The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 471, January 15, 1831

There chiefly I sought thee—there only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

TO THE COUNTESS OF B–

You have asked for a verse,—the request
In a rhymer 'twere strange to deny,
But my Hippocrene was but my breast,
And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.

Were I now as I was, I had sung
What Lawrence has painted so well;
But the strain would expire on my tongue,
And the theme is too soft for my shell.

I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the bard in my bosom is dead;
What I loved I now merely admire,
And my heart is as grey as my head.

My Life is not dated by years—
There are moments which act as a plough,
And there is not a furrow appears
But is deep in my soul as my brow.

Let the young and brilliant aspire
To sing what I gaze on in vain;
For sorrow has torn from my lyre
The string which was worthy the strain.

DISCOURSE ON THE STUDY OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY

(Cabinet Cyclopaedia. Vol. xiv.)

The arrangement of Dr. Lardner's Cyclopaedia, as it becomes more and more developed, will be proportionally appreciated. Its system is a marked contrast with the heterogeneous lists of the Family and National Libraries, which, as books of reference and authority, are little worth.

The Cyclopaedia plan is to form a series of Cabinets of the principal departments of human knowledge. Those already commenced are History, Biography, Natural Philosophy, Geography, and the Useful Arts. Each of these divisions is to be preceded by a prefatory discourse on "the objects and advantages" of the branch of knowledge which is treated of in the series or cabinet. Thus, the work before us is such a volume for the Cabinet of Natural Philosophy; that for History is promised by Sir James Mackintosh; and that for the Useful Arts, by the Baron Charles Dupin. The present Discourse is by J.F.W. Herschel, Esq., A.M. It is divided into three parts:—1. On the general nature and advantages of the study of Physics. 2. The rules and principles of Physical Science, with illustrations of their influence, in the history of its progress. 3. The subdivision of Physics. These parts are divided into chapters, and these chapters again divided into sectional illustrations, of which latter there are nearly four hundred. Such an arrangement can hardly fail to attract the listless reader. The style is lucid and popular, and the writer's reasonings and bearings are brought out with much point and vigour. Even a drawing-room reader must be caught by their attractions, and no better means was probably ever devised for bringing superficial readers into the way of knowledge, and setting forth its pleasantness. It has been said that such works as the present satisfy the reader, and disqualify him for the study of science. This opinion is hardly worth controverting: since that mind must be weak indeed which would not be stimulated as well as gratified in this case; and it is still more improbable that the great truths of science should at once take root in such a barren soil without any preparation for their reception.

We conclude with a few specimen extracts. The how, the why, the wherefore, and the because, of such wonders as they relate to, belong rather to the treatises themselves.

Mechanical Power of Coals

It is well known to modern engineers, that there is virtue in a bushel of coals properly consumed, to raise seventy millions of pounds weight a foot high. This is actually the average effect of an engine at this moment working in Cornwall.

The ascent of Mont Blanc from the Valley of Chamouni is considered, and with justice, as the most toilsome feat that a strong man can execute in two days. The combustion of two pounds of coal would place him on the summit.

The Wonders of Physics

What mere assertion will make any man believe that in one second of time, in one beat of the pendulum of a clock, a ray of light travels over 192,000 miles, and would therefore perform the tour of the world in about the same time that it requires to wink with our eyelids, and in much less than a swift runner occupies in taking a single stride? What mortal can be made to believe, without demonstration, that the sun is almost a million times larger than the earth? and that, although so remote from us, that a cannon ball shot directly towards it, and maintaining its full speed, would be twenty years in reaching it, it yet affects the earth by its attraction in an inappreciable instant of time?—Who would not ask for demonstration, when told that a gnat's wing, in its ordinary flight, beats many hundred times in a second? or that there exist animated and regularly organised beings, many thousands of whose bodies laid close together would not extend an inch? But what are these to the astonishing truths which modern optical inquiries have disclosed, which teach us that every point of a medium through which a ray of light passes is affected with a succession of periodical movements, regularly recurring at equal intervals, no less than 500 millions of millions of times in a single second! that it is by such movements, communicated to the nerves of our eyes, that we see—nay more, that it is the difference in the frequency of their recurrence which affects us with the sense of the diversity of colour; that, for instance, in acquiring the sensation of redness our eyes are affected 482 millions of millions of times; of yellowness, 542 millions of millions of times; and of violet, 707 millions of millions of times per second. Do not such things sound more like the ravings of madmen, than the sober conclusions of people in their waking senses? They are, nevertheless, conclusions to which any one may most certainly arrive, who will only be at the trouble of examining the chain of reasoning by which they have been obtained.

