good deal of controversy regarding the nature of manna. We believe, however, that there can be very little doubt that it is a species of lichen, which like a fungus springs up in the course of a single night, and thus gives rise to the notion that it has fallen from the skies. This manna is ground into flour and baked into bread, the Turkish name of it being Kudert-bogh-dasi, which means wonder-matter in a very comic dress, and mixes up serious corn or grain. Though used as bread, its composition is remarkable; for it contains more than 65 per cent. of oxalate of lime, and has about 25 per cent. of amylaceous matter. This substance is evidently the manna of the Hebrews, who gave it the name of Man-hu, which signifies "what is it?" from the circumstances of its sudden appearance and their previous unfamiliarity with it.

Gun Cotton. During the meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society at Newcastle, Messrs. Prentice, who have introduced the manufacture of gun cotton in this country, exhibited its destructive powers by blowing up an enormously massive stockade. For this purpose they employed a shell 16 inches long and 12 inches diameter, containing 25 lbs. of gun cotton. The shell was fired by electricity, and reduced the stockade to utter ruin.

Hommes, l'Homme Fossile, etc. Histoire Naturelle du Globe Terrestre, illustre d'apres les Dassins de l'Auteur, M. Boitard." It is a stout octavo volume of some 500 pages, and contains pictures of the animals that inhabited this earth ages before the deluge. The book is, in many respects, a scientific puzzle, for it gives a good deal of sober truth with speculation something more than laughable. One plate represents a fish-like animal with claws and fins, and a hard tortoise-shell upon its back; another gives a frog the size of an elephant -a pretty thing to hop after a person in a country lane; Chien gigantesque terrassant un lion," represents an enormous wolf-hound seizing a lion across the middle as a cat would a mouse. The plates representing pre-Adamite men and women are still more curious. One is called, "Dernier Age Paleontologique," and shows a man and his wife of the period surrounded by the snouted and other hideous animals of the time. Their home is a hole in the side of a "bluff" or hill, which is reached by a stout pole, after the fashion of an Indian ladder. The woman is outside the cave on a ledge, with a stone axe or hammer in her hand. A dog, or other domestic animal, is keeping her company. The man is above, one foot on the outer branch of a tree, whilst the other is stretched backwards, entwined around another branch, after the manner of the ring-tailed monkeys. He is armed with a bow and arrow, and is taking aim at an ugly animal, shaped somewhat like a pig.

The Report of the Chloroform Committee was issued some time since, and from it we learn that the strongest doses of chloroform vapor when admitted freely into the lungs destroy animal life, by arresting the action of the heart, whilst by moderate doses the heart's action is weakened some time before death ensues, the respiratory function being generally arrested prior to the cessation of the Mediaeval Bristol.-On the 7th inst., the Bristol heart's pulsation. Death is due to the failure of Society of Architects walked round their own both functions. In order to administer chloroform city. Previously to starting, Mr. Godwin read an safely, the proportion of vapor should not exceed introductory paper, of which an abstract has reach3 per cent. Its effects should be carefully watch-ed us. Having remarked that there are four classes ed, and the inhalation suspended when the re- of towns-military, baronial, ecclesiastical, and quired anesthesia is produced. The energy with commercial-the writer said that the great towns which chloroform acts and the extent to which it of the middle ages belonged chiefly to the comdepresses the force of the heart's action, render itmercial class. They were mostly seaport towns. necessary to exercise great caution in its administration, and suggests the expediency of looking for another and less objectionable anæsthetic. Ether, says the report, produces requisite insensibility, but is slow and uncertain in its action. It is, however, less dangerous in its operation than chloroform. The committee on the whole concur in the general opinion, which in this country has led to the disuse of ether as an inconvenient anæsthetic. A mixture composed by measure of three parts of ether, two parts of chloroform, and one part of alcohol, is regarded as a safer agent than pure chloroform. Artificial respiration is the most certain means of restoring life after poisoning by anasthetics of any kind. By this means resuscitation may generally be accomplished after natural respiration has ceased, provided the heart continue to act. If due care be taken in the administration of chloroform, no apparatus need be employed. Free admission of air with. the anaesthetic is the one thing necessary. Three and a half per cent. is the average amount, and four and a half the maximum proportion of chloroform to atmospheric air, which is either needful or safe. If air be freely admitted with the vapor, any apparatus may be employed, though none is necessary.-Popular Science.

