, the storm burst in upon them in real earnest with terrific
and ever-increasing violence. The wind howled and whistled fiercely
through the ropes and rigging. The ship bounced now on to the steep
crest of a swelling billow; now wallowed helplessly in the deep trough
that intervened between each and its mad successor. The sea seemed to
dash in upon the side every second with redoubled intensity, sweeping
through the scupper holes with a roar like thunder. The waves crashed
down upon the battened skylights in blinding deluges. Every now and
then, they could hear the cracking of a big timber—some spar or boom
torn off from the masts, like rotten branches from a dead tree, by
the mighty force of the irresistible cyclone. Whirling and roaring
and sputtering and rattling and creaking, the storm raged on for hour
after hour; and the pale and frightened women, sitting huddled together
in little groups on the crimson velvet cushions of the stuffy saloon,
looked at one another in silent awe, clasping each other’s hands with
bloodless fingers, by way of companionship in their mute terror. From
time to time, they could just overhear, in the lulls between the great
gusts, the captain’s loud voice shouting out inaudible directions to
the sailors overhead; and the engineer’s bell was rung over and over
again, with bewildering frequency, to stop her, back her, ease her,
steady her, or put her head once more bravely against the face of the
ever-shifting and shattering storm.

Hour after hour went by slowly, and still nobody stirred from the
hushed saloon. At eleven, all lights were usually put out, with Spartan
severity; but this night, in consideration of the hurricane, the
stewards left them burning still: they didn’t know when they might be
wanted for prayers, if the ship should begin to show signs of sudden
foundering. So the passengers sat on still in the saloon together, till
four o’clock began to bring back the daylight again with a lurid glare
away to eastward. Then the first fury of the hurricane began to abate
a little—a very little; and the seas crashed a trifle less frequently
against the thick and solid plate-glass of the sealed skylights. Edward
at last persuaded Marian and Nora to go down to their staterooms and
try to snatch a short spell of sleep. The danger was over now, he said,
and they might fairly venture to recover a bit from the long terror of
that awful night.

As they went staggering feebly along the unsteady corridors below,
lighted by the dim lamps as yet unextinguished, they happened to pass
the door of a stateroom whence, to their great surprise, in the midst
of that terrible awe-inspiring hurricane, the notes of a violin could
be distinctly heard, mingling strangely in a weird harmony with the
groaning of the wind and the ominous creaking of the overstrained
and rumbling timbers. The sounds were not those of a regular piece
of studied music; they were mere fitful bars and stray snatches of
tempestuous melody, that imitated and registered the inarticulate
music of the whirlwind itself even as it passed wildly before them.
Nora paused a moment beside the half-open door. ‘Why,’ she whispered
to Marian in an awestruck undertone, clutching convulsively at the
hand-rail to steady herself, ‘it must be Dr Whitaker. He’s actually
playing his violin to himself in the midst of all this awful uproar!’

‘It is,’ Edward Hawthorn answered confidently. ‘I know his
stateroom—that’s the number.’

He pushed the half-open door a little farther ajar, and peeped inside
with sudden curiosity. There on the bunk sat the mulatto doctor,
unmoved amid the awful horse-play of the careering elements, with his
violin in his hands, and a little piece of paper ruled with pencilled
music-lines pinned up roughly against the wall of the cabin beside him.
He started and laughed a little at the sudden apparition of Edward
Hawthorn’s head within the doorway. ‘Ah,’ he said, pointing to a few
scratchy pencil-marks on the little piece of ruled paper, ‘you see,
Mr Hawthorn, I couldn’t sleep, and so I’ve been amusing myself with a
fit of composing. I’m catching some fresh ideas for a piece from the
tearing wind and the hubbub of the breakers. Isn’t it grand, the music
of the storm! I shall work it up by-and-by, no doubt, into a little
hurricane symphony.—Listen, here—listen.’ And he drew his bow rapidly
across the strings with skilful fingers, and brought forth from the
violin some few bars of a strangely wild and storm-like melody, that
seemed to have caught the very spirit of the terrible tornado still
raging everywhere so madly around them.

‘Has the man no feelings,’ Nora exclaimed with a shudder to Marian,
outside, ‘that he can play his fiddle in this storm, like Nero or
somebody when Rome was burning!’

‘I think,’ Marian said, with a little sigh, ‘he has some stronger
overpowering feeling underneath, that makes him think nothing of the
hurricane or anything else, but keeps him wrapped up entirely in its
own circle.’

       *       *       *       *       *

Next day, when the sea had gone down somewhat, and the passengers had
begun to struggle up on deck one by one with pallid faces, Dr Whitaker
made his appearance once more, clothed and in his right mind, and
handed Nora a little roll of manuscript music. Nora took it and glanced
carelessly at the first page. She started when she saw it was inscribed
in a round and careful copper-plate hand—‘To Miss Dupuy.—Hurricane
Symphony. By W. Clarkson Whitaker, M.B., Mus. Bac.’ Nora read hastily
through the first few bars—the soughing and freshening of the wind in
its earlier gusts, before the actual tempest had yet swept wildly over
them—and murmured half aloud: ‘It looks very pretty—very fine, I mean.
I should like some day to hear you play it.’

‘If you would permit me to prefix your name to the piece when it’s
published in London,’ the mulatto doctor said with an anxious air—‘just
as I’ve prefixed it there at the head of the title-page—I should be
very deeply obliged and grateful to you.’

Nora hesitated a moment. A brown man! Her name on the first page of
his printed music! What would people say in Trinidad? And yet, what
excuse could she give for answering no? She pretended for a while to be
catching back her veil, that the wind blew about her face and hair, to
gain time for consideration; then she said with a smile of apology: ‘It
would look so conceited of me, you know—wouldn’t it, Dr Whitaker? as
if I were setting myself up to be some great one, to whom people were
expected to dedicate music.’

The mulatto’s face fell a little with obvious disappointment; but
he answered quietly: ‘As you will, Miss Dupuy. It was somewhat
presumptuous of me, perhaps, to think you would accept a dedication
from me on so short an acquaintance.’

Nora’s cheeks coloured quickly as she replied with a hasty voice: ‘O
no, Dr Whitaker; I didn’t mean that—indeed, I didn’t. It’s very kind of
you to think of putting my name to your beautiful music. If you look
at it that way, I shall ask you as a personal favour to print that very
dedication upon it when you get it published in London.’

Dr Whitaker’s eye lighted up with unexpected pleasure, and he answered,
‘Thank you,’ slowly and softly. But Nora said to herself in her own
heart: ‘Goodness gracious, now, just out of politeness to this clever
brown man, and because I hadn’t strength of mind to say _no_ to him,
I’ve gone and put my foot in it terribly. What on earth will papa say
about it when he comes to hear of it! I must try and keep the piece
away from him. This is the sort of thing that’s sure to happen to one
when one once begins knowing brown people!’

(_To be continued._)




CUSTOMS’ OFFICERS AND WRECKS.


The powers of customs’ officers in the matter of wreckage or salvage
is a matter of great interest; and as it is referred to in a recent
Report by Her Majesty’s Commissioners of Customs, a few notes on the
subject may not be out of place. The whole of the wreck-work in the
United Kingdom is discharged by these officers, under the general
superintendence of the Board of Trade. All wreck found by any person,
except the owner thereof, is to be delivered up to the duly appointed
person termed the Receiver; and even if found by the owner, the
receiver is to be apprised of the facts. The receiver has power, with a
warrant from a justice of the peace, to enter into any house or other
place wherever situated, and there search for, seize, and detain any
wreck he may find. In all cases, he shall, within forty-eight hours
after taking possession of any wreck, cause to be posted up at the
custom-house in the port nearest to which such wreck was found or
seized, a description of the same, and of any marks by which it may
be distinguished. In certain cases, he is, moreover, to transmit a
description of the wreck in his hands to the Secretary of Lloyd’s in
London; and also to any admiral, vice-admiral, lord of the manor, or
other person having claims for his own use to otherwise unclaimed wreck.

