as powerful as any other now in existence. A full grown turkey has been killed by it in half a second, on being touched with the wires; and discs of iron, thick pieces of copper, and pieces of the hardest tempered steel, have been ignited with the greatest ease. COLOSSAL BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND. In 1839, Professor Owen, from examination of part of a thigh bone found in New Zealand, decided that it belonged to a bird of the ostrich family, but of far more colossal dimensions. In certain mounds, said by the natives to contain the remains of their feasts, Mr. W. Mantell has since found bones of these Moas, or gigantic birds, of dogs, and men, all mixed together, and all evidently subjected to the effects of fire. Hence these birds must have lived at the same period with men who, like the present natives, were cannibals. Since the bones were imbedded in the alluvial beds the land seems to have been elevated; several terraces, at different heights above the sea, being seen round the coast. New Zealand has thus from a very ancient period been inhabited by a peculiar race of birds, to the almost entire exclusion of mammalia and reptiles; thus forming a counterpart to certain geological periods during which reptiles, either alone or chiefly, prevailed, as in the case of the Gallipagos Islands at the present day.-Proceedings of the Geological Society. GREATEST ASCERTAINED DEPTH OF THE OCEAN, On the 2d of June, when in latitude 15° 3′ south, and longitude 26° 14' west, being nearly calm, and the water quite smooth (says Sir James C. Ross), we tried for, but did not obtain, soundings with 4,600 fathoms of line, or 27,600 feet. This is the greatest depth of the ocean that has yet been satisfactorily ascertained; but we have reason to believe that there are many parts of it where it is still deeper. Its determination is a desideratum in terrestrial physics of great interest and importance.-Voyage to the Southern Seas. PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEA. Dr. Poeppig, in his voyage to Chili, sailed through about 168 English square miles of this phenomenon; and if we add that the infusoria causing it may have been equally distributed in the upper stratum of water to the depth of six feet, we must confess that their numbers infinitely surpass the conception of the human understanding. VELOCITY OF ELECTRICITY. The immense velocity of electricity makes it impossible to calculate it by direct observation; it would require to be many thousands of leagues long before the result could be expressed in the fractions of a second. Yet, Professor Wheatstone has devised apparatus for this purpose, among which is a double metallic mirror, to which he has given a velocity of 800 revolutions in a second of time. The Professor calculates from his experiments with this apparatus, that the velocity of electricity through a copper wire one fifteenth of an inch thick, exceeds the velocity of light across the planetary spaces, and that it is at least 288,000 miles per second. The Professor adds, that the light of electricity, in a state of great intensity, does not last the millionth part of a second; but that the eye is capable of distinctly perceiving objects which present themselves for this short space of time. HEAT AND EVAPORATION. Sciences, at Paris, M. Daubrée calculates that the In a communication made to the Academy of evaporation of the water on the surface of the globe of what is received from the sun; or, in other words, employs a quantity of heat about equal to one-third feet in thickness if spread over the globe. equal to the melting of a bed of ice nearly thirty-five POWER OF THE ROSSE TELESCOPE. Such is the capacity of this instrument, that if a star of the first magnitude were removed to such a distance that its light would be 3,000,000 of years in reaching us, this telescope would, nevertheless, show it to the human eye. The constitution of the nebulæ in the constellation of Orion has also been resolved by this instrument; and by its aid, the stars of which it is composed burst upon the sight of man for the first time. LEYDOYEN'S DISINFECTING FLUID. This fluid is the invention of M. Leydoyen, a French chemist. Its efficiency has been tested by Parliamentary Commissioners appointed for the purpose. They tried its effects on substances in a state of decomposition; on substances about to undergo decomposition; on night-soil; on the impure air of hospitals, and of ill-ventilated places. In some of the experiments the fluid was poured over the substances; in others it was mixed up intimately with them; in others, a cloth, or towel, soaked in the liquid, was waved to and fro in the room containing the vitiated air. It was ascertained that the fluid is a solution of a metallic nitrate, and that its