Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Cornelia's Table is a safe centre, from which individuals may diverge on little exploring expeditions; for the paths here are not labyrinthine, and the hall is conspicuous from various neighboring points of view. In most regions of the cave, it is hazardous to lose sight of the guide. If you think to walk straight ahead, even for a few rods, and then turn short round and return to him, you will find it next to impossible to do so. So many paths come in at acute angles; they look so much alike; and the light of a lamp reveals them so imperfectly, that none but the practised eye of a guide can disentangle their windings. A gentleman who retraced a few steps, near the entrance of the cave, to find his hat, lost his way so completely, that he was not found for forty-eight hours, though twenty or thirty people were in search of him. Parties are occasionally mustered and counted, to see that none are missing. Should such an accident happen, there is no danger, if the wanderer will remain stationary; for he will soon be missed, and a guide sent after him. From the hall of congealed drops, you may branch off into a succession of small caves, called Cecilia's Grottoes. Here nearly all the beautiful formations of the surrounding caves, such as grapes, flowers, stars, leaves, coral, &c., may be found so low, that you can conveniently examine their minutest features. One of these little recesses, covered with sparkling spar, set in silvery gypsum, is called Diamond Grotto. Alma's Bower closes this series of wonderful formations. As a whole, they are called Cleveland's Cabinet, in honor of Professor Cleveland, of Bowdoin College. Silliman calls this admirable series, the Alabaster Caves. He says: "I was at first at a loss to account for such beautiful formations, and especially for the elegance of the curves exhibited. It is however evident that the substances have grown from the rocks, by increments or additions to the base; the solid parts already formed being continually pushed forward. If the growth be a little more rapid on one side than on the other, a well-proportioned curve will be the result; should the increased action on one side diminish or increase, then all the beauties of the conic and mixed curves would be produced. The masses are often evenly and longitudinally striated by a kind of columnar structure, exhibiting a fascicle of small prisms; and some of these prisms ending sooner than others, give a broken termination of great beauty, similar to our form of the emblem of 'the order of the star.' The rosettes formed by a mammillary disk surrounded by a circle of leaves, rolled elegantly outward, are from four inches to a foot in diameter. Tortuous vines, throwing off curled leaves at every flexure, like the branches of a chandelier, running more than a foot in length, and not thicker than the finger, are among the varied frost-work of these grottoes; common stalactites of carbonate of lime, although beautiful objects, lose by contrast with these ornaments, and dwindle into mere clumsy, awkward icicles. Besides these, there are tufts of 'hair salt,' native sulphate of magnesia, depending like adhering snowballs from the roof, and periodically detaching themselves by their own increasing weight. Indeed, the more solid alabaster ornaments become at last overgrown, and fall upon the floor of the grotto, which was found covered with numbers quite entire, besides fragments of others broken by the fall."

A distinguished geologist has said that he believed Cleveland's Avenue, two miles in length, contained a petrified form of every vegetable production on earth. If this be too large a statement, it is at least safe to say that its variety is almost infinite. Amongst its other productions, are large piles of Epsom salts, beautifully crystallized. Travellers have shown such wanton destructiveness in this great temple of Nature--mutilating beautiful columns, knocking off spar, and crushing delicate flowers--that the rules are now very strict. It is allowable to touch nothing, except the ornaments which have loosened and dropped by their own weight. These are often hard enough to bear transportation.

After you leave Alma's Bower, the cave again becomes very rugged. Beautiful combinations of gypsum and spar may still be seen occasionally overhead: but all round you rocks and stones are piled up in the wildest manner. Through such scraggy scenery, you come to the Rocky Mountains, an irregular pile of massive rocks, from 100 to 150 feet high. From these you can look down into Dismal Hollow--deep below deep--the most frightful looking place in the whole cave. On the top of the mountain is a beautiful rotunda, called Croghan Hall, in honor of the proprietor. Stalactites surround this in the richest fringe of icicles, and lie scattered about the walls in all shapes, as if arranged for a museum. On one side is a stalagmite formation like a pine-tree, about five feet high, with regular leaves and branches; another is in a pyramidal form, like a cypress.

If you wind down the mountains on the side opposite from that which you ascended, you will come to Serena's Arbor, which is thirteen miles from the entrance of the cave, and the end of this avenue. A most beautiful termination it is! In a semicircle of stalactite columns is a fountain of pure water spouting up from a rock. This fluid is as transparent as air; all the earthy particles it ever held in suspension, having been long since precipitated. The stalactite formations in this arbor are remarkably beautiful.

One hundred and sixty-five avenues have been discovered in Mammoth Cave, the walk through which is estimated at about three hundred miles. In some places, you descend more than a mile into the bowels of the earth. The poetic-minded traveller, after he has traced all the labyrinths, departs with lingering reluctance. As he approaches the entrance, daylight greets him with new and startling beauty. If the sun shines on the verdant sloping hill, and the waving trees, seen through the arch, they seem like fluid gold; if mere daylight rests upon them, they resemble molten silver. This remarkable richness of appearance is doubtless owing to the contrast with the thick darkness, to which the eye has been so long accustomed.

As you come out of the cave, the temperature of the air rises thirty degrees instantly (if the season is summer), and you feel as if plunged in a hot vapor bath; but the effects of this are salutary and not unpleasant. Nature never seems so miraculous as it does when you emerge from this hidden realm of marvellous imitations. The "dear goddess" is so serene in her resplendent and more harmonious beauty! The gorgeous amphitheatre of trees, the hills, the sky, and the air, all seem to wear a veil of transfigured glory. The traveller feels that he was never before conscious how beautiful a phenomenon is the sunlight, how magnificent the blue arch of heaven!