The work of the receiver includes many transactions in connection
with wreck requiring much care, tact, and discretion, involving the
arrest and detention of ships and cargoes, on declaration by salvors of
claims to remuneration for salvage services, ships and cargoes being
held under arrest until salvage claims are settled, or until proper
security is given by bond or otherwise in satisfaction thereof, as
well as the disposal of the claims of salvors, and the restoration
of wreck to the owners thereof, after satisfying such claims, other
than for salvage, that may be against it. The receivers are, moreover,
authorised to dispose at once of all wrecked goods of a perishable
nature; and of all other goods at the end of a year, unless they can
be previously disposed of to the advantage of all persons concerned.
In the performance of his work, the receiver is to ‘endeavour to make
himself acquainted with the persons and characters of the boatmen and
others in the district who are likely to act as salvors or to find and
recover wreck;’ and he is to ‘remember that the powers of controlling
and directing such persons, and of furthering and adjusting their
claims for salvage, are to be exercised in such a manner as shall most
conduce to the preservation of life and property, and that he stands
between them on the one hand and the owner and insurer on the other in
an independent and judicial position.’ It is his special duty, whilst
providing for the claims of bonâ fide salvors, to protect, so far as
his powers permit, owners against vexatious and improper claims. The
receiver is further required to proceed to any place in the United
Kingdom, either on the shore or in a tidal river, where any ship may
be stranded or in distress; and there to take command of all persons
present, and issue such directions as he may deem appropriate for the
preservation of the ship and her apparel, as well as the cargo and the
lives of all persons on board.

The number of wrecks reported in 1884-85 was eleven thousand three
hundred and seventy-one; and the number sold or otherwise disposed of,
ten thousand one hundred and thirty-three. The amount of money received
on account of wreck was twenty-four thousand one hundred and fifteen
pounds; but as much of this amount is received in very small sums, it
does not adequately represent the very important work performed in this
matter every year by the officers of Customs.




A GOLDEN ARGOSY.

_A NOVELETTE._


CHAPTER XV.—CONCLUSION.

Miss Wakefield surveyed the group with an air of stony deliberation,
and the sharkiness of her uneven teeth displayed itself with distinct
unpleasantness. There was a cunning look in her eyes, a look of hate
and greed strangely blended with avarice.

Mr Carver, after a premonitory cough, addressed her. ‘Pray, be seated,
madam,’ he said with his severest professional manner. ‘The business
which has brought us here to-day is not likely to be protracted, and I
see no reason why we should not commence at once. I presume you would
wish to get it over?’

‘Certainly,’ she said; ‘I see nothing to detain us. I presume the thing
is concealed somewhere in the house.’

‘On the contrary, madam; no. Had such been the case, doubtless it would
have been discovered long since. I do not suppose you would have been
behindhand in the search; and if I remember, at the time of my late
client’s decease, no pains were spared to find his effects. I think
that is so?’

Miss Wakefield emitted a grim smile, and nodded.

‘Very good,’ the lawyer continued—‘very good.—Mr Slimm, I suppose
you have the implements at hand? Nothing remains now for it but
immediately to set to work and accomplish our mission. I have seen some
extraordinary things in the course of my professional career, but I
must say that since I have had the honour to be on the rolls, I never
encountered anything like this.’

‘How did it come out?’ asked Miss Wakefield acidly.

‘Margaret Boulton—you remember her, of course—she was charged with a
paper disclosing this secret. If I mistake not, it was given her on the
day of Mr Morton’s death.’

Miss Wakefield drew her breath sharply. ‘Had I but known!’ she said
slowly—‘ah, had I but known!’

There are spots, astronomers inform us, on the sun—a metaphorical
expression which, in the language of the day, implies that nothing
is perfect. The expression used by Miss Wakefield therefore proved
her to be after all but human, and, I am afraid, raised a feeling of
gratulation in her listeners’ breasts that she had _not_ known.

‘We are wasting time here,’ said Mr Carver shortly.

At this signal, every one rose, and made their way out of the
house, and thence on to the lawn. They were secluded entirely
from observation, and it was impossible for passers-by to see the
operations. Mr Slimm presently appeared bearing a pickaxe and spade,
and without delay commenced operations. He was an old miner, and went
to work in a scientific manner, which could not fail to win the entire
approval of the spectators. Miss Wakefield, who, be it remembered, was
entirely in the dark, watched his proceedings with a thrilling interest
entirely lost in contemplating the workman.

The spot where they were standing was in the centre of the lawn, and
there stood the figure of Niobe in the centre. Truly, the last place to
look for a fortune.

Mr Slimm’s first act was to clear away the weeds and rubbish which had
in time sprung up round Niobe’s feet—a task in which he was heartily
aided by the onlookers, Mr Carver doing great feats with the thistles;
and even Bates joined in the task, covering himself with distinction
by his desperate onslaught upon sundry dandelions which time had sown
there. This task being accomplished, the real work commenced.

‘I do not think we need move that ancient lady,’ said Mr Slimm,
touching the Niobe. ‘We will break earth here in front of her.’

By this time, excitement reigned supreme. Mr Carver hopped about like
an animated cork, giving the most contrary directions, and sadly
interfering with the task in hand by his well-meant interference.
After narrowly escaping sudden death from a hearty swing of Mr Slimm’s
pickaxe, he retired to a safe distance, and there directed the work in
safety, giving instructions which were totally ignored by the worker.

‘I never calculated,’ said the American, as he worked, ‘to be
prospecting for pay dirt on a gentleman’s lawn. As an ordinary rule,
such is not the place to look for dust. The symptoms don’t indicate
gold,’ he continued, digging away with great heartiness; ‘but we never
can tell what’s going to turn up, as the philosopher said. Nothing
like faith in these little operations. Faith, we are told, will remove
mountains. It isn’t a mountain exactly that I want to move; but this
is precious slow work. Perhaps I’m out of practice, perhaps it’s my
impatience, but this heap don’t seem to be increasing to any powerful
extent. It can’t be very much farther down, and that’s a fact, or my
old comrade must have been a much more powerful man than I took him
for.’

By this time he had excavated the earth to some depth, but as yet
nothing was visible. He resumed his task heartily, but as he got deeper
and deeper, his anxiety increased.

‘I hope we are not going to be sold,’ Mr Slimm said at length.

‘_Under_ the statue, remember,’ said Edgar; ‘you are going too deep.’

‘I believe you are right,’ replied Mr Slimm, as he directed a few blows
almost viciously at the side of the hole he had dug. At that moment
the point of the pick struck on some hard surface. Expectation was on
tiptoe, and the utmost pitch of excitement was reached: in other words,
every one became intensely quiet—if quiet can be intense—and watched
the worker closely. A few more blows given with hearty good-will,
and the spade plied with equal zest, brought to light a square box,
directly beneath the statue, but only a few inches underground. A few
touches of the spade completed its liberation, and Charles Morton’s
hiding-place was no longer an uncertainty, but a pleasant reality.

There, after so long an interment, it lay. The treasure which had
caused so much jealousy and scheming, disappointment and misery, care
and sorrow, avarice and cunning, was there. For that money one life had
been lost; for that treasure, two proud hearts had suffered four years’
misery and deprivation. For that poor dross, one man’s dying bed was
imbittered and poisoned; for the loss of it, one woman had wept and
raved in vain. Hidden from fear, found by that mysterious agency poor
mortals call chance, let us hope at last that it is destined to work
some good in a world of tears.

It was no dream. The contents were shaken out unceremoniously upon
the grass, and certified by Mr Carver. Neat piles of papers and
securities, chiefly American, were wrapped in water-proof, in a careful
manner. Their previous estimate of Mr Morton’s fortune was found not
to have been far wrong; for when the amount of the securities came to
be counted, the sum came to no less than thirty-eight thousand five
hundred and ten pounds.