action depends on the decomposition of sulphuretted hydrogen, which is the most offensive of all products of animal decomposition. The Commissioners reported generally that for removing the miasmata of sick rooms, the offensive odour of drainage, &c. the fluid was likely to be very valuable; and that so far as sewage refuse is used as agricultural manure, it is improved rather than deteriorated by admixture with the fluid, in consequence of sulphuretted hydrogen being removed, and nitrate of ammonia formed. The fluid has been clearly shown to be anti-bromic, that is, capable of removing smell, but it is not yet known whether it is really disinfecting, that is, capable of removing in fection. ACCURACY OF TIME-KEEPERS. The Astronomer Royal proposes to check and test the great clock for the new Houses of Parliament, by the astronomical clock at Greenwich Observatory, through the medium of the electric telegraph. Once in every hour, accurate to less than a second of time, the parliament clock would indicate its time to the Greenwich clock; and besides this, all the other clocks LONGITUDE BY THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. The electric telegraph has been made available for the determination of longitudes. So long ago as 1839, Professor Morse suggested some experiments for this purpose; and, in June 1844, the difference of longitude between Washington and Baltimore was determined by electric means, under his direction. Two persons were stationed at these two towns, with clocks carefully adjusted to the respective spots, and a telegraphic signal gave the means of comparing the two clocks at a given instant. In 1847, the relative longitudes of New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, were determined by means of the electric telegraph, by Messrs. Keith, Walker, and Loomis. Two important facts, before theoretically known, were here practically shown: that a clock in New York can be compared with another at a distance of two hundred miles, quite as accurately as two clocks can be compared in adjoining rooms; and that the time required for the electric fluid to travel from New York to Washington, and back again, a distance of four hundred and fifty miles, is so small a fraction of a second, that it is inappreciable by a practised observer. HEIGHT OF WAVES. Sir James C. Ross, in his Voyage to the Southern Seas, states the result of several experiments to have given only twenty-two feet for the entire height of the waves, or eleven feet above and below the general level of the ocean; the velocity of the undulations, eighty-nine miles per hour; and the interval between each wave, 1,910 feet. WARMING WITH ICE. In common language, anything is understood to be cooled or warmed, when the temperature thereof is made higher or lower, whatever may have been the temperature when the change was commenced. Thus, it is said that melted iron is cooled down to a sub-red heat, or mercury is cooled from the freezing point to THE CUMING COLLECTION OF SHELLS. It is not, perhaps, generally known, that one of the most splendid collections of shells in the world is, at this moment, in the possession of a private individual in London—Mr. Hugh Cuming. It consists of upwards of 19,000 species or well-marked varieties, from all parts of the world. Of many of the species and varieties there are several specimens; making in all about 60,000 shells, perfect in form, colour, texture, &c. Professor Owen states that no public collection in Europe possesses one-half the number of species of shells that are now in the Cumingian collection; and that, probably, one-third the number would be the correct statement as regards the national museums in Paris and Vienna. This collection has been made by Mr. Cuming in almost every part of the known world. "Not restricting," says Professor Owen, "his pursuits to the stores and shops of the curiosity-mongers of our sea-ports, or depending on casual opportunities of obtaining rarities by purchase, he has devoted more than thirty of the best years of his life in arduous and hazardous personal exertions-dredging, diving, wading, wandering-under the equator, and through the temperate zones, both north and south, in the Atlantic, in the Pacific, in the Indian Ocean, and the islands of the rich Archipelago in the labour of collecting from their native seas, shores, lakes, rivers, and forests, the marine, fluviatile, and terrestrial mollusks ;-60,000 of whose shelly skeletons, external and internal, are accumulated in orderly series in the cabinets with which the floors of his house now groan." ELECTRICITY OF EXCITED PAPER. If an electrical apparatus be constructed with a stout sheet of pasteboard (about 30 inches in diameter) covered with grey paper, instead of the glass plate of Ingenhouz's machine, and