There are three guides at the service of travellers, all well versed in the intricate paths of this nether world. Stephen, the presiding genius of Mammoth Cave, is a mulatto, and a slave. He has lived in this strange region from boyhood, and a large proportion of the discoveries are the result of his courage, intelligence, and untiring zeal. His vocation has brought him into contact with many intellectual and scientific men, and a prodigious memory, he has profited much by intercourse with superior minds. He can recollect every body that ever visited the cave, and all the terms of geology and mineralogy are at his tongue's end. He is extremely attentive, and peculiarly polite to ladies. Like most of his race, he is fond of grandiloquent language, and his rapturous expressions, as he lights up some fine point of view, are at times fine specimens of glorification. His knowledge of the place is ample and accurate, and he is altogether an extremely useful and agreeable guide.

FOOTNOTES:

[B] See engraving of this hotel in the _International_ for August, 1851.

THE POEM OF THE MONTH.

The finest new poem that has fallen under our notice is the following, from _Graham's Magazine_ for the present month. We think few who have read Miss Carey's recent poems entitled _Lyra_, _Jessie Carol_, _October_, and _The Winds_, with her prose volume just published by Redfield, will be disposed to question, that in the brief period in which she has been before the public she has entitled herself to the highest rank among the living literary women of the United States.

WINTER, BY ALICE CAREY.

Now sits the twilight palaced in the snow,
Hugging away beneath a fleece of gold
Her statue beauties, dumb and icy cold,
And fixing her blue steadfast eyes below,
Where in a bed of chilly waves afar,
With dismal shadows o'er her sweet face blown,
Tended to death by eve's delicious star,
Lies the lost day alone.

Where late, with red mists bound about his brows,
Went the swart Autumn, wading to the knees
Through drifts of dead leaves shaken from the boughs
Of the old forest trees,
The gusts upon their baleful errands run
O'er the bright ruin, fading from our eyes,
And over all, like clouds about the sun,
A shadow lies.

For, fallen asleep upon a dreary world,
Slant to the light, one late October morn,
From some rough cavern blew a tempest cold,
And tearing off his garland of ripe corn,
Twisted with blue grapes, sweet with delicious wine,
And Ceres' drowsy flowers, so dully red,
Deep in his cavern leafy and divine,
Buried him with his dead.

Then, with big black beard glistening in the frost,
Under the icy arches of the north,
And o'er the still graves of the seasons lost,
Blustered the Winter forth--
Spring, with your crown of roses budding new,
Thought-nursing and most melancholy Fall,
Summer, with bloomy meadows wet with dew,
Blighting your beauties all.

Oh heart, your spring-time dream will idle prove,
Your summer but forerun the autumn's death,
The flowery arches in the home of love
Fall crumbling, at a breath;
And, sick at last with that great sorrow's shock,
As some poor prisoner, pressing to the bars
His forehead, calls on Mercy to unlock
The chambers of the stars--
You, turning off from life's first mocking glow
Leaning it may be, still on broken faith,
Will down the vale of Autumn gladly go
To the chill winter, Death.

Hark! from the empty bosom of the grove
I hear a sob, as one forlorn might pine--
The white-limbed beauty of a god is thine,
King of the seasons! and the night that hoods
Thy brow majestic, brightest stars enweave--
Thou surely canst not grieve;

But only far away
Makest stormy prophecies; well, lift them higher,
Till morning on the forehead of the day
Presses a seal of fire
Dearer to me the scene
Of nature shrinking from thy rough embrace,
Than Summer, with her rustling robe of green,
Cool blowing in my face.

The moon is up--how still the yellow beams
That slantwise lie upon the stirless air,
Sprinkled with frost, like pearl-entangled hair,
O'er beauty's cheeks that streams,
How the red light of Mars their pallor mocks.
And the wild legend from the old time wins,
Of sweet waves kissing all the drowning locks
Of Ilia's lovely twins.

Come, Poesy, and with thy shadowy hands
Cover me softly, singing all the night--
In thy dear presence find I best delight;
Even the saint that stands
Tending the gate of heaven, involved in beams
Of rarest glory, to my mortal eyes
Pales from the blest insanity of dreams
That round thee lies.

Unto the dusky borders of the grove
Where gray-haired Saturn, silent as a stone,
Sat in his grief alone,
Or where young Venus, searching for her love,
Walked through the clouds, I pray,
Bear me to-night away.

Or wade with me through snows
Drifted in loose fantastic curves aside,
From humble doors where Love and Faith abide,
And no rough winter blows,
Chilling the beauty of affections fair,
Cabined securely there.

Where round their fingers winding the white slips
That crown his forehead, on the grandsire's knees,
Sit merry children, teasing about ships
Lost in the perilous seas;
Or listening with a troublous joy, yet deep,
To stories about battles, or of storms,
Till weary grown, and drowsing into sleep,
Slide they from out his arms.

Where, by the log-heap fire,
As the pane rattles and the cricket sings,
I with the gray-haired sire
May talk of vanished summer-times and springs,
And harmlessly and cheerfully beguile
The long, long hours--
The happier for the snows that drift the while
About the flowers.