Hints for Pre-Adamites.-A most curious work, which we may almost deem a burlesque upon the present antediluvian and pre-Adamite studies, has recently been published in Paris, under the title "Paris avant les Hommes, L'Univers avant les

Self-dependent, self-contained, self-governed-perhaps savoring a little too strongly of self-they exercised in the end the greatest influence, because they were the greatest workers in the State. The Roman walls have long since crumbled into dust, and, having served their purpose, their military cities have settled into quiet country towns, or, what is as bad, have degenerated into mere haunts of fashion. The baron's hall is now a rag and bone shop; the vaulting ribs of his proud lady's. chamber bend over the blacksmith's forge; and the highest battlement of the loftiest tower is crumbling under our feet. The great monasteries, too, are no better off; cabbages are growing where the abbot and his royal guests sat at meat; and there is a merry hay-making, once a year, over the very foundations of the high altar. Through all these changes most of the great commercial cities have lived and flourished. Where marshes once existed wide streets and squares have risen, and the hardworking arms of commercial enterprise have pushed the boundaries of one of these grand old towns to tep times the compass of its first walls.-Builder, Sept. 24.

The Colossal Bird of Madagascar.-In the year 1850, a French ship captain, named Abadie, being on the southeast coast of Madagascar, observed in the hands of a native the shell of a gigantic egg, which had been perforated at one of its extremi ties, and used for domestic purposes.

M. Abadie being attracted by the unusual dimen

Libyans were created by Pasht, the lioness-headed | mediocrity, and left them in a miserable state, ungoddess of Northern Egypt. The physiognomies able to earn their bread as artists, and dependent of the representatives of the several races are not on eleemosynary support. The Ministry wished defined upon the coffin, but in the repetition of the to turn the Academy into something useful, by picture which is found on the walls of the tomb, and combining with its instruction in art a school of which is given in Belzoni's work, the features and design for manufactures, a branch of industry dresses are clearly marked. The Egyptians, with which has had great results in Nuremberg. The Uncle Toby, had arrived at the conclusion that the Academy answered sharply, that Munich artists negro has a soul, for the inscription pronounces a were not dependent on alms; that they had a socieblessing upon all the races, Negroes included, and ty of their own creation, which was bound to supcommits the care of the souls of the Egyptians and port needy artists, and which was in a very flourNegroes to Horus, of those of the Asiatics and Liby- ishing state; that an average of two hundred pupils ans to Pasht. Serpents, we find, abounded in the studied in the Academy, and the majority of GerEgyptian Hades, but of very various dispositions. man artists had lived or studied in Munich; and Some are represented as the enemies of the sun, that about eight hundred artists were now living and destined to defeat and destruction; others have regularly in Munich, some of them of the greatest a beneficent or useful character. reputation, and brought large gains and a great Mr. Sharpe has prefixed to Mr. Bonomi's plates a influx of money to the country. The Munich Acadgeneral description of the sarcophagus and of the emy was respected everywhere; had a tradition pictures; but, as he has attempted no decipher- of idealism to which it must be faithful; had not a ment of the hieroglyphical texts which accompany tradition of practical work, or a surrounding of and to some extent explain the pictures, his descrip- manufactures, as is the case in Nuremberg, where tions do not throw much light upon these represen- the German artists of the middle ages did not distations. The king for whom this elaborate sar-dain to draw designs for handicraft, and where, at cophagus was executed was Seti, surnamed Meri- the present day, there is a considerable and active en-Ptah, the father of Rameses the Great. His trading population. On these principles all thought name has been preserved by Manetho under the of government interference was emphatically reform of Sethos. According to Dr. Lepsius, he be-jected. gan to reign B.O. 1439, and reigned fifty-one years. Dr. Brugsch places him twenty years earlier. Mr. Sharpe, for reasons which appear to us very insufficient, supposes the king to have reigned about two hundred years later. Whatever may be the exact year in the world's history when he began to reign, it is at all events certain that he was the father of that king who passes for the persecuting Pharaoh famous in Israelitish history. He made war against the inhabitants of Syria, and some of the most beautiful works of Egyptian art are the representations of his return from this campaign, bringing with him many captive kings. His reign was one of the culminating periods of Egyptian taste and skill. There is a cast in the Crystal Palace, taken from the wall of the temple of Karnak, which represents Seti in his chariot, dragging his captives after him. If this be a true likeness of the king, he must have been an Egyptian Apollo. The artist who designed this work was a Raffaelle in his way; the composition combines the highest grace with life-like representation of the subordinate characters, and admirable grouping. The profile of the king is slightly Jewish-a characteristic which is still more strongly developed in his son Rameses, and in some of his predecessors. The discovery has lately been made that these kings were not of pure Egyptian descent, but that they traced their origin to a branch of the Shepherd Kings. This accounts for the circumstance, hitherto puzzling, of the high respect paid by the kings of this family to the Northern or Asiatic god, Set, known in later times under the Greek name of Typhon, and identified with the evil principle. The king's own name, Seti, is in fact taken from this god, the tutelary deity of that foreign race which produced so deep an effect upon the history and development of Egypt.-Saturday Review.

