LAPIS LAZULI-The Petersburgh Academy of money should begin at sixteen. 2. That when, by Sciences has published the following particulars re- the selfish neglect of the worst part of the specieslative to lapis lazuli and mica.-" Both these mine- whom to name is often to blush the question tion is not rals are found in the vicinity of Lake Baikal, espe put, it shall be onerous upon the spinster to put the cially in the river Hindianka, and in all the rivers said question herself. 3. That she shall be permitted which fall from Mount Khamardaban. Mineralo- to break off a match either at the beginning, the gists have not, however, yet succeeded in finding the middle, or just at the end, with no liability for an flow of the lapis lazuli, notwithstanding the minute action for breach. 4. That no such indulgence be researches which have been made in divers points granted to the other party, and that transportation of these localities. Mr. Moor, the mineralogist, be added to damages. 5. That neither father nor who spent two summers on the banks of the Hindi- mother be asked for consent, except by way of comanka, succeeded only in discovering the flow of pliment, when it is known they have no objection to glaucolithe, or calcareous blue spath, and every the gentleman. 6. That when the marriage is soattempt since made to ascertain the place of the for- lemnized, the Duke of Wellington shall give away mation of the lapis lazuli has been unsuccessful. The natives affirm that this precious stone is met with after the heavy rains have washed down the pebbles found in the beds of the rivers. With regard to mica, it is found in great abundance in the neighborhood of Hindianka, even with the ground, in the form of not very thick flakes, lying upon a bed of soft clay, as if it had been deposited upon it. The inhabitants frequently resort to these places to carry off the mica-which they put into their window-frames in place of glass.-Athenæum. the bride. The Wife's Charter. -1. That the honeymoon shall last six months. 2. That the amount of household expenses be fixed by her; with an unlimited allowance for extras. 3. That she chooses the watering places for the season. 4. That she be never called upon to sit up; and farther, that she be never solicited for a latch key. 5. That the husband invariably smoke in the garden, (if no garden, no smoke.) 6. That the Duke of Wellington be godfather to the first child. The Widow's Charter.-1. That weeds-with the HOW THE MONEY GOES.-We are paying thou-earliest dispatch-be turned into orange flowers. sands a-year to the descendants of the demireps and The widow's charter, it will be perceived, has only Moll F' gons who infested and polluted the court of one point; but as that is to possess all the points of Charles II. Is that right? We are also paying for the wife, her character may be said to aim at seven. the immoralities of William IV. Is that right? -Punch. We have been paying £2000 a-year ever since 1798 to the Prince of Mecklenberg Strelitz. What are his claims upon England? What did he ever do for his money? We are paying a little, but a little too much, for the peccadilloes of the late Duke of Sussex. And who is Augusta Arbuthnot, that we should even pay her £100 a-year? Or Arabella Bouverie, that she should have £300 a-year? Or Augusta Brudenell, who gets £202; and why the odd two? We have been paying £104 per annum to the Hon. G. A. F. Smythe ever since he was ten years old. What had he done for his country at those tender years, and what has he done since? Myles O'Reilly has £222 during the life of Helena White, granted by George IV. Why was it not granted for his own life? And who is Helena the young Breton emigrant who had retired from CHARACTER OF CHATEAUBRIAND. - He was the knight-errant of modern Europe, who won and wore his trophies and favors on his own person. A fervid imagination-an animated style which seemed impassioned in comparison with the frigid models of the French empire-a spirit which was more chivalrous and bold than discreet and resolute-and a sympathy for the improvement of the age, united to a veneration for the majestic traditions of the past, gave to M de Chateaubriand a potent influence over a the minds of men at some of the most remarkable moments in history. When the storm of the first French revolution had, for that time, blown over, the of Condé after the siege of Thionville to White? Some Schomberg, Dutchman, gets the wilds of Kentucky, and subsequently to a garret £2,880 a-year because he is lucky enough to be the great-great-great nephew of a soldier of fortune who in London, returned to his native land; and after was killed when fighting for William III. 160 years ten years of the brutality and blasphemy of Jacobin clubs and revolutionary journals, France was en since. And thousands, and tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands are regularly thrown away, year by year, in other abuses of the same kind.Liverpool Allion. THE WOMEN'S CHARTER. - We believe in the chanted to strike a fresh vein of poetry in the pages of Atala, and to resume her old faith in the pleasing attire of the "Genius of Christianity."