Extraordinary Property of Shadows

An eminent living geometer had proved by calculations, founded on strict optical principles, that in the centre of the shadow of a small circular plate of metal, exposed in a dark room to a beam of light emanating from a very small brilliant point, there ought to be no darkness,—in fact, no shadow at that place; but, on the contrary, a degree of illumination precisely as bright as if the metal plate were away. Strange and even impossible as this conclusion may seem, it has been put to the trial, and found perfectly correct.

THE NATURALIST

RAINING TREES

(By John Murray, Esq. F.S.A. &c.)

The secretions of trees form a curious part of their physiology, but the influence of vegetation on the atmosphere seems to have been entirely overlooked, at least as far as it regards its meteorology.

In the case of that curious genus of plants the Sarracènia, in which the S. adúnca is most conspicuous, the foliaceous pouch is a mere reservoir, or cistern, to catch and retain the falling dew or rain. In the Nepénthes distillatòria, or pitcher plant, the case is different; and analysis proves it to be an evident secretion from the plant itself, independent altogether of the fact that it is found in the pitcher before the lid has yet opened. I may here state, en passant, that the results, I obtained from a chemical examination of this liquid differ materially from those of Dr. Edward Turner. The Córnus máscula is very remarkable for the amount of fluid matter which evolves from its leaves, and the willow and poplar, when grouped more especially, exhibit the phenomenon in the form of a gentle shower. Prince Maximilian, in his Travels in the Brazils, informs us that the natives in these districts are well acquainted with the peculiar property of those hollow leaves that act as recipients of the condensed vapours of the atmosphere; and, doubtless, these are sources where many tropical animals, as well as the wandering savage, sate their thirst "in a weary land." The Tillándsia exhibits a watery feature of a different complexion: here the entire interior is charged with such a supply of liquid, that, when cut, it affords a copious and refreshing beverage to man. That these extraordinary sources of "living springs of water" are not unknown to inferior creation, is a fact interestingly confirmed to us in the happy incidents detailed by Mr. Campbell, in his Travels in South Africa, where a species of mouse is described to us, as storing up supplies of water contained in the berries of particular plants; and, in Ceylon, animals of the Símia tribe are said to be well acquainted with the Nepénthes distillatòria, and to have frequent recourse to its pitcher. The mechanism of the "rose of Jericho" (Anastática hierochuntìna] shows the susceptibility of plants to moisture in a very remarkable manner; and I have submitted some experiments made with this extraordinary exotic, the inhabitant of an arid sandy soil, to the Horticultural Society of London. That succulents should be found clothing in patches the surface of the burning desert is a phenomenon not the least wonderful in the geographical history of vegetation.

In Cockburn's Voyages we find an interesting account of a tree in South America, which yielded a plentiful supply of water by a kind of distillatory process: this tree was met with near the mountainous district of Vera Paz. The party were attracted to it from a distance, the ground appearing wet around it; and the peculiarity was the more striking, as no rain had fallen for six months previous. "At last," says he, "to our great astonishment, as well as joy, we saw water dropping, or, as it were, distilling fast from the end of every leaf of this wonderful tree; at least it was so with us, who had been labouring four days through extreme heat without receiving the least moisture, and were now almost expiring for want of it." The testimony of travellers is too often enshrined among the fabulous; and their credentials either altogether rejected by some, or at least received "cum grano salis." Bruce of Kinnaird forms the most remarkable example of this kind, and the caricature of Baron Munchausen consigned the whole to sarcasm and ridicule; and yet the time is come when the more remarkable circumstances and phenomena mentioned by this traveller, verified by Lord Valentia, Mr. Salt, &c. are received as well accredited facts. The curious phenomenon mentioned by Cockburn finds an interesting and beautiful counterpart in two plants—namely, the Cálla Aethiópica and Agapánthus umbellàtus, in both of which, after a copious watering, the water will be seen to drop from the tips of the leaves; a phenomenon, as far as I know, not hitherto recorded.