‘Good!’ exclaimed Miss Wakefield, first to break the silence, and
speaking in a voice as nearly approaching satisfaction as it was
possible for that estimable female to reach. ‘I presume the rest is
merely formal.—Mr Carver, I shall expect nineteen thousand two hundred
and fifty-five pounds, free of costs, to be paid into my bankers at
once. I certainly take credit for my generosity in this matter.’

No one answered this remark; the idea of Miss Wakefield’s generosity
being sufficient to provide every mind with abundance of speculation.
But Mr Slimm’s sharp eye had caught sight of an envelope, which the
others, in the anxiety to count the spoil, had entirely overlooked.
With a quiet smile upon his lips, he listened to the last speaker’s
gracious remark, and then handing the paper to Mr Carver, said: ‘I am
afraid, madam, we shall have to tax your generosity still further. If
a will was found in our favour, I think you were to be content with
five thousand pounds. If I don’t mistake, the paper I have given to our
estimable friend is that interesting document.’

Meanwhile, Mr Carver was fluttering about in a state of great
jubilation. His first act, as soon as he had attracted the attention
of the group, was to shake hands with Bates with great and elaborate
ceremony. This gratifying operation being concluded, he put on his
spectacles and said: ‘Bates, I owe you an apology. I spoke of your
intellect disparagingly, I believe, not long since; and now, in
the presence of this distinguished circle, I beg leave, in all due
humility, to retract my words. It was I who had lost my wits.—No—no
contradictions, please. I say it was I. The paper I hold in my hand
is the last will and testament of my late client, Charles Morton, the
owner of this house. After giving a few brief reasons for disposing of
his money in this extraordinary manner, and after a few small legacies,
he says: “And as to the rest, residue, and remainder of my estate both
real and personal, and of what description or kind soever and of which
I may die possessed, I give and bequeath to my niece, Eleanor Seaton,
for her absolute use and benefit.” It is signed and witnessed by John
Styles and Aaron Gray, both names being familiar to me.—Miss Wakefield,
I congratulate you; I do, indeed. You have done really well.’

It was evident, from the expression of that lady’s face, that she was
very far from sharing this opinion. Her upper lip went up, and her
saw-like teeth came down in a manner evil to see. ‘It is a conspiracy!’
she hissed, ‘a low, cunning conspiracy.—Oh, you shall pay for it—you
shall pay for it. Do you think you are going to rob me with impunity,
with your lawyer schemes? I will fight the will,’ she screamed, ‘if I
am ruined for it. I will ruin you all! I will have you struck off the
rolls! Oh, you hoary-headed, lying old reptile, you!’

‘Madam,’ said Mr Slimm sternly, ‘you forget yourself. Do you not know
it is in our power to count the money you have had into the sum we
propose to give you? Have a care—have a care!’

These last words, uttered with peculiar emphasis, had a wonderful
effect upon the ‘woman scorned.’ With a violent effort, she collected
herself, and when she spoke again, it was without the slightest trace
of her late abandoned, reckless manner.

‘Be it so,’ she said slowly—‘be it so. You are not likely to hear from
me again.—Good-morning.—Mr Slimm, I see my cab is waiting. If you will
be good enough to give me your arm, I shall be obliged to you.’

‘One moment,’ said Mr Carver. ‘We do not propose to deduct the few
hundreds you have from the stipulated sum to be paid to you. You shall
hear from me in a few days.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied with strange humility.—‘Mr Slimm, are you
ready?—Again, good-morning.’

When the American returned, his face was grave and stern. What passed
between him and Miss Wakefield was never known. And so she passes from
our history. Her cunning and deceit—if it was not something worse—had
availed her nothing. Baffled and defeated, as vice should always be,
she retired to her dingy lodging, and was never more seen by our
friends. Whether there had been any foul-play was never known. If the
shrewd American had any such suspicions, he kept them to himself. It
was best, he thought, to let the past dead bury its dead, and not stir
up bitterness and the shadow of a crime, where nought but peace and
sunshine should be.

Mr Carver was still puzzled. Why his client should have taken such a
strange course with his money, and why he had not come to him and made
his last will in a straightforward manner, was a circumstance he could
not fathom. But wiser men than the astute lawyer have been puzzled ere
now by the idiosyncrasies of man, and Mr Carver was only pondering upon
a subject which has been and will be a theme with philosophers for all
time.

‘Why could he not have come to me?’ he asked at length.

‘I think it is easily understood,’ explained Felix; ‘and the principal
reason was fear. According to your own showing, Mr Morton was moody
and fanciful, possessing a highly-strung nervous system, and easily
impressed. That woman’s stronger will stifled his. I am under no
obligation to her, but she possesses a mesmeric eye which has a
peculiar effect upon me. Besides this, it is evident he never trusted
her. He must have known, had he communicated with you, that she would
sooner or later discover it, hence his strange conduct. The method, to
me, savours strongly of a madman’s cunning. It is proverbial that such
men trust no one.’

‘It is rather idle to speculate upon it now,’ Edgar said cheerfully.
‘Justice has been done at last, and we are satisfied.’

‘We are all satisfied,’ exclaimed Mr Carver. ‘You have your money, and
Bates has his partnership.—Eh, Bates?’ slapping that individual with
great heartiness on the back—‘eh, Bates?’

‘I suppose so, sir,’ replied that misanthrope gravely; ‘but the whole
matter is highly unprofessional. There is a lack of business form about
it.’

‘Ah, ah!’ laughed Mr Carver—‘just like Bates; no sentiment—no poetry’——

‘And no romance,’ put in Edgar.

It was a merry group. Mr Slimm was talking to Eleanor, making her laugh
at his quaint American saws, and she was telling him of her strange
dream, and how it had all come true. Edgar and Mr Carver were badgering
Bates upon his gloomy state; and Felix was amusing and instructing
little Nelly with a bewildering, awe-inspiring fairy tale—the little
one, who had been a silent spectator of the proceedings, and knew by
some childish instinct that some happy event had happened.

‘Ring down the curtain—the thing is played out,’ Edgar said; ‘and now
back again to London town, Nelly.’

‘Papa,’ she said after a pause, ‘has some day come?’

‘Yes, darling.’

‘Really and truly?’

‘Yes, darling. _Some_ day has come at last, little one.’

       *       *       *       *       *

Sunshine and laughter, mirth and joy, instead of misery and despair,
gloom and smoke. Eastwood again two months later, and high revels
are being held, for is it not little Nelly’s birthday! The blue sky,
flecked with little white clouds, smiles overhead, and the birds are
making merry in the trees. Niobe still stands in the centre of the
lawn, as ready to keep a secret as ever, and saying nothing either of
the future or the past.

A pattering throng of little ones are trying to play at tennis, and
Eleanor and her husband are watching them with amused eyes. Eleanor
looks very sweet and fair to-day, with the light of happiness in her
eyes; and there is an expression of peace on her face, as she leans
upon her husband’s chair, which is good and pleasant to see. Mr Bates
is looking on at the group with meditative looks, speculating, no
doubt, upon marriage settlements, which these little chatterers will
want some day. Jolly Mr Carver is in the midst of a group of little
ones, making himself an object of ridicule and contempt on account of
his lack of knowledge touching the mysteries of ‘hunt the slipper.’
‘Fancy an old gentleman like that knowing nothing of the game!’—an
opinion which one golden-haired fairy tenders him without hesitation,
and to which he listens with becoming humility and contriteness.
Noble-hearted Felix has established a court, where he is doing his best
to emulate the wonders of the eastern storytellers, and, to judge from
the rapt attention of his audience and the extreme roundness of their
eyes, his imagination is by no means faulty. Lying full length on the
grass, watching the various groups, is Mr Slimm. There is a depth of
sadness in his eyes to-day, for he is thinking of another home—that
was—thousands of miles away, and the echo of other voices than these
rings in his ears.

‘I did hope,’ he said, rising up, ‘that I should spend my old age with
my own children; but I suppose it was not to be.’

