Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

by, he was encouraged by Sir Humphrey to devote himself to science. By his advice, Murchison attended the lectures at the Royal Institution, between 1822 and 1824; and he afterwards received private instructions in practical chemistry from the late Richard Phillips, F.R.S. In 1825 he was elected a Fellow of the Geological and in 1826 of the Royal Society. Having selected geology, for the effective prosecution of which, in the field and on the large scale, his previous military and other active habits had peculiarly fitted him, he applied himself with great energy to his new pursuit. His first contribution to the science was read before the Geological Society on the 16th of December in the former year, under the title of "Geological Sketch of the Northwestern Extremity of Sussex, and the adjoining parts of Hants and Surrey." It was published in the Society's Transactions, second series, vol. ii.

He next examined the Brora coal field in Sutherlandshire, and demonstrated its claim to be considered of the Oolite series, in the same manner as the coal of the Scarborough and Whitby beds. Subsequently, in company with Professor Sedgwick, he showed the identity of MacCulloch's primary sandstone with the true old red sandstone.

Prepared by his geological investigations at home, he set out in 1828, accompanied by Mrs. Murchison and Mr. (now Sir C.) Lyell, to study the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne, and the geology of the north of Italy, visiting Paris, Auvergne, the south of France, Nice, and Turin. A portion of the results of this journey was made public in three memoirs, the joint production of the two geologists. The subjects of these memoirs are the excavation of valleys, as illustrated by the volcanic rocks of Central France, the tertiary strata of the Cantal, and the tertiary fresh-water strata of Aix, in Normandy.

On parting with Mr. Lyell, who proceeded on his own journey southwards, Mr. Murchison crossed the Alps, and succeeded in discovering a key to the order of sequence of the Jurassic and incumbent cretaceous rocks, and the tertiary strata overlapping them.

He subsequently examined the same mountain chains along with Professor Sedgwick. A memoir on "The Eastern Alps" embodies the valuable results of these observations.

After these explorations of the Alps, Mr. Murchison redirected his attention to the geology of Great Britain. He was induced by his friend and instructor, the late Dr. Buckland, to explore the banks of the Wye between Hay and Builth, in the hope of discovering evidences of order" among those masses of rock, to which the unmeaning term of "grau wacke" had so long been, and still continued to be, applied. He was thus led to study those vast and regular deposits of a remote age, which are most clearly displayed in that part of Wales and England which was occupied by a tribe of Britons, called by the Romans "Silures," and to which he afterwards gave the appellation of the "Silurian System." He finally discovered the entire succession of the upper and lower Silurian rocks in the sea-cliffs to the west of Milford Haven, "the only place in the British Isles where the whole series, down to an unfossiliferous base, is to be seen regularly surmounted by the old red sandstone," belonging to the superincumbent "Devonian system. The views consequent upon these researches were announced in 1831, at the first meeting of the British Association for the Ad vancement of Science, and they were first published in the Proceedings of the Geological Society, and in the Philosophical Magazine, from 1832 to 1835.

[ocr errors]

In 1839 appeared Mr. Murchison's great work, being a large volume of eight hundred pages, of which we cite the entire title, as indicating the extent of the researches on which it was founded-The Silurian System, founded on geological researches in the counties of Salop, Hereford, Radnor, Montgomery, Caermarthen, Brecon, Pembroke, Monmouth, Gloucester, Worcester, and Stafford; with descriptions of the coal fields and overlying formations.

In 1835 and 1839 two journeys into the Rhenish provinces were undertaken by Messrs. Murchison and Sedgwick. While thus engaged, Mr. Murchison was invited to join M. de Verneuil in exploring the geological structure of Russia, of which at that period very little was known. The explorers visited the banks of the rivers Volkoff and Siass, and the shores of Lake Onega; then proceeded to Archangel and the borders of the White Sea, and followed the Dwina into the gov ernment of Vologda. After traversing to the Volga, they returned by Moscow

[ocr errors]

which took place in the geological section he took an active part; he communicated many papers to its different meetings; and at Ipswich, in 1851, he succeeded in establishing the new section of physical geography, ethnology, and philology, thus removing geography from the geological section, in which it was overborne by more popular topics of discussion.