The great rivers of the continent of Europe have their source of supply in the glaciers; but many of the rivers in the New World owe their origin to the extensive forests of America, and their destruction might dry up many a rivulet, and thus again convert the luxuriant valley into an arid and sterile waste; carried farther, the principle extends to the great features of the globe. What the glaciers effect among the higher regions of the Alps, the Pìnus Cémbra. and Lárix commùnis accomplish at lower elevations; and many a mountain rivulet owes its existence to their influence. It rains often in the woodlands when it rains no where else; and it is thus that trees and woods modify the hygrometric character of a country; and I doubt not but, by a judicious disposal of trees of particular kinds, many lands now parched up with drought—as, for example, in some of the Leeward Islands—might be reclaimed from that sterility to which they are unhappily doomed.

In Glass' History of the Canary Islands we have the description of a peculiar tree in the Island of Hierro, which is the means of supplying the inhabitants, man as well as inferior animals, with water; an island which, but for this marvellous adjunct, would be uninhabitable and abandoned. The tree is called Til by the people of the island, and has attached to it the epithet garse, or sacred. It is situated on the top of a rock, terminating the district called Tigulatre, which leads from the shore. A cloud of vapour, which seems to rise from the sea, is impelled towards it; and being condensed by the foliage of the tree, the rain falls into a large tank, from which it is measured out by individuals set apart for that purpose by the authorities of the island.

In confirmation of a circumstance primâ facie so incredible, I have here to record a phenomenon, witnessed by myself, equally extraordinary. I had frequently observed, in avenues of trees, that the entire ground engrossed by their shady foliage was completely saturated with moisture; and that during the prevalence of a fog, when the ground without their pale was completely parched, the wet which fell from their branches more resembled a gentle shower than anything else; and in investigating the phenomenon which I am disposed to consider entirely electrical, I think the elm exhibits this feature more remarkably than any other tree of the forest. I never, however, was more astonished than I was in the month of September last, on witnessing a very striking example of this description. I had taken an early walk, on the road leading from Stafford to Lichfield: a dense fog prevailed, but the road was dry and dusty, while it was quite otherwise with the line of a few Lombardy poplars; for from them it rained so plentifully, and so fast, that any one of them might have been used as an admirable shower bath, and the constant stream of water supplied by the aggregate would (had it been directed into a proper channel) have been found quite sufficient to turn an ordinary mill.—Mag. Nat. Hist.

THE GATHERER

A snapper of unconsidered trifles.

    SHAKSPEARE.

HUMAN TIMEPIECE

J.D. Chevalley, a native of Switzerland, has arrived at an astonishing degree of perfection in reckoning time by an internal movement. In his youth he was accustomed to pay great attention to the ringing of bells and vibrations of pendulums, and by degrees he acquired the power of continuing a succession of intervals exactly equal to those which the vibrations or sounds produced.—Being on board a vessel, on the Lake of Geneva, he engaged to indicate to the crowd about him the lapse of a quarter of an hour, or as many minutes and seconds as any one chose to name, and this during a conversation the most diversified with those standing by; and farther, to indicate by the voice the moment when the hand passed over the quarter minutes, or half minutes, or any other sub-division previously stipulated, during the whole course of the experiment. This he did without mistake, notwithstanding the exertions of those about him to distract his attention, and clapped his hands at the conclusion of the time fixed. His own account of it is thus given:—"I have acquired, by imitation, labour, and patience, a movement which neither thoughts, nor labour, nor any thing can stop: it is similar to that of a pendulum, which at each motion of going and returning gives me the space of three seconds, so that twenty of them make a minute—and these I add to others continually."

HISTORICAL FACT

During the troubles in the reign of Charles I., a country girl came to London, in search of a situation; but not succeeding, she applied to be allowed to carry out beer from a brewhouse. These females were then called "tub-women." The brewer observing her to be a very good-looking girl, took her out of this low situation into his house, and afterwards married her. He died, however, while she was yet a very young woman, and left her a large fortune. She was recommended, on giving up the brewery, to Mr. Hyde, a most able lawyer, to settle her husband's affairs; he, in process of time, married the widow, and was afterwards made Earl of Clarendon. Of this marriage there was a daughter, who was afterwards wife to James II. and mother of Mary and Anne, queens of England.

ZANGA

LAWYERS

In 1454, an Act of Parliament notices, "that there had used formerly six or eight attorneys only, for Suffolk, Norfolk, and Norwich together; that this number was now increased to more than eighty, most of whom being not of sufficient knowledge, came to fairs, &c. inciting the people to suits for small trespasses, &c. wherefore there shall be hereafter but six for Suffolk, six for Norfolk, and two for the city of Norwich."

H.B.A

THE DYERS

Inscription on a Tombstone in a Churchyard at Truro, Cornwall