‘Do not think of that now,’ Eleanor said with womanly tenderness.

‘Perhaps it is selfish,’ he replied, with a great heave of his chest.
‘It is all for the best, and I have my happiness in yours. Had I not
lost my dear ones, I should never have brought you your joy.’

‘Dear old fellow!’ Edgar said, pressing his hand warmly. ‘Try and
forget that for to-day. How good providence has been to us!’

‘It is not every man who has a wife like yours, Seaton,’ replied the
American, heedless of the blushing Eleanor.

‘True for you, old friend,’ Edgar replied, looking at his wife
lovingly. ‘I have one in a million;’ and he kissed her fondly.

The American regarded them for a moment with something in his eyes
suspiciously like tears. ‘It was not to be,’ he said at length—‘it was
not to be!’

Eleanor came forward and took his hands in her own. ‘Why not?’ she
said. ‘You have always a home and welcome here. Stay with us, and we
will give to you what we can. Now, promise.’

And he promised.




THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.


The necessary excavations for an immense sewer in course of
construction at Rome, have laid bare some interesting relics of the
ancient city. One of these is a tomb, almost perfect in every respect,
which bears an inscription showing that it was the last resting-place
of Sergius, who was consul in the year 144 B.C. Cicero mentions Sergius
as being a fine orator. The tomb is a handsome one; and it is intended
to remove and rebuild it in some spot where it will again be open to
the light of day. At present, it is at a depth of twenty feet below the
modern level. Other relics, separated from the present by an interval
of twenty centuries, have also been laid bare. Among them is the site
of the College of Medicine, and an inscription bearing the names of
thirty physicians.

Another interesting find has occurred at Ramleh, near Alexandria. This
is the unearthing of an ancient statue of the great Pharaoh, which was
recently discovered by the chief of the coastguardsmen, Middlemas Bey,
while searching for contraband tobacco. The statue has not been fully
examined yet. There is little doubt, however, that it is three thousand
years old. It is covered with hieroglyphics, which will most probably
throw some light upon its history. There is every indication that the
spot where it has been found may form part of the site of a buried city.

The Exhibition opened some weeks ago under the auspices of the
Geographical Society (London), has proved a great success, for it
has been well attended. Its object was to show, by exhibiting the
maps, atlases, textbooks, and appliances devoted to this science by
continental countries, and also by lectures, that the land upon which
the sun never sets is beyond all others the most deficient in the means
of teaching geography. The collection will presently be exhibited at
Manchester, and afterwards at Edinburgh. It is said that the Council
of the Geographical Society will give a favourable hearing to any
application which may be made to them for the loan of the collection
for exhibition in other large cities.

M. Daubrie, an authority on meteorites, has been examining two of
these bodies which fell in India last year. One of them fell at the
village of Pirthalla, in the Punjaub. It weighed twenty pounds, and
had the appearance of granite, coated with a blackened skin. The
other meteorite fell in the North-western Provinces, and its fall was
accompanied by a flash of light and a noise resembling thunder. A great
deal of interest has been aroused lately in the subject of meteorites
by the course of lectures which Professor Dewar has just concluded
at the Royal Institution, London, and which have been addressed to a
juvenile audience. Children of an older growth as well can hardly fail
to be interested in these mysterious bodies, the only visitors that
come to us from space.

We stated last month in these columns that MM. Paul and Prosper
Henry had succeeded in photographing a portion of the Milky-way. It
has now been suggested by the same eminent French astronomers that
the different observatories of the world should join hands in the
stupendous undertaking of charting in their true positions all the
stars, about twenty millions, which are included in the first fifteen
magnitudes. It is calculated that the work might be accomplished within
the present century, if twelve observatories in different parts of
the northern and southern hemisphere were to undertake it. About five
hundred and ten photographic plates would have to be taken at each
place, and each plate would require perhaps one night’s attention. But
the only nights available would be those having no moon and having a
clear and still air. If this work be carried out, its value to the
future of astronomical science will be incalculable.

A shock of earthquake was felt at about seven o’clock on the morning
of January 20 in Cornwall, at St Austell and in the neighbourhood. It
appeared as if an explosion had taken place, so great was the noise,
and the sound was immediately followed by the shaking of the ground.
Persons felt their beds moving under them, and many others had an
impression that a portion of their house was falling down. The shock
was also felt at Mevagissey. Many people were shaken in their beds.
In one instance a clock was stopped, and in many houses the doors and
windows shook violently. The inhabitants of St Blazey and neighbourhood
were greatly startled, about a quarter past seven, by hearing a loud
rumbling noise and by houses being shaken from foundation to roof.
It appeared to come from a northerly direction, and the vibration
lasted about four or five seconds. Persons coming in from the outlying
districts and giving an account of the shock being more or less severe,
all agree as to the time of its taking place.

A more important instance of subterranean activity has been reported
to the Admiralty by the United States government. A submarine volcano,
southward of the Culebras reef, has suddenly become active, and has
thrown up an island two miles in length and about two hundred and fifty
feet in height. A similar volcano on the same spot was reported in the
year 1877.

From a study of six hundred and fifty thunderstorms that occurred in
Italy in 1881, Signor Ferrari concludes that every thunderstorm is
connected with a barometric, hygrometric, and thermic depression; it
is behind the two former, and in front of the last. Most of those
storms arose in the wide plain of the Po. Coming from west-north-west
with a velocity of from eighteen to twenty-four miles per hour, they
passed (in case of their greatest range) with slackening speed over
the Apennines in Upper and Middle Italy. For a given moment the
thunderstorm has the form of a long narrow band, advancing, with
numerous bends outwards and inwards, parallel to itself, and having
its various characteristic phenomena most intense along the middle
line. The dominant wind-direction is generally parallel to that of
propagation of the storm.

M. de Lesseps, with delegates from the Chambers of Commerce of
Paris, Marseilles, Havre, Rouen, Bordeaux, and Lyons, as well as
representatives from England, Holland, Germany, &c., whom he has
invited to accompany him, has started for the Panama Canal works. The
object of the journey is to dispel any doubts as to the completion of
the undertaking, and also to give the representatives of the various
nationalities an opportunity of seeing for themselves how far the work
has progressed. It is said that there are now twenty-seven contractors
on the works, who are tied down to finish their sections by certain
dates. So many adverse reports have been circulated as to the real
condition of affairs, that news from competent and disinterested
observers will be looked for with some anxiety.

A scheme, under influential support, has been started for the
pacification and administration of that unfortunate part of Africa
called the Soudan. This happy consummation is to be brought about by
the establishment of a chartered corporation of somewhat the same type
as the defunct East India Company. The nominal capital of this proposed
Company is to be ten millions, with power to borrow as much more; and
it is further proposed that the English government, in consideration of
having the white-elephant taken off their hands, should find a handsome
subsidy. The money would be employed in the development of the country
generally, by the maintenance of roads, railways, irrigation-works,
and other works of public utility. As the tribes generally have the
instinct of keen traders, it is hoped that these measures may induce
them to ‘turn their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into
pruning-hooks.’ It is hoped, too, that the operations of the Company
may stamp out for ever the slave-trade of equatorial Africa. The scheme
is a magnificent one; but its success will depend upon the tact of
those who are brought into contact with the natives.

Lieutenant Taunt, who was employed by the United States government
upon a mission to the Congo, has recently returned, and gives a very
favourable report as to the healthy infancy of the free state. With few
exceptions, the chiefs of the different stations are on good terms with
the natives. Cattle are reared with great success, and fresh meat is
therefore abundant, and the same may be said of European vegetables.
Lieutenant Taunt enjoyed good health, and considers that there is no
reason why other white men should not do the same, if they will only
exercise common prudence. Upon only one occasion did the explorer meet
with any animosity from the natives, and this he attributed to the
fact that no station had been established in that particular district.
He considers that it would be to the interest of the free state if a
great many more stations were established. Finally, Lieutenant Taunt
agrees with Mr Stanley that on the Congo there are abundant resources
to develop.