to St. Petersburg, examining the hills, | 1842 and 1843. When the British Assolakes, and rivers which they passed. Mr. ciation assembled at York for the first Murchison returned to England in 1840; time in 1831, he was one of the few geolbut on the invitation of the Emperor ogists that responded to the invitation of Nicholas the explorers went back to St. its founder, Sir David Brewster; and, Petersburg in the following year to su fully appreciating the value of such an inperintend a geological survey of Russia. stitution, he discharged the arduous duties Joined by Count Keyserling and Lieuten- of general secretary for several years, and ant Kotsharof, they proceeded to explore was president of the Southampton meetthe Ural Mountains, the southern proving in 1846. In the important discussions inces of the empire, and the coal districts between the Dneiper and the Don. Next year Mr. Murchison travelled alone through several parts of Germany, Poland, and the Carpathian Mountains. With the same object-that of rendering his great work on the geology of Eastern Europe as perfect as possible-he explored in the summer of 1844 the palæozoic formations of Sweden and Norway. On his return to England in 1845, Mr. Murchison, in conjunction with M. de Verneuil and Count Keyserling, published his magnificent work on the Geology of Russia and the Ural Mountains, consisting of two quarto volumes of seven and six hundred pages respectively. The Emperor Nicholas, by way of thanks for the great work Mr. Murchison had conducted, presented him with the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Stanislaus and the com mandership of St. Anne in diamonds. In 1846, not long after the publication of his great work on the geology of Russia, he was knighted by his own sovereign. To Sir Roderick's Russian journey, and his researches among the Ural Mountains, are due those observations on the physical phenomena of gold-producing countries, that led him by theoretical induction to anticipate for the Australian Cordilleras a place in this class of countries.

The actual discovery of the precious metal in Victoria was made by Count Strzelecki; but to Sir Roderick belongs the merit of having first in England predicted its existence. As sometimes happens in science, two men of science, unknown to each other, were pursuing the same study and arriving at the same conclusion. The theoretical discovery of gold by Sir Roderick Murchison in England seems to have been contemporaneous with the indications of the Rev. W. B. Clarke in Australia.

After having for five years discharged the arduous duties of secretary to the Geological Society, he filled the office of president in the years 1831 and 1832, and

In 1844, Sir Roderick was elected president of the Royal Geographical Society, and was reelected in the following year. He again became president in 1852, and succeeded in obtaining from the government a grant of £500 annually in aid of its maintenance and public objects. In 1856, he was elected president for the third time. That distinguished honor he holds at the present moment. The African discoveries of Speke and Grant are, perhaps, after the travellers themselves, chiefly due to Sir Roderick Murchison.

In addition to the numerous honors to which we have already referred, Sir Roderick has received the honorary de grees of M.A. from the Universities of Cambridge and Dublin, and D.C.L. from that of Oxford. He is a member of all the principal scientific academies of Europe; a trustee also of the British Museum, the Hunterian Museum, and the British Association. Besides the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London, he has received the Brisbane Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which was presented to him at the Aberdeen meeting of the British Association. On the death of Sir H. De la Beche, in 1855, a memorial signed by the leading geologists and men of science in every department was presented to the government, and Sir Roderick Murchison was appointed Director-General of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, including the direction of the Government School of Mines. Sir Roderick Murchison has published upwards of a hundred memoirs in the journals and transactions of the learned societies, some of them of great

length and elaboration. His memoir On the | a sixth visit to the Alps, occupies more Geological Structure of the Alps, Apen- than three hundred pages of the Quarnines, and Carpathians, published after terly Journal of the Geological Society.

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

[THE poem which I have here attempted to translate has, at any rate, the undisputed merit of antiquity. It comes before us as beyond all doubt the earliest of all extant hymns. Fragments of still earlier date may perhaps meet us in the older lit urgies; and when the worshippers join, in the Communion Service of the Church of England, "with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven" in their great hymn, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts," or raise their jubilant thanksgiving, "Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good-will toward men," they are probably echoing words which were heard from the beginning, in the upper chambers where the disciples of the first century met together to break bread. But the Ter-Sanctus and the Gloria in Excelsis, in their present form, are of later date, and the hymn of Clement of Alexandria is the one complete relic of the worship of the second century, the one witness, in this form, of the manner in which the Christians of that age and that city sang the praises of their Lord.

HYMN.

[lessly over the sea of sin, sharing the calm serene of the Holy Spirit, and his ineffable wisdom, by night, and by day, even unto the perfect day, to praise and give thanks always to the Father and the Son, to the Son and the Father, the Son who guides and teaches, with the Holy Spirit; all to the ONE, in whom are all things, for whom all things are One, for whom is the Everlasting Now, of whom all we are members, whose is the glory, whose are the ages, all for Him the Good, all for Him the Beauteous, all for Him the Wise, all for Ilim the Just." Such a prayer, full even to bursting of the very soul of adoration, could not but pass into a hymn of like character. Every thought, image, parable, similitude, which in the course of the book had suggested itself as setting forth the work of the Divine Teacher, pours as in "a rushing mighty wind" through all his soul, and he speaks, as those may have spoken, who told of the great deeds of God, the Spirit giving them utterance. In the half-wild abruptness, and short incisive rhythm, and passionate exclamations, rather than continuous trains of thought and feeling, such as later hymns abound in, we may see, it is believed, no remote likeness to those "spiritual songs," songs in very deed coming from the Spirit who taught men to cry Abba, Father, which were at once the expression and the food of the ecstatic love and adoration of the new-born Church of Christ.