it be excited by four pairs of cushions, covered with woollen cloth, its power will be much superior to that of a glass plate of the same size. EFFECT OF LIGHTNING UPON THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. In the storm of Sunday, April 2, 1848, the lightning had a very considerable effect on the wires of the electric telegraph, particularly on the line of rail way Not eastward from Manchester to Normanton. only were the needles greatly deflected, and their power of answering to the handles considerably weakened, but those at the Normanton station were found to have had their poles reversed by some action of the electric fluid in the atmosphere. The mischief, however, was soon repaired, and the needles again put in good working order. It is found that those wires which pass through hilly districts, and are consequently conveyed through railway tunnels, are more deranged by electric or other causes, and the needles more deflected, than those of more level tracts of country. EXTRAORDINARY VEGETATION. On April 3, 1848, a thermometer in the shade at the Horticultural Society's garden at Chiswick, stood at 78 degrees; and the heat of the soil, at 2 feet from the surface, was 49 degrees, and at 1 foot, 51 degrees. This extraordinary fact accounted for the rapid progress vegetation was then everywhere making, and continued to make; for, though the temperature of the air fell, it was some time before the soil lost the heat it had acquired. FORCE OF STREAMS. The motive force of the streams in Europe is, according to M. Daubrée, equal to between 273,508,974, and 364,678,620 horses working incessantly during | I said every one loved Minnie,—but I am wrong,— the whole period of the year. her father did not! - courteous, as a high bred Professor Kane considers the unappropriated water-soldier of the ancient school, he was always, even in power in Ireland to be more than equal in amount to his austere parsimony, but he never forgave his the whole mill-power of England. "NEVER BE POSITIVE." "VERY Well, Morley, if that's all, I'll swear to the fellow's identity; I've not a shadow of doubt upon the subject,-none." "Eh! What's that, Tom?-Do what?-swear to some man's identity?" "Yes, sir, the poacher we seized yesterday crossing the park. Morley has some qualmish doubts whether he is the man who escaped from us in the scuffle the other night in the woods; and as we took him without arms or game, merely in the path of the lower coppice, he does not like to detain him unless he is quite certain of having the right man. After the mistake at Stanford it might be awkward, you know!" Ay, indeed! Sir John does well to pause; and if he is not as sure as that yonder bright sun now shines over us, he would do better to let the man go 66 free." The speaker, a fine old man, one of a race now well nigh extinct, the English country Squire, rose as he spoke from the seat he had taken upon a fallen tree in his nephew's park, and laid a hand upon the shoulder of each young man who stood by him: "You wonder, boys, to hear a veteran sportsman plead thus for a suspected poacher, and I dare say think me either superannuated or mad, but I have a warning memory ever present when I hear the question of identity discussed; and when I tell you what it is, you will, I think, agree with me, that nothing less than a certainty so positive that is impossible to hesitate, should make one man take that terrible oath which fastens upon another the perpetration of crime. "Forty years ago I was in the commission of the peace for this county, and, a healthy active fellow of thirty, I was considered a somewhat useful addition, even to a Bench then boasting some of the cleverest men in the division as its magistrates. About ten miles from my place was the family seat of the Whartons, occupied by the head of the race, a stern old man, who, with the possessions of a prince, lived the life of a miser. He had one child, a daughter. A most beautiful creature was Minnie Wharton; gentle and generous, graceful as a fairy, and blithe as a bird, no one ever looked upon without loving her; how she came to be the child of that miserable old man, Dame Nature has it among her many whims to answer for. daughter the crime of not being a son, and so letting the broad lands of Wharton pass away to a nephew he detested. Bitterly did Colonel Wharton and his heir abhor each other:-some unusual clause, in the deed of entail gave young Wharton a power of inquiry and supervision over the estates,—a very hateful right in a successor, and one needing to be most tenderly exercised; but exerted as Charles Wharton did, stretching such an obnoxious authority to its utmost limit, even a milder man than his uncle must have detested him. At last, when this hate was at its fullest, Minnie, who had