We have much pleasure in calling attention to the Typewriting and
General Copying Association, which for twelve months has been
established for the employment of reduced gentlewomen at Lonsdale
Chambers, Chancery Lane, London. This worthy little Association has
during its first year been so successful in paying its way and making a
profit on the work done, that three new type-writers have been bought
by it. Authors, dramatists, and many others find it very convenient to
have their writings translated into a form which can be so easily read.
We wish the enterprise continued success.

The miniature hills and vales exhibited by the wood-pavement of a
roadway where there is a constant traffic, is a familiar sight to
dwellers in our cities. The only remedy hitherto found for the disease
is the relaying of the road with fresh blocks of wood and a long
exhibition of the notice ‘No Thoroughfare,’ while the tedious operation
is going forward. Mr Bicknell, of the Sandycroft Foundry Company,
Chester, has invented a machine to obviate this inconvenience, and it
has been tried with some success at Manchester. It has the appearance
of a traction-engine, and it carries before it a revolving disc
furnished with cutters. These cutters pare the road level, after the
manner of a planing-machine, advancing upon the work at the rate of one
foot per minute.

All anglers must be grateful to Mr Henry Ffennell for the care with
which he gathers and publishes statistics relating to the Salmon
Fisheries. His record for the past year is a very satisfactory one,
for it tells us that fish of large size have fallen victims to the rod
and to the net. Huge fish of forty pounds weight have been common,
and as usual, the river Tay takes the lead in the number and weight
of its fish. One angler, Captain Griffith, landed in a single day
thirteen fish of the collective weight of two hundred and thirty-seven
and a half pounds. In the Dee, a fish of fifty-seven pounds fell to
the rod of the keeper, and a fish of the same weight was taken in
Ireland, on the Shannon. On the Dee, it is reported that netting in
the lower reaches has been carried on to such an extent that the upper
proprietors who do so much to nurse the fish during their tender
infancy are becoming quite disheartened. The same complaint comes from
the water-bailiffs on the upper portion of the Severn fishery. But
here, it seems that the fish have other remorseless enemies in the
otters, who of late years have increased in numbers to an alarming
extent. These voracious hunters do not content themselves with simply
killing a salmon now and then to supply their larders, but prefer, as
their habit is, to eat a piece out of the shoulder, leaving the rest
of the carcase untouched. As many as six or seven dead fish have been
found in one place mutilated in this manner.

‘Horses of the Past and Present’ was the subject of a most interesting
lecture given lately at the London Institution by Professor Flower,
who, it will be remembered, succeeded Professor Owen as Director of
the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. He pointed to the
tapir as one of the earliest known ancestors of the horse, and showed
that the family group to which the horse belonged had undergone great
modifications. The changes which had gradually taken place in the horse
consisted principally in a great increase of size, especially in the
length of the neck and certain structural alterations in the bones. The
teeth and the feet exhibit the most marked alterations from previous
types, alterations which have been induced by conditions of life. The
lecturer held that the domestic horse is undoubtedly derived from the
wild species of Europe and Asia, but there is no means of arriving at
the time when domestication took place.

The opening, last month, of the tunnel beneath the Mersey, which
connects Liverpool with Birkenhead, marks the successful completion
of one of the great engineering achievements of modern times. The
boring differs from an ordinary railway tunnel in consisting of three
separate passages through the solid rock. The lowermost of these is
a drainage ‘heading’ eight feet in diameter. Seven feet above this
comes the main tunnel, twenty-six feet in diameter, through which the
trains are now continually passing, and lastly, by its side runs the
ventilating tunnel, seven feet in diameter. This last heading is a most
important feature of the works. Revolving fans, forty feet in diameter,
at each end of this ventilating tunnel, cause the air to be changed
continually in the main heading, so that passengers breathe air as
pure as that they have left behind them above ground. Those who have
travelled in the choking atmosphere of the Metropolitan Underground
Railway will be able to appreciate the importance of this provision for
fresh air. Golfers, too, who reside in Liverpool and who frequent the
delightful Links of Hoylake, in Cheshire, will doubtless appreciate the
convenience of being taken there and back minus the ferry-boat passage.

It would seem almost an impossibility that snow could attach itself
to and accumulate upon a strong metal wire suspended in mid-air, to
such an extent as to cause that wire to snap by reason of the extra
burden imposed upon it. But recurring snowstorms teach us that this is
what happens to many of our telegraph wires, to the great and serious
injury of communication all over the country. One of the officials of
the telegraph department has been at the pains to weigh a portion of
the frozen snow which fell from a wire, upon which it had covered a
space of one foot. The mass weighed just upon one pound. Now, as the
supporting posts of such a wire are commonly two hundred feet apart,
it is readily seen that a wire may be called upon by a snowstorm to
support an extra weight of two hundred pounds. More than this, a wire
so circumstanced may form one of two dozen or more supported on the
same set of poles, and these supports naturally succumb to the unusual
load. The remedy is obvious; wires should, whenever possible, be laid
beneath the ground, and our postal authorities are carrying out that
principle as far as they can.

Another advance in photography is represented by a process invented by
M. Thiebaut, which has recently been described before the Photographic
Society of Great Britain. In this process the glass plate which usually
forms the support of the photographic film is superseded by a sheet
of cardboard. In other words, the sensitive mixture of silver bromide
and gelatine is spread upon sheets of cardboard. After the picture is
developed, the film is separated from its support, and can be printed
from by the sun in the usual way. The advantage of this process is that
a tourist can carry with him the material for a gross of pictures,
while the weight is only about that of a dozen of the usual glass
plates. More than this, several negatives when complete can be stored
away in a very small space.

The great painter Van Dyck, while journeying to Italy, fell sick at the
village of St Jean de Maurienne, in Savoy, and was carefully nursed
until convalescent by the family of one of the chief residents. As some
return for the kindness he received, Van Dyck painted the portrait
of one of the children of his host, and left the picture behind him.
This picture has been for a long time known to exist, but where it had
gone to, nobody could tell. It has at last been discovered, and it is
probable that the directors of the Brussels gallery will endeavour to
purchase this precious relic of the great master.

The machinery devised for producing cold air, and hitherto exclusively
used for freezing meat and other perishable things, has lately been
employed in Stockholm for quite another purpose. A tunnel has been
in course of construction there which passes through a hill, the
soil of which is of a wet, gravelly nature. Upon this hill stand
many buildings, which would have been in great danger if the work
had proceeded without some means being taken of supporting their
foundations. Underpinning was considered too expensive; so the
contractor hit upon the entirely novel plan of freezing the wet gravel
into a solid icy concrete. The plan has answered admirably, and many of
the houses are being tunnelled under with perfect safety.

The professors of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary have adopted a new
form of stretcher, the invention of Mr R. Stevens, who is an engineer
employed at the institution. The apparatus consists of a canvas sheet,
with carrying-poles on each side, attached to the ends of which are
iron cross-bars, to prevent the poles coming too near together, and
providing therefore a sufficient space between them for the patient
under removal. But the chief feature of the new contrivance, and one
which must prove very valuable in some cases of injury is, that the
patient can be laid on a bed without being lifted from the stretcher.
This end is accomplished by making the canvas sheet in two parts, but
secured by a cord or a rod passed through loopholes at the place of
junction. When the stretcher, with the patient on it, is placed on the
bed, this cord or rod can be readily removed, and the stretcher falls
in two halves, leaving the patient comfortable.