Winter, wilt keep the love I offer thee?
No mesh of flowers is bound about my brow;
From life's fair summer I am hastening now,
And as I sink my knee,
Dimpling the beauty of thy bed of snow--
Dowerless, I can but say--
O, cast me not away!

CARLYLE ON THE OPERA.

The London _Keepsake_, for 1852, contains an article by Carlyle. He has not sent something that was at hand, or thrown off any thing on the spur of the moment, but set himself to write down to his company, and do his best in that way. The paper is written in the character of a travelling and philosophical American, who pours forth his thoughts on the opera; the topics being the deterioration of music as an art, the small beneficial result that follows so much outlay and such a combination of artistical skill, the amount of training bestowed on the singers and dancers, greater than that which produces great men, and the company before the curtain, together with reflections thereanent. It is a piece of forcible description, and of thoughtful though perhaps rather one-sided reflection. As we heard it remarked a few days ago by a shrewd critic, Carlyle is never so much himself as when he appears in the character of another--for examples, in that of the strolling lecturer, who left with his unpaid lodging-house keeper a denunciation of modern philanthropists, or in that of the correspondent whose letters he quotes in the Life of Sterling. In the disguise of a Yankee philosopher he thus breaks out, after some serious and highly-wrought prefatory phrases on the glories of true music, while yet true music partook of the divine:

"Of the account of the Haymarket Opera my account, in fine, is
this: Lustres, candelabras, painting, gilding at discretion: a
hall as of the Caliph Alraschid, or him that commanded the
slaves of the Lamp; a hall as if fitted up by the genies,
regardless of expense. Upholstery and the outlay of human
capital, could do no more. Artists, too, as they are called,
have been got together from the ends of the world, regardless
likewise of expense, to do dancing and singing, some of them
even geniuses in their craft. One singer in particular, called
Coletti, or some such name, seemed to me, by the cast of his
face, by the tones of his voice, by his general bearing, so far
as I could read it, to be a man of deep and ardent
sensibilities, of delicate intuitions, just sympathies;
originally an almost poetic soul, or man of _genius_, as we
term it; stamped by Nature as capable of far other work than
squalling here, like a blind Samson to make the Philistines
sport! Nay, all of them had aptitudes, perhaps of a
distinguished kind; and must, by their own and other people's
labor, have got a training equal or superior in toilsomeness,
earnest assiduity, and patient travail, to what breeds men to
the most arduous trades. I speak not of kings' grandees, or the
like show-figures; but few soldiers, judges, men of letters,
can have had such pains taken with them. The very ballet girls,
with their muslin saucers round them, were perhaps little short
of miraculous; whirling and spinning there in strange mad
vortexes, and then suddenly fixing themselves motionless, each
upon her left or right great-toe, with the other leg stretched
out at an angle of ninety degrees;--as if you had suddenly
pricked into the floor, by one of their points, a pair, or
rather a multitudinous cohort, of mad restlessly jumping and
clipping scissors, and so bidden them rest, with opened blades,
and stand still, in the Devil's name! A truly notable motion;
marvellous, almost miraculous, were not the people there so
used to it. Motion peculiar to the Opera; perhaps the ugliest,
and surely one of the most difficult, ever taught a female
creature in this world. Nature abhors it; but Art does at least
admit it to border on the impossible. One little Cerito, or
Taglioni the Second, that night when I was there, went bounding
from the floor as if she had been made of Indian-rubber, or
filled with hydrogen gas, and inclined by positive levity to
bolt through the ceiling; perhaps neither Semiramis nor
Catherine the Second had bred herself so carefully. Such
talent, and such martyrdom of training, gathered from the four
winds, was now here, to do its feat, and be paid for it.
Regardless of expense, indeed! The purse of Fortunatus seemed
to have opened itself, and the divine art of Musical Sound and
Rhythmic Motion was welcomed with an explosion of all the
magnificences which the other arts, fine and coarse, could
achieve. For you are to think of some Rossini or Bellini in the
rear of it, too; to say nothing of the Stanfields, and hosts of
scene-painters, machinists, engineers, enterprisers--fit to
have taken Gibraltar, written the History of England, or
reduced Ireland into Industrial Regiments, had they so set
their minds to it!

"Alas, and of all these notable or noticeable human talents,
and excellent perseverances and energies, backed by mountains
of wealth, and led by the divine art of Music and Rhythm
vouchsafed by Heaven to them and us, what was to be the issue
here this evening? An hour's amusement, not amusing either,
but wearisome and dreary, to a high-dizened select populace of
male and female persons, who seemed to me not worth much
amusing! Could any one have pealed into their hearts once, one
true thought, and glimse of Self-vision: 'High-dizened most
expensive persons, Aristocracy so called, or _Best_ of the
World, beware, beware what proofs you give of betterness and
bestness!' and then the salutary pang of conscience in reply:
'A select Populace, with money in its purse, and drilled a
little by the posture-maker: good Heavens! if that were what,
here and every where in God's Creation, I _am_? And a world all
dying because I am, and show myself to be, and to have long
been, even that? John, the carriage, the carriage; swift! Let
me go home in silence, to reflection, perhaps to sackcloth and
ashes!' This, and not amusement, would have profited those
high-dizened persons.