been for a few years in Scotland under the care of her mother's family, came back to the Abbey; from being the pet and darling of her aunts, to the cheerless home of a penurious father, who scarcely exchanged a dozen words with her at a time. In her wanderings about the grounds she met her cousin, who, struck by her beauty, and guessing who she was, accosted her. They walked on, talking of pleasant things, and the first hour of peace and happiness Minnie had spent for months now passed. When she returned to the Abbey, she would have named her companion to her father, but he was in one of his coldest moods, so her heart failed her, and she was silent. In this way on glided the summer; and no wonder that, before autumn leaves began to change, Charles and Minnie Wharton were pledged lovers, while now, for the first time, when she confessed her innocent love, she learned the enmity subsisting between her father and her lover. "He hates me, Minnie, because all these wide acres must pass from you to me; but, oh, dearest and best! when I give them back to you, as their sweet mistress, burthened only with myself, he will learn to look kindly even upon me;' said Charles, as Minnie clung shivering to him, when he described the Colohel's aversion, and the stormy scenes he had roused and revelled in. "I have often wondered how so gentle a being as Minnie could give her heart to such a man as her cousin; but women are strange inconsistencies, and I suppose his handsome face and figure first won her girlish fancy. He always seemed to me a poet's idea of a fallen angel embodied,—daring, haughty, bold, and brave. Fearless in danger, reckless of peril, but gentle as a child to her, tuning his deep and commanding voice into low and musical words for her ear, perhaps there is little marvel that she was fascinated. It was agreed that he should see her father, confess their love, and ask her from him. "Oh, I fear! I fear!' said Minnie, covering her eyes with her hands, as if to shut out the image of her terrible parent. "Why-why, my own love?-do you but say, Yes, and you shall be mine, in despite of father or fate! Minnie, be you but true, and you shall be my wife, though death stand in my path.' And he drew the trembling girl nearer and closer to him, while she shuddered in his embrace as if some horrible fore- | At first, the agony of her sufferings seemed to overboding crept over her. "The next day, at a wild gallop, the pace he always rode, young Wharton crossed his uncle's park, and throwing the reins upon his horse's neck, to wander where he listed, entered the old Abbey Hall, and in a few minutes stood before the Colonel. What was spoken at that stormy interview none can tell; but that it was such, the loud tones of the speakers, and their faces ghastly with passion, too plainly revealed. At last, with a violence threatening destruction, the library door was thrown open, and Charles Wharton passed out, saying, as he did so― "I have sworn it;-and, by the sky above me, Minnie is mine, though I win her with my blood!' "When he was gone, Colonel Wharton sent for his daughter, and, trembling so piteously that she had no power to stand, she came before him. In the calm tones of concentrated rage, he spoke the horrible words of a father's curse; and though she fell senseless at his feet with a wild cry for mercy, he no otherwise noticed it than to bid her maid take her from his sight. A brain fever, no unlikely consequence of such a shock, ensued, and Minnie's life was despaired of, yet no symptom of softening did her father show, nor did he ever once, though her plaintive wailing rang sadly through the corridor, enter her room, or speak a single inquiry; that she lived, he only knew by the low moaning he could not help hearing as he passed her room. power him, but gradually his brow began to darken, his hands to clasp each other; and when the poor girl uttered another painful cry, he started, and the lips which had been silent dared to speak, as if unconsciously; then he rose from his knees, and turning to the nurse, he said, "She does not know me-I see it now. I do not ask you if she will die; but do you say to that most unnatural old man, that if she does, from that hour vengeance will be my sole end in life, and I will take such a reckoning that men's breath shall stop for fear when they hear it-I swear it-here, by the bed of her he has killed.' "He bent over, and fixed his lips upon her pale brow. Farewell, my own, my angel Minnie; fear nothing, for I will watch over you; if you could be moved with safety, I would take you now, in his very teeth.