Pride of the Munich Artists.-The Academy of Fine Arts in Munich has just given rise to an animated controversy. The Bavarian Ministry of Commerce sent the Academy a memorandum, criticising it in no measured terms, saying that its prac tical working was small, that it educated pupils to VOL. LXIII.—NO. 4

The Last Photographic Exhibition has proved a failure. The collection, for want of space, was an unusually small one, and although good, contained so few works of an interesting or novel character, that our surprise at continually finding the little room empty, was, after a first visit, considerably diminished. It was, as we expected, too literally the exhibition of the Society, all, or very nearly all, the works contributed being the production of members. The artistic photographs of Mr. H. P. Robinson, the clever enlargements of Mr. Alfred Harman, Mr. Swan's carbon-prints, and some photo-zincographic and photo-lithographic specimens by Colonel Sir Henry James, Mr. Toovey, and Mr. Osborne, were the most deserving of special notice, if we except the very charming and beautiful little pictures sent by Lady Hawarden, who deservedly carried off the principal of the several medals awarded. Our monthly contemporary, the Art Student, says: "One of the most important and attractive features of former exhibitions-colored photographs-was this year sacrificed by a ludicrously prudish affectation of being intensely mechanical and scientific. Extremes meet: from unhesitat ingly introducing life-size paintings, simply because they were drawn by the aid of a camera, we have the most harmless and solitary brush-mark, to remove a trivial defect, condemned as excluding an otherwise splendid production from the reward honorably and fairly due to its producer." This allusion is to some beautiful landscapes by Mr. Annan, one of which would have carried away a medal but for the "defect" mentioned.-Popular Science Review.

An Improved Solar Camera.-Towards the end of August last, a singularly perfect collection of enlarged photographs were exhibited at the establishment of Mr. Thomas Ross, the optician. These were shown in illustration of a new dialytic enlarging apparatus, invented by M. D. Monckhöven, a name long and favorably known to the scientific portion of the photographic world, although that of a very young man. It is based upon the principle of Woodward's American solar-camera, but the field of

34

Formerly French authors were most wretchedly paid for their books. Their most lucrative patrons were the press and the theatre. It is said that M. de Lamartine only received £50 from Didôt for his Meditations. His Song of Harold's Pilgrimage realized about £800, but now his income is some thousands per annum from the French publishers. M. Thiers received £20,000 for his famous History of the Consulate and Empire; Victor Hugo accepted the same sum from the Brussels publishers for his Les Miserables, whilst Michelet will only publish with the Messrs. Hachette on commission, preferring to keep the copyrights in his own hands, as is the custom with many of our English authors. It is believed that M. Michelet is the only literary celebrity in Paris who adopts this course, although it was followed by Balzac, who united in his person author, printer, and publisher, and, as might have been expected, finished his affairs in bankruptcy.Paris letter.

illumination obtained is more equal, the possibility | who make their £8000 and £10,000 per annum. of distortion is avoided, and it works with a greater degree of ease and certainty. Its chief exterior features consist in an improved mode of working the external reflector, and in the curves of the condenser, being so calculated as to reduce its spherical aberration to a minimum. But the most original and valuable improvement is in the introduction of a new lens, in the form of a divergent meniscus, placed at a distance equal to that of its diameter from the condenser, and made very thin in order that as little light as possible may be lost by absorption. This lens acts by bringing the central and marginal pencils of light to one plane (represented by the negative as placed within the camera), and also by bringing into its focus a larger body of light than was obtainable by the older process. The object-glasses, used to transmit the image, also have certain peculiarities for cutting off diffused light, etc. The specimens produced by this apparatus speak highly for its capabilities; but we are sorry to hear that it is likely to be very expensive.-Ditto.

Important New Work.-A new and practical, treatise on photographic optics is announced from the pen of Dr. Monckhöven. Intimately conversant with this subject in all its practical as well as scientific departments, this work is likely to supply a want which photographers have felt for many years.

Photography on Canvas or Panels for Painting. -The Art Student gives the following simple process for transferring photographs to these surfaces for the painter. A sheet of albumenized paper, about two inches larger than the photograph to be transferred, is fastened by the four corners to a drawing-board, and covered with a solution of gum to within about half-an-inch of the edges. When this is dry, a thick coat of chloridized albumen is passed over it, and the surface shielded from dust. On paper thus prepared, the proof is printed. When this is done, the dried print is coated with gelatine, and the surface is afterwards gummed upon a sheet of white paper, stretched on the drawing-board as before, but with the edges fastened down. When this is again dry, the first applied paper may be soaked with warm water, until it is easily removed. After drying once more the proof is gummed, and placed upon the canvas or panel, and when it is again dry, the sponging with warm water is repeated and the operation complete.