"Amusement, at any rate, they did not get from Euterpe and
Melpomene. These two Muses, sent for, regardless of expense, I
could see, were but the vehicle of a kind of service which I
judged to be Paphian rather. Young beauties of both sexes used
their opera-glasses, you could notice, not entirely for looking
at the stage. And it must be owned the light, in this explosion
of all the upholsteries, and the human fine arts and coarse,
was magical; and made your fair one an Armida,--if you liked
her better so. Nay, certain old Improper-Females (of quality),
in their rouge and jewels, even these looked some
_reminiscence_ of enchantment; and I saw this and the other
lean domestic Dandy, with icy smile on his old worn face; this
and the other Marquis Singedelomme, Prince Mahogany, or the
like foreign Dignitary, tripping into the boxes of said
females, grinning there awhile with dyed moustachios and
macassar-oil graciosity, and then tripping out again;--and, in
fact, I perceived that Colletti and Cerito and the Rhythmic
Arts were a mere accompaniment here.

"Wonderful to see; and sad, if you had eyes! Do but think of
it. Cleopatra threw pearls into her drink, in mere waste; which
was reckoned foolish of her. But here had the Modern
Aristocracy of men brought the divinest of its Arts, heavenly
Music itself; and, piling all the upholsteries and ingenuities
that other human art could do, had lighted them into a bonfire
to illuminate an hour's flirtation of Singedelomme, Mahogany,
and these improper persons! Never in Nature had I seen such
waste before. O Colletti, you whose inborn melody, once of
kindred as I judged to 'the Melodies eternal,' might have
valiantly weeded out this and the other false thing from the
ways of men, and made a bit of God's creation more
melodious,--they have purchased you away from that; chained you
to the wheel of Prince Mahogany's chariot, and here you make
sport for a macassar Singedelomme and his improper-females past
the prime of life! Wretched spiritual Nigger, oh, if you _had_
some genius, and were not a born Nigger with mere appetite for
pumpkin, should you have endured such a lot? I lament for _you_
beyond all other expenses. Other expenses are light; you are
the Cleopatra's pearl that should not have been flung into
Mahogany's claret-cup. And Rossini, too, and Mozart and
Bellini--Oh, Heavens, when I think that Music too is condemned
to be mad and to burn herself, to this end, on such a funeral
pile,--your celestial Opera-house grows dark and infernal to
me! Behind its glitter stalks the shadow of Eternal Death;
through it too I look not 'up into the divine eye,' as Richter
has it, 'but down into the bottomless eyesocket'--not up
towards God, Heaven, and the Throne of Truth, but too truly
down towards Falsity, Vacuity, and the Dwelling-place of
Everlasting Despair."

THE GRAVE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.

Sir John Richardson has just published, in London, a very valuable work, embracing the results of his recent travels and adventures in the polar regions, in search of the brave navigator who is probably buried under their eternal snows. As a narrative it is not particularly interesting; it is rich rather in scientific facts and observations. It has northern landscapes, painted by an observer who combines scientific knowledge with the taste of a lover of nature; exhibitions of zeal and endurance under hardships; and incidents interesting from their rarity or their circumstances; but nothing different from other expeditions undertaken to explore the same region. A large part of the scientific matter is presented by itself. A curious account of the Indian races whose territories were travelled over forms a succession of separate chapters, and a series of elaborate papers on the physical geography of northern America occupies an appendix, which fills nearly two-thirds of the second volume. The nature of the country explored gives a freshness to every thing connected with it, and interest even to casual observation.

This is a curious fact connected with the feeling of heat:

"The power of the sun this day in a cloudless sky was so great,
that Mr. Rae and I were glad to take shelter in the water while
the crews were engaged on the portages. The irritability of the
human frame is either greater in these Northern latitudes, or
the sun, notwithstanding its obliquity, acts more powerfully
upon it than near the Equator; for I have never felt its direct
rays so oppressive within the Tropics as I have experienced
them to be on some occasions in the high latitudes. The luxury
of bathing at such times is not without alloy; for, if you
choose the mid-day, you are assailed in the water by the
_tabani_, who draw blood in an instant with their formidable
lancets; and if you select the morning or evening, then clouds
of thirsty moschetoes, hovering around, fasten on the first
part that emerges. Leeches also infest the still waters, and
are prompt in their aggressions."

The following relate to cold and mid-winter:

"The rapid evaporation of both snow and ice in the winter and
spring, long before the action of the sun has produced the
slightest thaw or appearance of moisture, is made evident to
residents in the high latitudes by many facts of daily
occurrence; and I may mention that the drying of linen
furnishes a familiar one. When a shirt, after being washed, is
exposed in the open air to a temperature of 40° or 50° below
zero, it is instantly rigidly frozen, and may be broken if
violently bent. If agitated when in this condition by a strong
wind, it makes a rustling noise like theatrical thunder. In an
hour or two, however, or nearly as quickly as it would do if
exposed to the sun in the moist climate of England, it dries
and becomes limber....

"In consequence of the extreme dryness of the atmosphere in
winter, most articles of English manufacture made of wood,
horn, or ivory, brought to Rupert's Land, are shrivelled, bent,
and broken. The handles of razors and knives, combs, ivory
scales, and various other things kept in the warm rooms, are
damaged in this way. The human body also becomes visibly
electric from the dryness of the skin. One cold night I rose
from my bed, and having lighted a lantern, was going out to
observe the thermometer, with no other clothing than my flannel
night-dress, when, on approaching my hand to the iron latch of
the door, a distinct spark was elicited. Friction of the skin
at almost all times in winter produced the electric odor....