We have already noticed the wonderful antiseptic properties of boracic
acid in the article ‘Borax’ (_Journal_, January 9th). An interesting
testimony as to its properties for preserving fresh fish comes from
Norway. Writing in the _Scotsman_, Professor J. Cossar Ewart draws
attention to the fact that between four and five thousand barrels of
herrings preserved by means of a mixture of this substance and salt,
have been arriving weekly from Norway; and last winter, over twenty
thousand barrels found their way into the English market. Cargoes
delivered before Christmas had a ready sale at twenty-eight shillings
per barrel. The same writer indicates how the boracic acid may be
applied in the preservation of fish. For preserving herrings, the best
plan seems to be a mixture of powdered boracic acid and fine salt.
The mixture having been made, the fresh herrings should be arranged
in layers in a barrel in exactly the same way as cured herrings are
packed, and each tier covered with a thin layer of the mixture. When
the barrel is full, it should be tightened down in the ordinary way
and then ‘pickled’ with a weak solution of boracic acid. For treating
a barrel of herrings in this manner, two and a half pounds of acid and
five pounds of salt are required for spreading on the tiers of herrings
during packing, and about ten ounces of pure acid for dissolving in the
fresh water used for pickling. The boracic acid may be had for less
than sixpence a pound.

Dr Riley, Entomologist to the United States Agricultural Department,
has presented his collection of insects to the United States. It is
said to contain one hundred and fifteen thousand specimens of twenty
thousand species or varieties of insects.

In Germany, an unusual number of white varieties of animals are noticed
this winter. A white chamois was shot in the Totengebirge, a white
otter was caught near Luxemburg, white partridges were shot near
Brunswick, and a white fox was killed in Hessen.

In the eleven years from 1873 to 1884, the number of lions killed in
Algeria was two hundred and two, for which a premium of four hundred
pounds has been paid by the government. The number of panthers
destroyed in the same period is twelve hundred and fourteen, and the
money paid by the government seven hundred and twenty pounds. About
four hundred pounds has been paid for eighteen hundred and eighty-two
hyenas, and sixteen hundred pounds for twenty-seven thousand jackals.
The large felidæ are almost extirpated principally in the western
provinces, and the lion of the desert is fast becoming a thing of the
past.




A BARRACK GHOST STORY.


‘Prisoner, have you any objection to be tried by me as president, or by
any member of this court-martial?’ asked the field-officer who had been
detailed for the duty of presiding over the court.

‘No, sir,’ I answered; for it was my most unenviable situation that
morning to be brought to the courtroom for trial, having been ‘put
back’ by my commanding officer a few days before on a charge of having
been asleep on my post while on sentry; an offence characterised in
my indictment as ‘conduct in prejudice to good order and military
discipline.’

The members composing the court were then sworn, and the trial
proceeded in the cumbrous fashion peculiar to military tribunals, the
president laboriously writing down every word of the evidence as it
was uttered. The sergeant who had been in charge of the guard at the
time of my alleged offence was the principal witness against me, and he
began to describe, with grotesquely ungrammatical volubility, how he
had found me stretched on the ground asleep; but was at once pulled up
short by the president, who ordered him to say what he had to say in as
few words as possible.

‘Was the prisoner sober?’ asked one of the officers when the sergeant
had finished his evidence.

‘Quite sober, sir,’ replied the man of stripes.

The men who composed the relief having corroborated the sergeant’s
statement, I was called upon for my defence.

I therefore narrated to the court, that shortly before my two hours
on duty had expired, I saw a white figure carrying a drawn sword pass
close to my post; and that, being of a nervous, excitable temperament,
I was so frightened that I fell to the ground in an unconscious state,
and only recovered when I was roused by the sergeant of the guard.

‘Prisoner,’ remarked the president, ‘in my twenty years’ experience of
the army, I have served on numerous courts-martial, and have heard all
kinds of ingenious defences put forward by men in your present position
in excuse of the offences with which they were charged; but your line
of defence is the most remarkable that has come under my observation.
Who, do you think, will credit a story of that description? Assuredly
not I, for one.—Now, prisoner,’ continued the major in a kindly tone,
‘I must advise you that your action in submitting to the court a
statement of that description is extremely injudicious. You will do
yourself a positive injury by persevering in it, not only with regard
to the probable extent of your punishment, but also to your reputation
as a soldier. It will be far better for you simply to own that you
were asleep. You are a young man who has served but six months in
the regiment; so, under the circumstances, assuming that you adopt
my suggestion, which is assuredly meant for your good, the court may
think fit, consistently with the duty demanded of it by the hard and
fast requirements of military law, to recommend a much lighter sentence
of imprisonment than would be administered to an older and more
experienced member of the service.’

‘I can only tell the truth, sir,’ I urged.

‘That, then, is your defence—that you were frightened by the figure you
saw?’ asked the officer in a tone of vexation.

‘That is my defence, sir,’ I replied.

‘Very well,’ said the president, writing down my statement.—‘Escort,
remove the prisoner.—Stop! About his character? Call the captain of his
company.’

My captain answering the summons, stated that my conduct had been
most exemplary; after which I received the command: ‘Left turn, quick
march!’ and was removed to the guardroom; and the members of the
court-martial began their deliberations on the duration of the period
of imprisonment which they meant to administer to me.

I shall now relate the facts in connection with the appearance of
the ‘figure’ before alluded to. At one o’clock on the morning of my
arrest, I was posted on sentry in front of a wall which had been built
on the face of a cliff overhanging the beach. Why that particular
spot required guarding, when any attempt on the part of a soldier to
break out of barracks would be equivalent to committing suicide, as
the rock had a sheer unbroken descent of one hundred and fifty feet,
was a matter of puzzling speculation to the men of all the regiments
which in turn occupied the quarters I refer to. A tradition, however,
which was retailed to me by an aged veteran who officiated as a
barrack labourer, threw some light on the subject. Many years before,
the colonel of a regiment which was about to leave the town in order
to embark for India, placed a sentry on the spot, to prevent his men
from throwing over the cliff the rubbish that accumulates in changing
quarters; and the relieving regiment finding this man on duty, had
supplied his place without troubling themselves about the why and
wherefore; the post became in consequence a permanent institution, and
a sentry guards the wall to this day.

The morning on which I was on guard was exceedingly cold and frosty.
The moon shone brightly, throwing the dark shadow of the adjoining
officers’ quarters half-way across the parade-ground in front. In the
valley beneath I could see distinctly every gable and chimney of the
houses of the old-fashioned town that nestled so cosily in the hollow
between the precipitous cliffs. The moon was reflected brightly in the
ocean to the south, and by its light I could even see the glittering
bayonet of the sentry who guarded the government stores on the pier, a
mile distant. Our gallant soldiers on duty, however, have but little
regard for the picturesque; and like most men similarly situated, I
was wearying for the termination of my two hours’ vigil, and little
inclined to admire the surrounding scenery. At length the clock struck
three; and I was at once filled with a feeling of cheery satisfaction
at the immediate prospect of being relieved, and of returning to the
warm guardroom and drinking a cup of hot coffee before turning off to
sleep.

I heard the sentry on the gate lustily shout ‘Sentry-go!’ as a summons
for the relief to turn out; and just as I was preparing to take a last
turn on my post, I perceived, at the extremity of the shadow cast by
the officers’ quarters, a ghostly figure in a long white robe, bearing
in its hand a drawn sword. I endeavoured to shout for assistance,
but was so ‘harrowed with fear and wonder,’ that I was unable to
articulate a single word, but stood perfectly transfixed, staring at
the apparition. It moved slowly past me; but when it turned round and
raised its disengaged hand to its white head-covering, as if in salute,
its aspect so filled me with terror, that being, as I mentioned before,
of a nervous temperament, I fell to the ground, and only recovered
consciousness when, a minute or two afterwards, I was vigorously shaken
up by the sergeant of the guard.

That non-commissioned officer along with the men of the relief laughed
heartily when I described the fright I had received, and remarked that
I had been dreaming. The sergeant, however, performed the duty required
of him by the rules of discipline in a most inexorable fashion. He
deprived me of my arms and belts, and confined me in the prisoners’
quarters in the guardroom.