That outward character I have endeavored, though with some inevitable dilution, to reproduce. I should not have ventured on a task so difficult had I anywhere found the work ready to my hands. But I am not aware that there is any accessible translation of this hymn into any form of English verse. If, among the many thousands into whose hands this may fall, any have come across such a version of it, I shall be thankful if they will inform me.]

A few words are needed, it may be, to enable us to enter into what is, in many ways, so unlike our modern forms of thought. The hymn stands in close relation to a treatise bearing the title Pedagogus, the Guide of Children, the Instructor, that is, according to the full meaning of the word, whose function it was less to impart knowledge than to train character, to guard from the contamination of evil, to guide the daily life. The central thought of the treatise is, that the true Guide is none other than the Divine Word, the Son of God, the man Christ Jesus. Entering with a simplicity and minuteness which might almost cause a smile, if it did not also awaken our love and reverence, into all the commonest details of daily life, the good old man passes in review the temptations of luxury, self-indulgence, vanity, licentiousness, to which the young Christians of Alexandria were exposed. As throwing light on the habits and modes of thinking of the time, the contrast between the new Christian Society and the old dying Heathenism of the Empire, these details, however trivial, are often full of interest, and if I should see reason to believe that any who read this hymn would like to know more of the man who wrote it, and of the time in which it had its birth, I will make the attempt to meet the demand with a supply. At the end of the discourse, however, Clement passes from rules and precepts to a higher strain, and pours out, still in the same prose as before, a prayer to this Divine Instructor, that he "would be gracious to his children, grant them by following his precepts to fill up the image of his likeness, to think of God with all their strength as being not an austere but a perfectly gracious Judge. as citizens living in English Poets, p. 18. She assumed, somewhat, I think, too his peace, translated into his city, passing storm-hastily, that her readers would not wish for more.

CURB for the stubborn steed,
Making its will give heed;
Wing that directest right
The wild bird's wandering flight;
Helm for the ships that keep
Their pathway o'er the deep;
Shepherd of sheep that own
Their Master on the throne,
Stir up thy children meek
With guileless lips to speak,
In hymn and song, thy praise,
Guide of their infant ways.
O King of Saints, O Lord,

*A portion of the hymn, ending with the line which speaks of the Divine Guide as the "Fisher of men," may be found in Mrs. E. Barrett Browning's Greek Christian Poets and

Mighty, all-conquering Word;
Son of the highest God,
Wielding His Wisdom's rod;
Our stay when cares annoy,
Giver of endless joy;
Of all our mortal race
Saviour, of boundless grace,
O Jesus, hear.

Shepherd and Sower thou,
Now helm, and bridle now,
Wing for the heavenward flight
Of flock all pure and bright,
Fisher of men, the blest,
Out of the world's unrest,
Out of Sin's troubled sea
Taking us, Lord, to thee;
Out of the waves of strife
With bait of blissful life;
With choicest fish, good store
Drawing thy nets to shore.

Lead us, O Shepherd true,
Thy mystic sheep, we sue,
Lead us, O Holy Lord,
Who from thy sons dost ward,
With all-prevailing charm,
Peril, and curse, and harm;
O path where Christ hath trod,
O Way that leads to God,
O Word, abiding aye,
O endless Light on high,
Mercy's fresh-springing flood,
Worker of all things good,
O glorious Life of all
That on their Maker call,
Christ Jesus, hear.

O Milk of Heaven, that prest
From full, o'erflowing breast
Of her, the mystic Bride
Thy Wisdom hath supplied;
Thine infant children seek,
With baby lips, all weak,
Filled with the Spirit's dew
From that dear bosom true,
Thy praises pure to sing,
Hymns meet for thee, our King,
For thee, the Christ;

Our holy tribute this,
For wisdom, life, and bliss,
Singing in chorus meet,
Singing in concert sweet,
The Almighty Son.
We, heirs of peace unpriced,
We, who are born in Christ,
A people pure from stain,
Praise we our God again,

Lord of our Peace.

-E. H. Plumptre.