-If I lose you-rest, rest, Minnie, for tears of blood shall be wept to give your spirit peace. care of her, nurse; for every hour of ease your attention gives her, the minutes shall be paid in gold; it will not be for long-not very long shall she be at his mercy.' And as he passed out, he shook his clenched hand in the air. Take Three hours after this, before the frightened nurse had well recovered from her panic, the whole house echoed with the terrible news that Colonel Wharton had been found murdered, in a coppice about a mile from the Abbey. One of the keepers, in going his "Minnie had been ill a fortnight, when one morn-rounds, had discovered the body; and in a few ing a gentle tap upon the window of her chamber called the nurse to it, and, his hair dank with the night dew, his face pale with watching, and his powerful frame trembling with anxiety, Charles Wharton stood before her. She had never till then seen him; and the impression made upon her by his appearance at that hour, clad in the dress of one of his own keepers, was ever after firmly stamped upon her mind. minutes from the first intelligence reaching the house, the murdered man was brought in. Medical aid was quickly procured, for people fled here and there, winged by terror and wonder, as if the angry spirit of the dead still ruled them; but it needed not the experienced eye of a surgeon to see that all skill was fruitless-the soul was gone. On the temple was the only mark of violence, yet that was enough to account for death; a heavy blow, dealt by some blunt instrument had shattered the skull, and the brains were "Let me see her, nurse-oh, for the love of Heaven, let me see her! do not refuse me," he ex-mingled with the grey hair. There appeared to have claimed, seeing her hesitate, "for it will be useless. I will see her, even if her father and all the fiends stood in my way. Call him now, if you will; but in his face I will still see her.' been but a slight struggle, if any, though the clothes of the deceased were wet with the blood oozing from a severed vein. "I can do no good,' said the surgeon, after carefully examining the body. Who can have done this?' "His nephew, Mr. Charles Wharton; who else so likely?' 66 4 Hush, woman!' exclaimed the startled doctor, as the nurse, who had entered the room, replied to his question, 'Do you know what you say?' "He entered as he spoke, and went to the bed. There lay Minnie; her long, fair hair, which ought to have been cut off, but which had been spared in pity to its beauty, hung tossing on the pillow; her lips black with fever, her eyes wild, but unconscious, rambling hither and thither without recognition, and her arms bared of their covering by her constant restlessness, formed a sad contrast to his last interview. "For a moment, all unused to such a scene, and perceiving that her eyes fell upon him, he fancied she knew him, and he exclaimed, in ecstacy, It is me, "The vulgar are always lovers of the marvellous; Minnie; my darling Minnie, speak to me!' But and to her eager listeners the woman recounted almost before the words were uttered, her brief Charles's visit of a few hours before, with her comnotice had passed away, and she was gazing upon ments; till all, even the cool-headed surgeon, unable the window. For nearly an hour he stayed in that to separate the true from the false, decided that he melancholy room, listening to her wordless moaning. I had done the ruthless deed they looked upon. Before "Yes, sir-'tis a horrid deed, bad as the old man used them; and it will have horrid payment; 'twasn't for nothing he swore to-day to have blood.' night, Charles was arrested; and the whole county, when just as they thought themselves out of sight, he far and wide, had heard the hideous tale, that Colonel turned and walked beside the coppice, instead of enterWharton had been murdered, and that his nephewing it, and trees and brushwood intercepted their was in custody for the crime. At a gamekeeper's view; the next time they saw him he had been joined cottage, where he had been at first denied to the by the prisoner.' And here the witness sobbed so officers, Charles was found; and upon the breast of piteously that it was with great difficulty the coroner the velveteen jacket he had worn in his visit to could induce her to proceed. They were very Minnie's sick room, were clots of blood, scarcely yet frightened,' she said, when they saw Mr. Charles, dry; the right wristband of his shirt, too, was stained for they knew the scene likely to follow, as it was she and torn. When first told of the murder, he seemed who had taken Miss Minnie from the floor on which paralysed and horror-stricken, and at once accounted she had fallen, when her father cursed her so sadly. for the blood upon his clothes, by saying, that on his They were too far off to hear what was said, and too way from the Abbey to the cottage where he then was, frightened of being found listening to do so attenhe had been attacked by a dog, which he had