Next day, I was taken before the commanding officer, a hot-headed
Welshman, whom I shall call Colonel Morgan, charged with having been
asleep on my post. To him I related particulars of the mysterious
figure I had seen; but my statement, instead of proving a satisfactory
excuse for my offence, as I hoped it would, threw the worthy colonel
into a state of great indignation, and he at once remitted me for trial
by court-martial.

On the third day after the sitting of the court, I was informed that
my sentence would be promulgated at forenoon parade. With a sinking
heart, I heard the ‘assembly’ sounded, then the ‘fall in;’ and shortly
afterwards the band played merrily, as if in mockery of my agitation.

Escorted by a file of the guard, I marched to the centre of the hollow
square into which the regiment had been formed; and the adjutant read
out my sentence, which was, that I should be imprisoned with hard
labour for a period of eighty-four days. Appended to the confirmation
of the proceedings of the court-martial by the general commanding the
district was a note to the following effect: ‘Considering the nature
of the prisoner’s defence, which was calculated to excite an uneasy
feeling among the men of his regiment, I consider the punishment
inflicted quite inadequate to the enormity of his offence.’

The next day, I was escorted, handcuffed, to a military prison about
six miles distant, where, after having been medically examined and
weighed, I was introduced to a most select assemblage of erring
brethren of the sword, who were engaged in the exhilarating occupation
of picking oakum, alternated with the agreeable muscular exercise of
‘shot’-drill.

The humiliating and degrading situation in which I found myself,
through no fault of my own, made me, naturally enough, deeply regret my
folly in having joined the army, and excited within me many unpleasant
reflections on the good prospects in civil life which I had thrown to
the winds. Like Mickey Free’s father, in Lever’s _Charles O’Malley_, I
heartily ejaculated: ‘Bad luck to the hand that held the hammer that
struck the shilling that listed me!’

Now for the sequel to my ghost story, which was related to me when I
was released from durance vile.

Between two and three o’clock on the morning of the day after I was
taken to prison, a man came screaming into the guardroom of the
barracks, exhibiting symptoms of the most extreme terror, and declaring
that he, too, had seen the figure while on sentry; and his description
of its appearance was precisely similar to mine.

The sergeant of the guard at once rushed to the officers’ quarters,
woke up the adjutant, and informed him of the ghost’s alleged
reappearance. A hue-and-cry was at once instituted; and the orderly
sergeants having been roused, a ‘check-roll’ was called, to ascertain
whether any man had left his room for the purpose of playing a
practical joke. Every nook and cranny in barracks, from the officers’
quarters to the wash-houses, were rigidly examined; but the spectre had
apparently vanished into thin air, leaving all the regiment in a state
of unpleasant suspense.

‘What’s all the row?’ shouted the colonel from the window of his room,
he having been awakened by the unusual commotion in barracks.

‘The ghost has appeared again, sir,’ replied the adjutant.

‘Have you caught him?’

‘No, sir.’

‘If you do, put him, white sheet and all, in the guardroom. I should
very much like to see the gentleman,’ remarked the colonel as he closed
the sash of his window and returned to bed.

That morning, at orderly hour, Colonel Morgan remitted the unfortunate
fellow who, like me, had been scared by the mysterious visitant, for
trial by court-martial, declaring that he would put an effectual check
on these absurd fancies of the sentries; and immediately before the
usual parade he delivered a most characteristic warning to the regiment
on the subject. After describing the condign punishment which any
practical joker, whether officer or private, might expect if caught
in the act of playing the ghost, the commanding officer furiously
exclaimed: ‘When a soldier is on duty, I expect that he will stick
to his post, even supposing the Evil One himself should make his
appearance; and I will try by court-martial any man who dares to act
contrary to my express injunctions.’

That afternoon, however, when the guard mounted, the adjutant privately
gave orders that the oldest soldier should be detailed for the second
relief on the haunted post; and this selection fell on a brawny
Yorkshireman, a Crimean and Indian veteran named Sykes. Sykes at once
intimated it as his intention to have a shot at the spectre; and being
filled with a superstitious belief in the efficacy of a silver bullet
when fired at a visitor from the world of spirits, vowed that he would
hammer up his day’s pay of sixpence and place it in a cartridge, to
make sure of ‘doing for’ the ghost, even although he knew the operation
referred to would spoil the price of a quart of beer.

The sergeant of the guard having seriously inquired at the adjutant,
whether, in the event of the figure again making its appearance, the
sentry would be empowered to fire at it—

‘I think not,’ the officer laughingly observed. ‘If it is a real ghost,
then I’m afraid a bullet won’t be of much service. If it is a practical
joker, then we’ll make it “hot” enough for him without shooting him.’

That evening at mess, the appearance of the spectre was the general
theme of conversation among the officers; but all of them, however,
expressed their incredulity with regard to the story. A few of the
youngsters, whose curiosity was strongly excited on the subject, made
up their minds to keep watch beside the sentry, so as to pounce on the
spirit when it made its appearance, and arranged to take with them a
pet bulldog belonging to the colonel, to assist in the operation.

‘Won’t you join us, sir?’ asked a young ensign, addressing the
commanding officer.

‘I think not,’ he replied. ‘I am tired, and shall go to bed. If you
catch the ghost—which I suspect is likely to be one of the men—clap him
in irons and put him in a cell. I’ll attend to him to-morrow.’

When Colonel Morgan left the messroom, he visited the haunted post
before retiring to his quarters, which were close at hand. After
replying to the sentry’s challenge, he asked Sykes: ‘Have you seen
anything as yet?’

‘Not yet, sir,’ replied the man.

‘I don’t think that it is likely you will either,’ remarked the colonel
with a laugh as he retired to his room.

Shortly afterwards, when the clock struck two, the young officers left
the messroom and cautiously stole over the barrack square to the place
where ‘the spirit held his wont to walk.’ Poor Sykes was very glad of
their company; for, though he was a man of undoubted pluck, and greatly
respected in the regiment for his pugilistic prowess, he was not at all
bright at the prospect of tackling the ghost all by himself. He paced
about on his post, keeping a sharp lookout, and the officers crouched
under the shadow of the wall; while the dog took up its quarters in the
sentry-box. A little before three, they were startled by the abrupt
appearance of the apparition, which carried as before a drawn sword.

‘Who comes there?’ shouted Sykes, bringing his rifle to the ‘charge.’

The spectre made no answer, but slowly raised its left hand to its
forehead.

The dog, with a loud growl, sprang out of the box and rushed
open-mouthed at the figure; but when he approached it, he began to wag
his tail, and evinced symptoms of great satisfaction. The officers
and the sentry at once surrounded the ghost, and found, to their most
intense astonishment, that it was no other than Colonel Morgan himself,
attired in his night-dress, in a state of somnambulism!

Aware of the danger of waking him while in that condition, they
followed him to his room, whither he almost immediately returned,
and there they saw him sheathe his sword and return to bed seemingly
oblivious of their presence.

Next morning, he was apprised of the circumstances of the case; and the
poor colonel was naturally very much concerned on learning the nature
of the malady of which he had been an unconscious victim. Of course
his first action was to write an explanation to the general, with a
request for my release; and his next, to publish in regimental orders
his regret for the trouble he had unwittingly occasioned.

Several red-tape formalities had to be gone through; and it was some
days before I was astonished and delighted by an intimation from the
prison governor that I was free; and was handed over to the charge of
a corporal, who had been sent to bring me to my regiment. Whenever
I entered the barracks, I was ordered to proceed at once to the
commanding officer’s quarters. Colonel Morgan shook hands with me, and
expressed his extreme concern that he had been the innocent cause of my
having been subjected to such ignominy.

‘No wonder that I frightened you, my lad,’ he observed with a smile.
After informing me that he was about to proceed on leave—with the
intention of undergoing a course of medical treatment to cure him of
his dangerous propensity to walk in his sleep—he presented me with five
pounds by way of solatium; and further gratified me by saying, that
having ascertained I was of good character and well educated, he had
that day placed me in orders as having been appointed lance-corporal.
‘Always behave yourself, my lad, and I shan’t forget you,’ said the
colonel; and I left his quarters perfectly overjoyed with my good-luck,
scarcely believing that the pleasant, affable, kindly gentleman with
whom I had conversed was the hectoring, bullying commander, who was the
terror of his regiment.