"Even at mid-winter we had three hours and a half of daylight.
On the 20th of December I required a candle to write at the
window at ten in the morning. On the 29th, the sun, after ten
days' absence, rose at the fishery, where the horizon was open;
and on the 8th of January, both limbs of that luminary were
seen from a gentle eminence behind the fort, rising above the
centre of Fishery Island. For several days previously, however,
its place in the heavens at noon had been denoted by rays of
light shooting into the sky above the woods. The lowest
temperature in January was 50° F. On the 1st of February the
sun rose to us at nine o'clock and set at three, and the days
lengthened rapidly. On the 23d I could write in my room without
artificial light from ten A.M. to half-past two P.M., making
four hours and a half of bright daylight. The moon in the long
nights was a most beautiful object; that satellite being
constantly above the horizon for nearly a fortnight together in
the middle of the lunar month. Venus also shone with a
brilliancy which is never witnessed in a sky loaded with
vapors; and, unless in snowy weather, our nights were always
enlivened by the beams of the Aurora."

Few if any readers will ever be in a situation to use the knowledge of how to build a snow-house. The Arctic architecture, from a chapter on the Esquimaux, is worth reading, should it never turn out to be worth knowing:

"As the days lengthen, the villages are emptied of their
inhabitants, who move seaward on the ice to the seal-hunt. Then
comes into use a marvellous system of architecture, unknown
among the rest of the American nations. The fine pure snow has
by that time acquired, under the action of strong winds and
hard frosts, sufficient coherence to form an admirable light
building material, with which the Eskimo master-mason erects
most comfortable dome-shaped houses. A circle is first traced
on the smooth surface of the snow; and the slabs for raising
the walls are cut from within, so as to clear a space down to
the ice, which is to form the floor of the dwelling, and whose
evenness was previously ascertained by probing. The slabs
requisite to complete the dome, after the interior of the
circle is exhausted, are cut from some neighboring spot. Each
slab is neatly fitted to its place by running a flenching-knife
along the joint, when it instantly freezes to the wall, the
cold atmosphere forming a most excellent cement. Crevices are
plugged up, and seams accurately closed by throwing a few
shovelfuls of loose snow over the fabric. Two men generally
work together in raising a house, and the one who is stationed
within cuts a low door, and creeps out when his task is over.
The walls being only three or four inches thick, are
sufficiently translucent to admit a very agreeable light, which
serves for ordinary domestic purposes; but if more be required
a window is cut, and the aperture fitted with a piece of
transparent ice. The proper thickness of the walls is of some
importance. A few inches excludes the wind, yet keeps down the
temperature so as to prevent dripping from the interior. The
furniture--such as seats, tables, and sleeping-places--is also
formed of snow, and a covering of folded reindeer-skin or
seal-skin renders them comfortable to the inmates. By means of
ante-chambers and porches, in form of long, low galleries, with
their openings turned to leeward, warmth is insured in the
interior; and social intercourse is promoted by building the
houses contiguously, and cutting doors of communication between
them, or by erecting covered passages. Storehouses, kitchens
and other accessory buildings, may be constructed in the same
manner, and a degree of convenience gained which would be
attempted in vain with a less plastic material. These houses
are durable, the wind has little effect on them, and they
resist the thaw until the sun acquires very considerable
power."

The following account of the formation of dry land is from an earlier portion of the journey, and refers to a region between the 50th and 55th degrees of latitude:

"The eastern coast-line of Lake Winipeg is in general swampy,
with granite knolls rising through the soil, but not to such a
height as to render the scenery hilly. The pine forest skirts
the shore at the distance of two or three miles, covering
gently-rising lands; and the breadth of continuous lake-surface
seems to be in process of diminution, in the following way. A
bank of sand is first drifted up, in the line of a chain of
rocks which may happen to lie across the mouth of an inlet or
deep bay. Carices, balsam-poplars, and willows, speedily take
root therein; and the basin which lies behind, cut off from the
parent lake, is gradually converted into a marsh by the
luxuriant growth of aquatic plants. The sweet gale next appears
on its borders, and drift-wood, much of it rotten and
comminuted, is thrown up on the exterior bank, together with
some roots and stems of larger trees. The first spring storm
covers these with sand, and in a few weeks the vigorous
vegetation of a short but active summer binds the whole
together by a network of the roots of bents and willows.
Quantities of drift-sand pass before the high winds into the
swamp behind, and, weighing down the flags and willow branches,
prepare a fit soil for succeeding crops. During the winter of
this climate, all remains fixed as the summer left it; and as
the next season is far advanced before the bank thaws, little
of it washes back into the water, but on the contrary, every
gale blowing from the lake brings a fresh supply of sand from
the shoals which are continually forming along the shore. The
floods raised by melting snows cut narrow channels through the
frozen beach, by which the ponds behind are drained of their
superfluous waters. As the soil gradually acquires depth, the
balsam-poplars and aspens overpower the willows; which,
however, continue to form a line of demarcation between the
lake and the encroaching forest. Considerable sheets of water,
are also cut off on the northwest side of the lake, where the
bird's-eye limestone forms the whole of the coast. Very
recently this corner was deeply indented by narrow branching
bays, whose outer points were limestone cliffs. Under the
action of frost, the thin horizontal beds of this stone split
up, crevices are formed perpendicularly, large blocks are
detached, and the cliff is rapidly overthrown, soon becoming
masked by its own ruins. In a season or two the slabs break
into small fragments, which are tossed up by the waves across
the neck of the bay into the form of narrow ridgelike beaches,
from twenty to thirty feet high. Mud and vegetable matter
gradually fill up the pieces of water thus secluded; a willow
swamp is formed; and when the ground is somewhat consolidated,
the willows are replaced by aspens."