-Times. speedy freedom of the female sex. That beautiful communicated to us some rather startling facts re half of the creation-and, like the rosy side of a peach, the much better half-has too long been in bonds. The cunning, the selfishness, and the cowardice of man, have apart and together, operated, for many thousand years, to crush the lovely flower, or, at best, that he might wear it as one may say, in his button-hole, a little more than a fragrant, blooming ornament for a brief holiday. These days are fast going-dying upon the save-all of time. At length women are beginning to know their own strength-at length the hour of equality is about to strike: and when it has struck, the world will really, for the first time, know what's o'clock. The women, be it known then, have resolved upon a charter, a triple charter, formaid, wife, and widow. The Maid's Charter.-2. That unlimited pocket TEMPERANCE STATISTICS.-A correspondent has garding the relative consumption of intoxicating liquors and bread in Edinburgh, which he has culled from the Post-office Directory. We observe from his statement that in this city there are 296 spiritdealers, 360 grocers and spirit-dealers, 49 hotels, 51 taverns and coffee-houses, 48 wine-merchants, and 98 wine and spirit merchants,-making 902 concerns in all. Assuming that at each of these places an average of £5 a week is realized from the sales, the amount realized would be £4,510 per week, and no less a sum than £234,520 a year! Turning to another page, we find that the number of bakers in the city is about 200, the amount of whose sales, at £30 a week, would amount to £312,000-or only about £77,480 more than the amount annually expended on intoxicating liquors!-Scottish Press. DECOMPOSITION OF LIGHT BY THE EYE-A correspondent sends us the following - "On closing the eyes, after having looked steadfastly at a sheet of white paper held in the sun for about half a minute, and covering them without pressure, to exclude extraneous light, (a silk handkerchief held in the hand will answer the purpose), the figure of the paper remains visible for some time. At first it is generally white, and then gradually changes through the colors of the spectrum. All the colors are seldom seen at the same trial; and it rarely happens when one or more are missed that they afterwards appear. Thus when the change is from green to red, yellow or orange are seldom seen. The change from white generally commences with a light indigo or blue, and terminates with red, or some compound of it, but sometimes with a deep blue or violet. The colors are generally seen at the edges of the figure first, though this is not always the case; and when they once appear, they often remain mixed up with those that succeed. Many curious modifications and confused mixtures of colors will be perceived at times; but it seldom happens that the colors develope themselves, in the first instance, contrary to their order in the spectrum, although when the last has appeared they occur in various ways. This is a phenomenon which I have not seen noticed anywhere and it would seem to arise from the retina decomposing the light that falls upon it, surrendering the rays in the order of refrangibility."-Athenæum. INTERESTING EXCAVATIONS AT POMPEII. In the street leading from the ancient sea-shore, in the neighborhood of the theatres, to the so-called crossway of the Fortuna, and thence in a direct line to the northern city wall, there has been excavated a house that surpasses in richness and elegance all that has been discovered previously. The space of the court-yard is open, has a Mosaic pavement, and on the walls fantastic pictures of the richest and most tasteful style. At the sides of the atrium (court-yard) are small sleeping-rooms, with wall paintings. In the back ground of the atrium opens a tablinum, the reception hall, with chequered marble pavement. At the side of the reception hall is a dining-room, where are seen three large paintings ot full-size figures. They represent Hercules and Omphale holding his club and wrapped in the skin of the Nemyan lion. Next, Bacchus as a boy, and arm-in arm with Silenus, on a cart drawn by two oxen, and followed by Bacchantines. Thirdly, a Bacchanal procession of triumph, with a Victoria, who engraves into a shield the exploits of the victorious god. Here were also the Trikilinion, reposing beds, (not unlike our low divans), the feet of which are richly adorned with silver. Behind the reception hall there appears the garden, with a magnificent fountain at the end, adorned with much Mosaic, and a little marble statue of Silenus. In the middle is the water-reservoir, adorned with elegant marble sculptures, such as a small Faunus drawing out a thorn from the foot of a goat, a beardy satyr, a stag, a hare stealing grapes, an amorino upon a dolphin, a youthful field goddess keeping on her lap a new-born goat, whose mother is caressing it standing on her hind legs. This dwelling joins a second equally open atrium where the servants lived. Here was found a fourwheeled wagon with iron wheels, and much bronze ornament. The kitchen contained many neat implements of bronze, and the traces of smoke were in many places visible after the lapse of eighteen centuries. The dwelling had-what is very rare-second and third stories, to which led a wide staircase. Upon a small picture close to the staircase lies a letter with the (scarcely legible) name of the owner of the