VARIETIES.

Libraries in Paris.-Paris possesses thirty-five large libraries. Some are public, others are partially so, and the greater number are exclusively devoted to certain establishments. The public libraries are: the Bibliothèque Impériale, with 1,400,000 printed volumes, about 300,000 pamphlets, and 80,000 manuscripts; the Arsenal, 220,000 volumes and 6000 manuscripts; Sainte-Genevieve, 150,000 volumes, 4000 manuscripts; Mazarin, about 120,000 volumes and 5000 manuscripts; the Sorbonne, 80,000 volumes; the City of Paris, 65,000 volames, 300 manuscripts; the Ecole de Médecine, 40,000 volumes; the Museum of Natural History at the Jardin des Plantes, 35,000 volumes; the Invalides, 30,000 volumes; the Conservatoire des Arts-et-Métiers, 20,000 volumes; and the Conservatoire de Musique, 8000 volumes.

a

English Newspaper in Siam.-We have before us curiosity-the first number of an English journal published at Bangkok, the Siamese capital. It is called the Siam Times, and promises to furnish us with information, new, curious, and useful. Siam is one of the eastern countries which has of late years made the most rapid progress. Forty years ago it was as little known as was Japan, and European intercourse almost as jealously excluded from it; but now we find it with a liberal sovereign, who is imbued with the love of European art and science, and governing with skill and equity. The new journal has a short but well-written prospectus, pointing out the great extent and eminent fertility of the country, with its important position, lying, as it does, between the British possessions in Birmah and the newly acquired possessions of the French in Cochin China and Cambodea. Of the The Pay of French Men of Letters.-Recently the prospectus we have a Siamese translation in the incomes of literary men have become a matter of Siamese character, of the merits of which we do discussion in the Paris journals. Of M. Louis Ul-not pretend to offer any opinion, believing that our bach, a correspondent says that "he has engaged to furnish a publisher three novels a year, for which the publisher agrees to allow him 1200f. a month, for five years' copyright of these novels, or £600 per annum. He receives, as dramatic critic of Le Temps, somewhat more than £1000 per annum, and for his correspondence to L'Indépendance Belge, in which a letter from his pen appears every three weeks, he is paid yearly the sum of £800. Add to these a play, which he produces every year, and for which he receives about £250." This income, however, the correspondent assures us, is as nothing compared to the revenue of successful dramatists,

incompetency to do so is shared by the European world at large. The list of the arrivals and departures of shipping in the month of July last, with the number of shipping in the roads and river of Siam, enable us to form some notion of Siamese commerce, which forty years ago was confined to two or three small brigs. The arrivals last July amounted to fourteen and the departures to no fewer than thirty-four, while the shipping in harbor were forty-three in number, as many as eighteen of these being owned in Siam and sailing under the Siamese flag. The tonnage of the ships in harbor was no less than 18,378 tons, of which 6290 was

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where plans and sections of the excavations have also been deposited.

Siamese property. The greater part of the trade is conducted with the British ports of Hong Kong and Singapore, but there is a little also with the Dutch ports of Java. Besides the shipping thus named there are no fewer than twenty steamers navigating the safe and commodious river Menam. The exports are well known to consist of rice, oil, teak-wood, sugar, tin, etc., and of late years, of raw silk. So much for the progress of Siam. Long be its continuance, and long the life of its enlight-mains of the citadel belonged to the second Marened king.-Examiner.

An Interesting Relic.-It is in contemplation to pull down the only piece of the ballium wall of the ancient citadel of Southampton remaining. It was built in King Stephen's time. The document in which the citadel was intrusted to a knight by Edward the Black Prince while he went to fight in the battle of Cressy, is in existence. The requis of Lansdowne, who included it in a castle which he built, and while he resided in it Pether, the famous moonlight painter, and the Margravine of Anspach were his neighbors. The owner of the ballium wall has offered to let it stand for £100, and the Rev. Mr. Kell and Dr. Bond are trying to raise the money by subscription. Mr. Pettigrew, of the British Archeological Association, has written to the Southampton corporation, imploring them to save the relic. The Lansdowne Castle was sold and pulled down at the marquis's death.