The volumes have all the value of an official survey, and they are the most important contributions to our knowledge of the _Terra Incognita_ of the Lower Mackenzie, that have been published. The occupants of this region are the Loucheux Indians. Fine grown men of considerable stature, and well-knit frames, they have evidently followed the course of the Mackenzie River, from south to north. These are the Indians of whom from the scantiness of our previous data, information is most valuable. They are reasonably considered to belong to the same family as the Dog-rib, Beaver, Hare, Copper, Carrier, and other Indians, a family which some call Chepewyan, others Athabascan, but which the present work designates as _Tinnè_. The Esquimo and Crees, though as fully described, are better known. The chapters, illustrative of the other branches of the natural history of North America, are equally valuable.

WITS ABOUT THE THRONE OF LOUIS THE FOURTEENTH.

We copy the following paragraphs from Sir James Stephens's Lectures on the History of France. The illustrious men referred to are of course well known by educated men, but to the masses their names are familiar chiefly from their appearance in the brilliant romances of Dumas.

"The constellation of genius, wit, and learning, in the midst
of which Louis shone thus pre-eminently, was too brilliant to
be obscured by any clouds of royal disfavor; nor would any man
have shrunken with greater abhorrence than himself, from any
attempt to extinguish or to eclipse their splendor. He wisely
felt, and frankly acknowledged, that, their glory was essential
to his own; and he invited to a seat at his table, Moliere the
roturier, to whom the lowest of his nobles would have appointed
a place among his menial servants. As Francis, and Charles, and
Leo, and Julius, and Lorenzo had assigned science, and poetry,
and painting, and architecture, and sculpture, as their
appropriate provinces, to those great master spirits of Italy,
to whom they forbade the culture of political philosophy, so
Louis, when he interdicted to the gigantic intellects of his
times and country all intervention in the affairs of the
commonwealth, summoned them to the conquest of all the other
realms of thought in which they might acquire renown, either
for him, for France, or themselves. The theatres, the
academies, the pulpits, and the monasteries of his kingdom
rivalled each other in their zealous obedience to that royal
command, and obeyed it with a success from which no competent
and equitable judge can withhold his highest admiration. At
this day, when all the illusions of the name of Louis are
exhausted, and in this country, where his Augustan age has
seldom been regarded with much enthusiasm, who can seriously
address himself to the perusal of his great tragedians,
Corneille and Racine--or of his great comedians, Moliere and
Regnard--or if his great poets, Boileau and La Fontaine--or of
his great wits, La Rochfaucauld and La Bruyere--or of his great
philosophers, Des Cartes and Pascal--or of his great divines,
Bossuet and Arnauld--or of his great scholars, Mabillon and
Montfaucon--or if his great preachers, Bourdaloue and
Masillon--and not confess that no other monarch was ever
surrounded by an assemblage of men of genius so admirable for
the extent, the variety and the perfection of their powers.

"And yet the fact that such an assemblage were clustered into a
group, of which so great a king was the centre, implies that
there must have been some characteristic quality uniting them
all to each other and to him, and distinguishing them all from
the nobles of every other literary commonwealth which has
existed among men. What, then, was that quality, and what its
influence upon them?

"Louis lived with his courtiers, not as a despot among his
slaves, but as the most accomplished of gentlemen among his
associates. The social equality was, however, always guarded
from abuse by the most punctilious observance, on their side,
of the reverence due to his pre-eminent rank. In that enchanted
circle men appeared at least to obey, not from a hard
necessity, but from a willing heart. The bondage in which they
really lived was ennobled by that conventional code of honor
which dictated and enforced it. They prostrated themselves
before their fellow-man with no sense of self-abasement, and
the chivalrous homage with which they gratified him, was
considered as imparting dignity to themselves.

"Louis acknowledged and repaid this tribute of courtesy, by a
condescension still more refined, and by attentions yet more
delicate than their own. The harshness of power was so
ingeniously veiled, every shade of approbation was so nicely
marked, and every gradation of favor so finely discriminated,
that the tact of good society--that acquired sense, which
reveals to us the impression we make on those with whom we
associate--became the indispensable condition of existence at
Versailles and Marly. The inmates of those palaces lived under
a law peculiar to themselves; a law most effective for its
purposes, though the recompense it awarded to those who pleased
their common master was but his smile, and though the penalty
it imposed on those who displeased him was but his frown."

AMERICAN WAR-ENGINES.