house, in oblique characters, and plainly indicating his rank. It belonged to one of the Deuriæ or senators of Pompeii. All the walls of the rooms of the house are decorated with pictures of comic and tragic scenes, and upon one of them is depicted a young girl with mask and double flute. The house has therefore been christened, Casa della Sonatrice, or dell' Ercole Ubbriaco. It is the newest excavation of importance. THE TUBULAR BRIDGES. We have had an oppor tunity of inspecting the stupendous iron tubes which are in course of construction a short distance from the Menai Suspension Bridge, for the purpose of forming a passage for the trains of the Holyhead Railway across the strait. Immense piers of granite are being erected on each side of the strait, and a massive pier of the same material is rising in the middle of the stream. On these solid masses of masonry the vast hollow metallic ways will rest. forming a line continuous with the railway. The most cursory inspection of the tubes will at once convince the spectator of their prodigious strength, and show them to be capable of sustaining a far greater weight than any that is likely to pass across them. They are not either cylindrical or elliptical, as many have supposed, but rectangular,-their form being what is not uncommonly called an oblong square, about 30 feet high and 15 feet wide. They are constructed of thick plates of iron, firmly riveted together, and strengthened by girders at the top and bottom. The chief e ement of strength, however, is in the bed or base of the work, which is composed of plates of iron set edgewise, so as to form cells; the under and upper surfaces being firmly riveted to the intermediate perpendicular plates, the whole, with the walls of the tube and its covering, firmly girded and bound together with the utmost skill and ingenuity, forming a compact piece of workmanship, the strength of which is beyond conception. These enormous tubes are built on stages erected over the stream. The spectator wonders, when contemplating them, how fabrics of such stupendous weight, amounting to many thousands of tons, are to be removed and lifted into the position which they are destined to occupy. They will be floated to the piers on pontoons, and lifted to their final restingplace by hydraulic pressure.-Liverpool Allion. COACH TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND.-The first mail coach from London that had ever arrived at Glasgow, drew up on the 7th of July, 1788. So great was the interest excited on the occasion, that the proprietor of the inn, the Saracen's Head, accompanied by a crowd of horsemen, rode out as far as the Clyde fron Works to welcome its approach. According to Jones's Glasgow Directory for 1789, the Diligence for Edinburgh started at nine o'clock morning, "or any other hour that the first two passengers might agree on!"-Notices of Glasgow in Former Times. TRADE BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND CHINA.The number of ships which arrived in Hong Kong during the year 1847, was 699, namely, forty-three from Great Britain, 147 from the British colonies, sixteen from the United States, and 195 from foreign states. The total tonnage amounted to 229,465. The value of the imports into Hong Kong, in Chinese vessels, during 1846, was 642,700 piculs, or L.325,780; and in 1847, 840,990 piculs, or L.493,239 The estimated value of sugar exported from Hong Kong during 1847, amounted to L.144,827. SOMERSET NOTIONS OF A POET.-Mr. Wordsworth THE NEW REGENT OF GERMANY. - While John of had taken the Allfoxden House, near Stowey, for Austria is the centre of so much political interest, a one year (during the minority of the heir): and the brief sketch of his career may be interesting to reason why he was refused a continuance by the many, for it belongs more to the past generation ignorant man who had the letting of it, arose, as than the present. He is the brother of the late and Mr. Coleridge informed me, from a whimsical uncle of the reigning Emperor; he was born in cause, or rather a series of causes. The wiseacres 1782, and has therefore reached his 66th year. He of the village had, it seemed, made Mr. W. the sub- was educated and thrown into active life during the ject of their serious conversation. One said that " he had seen him wander about by night, and look rather strangely at the moon! and then he roamed over the hills like a partridge." Another said, "He had heard him mutter, as he walked, in some outlandish brogue, that nobody could understand!" Another said, "It's useless to talk, Thomas, I think stormy times of the first French revolution; as early as 1800 he was placed in command of an Austrian army-but he was not fortunate; the battle of Hohenlinden tried him in the fire of misfortune, and the utmost he could effect was by his personal courage and example to keep the spirit of the Austrian forces from being quite crushed by the de he is what people call a 'wise man'" (a conjuror). feats they sustained from the French armies, led by Another said, "You are every one of you wrong. the ablest of its generals. After the peace of LuneI know what he is. We have all seen him tramp- ville he was appointed Director of the Corps of Ening away towards the sea. Would any man in his gineers and of the Military Academy