The Bookseller gives the statistics of London newspapers thus: Daily newspapers, 248,000-the total annual issue, 77,376,000; weekly, 2,263,200in the year, 117,686,400; the weekly issue of religious journals is 188,700. The total is 195,062,400. There has been an increase of 76,263,200 in two years. Some 400 country newspapers average 800 each. Of weekly magazines, there are 489,600 of religious literature; 734,000 of useful and entertaining; 195,000 romantic tales; 9000 immoral publications (in 1860, 52,500-a large decrease); Nine cardinals' hats are at the disposal of Pius 5005 free-thinking. Of monthly journals, 1,869,- IX., who has in the course of his reign created 500 are religious; 708,250 temperance; 338,500 forty-five cardinals and outlived sixty-five. Among educational and useful. Great Britain pays for ed- the cardinals there are four who number more ucation, by public acts, £706,000; science and art, than 80 years, twelve who are upward of 70, and £135,600; education in Ireland, £307,000; in Scot-twenty-nine who are above 60. Cardinal Antonio land, £14,700. Tosti, who is 90, is the oldest.

Lives" of Bank Notes.-The average period which each denomination of London notes remains in circulation has been calculated, as is shown by the following, authentic account of the number of days a bank note issued in London remains in cir culation: £5 note, 72.7 days; £10, 77.0; £20, 57.4; £30, 18.9; £40, 13.7; £50, 38.8; £100, 28.4; £200, 12.7; £300, 10.6; £500, 11.8; £1000, 11.1. The exceptions to these averages are few, and therefore remarkable. The time during which some notes remain unpresented is reckoned by the cen-pliance with some technical points. tury. On the 27th of September, 1846, a £50 note was presented, bearing date 20th of January, 1743. Another for £10, issued on the 12th of November, 1762, was not paid till the 28th of April, 1845. Stolen and lost notes are generally long absentees. The former usually make their appearance soon after a great horse-race or other sporting event, altered or disguised so as to deceive bankers, to whom the bank furnishes a list of the numbers and dates of all stolen notes. Carelessness or accidents give the bank enormous profits. In the forty years between 1792 and 1832 there were outstanding notes of the Bank of England-presumed to have been lost or destroyed-amounting to £1,330,000 odd, every shilling of which was clear profit to the bank.-Cyclopaedia of Commercial Anecdotes.

The Chancery Suit between Sampson, Low & Co. and Messrs. Routledge, which turned on the point whether an alien, living in a British colony, and there publishing a book, could secure for himself the benefit of the English Act of Copyright, has been decided by Vice-Chancellor Kindersley. The judge decided that, on principle, a foreigner publishing under the circumstances stated was entitled to the benefit of the act; but in the particular case before the court the benefit was lost, from non-com

Buddhist Relics.-A very interesting collection of ancient Buddhist remains, discovered by Mr. E. Harris at Sultangunge, on the Ganges, while engaged in some engineering operations, has just arrived in England. Among the objects of interest discovered in the ruins excavated (supposed to be a Vibár, or Buddhist monastery) is a colossal image of copper, seven feet six inches in height, weighing upward of a ton, and supposed to be upward of two thousand years old. There are also several smaller figures, both in stone and in copper, the letters on some of which show that they must have belonged to the second or third century, some coins, a copper vase, the metal of which has quite decayed, some baked clay slabs thickly covered with writing, etc. The collection is at present placed in the museum of the Royal Asiatic Society,

Salisbury Cathedral.--This noble edifice-perhaps the most gracefully symmetrical of all the English cathedrals-is in imminent danger of falling. Mr. G. G. Scott, the celebrated architect, who has for five years past been engaged in every cathedral restoration in the kingdom, says that there is nothing to prevent the spire falling at any day, like that of Chichester Cathedral. Such a calamity has been feared since 1837, and efforts have been made to avert the threatened destruction of the fabric. The tower is held together only by iron bands, and Wren, who examined them in 1688, said that if they were removed the spire would spread open the walls and cause its instant destruction. £40,000 are required to preserve the building, of which £6000 are subscribed.

-Amongst the property of the late Miss Katherine Southey, which was sold at Keswick lately, were the original manuscripts of her father's Life of Nelson, Life of Cowper, and other works, and numerous letters of eminent literary men, particularly of Scott, Lamb, and Southey.

-Among the books of interest announced in England may be mentioned Mr. Grote's work on Grecian Philosophy, Plato, and the other Compunions of Socrates. This, it will be remembered, was promised in his history, to the intellectual portion of which it will form the necessary complement. Lives of the Warriors of the Seventeenth Century who have Commanded Fleets and Armies before the Enemy, by Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Cust. This will be a companion to the Military Annals of the