The colonel faithfully kept his word to me. When he rejoined the
corps, completely cured of his complaint, I was promoted rapidly; and
eight years subsequently, through the influence of my patron, General
Morgan, I was gazetted as quartermaster of my regiment.




OCCASIONAL NOTES.


SMALL MOTORS.

The advantages of mechanical power have never been more appreciated
than at the present time, when trade depression enforces economy in
every industry and branch of production. Attention has accordingly
been keenly directed of late towards that class of prime movers
known as ‘small motors,’ deriving their power either from some
central supply, or themselves generating the motive energy. A wide
field undoubtedly lies open to such motive force, not merely in the
domestic operations—pumping water for house-supply, driving, sewing,
and culinary machinery—but also in such industrial work as cutting,
chopping, grinding, churning, and sawing; in addition to the numberless
requirements of the smaller manufactories and workshops.

Gas-engines have already reached a high stage of perfection, and in
towns where gas can be procured at a moderate cost, large numbers
of these motors are actively and advantageously employed in the
various operations just enumerated. The production of the gas at one
central source, prior to its distribution, is, it may be remarked, on
economical grounds, a very perfect arrangement, for the loss incidental
to a series of small producers is avoided. A similar law holds true of
steam, it being well known that a number of small engines driven from
one large boiler give a considerably higher duty than if each engine
had its own small boiler.

The employment of water-pressure has of late received considerable
impulse; and in large cities, systems of high-pressure supply are
now laid down. The power is supplied from accumulators worked by
pumping-engines at central stations, and a pressure of one thousand
pounds per square inch is not unfrequently maintained in the mains. For
lifts and hydraulic hoists, this system of transmitting power has been
eminently successful; for other purposes, it has not as yet realised
the expectations of its introducers, mainly, it is asserted, from
difficulty in obtaining a satisfactory motor which shall transform the
pressure into motion.

Cost of production has as yet debarred electricity from competing
commercially as a transmitter of power; viewing, however, the
extraordinary progress recently made, it would be rash to assert how
much further a comparatively near future may not bring us, if we would
read the future by the past.

Recently, a vacuum-engine has been produced, which attracted
considerable attention at the Inventions Exhibition, and from what
has been achieved in a very short time, promises well. Amongst the
advantages claimed for this engine is the fact that once started, no
further attention is requisite for many hours. By an ingenious use
of gun-metal in the cylinder, valves, &c., lubrication is rendered
unnecessary; whilst, by means of a hopper boiler, the furnace is
self-feeding. Explosion is, of course, impossible, the engine working
below atmospheric pressure.

This engine has been employed in small electric-light installations;
and from its regular motion and the ease with which it is managed,
is undoubtedly eminently adapted for this class of work; whilst the
smallness of its coal-consumption and the high duty attained have
procured the highest awards at the hands of all juries who have
examined it.

In the future of ‘small motors,’ a future that appears an extended one,
this new vacuum motor will doubtless play a not unimportant part.


A BOOK OF CLAN TARTANS.

Whether the kilt did or did not form part of the ‘garb of old Gaul’ may
be left for the discussion of antiquaries, but there can be no doubt
about the antiquity of tartans. As is well known, the various clans in
the Scottish Highlands were distinguished from each other not only by
their names, their badges, their war-cries, but also by the particular
pattern and colour of the tartan which they wore. In the magnificently
printed volume just issued by Messrs W. & A. K. Johnston, entitled _The
Tartans of the Clans of Scotland_, lovers of the Highland garb will
be delighted by the splendid reproduction in colours of the tartan of
seventy-one clans or septs. Nothing can excel the accuracy and beauty
with which the cloth, both in colour and texture, has been imitated in
these plates. Each plate, moreover, is accompanied by a few notes on
the clan to which the particular tartan appertains.


THE INFANT BAND OF PORT JACKSON.

There is at present lying in Port Jackson, Australia, a training-ship
called the _Vernon_, and some of the boys who have musical ability
are regularly trained in the study of music, with the view to
becoming efficient musicians, and thereby able to take their place
in military or orchestral bands. So small are these children, that
it has been jokingly said half a dozen of them could readily be
accommodated in their own big drum; whilst the grand ophicleide would
afford a comfortable lodging for one or two at least! But small as
they are, their playing is one of the wonders of the neighbourhood,
and the delight of all who have had the good fortune to hear them.
These diminutive artists execute classical music, as well as music
of a lighter character, with a vigour and precision, and a finished
taste and expression that are nearly incredible, and should be
heard to be believed. In fact, many an ordinary military band might
well take a lesson from them in the grace and point with which they
play, and also in the perfect tune and delicacy of tone of all their
instruments—virtues that are not common to boys’ bands; extreme
roughness, want of tune and tone, and total absence of grace or
expression, being the usual failings of juvenile players. That the
_Vernon_ band is carefully taught, and trained with the utmost care
and skill, there can be little doubt; and great credit is due to
the directors and commander of the vessel, which, apart from the
unrivalled band, is a model as regards drill, discipline, order, and
cleanliness. The _Vernon_ is maintained entirely at the cost of the
state, not by private subscriptions, donations, or rates.


DAIRY EXPERIMENTS.

Lord Vernon, who was last year President of the British Dairy Farmers’
Association, made a proposal for the institution of experiments, with
the object of solving the following questions: (1) What is the smallest
quantity of food upon which stall-fed cattle can be successfully and
economically kept? (2) To what extent does a further supply of food
repay its cost in the enhanced value of the milk? (3) What relation
should the constituents of the food have to each other to produce milk,
butter, and cheese? It was suggested that these experiments should be
carried out under the superintendence of a Committee of the British
Dairy Farmers’ Association; and Lord Vernon, who undertook to provide
everything necessary for their use, desired that any information
obtained should be published for the benefit of those connected with
dairy-farming.




DOLLY.


    We were schoolfellows, Dolly and I,
    At a little dame-school in the town close by;
    I carried her books, and she held my hand—
    Two innocent children of God’s own band.
    We would marry when we grew up, we said.
    Grave plans for the time to come we laid—
    A small boy I, and a wee girl she,
    In those bygone days—ah me! ah me!

    We grew—we were married—Dolly and I,
    At the quaint old church in the town close by;
    The farm was purchased, the fees were paid—
    ‘What a blithe young couple!’ the neighbours said.
    And so we were, till the winds blew bleak,
    And chilled the roses on Dolly’s cheek.
    Like the waning tide of a waveless sea,
    Her life ebbed gently—ah me! ah me!

    If you want to know why I ofttimes sigh,
    You must come with me to the town close by;
    You must see the church where our vows were said,
    And the mound that covers the restful dead.
    For my love is sleeping the quiet sleep
    That the Shepherd gives to His wearied sheep—
    And the world is not what it used to be,
    Ere its sunlight faded for her and me.

            NANNIE POWER O’DONOGHUE.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Conductor of CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL begs to direct the attention of
CONTRIBUTORS to the following notice:

_1st._ All communications should be addressed to the ‘Editor, 339 High
    Street, Edinburgh.’

_2d._ For its return in case of ineligibility, postage-stamps should
    accompany every manuscript.

_3d._ To secure their safe return if ineligible, ALL MANUSCRIPTS,
    whether accompanied by a letter of advice or otherwise, _should
    have the writer’s Name and Address written upon them_ IN FULL.

_4th._ Offerings of Verse should invariably be accompanied by a stamped
    and directed envelope.

_If the above rules are complied with, the Editor will do his best to
insure the safe return of ineligible papers._


Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

       *       *       *       *       *

_All Rights Reserved._



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 113, VOL. III, FEBRUARY 27, 1886 ***


    

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