THE BRIDGE OF CLOUDS.
BURN, O evening hearth, and waken
Pleasant visions, as of old!
Though the house by winds be shaken,
Safe I keep this room of gold!

Ah, no longer wizard fancy
Builds its castles in the air,
Luring me by necromancy

Up the never-ending stair!

But, instead, it builds me bridges
Over many a dark ravine,

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

BY J. E. CARPENTER,

SHE took his rifle from the wall,
The same his father bore;
She gave the boy his alpenstock,
His father's long before;
She did not let him see her weep,
But kissed his rosy face,
Then bade him boldly hasten forth
And take his father's place.

She thought but of her country's wrongs,
Yet pressed him to her heart,

Oh! well might that proud mother grieve
To see her boy depart.

A month before her husband joined
His brethren of the glen;

A week-his lifeless form they bore
In sorrow back again;
Those warrior-peasants laid it down
Within her Alpine cot,

Then hastened back to meet the foe,
For they might mourn him not.

But she must send another forth,
Her doubly stricken heart
Might well be proud and not to break
From her brave boy to part.

And so she took the rifle from
The chamber of the dead,
And filled the flask, and put it on,
Then forth her boy she led:

"Go," she said, proudly, "o'er the hills
You'll find your father's foe,
Yet not his death-blow to avenge,
For freedom strike the blow."

It was her bleeding country's wrongs
That nerved that mother's heart,
Yet bitter were the tears she shed
To see her boy depart.

-Bentley's Miscellany.

WHO CARES?

WHO cares for the last year's rose?
Or the flowers of last year's May?
Or the leaf dried sweet in a mouldy book
Of the love who is away?

Who cares for the cloud gone by?
Or last year's rain and wind?
Or a golden crescent of folded curl
The dead one left behind?

A tress of hair and a faded leaf

Are paltry things to a cynic's eyes; But to me they are keys that open the gates Of a paradise of memories.

GREGORY'S HYMN.

WHAT lies before me? Where shall set my day?

What hospitable tomb receive my clay?

What hands at last my failing eyes shall close? What eyes will watch me ?-eyes with pity fraught? Some friend of Christ? or those who know him not?

Or shall no tomb, as in a casket, lock

This frame, when laid a weight of breathless clay? Cast forth unburied on the desert rock,

Or thrown in scorn to birds and beasts of prey ? Consumed and cast in handfuls on the air, Left in some river-bed to perish there?

This as Thou wilt, the Day will all unite Wherever scattered, when thy word is said: Rivers of fire, abysses without light,

Thy great tribunal, these alone are dread. And thou, O Christ, my King, art fatherland to me, Strength, wealth, eternal rest, yea, all I find in thee!

BIRTH-DAYS.

BIRTH-DAYS are mile-posts on the road of time,
Each with its two arms pointing different ways,
On one inscribed, in flaming characters,
"The past," and from the other darkly gleam
Through murky mists, in letters dimly seen,
The words, "Straight forward for eternity."
Life is like a book,

And new years are the opening of fresh pages
Each numbered in its order. We value books
Not by their length, but by the thoughts that
crowd

In lustrous halos round their hallowed leaves,
And though the book of life may be but short,
Yet if from every page there shimmers out
The one word, love, that volume will, at last,
Rest in a golden binding on the shelves,
The mystic shelves, of God's great library.
We measure life by years, but not so God:
A thousand ages are as one short day

With him. He counts by deeds, not fleeting hours,
And he who speaks a gentle word, or gives

A cup of water to a fainting one,

Will count more birth-days in Heaven's register
Than if he lived a million centuries

Unto himself alone. Now is the seed-time,
And every birth-day we begin to sow
Another furrow in life's fertile field,
And at the coming harvest we shall reap
As we have sown-rich golden grain or weeds,
Well-ripened fruit or loathsome rottenness.
Here all our countless actions touch the springs
That send a thrill throughout infinity.

On earth our erring fingers strike the keys
That shall resound in endless cadences
Of harmony or discord evermore.

-Thomas E. Taylor.

UNSEEN SORROW.

WHEN in thy wearied ear sad voices mourn,
Oh, measure not the burden of their woe
Only by that thou see'st; thou canst not know
What unfulfilled desires within them burn,
What prayers unto their longing hearts return,
Like hungry birds across the barren snow.
Much they may hold, perchance, and yet forego
More than thine eye hath wisdom to discern,
Or tears can e'er reveal. None are so blest
But something fails them. In the garden gay

Where shall these weary limbs at length repose? | We miss the wayside flowers that men love best;

« AnteriorContinuar »