Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439

Lieutenant Hunt, of the American Coast Survey, states that copper-plate engravings may be copied on stone; specimens are to appear in the forthcoming report. To quote his description: 'A copper-plate being duly engraved, it is inked, and an impression taken on transfer-paper. A good paper, which wetting does not expand, is needed, and a fatty coating is used in the process. The transfer-paper impression is laid on the smooth stone, and run through a press. It is then wetted, heated, and stripped off from the stone, leaving the ink and fat on its face. The heated fat is softly brushed away, leaving only the ink-lines. From this reversed impression on the stone, the printing is performed just as in ordinary lithography. A good transfer produces from 3000 to 5000 copies. Thus prints from a single copper-plate can be infinitely multiplied, the printing being, moreover, much cheaper than copper-plate.'

IN EXPECTATION OF DEATH.—CONSTANTIA

When I was young, my lover stole
One of my ringlets fair:
I wept—'Ah no! Those always part,
Who having once changed heart for heart,
Change also locks of hair.

'And wonder-opened eyes have seen
The spirits of the dead,
Gather like motes in silent bands
Round hair once reft by tender hands
From some now shrouded head.

'If'– Here he closed my quivering mouth,
And where the curl had lain,
Laid payment rich for what he stole:—
Could I to one hour crush life's whole,
I'd live that hour again!

My golden curls are silvering o'er—
Who heeds? The seas roll wide;
When one I know their bounds shall pass,
There'll be no tresses—save long grass—
For his hands to divide;

While I shall lie, low, deep, a-cold,
And never hear him tread:
Whether he weep, or sigh, or moan,
I shall be passive as a stone,
He living, and I—dead!

And then he will rise up and go,
With slow steps, looking back,
Still—going: leaving me to keep
My frozen and eternal sleep,
Beneath the earth so black.

Pale brow—oft leant against his brow:
Dear hand—where his lips lay;
Dim eyes, that knew not they were fair,
Till his praise made them half they were—
Must all these pass away?

Must nought of mine be left for him
Save the poor curl he stole?
Round which this wildly-loving me
Will float unseen continually,
A disembodied soul.

A soul! Glad thought—that lightning-like
Leaps from this cloud of doom:
If, living, all its load of clay
Keeps not my spirit from him away,
Thou canst not, cruel tomb!

The moment that these earth-chains burst,
Like an enfranchised dove,
O'er seas and lands to him I fly,
Whom only, whether I live or die,
I loved, love, and shall love.

I'll wreathe around him—he shall breathe
My life instead of air;
In glowing sunbeams o'er his head
My visionary hands I'll spread,
And kiss his forehead fair.

I'll stand, an angel bold and strong,
Between his soul and sin;
If Grief lie stone-like on his heart,
I'll beat its marble doors apart,
To let Peace enter in.

He never more shall part from me,
Nor I from him abide;
Let these poor limbs in earth find rest!
I'll live like Love within his breast,
Rejoicing that I died.

WATER

Some four-fifths of the weight of the human body are nothing but water. The blood is just a solution of the body in a vast excess of water—as saliva, mucus, milk, gall, urine, sweat, and tears are the local and partial infusions effected by that liquid. All the soft solid parts of the frame may be considered as ever temporary precipitates or crystallisations (to use the word but loosely) from the blood, that mother-liquor of the whole body; always being precipitated or suffered to become solid, and always being redissolved, the forms remaining, but the matter never the same for more than a moment, so that the flesh is only a vanishing solid, as fluent as the blood itself. It has also to be observed, that every part of the body, melting again into the river of life continually as it does, is also kept perpetually drenched in blood by means of the blood-vessels, and more than nine-tenths of that wonderful current is pure water. Water plays as great a part, indeed, in the economy of that little world, the body of man, as it still more evidently does in the phenomenal life of the world at large. Three-fourths of the surface of the earth is ocean; the dry ground is dotted with lakes, its mountain-crests are covered with snow and ice, its surface is irrigated by rivers and streams, its edges are eaten by the sea; and aqueous vapour is unceasingly ascending from the ocean and inland surfaces through the yielding air, only to descend in portions and at intervals in dews and rains, hails and snows. Water is not only the basis of the juices of all the plants and animals in the world; it is the very blood of nature, as is well known to all the terrestrial sciences; and old Thales, the earliest of European speculators, pronounced it the mother-liquid of the universe. In the later systems of the Greeks, indeed, it was reduced to the inferior dignity of being only one of the four parental natures—fire, air, earth, and water; but water was the highest—ύδωρ μεν αριστον—in rank.—Westminster Review.

LOTTERY OF DEATH

The Polish and German peasantry have given the authorities at Posen considerable trouble by their inquiries respecting a 'Rothschild's Lottery.' They have been led to believe, that the 'great Rothschild' has been sentenced to be beheaded; but that he has been allowed to procure a substitute, if he can, by lottery! For this purpose, a sum of many millions is devoted, all the tickets to be prizes of 3000 thalers each, except one; that fatal number is a blank; and whoever draws it, is to be decapitated instead of the celebrated banker! Notwithstanding the risk, the applicants for shares have been numerous. [There is nothing surprising in the number of applications for these shares. Every man who enters the army in wartime, takes out a ticket in a similar lottery. In China, human life is of still less account; for there it is easy for a condemned criminal, whose escape the authorities are willing to connive at, to obtain a substitute, who, for a sum of money, suffers death in his stead.]

A MAN FOR THE WORLD

A successful merchant in New Zealand, a Scotchman, commenced business with the following characteristic entry on the first page of his ledger:—'Commenced business this day—with no money—little credit—and L.70 in debt. Faint heart never won fair lady. Set a stout heart to a stay (steep) brae. God save the Queen!'

Just Published, Price 6d. Paper Cover,

CHAMBERS'S POCKET MISCELLANY: forming a Literary Companion for the Railway, the Fireside, or the Bush.

VOLUME VI