The probabilities of a general war in Europe invest the subject of the following paper with an unusual interest. It is worthy of notice that America has furnished so large a proportion of the improvements in war-engines of every description. Fulton's schemes are well known; we all remember something of the guns invented by Perkins; there is a gentleman now in daily conference with Mazzini and the revolutionary committees, in London, who proposes the noiseless discharge of twenty thousand missiles in a minute, by means of a machine invented in Ohio; and we find in the _Times_ an abstract of a paper read at the Institution of Civil Engineers, on the 25th of November, by our famous countryman Colonel Colt, "On the Application of Machinery to the Manufacture of Rotating Chambered-Breech Fire-Arms, and the Peculiarities of those Arms." The communication commenced with a historical account of such rotating chamber fire-arms as had been discovered by the author, in his researches after specimens of the early efforts of armorers for the construction of repeating weapons, the necessity for which appears to have been long ago admitted; and with the attention of such an intelligent class devoted to the subject, it is certainly remarkable that during so long a period so little was really effected towards the production of serviceable weapons of this sort. The collections in the Tower of London, the United Service Museum, the Rotunda at Woolwich, Warwick Castle, the Musée d'Artillerie, and the Hotel Cluny, at Paris, as well as some ancient Eastern arms brought from India by Lord William Bentinck, demonstrated the early efforts that had been made to produce arms capable of rapidly firing several times consecutively, without the delay of loading after each discharge. Drawings of these specimens were exhibited, comprising the match-lock, the pyrites wheel-lock, the flint-lock, down to the percussion-lock, as adapted by the author. Among the match-lock guns, some had as many as eight chambers, rotating by hand. Some of the pyrites wheel-lock guns had also as many as eight chambers, and rotated by hand; one of them, made in the seventeenth century, had the peculiarity of igniting the charge close behind the bullet, burning backwards towards the breech--an arrangement identical in principle with that of the modern Prussian "needle gun," for which great merit has been claimed. The flint-locks induced more determined efforts, but all were abortive, as the magazines for priming and the pan covers were continually blown off on the explosion of the charge. Indeed, from the earliest match-lock down to the present time, the premature explosion of several chambers, owing to the simultaneous ignition of the charges, from the spreading of the fire at their mouths, had been the great source of difficulty. In some of the most ancient specimens, orifices were provided in the butt of the barrel for the escape of the bullets in case of explosion, whilst others had evidently been destroyed by this action. In a brass model of a pistol of the time of Charles II., from the United Service Museum, there was an ingenious attempt to cause the chamber to rotate, by mechanical action, in some degree similar, but more complicated than the arms constructed by the author. The "Coolidge" and the "Collier" guns, both flint guns of comparatively modern manufacture, exhibited the same radical defects of liability to premature explosion.

The invention of Nock's patent breech, and the Rev. Mr. Forsyth's introduction of the detonating or percussion guns, which latter principle, with the necessary mechanical arrangements for the caps, was essential to the safe construction of repeating fire-arms, constituted a new era in these weapons.

Colonel Colt gave a detailed and interesting account of his experiments, which resulted in the invention of his celebrated revolvers. His communication, the first that had been brought before the institution, by an American, was received with acclamations; and in the discussion which ensued, in which our Minister, the Hon. Abbott Lawrence, Captain Sir Thomas Hastings, R.N., Captain Sir Edward Belcher, R.N., Captain Riddell, R.N., Mr. Miles, and the members of the council took part, the most flattering testimony was given of the efficiency of the revolvers in active service, and the strongest opinions as to the necessity of their use in all frontier warfare; and that without this arm it was almost impossible, except with an overwhelming force of troops, to cope with savage tribes. The discussion was resumed at a meeting of the Institution, held on the second of December.

A new, and, we understand, a very important invention, in this line, is also described in the following interesting article by a contributor to the _International_:

SKETCH OF THE PROGRESS OF INVENTION IN OFFENSIVE ARMS: JENNING'S RIFLE.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE,

BY W. M. FERRIS.

It may be justly considered that mechanical invention has been the most prominent characteristic of history for the last four centuries. The application of science to the useful arts has been pushed to an extent of which preceding ages never dreamed. In poetry, in painting, in sculpture, the great masters of ancient times are still the teachers of mankind. But in all those arts which administer to the necessities, increase the comforts, or multiply the enjoyments of men, the present is marvellously in advance of every former age. Prominent among those arts which have shared in this advancement, is that of war. At first sight it may appear improper to distinguish as useful, improvements in the method of taking life. But, experience and philosophy unite in teaching that every improvement in military skill tends to render war less frequent, and the nearer its operations approach to those of an exact science, the more reluctant is each nation to engage in it, and the more careful not to commit those offences which render a resort to it on the part of other nations unavoidable.

We purpose to trace a brief sketch of the progress of invention in offensive weapons, and more particularly in that class of fire-arms used either in hunting or war, by a single individual, and generally denominated small-arms, in contradistinction to artillery. Such a sketch will be interesting, not only in its subject-matter, but also as a chapter in the general history of human progress.

The learned reader who is curious in such matters, will find in the Natural History of Pliny (vol. vii. cap. 56, 67), a statement of the source whence originated most of the mechanical implements, the manners and customs, and the political and religious institutions known in the author's time. It is to be presumed that Pliny did not intend to vouch for the truth of all he has there stated. He probably meant merely to give a synopsis of the traditions most generally received, and which assigned to a divine energy almost every thing that contributed to the happiness of men. He tells us here that "the first combats were made by the Africans against the Egyptians with a kind of stick, which they called _phalanges_." The evident Greek origin of this word renders the story absurd enough, and doubtless most of our readers will continue to acquiesce in the account given in Holy Writ, that the origin of war was but little subsequent to the origin of the race, and that fraternal blood first stained the breast of our mother earth. But this statement of Pliny contains a grain of truth. The stick, or club, was undoubtedly the first weapon made use of by men in their combats with each other, though the spear and the sword followed at a period long anterior to any known in historical records.

But from the earliest ages men have sought to avoid hand-to-hand conflicts, and to make skill supply the place of strength. In contests with wild beasts this was indispensable. Nature had provided man with no weapon with which he could contend against the boar's tusks, the lion's teeth, or the tiger's paw. Hence, the substitution of missiles for manual weapons, has been the end towards which ingenuity has been constantly directed.