of Vienna. senses take all that trouble to look at a parcel of Notwithstanding his youth, he was the object of water? I think he carries on a snug business in many bright expectations in that gloomy period; the smuggling line, and in these journeys he is on he became excessively popular, especially in the the look-out for some wet cargo!" Another very Austrian provinces. He originated the measure of significantly said, "I know that he has got a pri-arming a Landwehr, or militia, and served through vate still in his cellar, for I once passed his house at the campaign of 1805. The next few years were a little better than a hundred yards distance, and I most disastrous in the annals of Austría, except percould smell the spirits, as plain as an ashen faggot haps the present one. In 1811, he founded the Joat Christmas!" Another said, "However that was, hanneum in Gratz. He was always attached to the he is surely a despered French Jacobin, for he is so study of natural history, and when released from silent and dark, that nobody ever heard him say one word about politics!" And thus these ignoramuses drove from their village a greater ornament than will ever again be found amongst them.- Cottle's Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey. DIPLOMATIC ANECDOTES.-Sir Gordon remarked, that in this quality of coolness and imperturbability he never saw any one surpass his friend, military duties be lived the life of a mountaineer, preferring the Styrian hills as a residence to the capital. He knew the whole of this district thoroughly, and was on the best terms with its inhabitants, to whom he was known as a bold and successful explorer of the most inaccessible points. He served again in the campaigns of 1813 and 1815. With the peace began the long Ministry of Metternich, and the policy of opposition to all progress, which Darcy. One evening when playing at whist, at Potzdam, with the late King of Prussia, his Majesty in a fit of inadvertence appropriated to himself several gold pieces belonging to Sir Robert. The King at last perceived and apologized for his mistake, adding, "Why did you not inform me of it?"" Because I knew your Majesty always makes restitution self from his family by marrying the daughter of the when you have obtained time for reflection." Ha- Postmaster of Ausee; he was exiled from Vienna, nover was then on the tapis, and the King felt the and all but socially proscribed; the gulf between allusion. I must not forget a trait of that peculiar him, the Court, and the old nobility, however, was sarcastic humor for which Sir Robert was famous, never closed. He lived in his retirement at Gratz, When an honorable and learned gentleman, in the farming, botanizing, and hunting, but never for a course of a Continental tour, happened to day released from the espionage that Metternich through the city where Sir Robert lived as ambassador, he received a card of invitation to dinner, far more on account of a certain missive from the Foreign Office, than from any personal claims he was possessed of. Sir Robert, whose taste for good living was indisputable, no sooner read the note acceding to his request than he called his attaches together, and said, "Gentlemen, you will have a very baddin he maintained for more than thirty years; the Archduke always condemned the system of the all-powerful Chancellor, and never concealed his dislike of it; the consequence was, that not being able to oppose it by positive action, he withdrew himself from political life altogether, and almost separated him pass kept upon his movements. His popularity was always feared as much as his opinions. After a long absence he revisited the Tyrol in 1835, and was received with such enthusiasm that the Vienna journals were not permitted to publish the accounts of his reception. In 1842, at a public dinner, he is said to have given as a toast, "No Austria, no Prussia, but a united Germany." This incident has sener to-day; but I request you will all dine here, as 1 cured him much of his present popularity. The have a particular object in expressing the wish.", statement ran through all the journals, but there are Dinner-hour came: and after the usual ceremony, dote. In person the Archduke is of middle height, considerable doubts of the authenticity of the party were seated at table, when a single soup appeared: this was followed by a dish of fish, and thin, and bald; his countenance expresses great then without entree or hors d'œuvre, came a boiled benevolence and good humor. 'Though of so ad leg of mutton, Sir Robert premi-ing t, his guest vanced an age, he has preserved much of the enthuthat it was to have no successor: adding, "You see, siasm of youth. When the revolution occurred in sir, what a poor entertainment I have provided for Vienna he entered at once into public life, and it you; but to this have the miserable economists in was principally by his influence that Metternich Parliament brought us-next session may carry it was compelled to resign. The events since the further, and leave us without even so much." revolution are too well known to require repetition; Joseph was sold, and never forgot it since.-Diary he is now Regent of Austria, and chief of the Ger. of a Secretary of Legislation. man Empire, and Metternich is an exile. - Times. |