stunned, tively; but they saw Colonel Wharton turn back to if not killed, by a blow from the butt end of a gun he the coppice, and the prisoner, after standing a mohad with him; and this explained the fact of his ment or two, as if thinking, follow him. They then fowling-piece being discovered in the brewhouse of seized the opportunity to escape, and parted on leavthe cottage, sticky, and red with gore. Upon going ing the wood; but after she had gone some way, she to the place he described, the dog was found, and so looked back and saw Charles rush from it across the much of suspicion was removed; still the magistrates park, and did not see him again until now, nor the did not think themselves justified in setting him at Colonel till she saw him dead in the other room.' liberty until the inquest had sat, and he was detained Every word of this was confirmed by her lover, and a prisoner at the Abbey. the strictest cross-examination failed to shake their evidence. Charles looked surprised, but said nothing, merely raising his eyes when his attorney said— Angrily, almost defiantly, he repulsed the accusation of being the murderer; but when he saw the suspicions of his hitherto friends, and their constrained manners, he wrapped himself in the armour of his own pride and confidence, and neither answered nor asked a question. "The jury met, saw the body, the place where it had been found, and then heard the evidence. I was in the room, and closely watched the proceedings and the prisoner. His arms were folded, and his teeth set; not a nerve moved; and it was only by the starting muscles of his hand, caused by the grasp he held upon a book, we knew how intensely he was feeling; outwardly all was cold, moveless as marble. Once only he visibly showed symptoms of suffering, it was when the nurse repeated, with exaggeration, his visit to Minnie's chamber; then the pale lips quivered, and the eyelids fell lower over the eyes, but that was all. His solicitor was in attendance; and when all the evidence had been apparently given, he submitted that no case had been made out against his client; at any rate, nothing to justify his detention in custody. Just then a loud sobbing was heard in the hall, and the door opening, admitted a constable, bringing in a young girl, about twenty, and a man not much older. On seeing them, Charles started, and his lip slightly curled. 66 6 Oh, Mr. Wharton, do not look so; indeed, I couldn't help coming; indeed, indeed, I could not;' and her tears fell faster. After much vain questioning, she sobbed out, that she was Miss Wharton's maid, and that she was engaged in marriage to the young man beside her, one of the Colonel's foresters; that early in the previous morning she had gone out to meet her lover in the park, and that they had walked together for some time, when at a distance they observed their master coming towards the spring coppice, where the body was afterwards found; that they concealed themselves until he should have passed through, "Look at Mr. Wharton, young woman. Are you sure he is the man you saw? Be careful. Remember how strong likenesses are.” "Every eye turned upon him; and none of us but felt that a very cursory glance indeed would be sufficient to fix such features and figure in our memories, with little fear of mistaking them for others. So thought the witness, for, with a yet louder burst of sorrow, she exclaimed,— "Oh, no! I could never mistake him. I have watched him and dear Miss Minnie too often. God help her! God help her! She will now surely die.' "The prisoner started to his feet, his face flushed for a moment; but in another all was calm, and his eyes fixed upon the ground. Yet, from that instant, I felt assured, as though I had seen the deed done, that Charles, overcome by anger and love, was the murderer. With whom else was the old man at such open war? Where had he been from the time he left the Abbey ? and if not prepared for some such deed, why and what were the strange threats he had used? Nor did I, till long afterwards, lose the conviction, though, as one of the visiting justices at the county gaol, I saw him frequently. Once, as I was leaving his cell, after seeing, with the silent bow, which was all that ever passed between us, that everything was in due order, he called me back, and, after apologizing for doing so, he said, "I have a request to make, that I can place in none but the hands of a gentleman. You are aware that I have no means of learning exactly the state of my plighted wife. I hear, indeed, daily reports from the surgeon, but he deals only with the body, and I pine to know truly how her mind bears up under this calamity. You know her, and she values and trusts you. Will you do me so much kindness as to see her, and cheer her, if she needs it? Tell her to trust me |