The conversion of the spear into the javelin, as it was the most obvious, so probably it was the earliest step in advance. Close upon this followed the sling, and last the arrow and the bow. The invention of the latter weapon is ascribed by Pliny, in the chapter above cited, to a son of Jupiter. In the days of Homer it was the weapon of the gods; and thousands of years after, it was the pride and glory of the English yeoman. The classical scholar will remember the description in the fourth book of the Iliad, of the bow with which Pandaros shot at Menelaus an arrow which would have sent to Hades the hero dear to Mars, had not the daughter of Jove brushed it aside with her hand, as a mother doth a fly from her sleeping child. The bow does not appear to have been extensively used in later times in either the Greek or Roman armies. The ferocious Spartan preferred the close combat with manual weapons, the Athenian won his glory upon the sea, and it was with the pike that Alexander overcame the hosts of Persia. The Cretans, who were the most celebrated archers in Europe, sometimes formed a separate division in the Grecian and afterward in the Roman armies. The Romans, however, generally preferred heavy-armed troops. But it was a peculiarity of Roman policy always to adopt every improvement in the art of war with which they became acquainted, whether it originated with friend or foe. Rome never let slip any opportunity to add to the efficiency of her legions, and they repaid her care by carrying her eagles in triumph from the Thames to the Euphrates, and from the Danube to the Nile.

It was in the west of Europe, and from about the eleventh to the fifteenth century, that archery flourished in the greatest perfection. The early chronicles are filled with the exploits of the English archers, and old and young still read with delight those ballads which tell of the wondrous achievements of "Robin Hood and his merry men." Indeed, with the name of that famous outlaw are connected all our ideas of perfect skill in the use of the bow, and in the directions which in his dying hour, he gave to his faithful man, "Little John," we seem to hear the dirge of archery itself:

"Give me my bent bow in my hand,
And a broad arrow I'll let flee,
And where that arrow is taken up,
There shall my grave digg'd be.

"And lay me a green sod under my head,
And another at my feet,
And lay my bent bow by my side,
Which was my music sweet."

We shall not stop to dwell on the defects of the bow. The great and insuperable one was its want of power. The strength of a man was the limit of its capacity, and something more was necessary to pierce the ironclad breast of the knight. But, until the invention of gunpowder, it stood at the head of missile engines.

When and where gunpowder was invented it is impossible now to ascertain. It seems to be described in the pages of Roger Bacon, while many are of opinion that the returning Crusaders brought it from the east. Certain it is that it had been known in China for many centuries, and applied to the blasting of rocks and other useful purposes, though never to the art of war. But the latter application of it was made by the Europeans almost contemporaneously with their knowledge of its properties, and for war it has been chiefly employed until the present time. The invention of cannon preceded by a century that of small-arms, and it was by a gradual reduction in the size of the former that the latter were produced. Barbour, in his metrical Life of Robert Bruce, says, that cannon were used by Edward III. in his first campaign against the Scots, in 1327. He calls them "Crakys of war." They are also supposed to have been employed by the French in the siege of Puy Guillaume, in 1338. But the first use of them which rests on unimpeachable evidence, and which seems to have been productive of much effect, was at the battle of Cressy, in 1346. It is from this epoch that it is most usual to date the employment of artillery. That day which witnessed the first efficient use of a weapon destined to revolutionize the art of war, also witnessed the most splendid achievements of the archers of England. The bowstrings of the French had become useless by the dampness of the weather, while those of the English, either on account of greater care or the different material of which they were made, were uninjured. The cloth-yard arrows of the English bowmen, directed with unerring skill, made terrible havoc in the ranks of their enemies, while four pieces of artillery stationed on a little hill contributed to their victory. The French troops had none of them ever seen, and most of them never heard of such a weapon, and the terror inspired by the noise and the smoke did more than the balls to hasten their defeat.

The first cannons were rude in the extreme. They were made of bars of iron hooped together like the staves of a barrel, and were larger at the muzzle than at the breech. The size was very soon decreased, so that two men could carry one, and fire it from a rest. The 400 cannon with which Froissart said that the English besieged St. Malo, in 1378, were probably of this kind. Nearly a century elapsed before small-arms were invented. Sir S. Meyrick, to whom subsequent writers have been indebted for most of their knowledge upon this subject, has given, upon the authority of an eye-witness, the time and place of their invention. "It was in 1430," says Bilius, "that they were contrived by the Lucquese, when they were besieged by the Florentines." A French translation of Quintus Curtius made by Vasqua de Lucene, a Portuguese, in 1468, preserved among the Burney MSS. of the British Museum, exhibits in one of its illuminations the earliest representation of hand fire-arms which has yet been discovered. The following engraving is from a copy of this illumination, contained in the Penny Cyclopædia.

It will be observed that this gun much resembles one of those small lead cannons with which patriotic boys, upon each return of our national anniversary, manifest their appreciation of the blessings of liberty. It was fastened to a stick, and fired by a match held in the hand. We proceed to sketch the progress of improvement from this the first gun until we reach the repeating rifle.

If we analyze the manipulation of fire-arms, it will be found to consist of three principal operations--namely, to charge the piece, to direct it toward the object of attack, and to discharge it by in some manner igniting the powder; or more concisely, to load, take aim, and fire. That gun with which these operations can be performed most safely, accurately, and rapidly, is the best.