From the Placerville (Cal.) Herald. I reached the base of one of the most wonderful objects, considering its location (it being the DISCOVERY OF AN ANCIENT AMERICAN very home of desolation), that the mind can PYRAMID. possibly conceive of; nothing less than an immense stone pyramid, composed of layers or TRAVELLERS upon the Colorado and its tribu- courses of from eighteen inches to nearly three taries have long since spoken of the existence feet in thickness, and from five to eight feet in of ancient ruins in different localities, embraced length. It has a level top of more than fifty by the great American desert, lying upon both, feet square, though it is evident that it was though principally upon the west bank of the once completed, but that some great convulsion Colorado, and between it and the California of nature has displaced its entire top, as it evirange of mountains. Even Baron Von Hum-dently now lies a huge and broken mass upon boldt, during his researches upon the American one of its sides, though nearly covered by the continent, discovered unmistakable evidence of the existence, at some greatly remote period, of a race of people entirely unlike, and apparently superior to, those inhabiting the continent at the time of its discovery by Europeans. These evidences are becoming every day more and more conclusive, as the energy, love of travel and novelty, of the American people lead them into earth's wildest fastnesses, and over its most forbidden, sterile and inhospitable wastes. We remark, as above, on perusing an article from the pen of our San Bernardino correspondent, giving an account of an ancient pyramid, lately discovered upon the great desert of the Colorado by a party of adventurers, five in number, who attempted to cross the desert in a westerly direction from a point on the Colorado at least two hundred miles above its confluence with the Gila: San Bernardino Valley, June 23. There has been no little excitement here of late, among the antiquarians and the curious, arising from the discovery of an ancient pyramid upon the great Colorado desert, and which fixes the probability beyond all dispute of the possession and occupancy, at some greatly remote period of time, of the American continent by a race of people of whom all existing history is silent. A party of men, five in number, had ascended the Colorado for nearly two hundred miles above the mouth of the Gila, their object being to discover, if possible, some large tributary from the west, by which they might make the passage of the desert, and enter California by a new, more direct and easier route, inasmuch as there are known to exist numerous small streams upon the eastern slope of the mountains, that are either lost in the sands of the desert or unite with the Colorado through tributaries heretofore unknown. They represent the country on either side of the Colorado as almost totally barren of every vegetable product, and so level and monotonous that any object sufficient to arrest the attention possesses more or less of curiosity and interest; and it was this that led to the discovery and examination of this hitherto unknown relic of a forgotten age. sands. the Egyptian pyramid. It is, or was, more This pyramid differs, in some respects, from slender or pointed; and while those of Egypt are composed of steps or layers, receding as they rise, the American pyramid was, undoubtedly, a more finished structure. The outer surface of the blocks was evidently cut to an angle, that gave the structure, when new and complete. a smooth or regular surface from top to bottom. From the present level of the sands that surround it, there are fifty-two distinct layers of stone, that will average at least two feet; this gives its present height one hundred and four feet, so that before the top was displaced, it sides, at least twenty feet higher than at present. must have been, judging from an angle of its How far it extends beneath the surface of the sands, it is impossible to determine without great labor. Such is the age of this immense structure, that the perpendicular joints between the blocks are worn away to the width of from five to ten inches at the bottom of each joint, and the entire of the pyramid so much worn by the storms, the vicissitudes and the corrodings of centuries, as to make it easy of ascent, particularly upon one of its sides. We say one of its sides, because a singular fact connected with this remarkable structure is, that it inclines nearly ten degrees to one side of the vertical or perpendicular. There is not the slightest probability that it was thus erected, but the cause of its inclination is not easily accounted for. By whom, at what age of the world, and for what purpose, this pyramid was erected, will probably forever remain a hidden mystery. The party, in their unsuccessful attempt to cross the desert at this point, in their wanderings discovered other evidences, of a nature that would seem to make it certain that that portion of country upon the Colorado, now the most barren, was once the garden and granary of the continent, and the abode of millions of our race. THE public income ought to be looking persons who are sending contributions to the up" from the number of conscience-stricken Chancellor of the Exchequer; this week “A. W." send no less than eighteenpence in postagestamps! An object appeared upon the plain to the west, having so much the appearance of a work of art, from the regularity of its outline, and its MR. J. G. LOCKHART, the editor of the "Quarisolated position, that the party determined upon terly Review," has been compelled by indisposi visiting it. Passing over an almost barren sand tion to cease, for a season, from all literary labor. plain, a distance of nearly five miles, they He is about to seek the benefit of an Italian sky. The Law and the Testimony. By the Author of The Wide, Wide, World. 'Dig further, and thou shalt find more." "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us, and to our children, forever, that we may do all the words of this law." Deut. xxix. 29. Robert Carter and Brothers, New York. Having achieved an European reputation by her first book, as a religious novelist, the author now undertakes a work of a very different character. It is precisely such a book as we have for many years intended (alas for good intentions!) to make for our own use. There are very many heads not here, upon which we should have clustered passages from Holy Writ: for instance, Christ's Kingly Office; His Kingdom; The Restoration of Israel, &c., &c. Every one would, or should, make a classification to suit his own mind and wants. We cannot give so interesting or good account of this large volume, as in the "Note of Advisement to the Reader," which the author has prefixed: "It must be asked, and it must be answered, What is this big book? and what is anybody's pretence for giving it to the public? The first question only needs any care, and needs not many words. "This big book is not another book of reference: nothing less. It is no concordance of subjects, nor collection of beauties. It has not its fellow in the market; or if it have, it is a fellow that nobody knows. "It is a gathering of facts for the purposes of induction. It is a setting together of the mass of Scripture testimony on each of the grand points of Scripture teaching; in the hope that, when the whole light of the scattered rays is flung on the matter, the truth may be made manifest. "In their ordinary arrangement, the Bible forces may be said to charge in dispersed order; here they seem to stand as in the old Macedonian phalanx, shoulder to shoulder, with shields locked. "Certainly the phalanx order would never have done the Bible work. But it may have its own proper ends. "I don't doubt some heads have been shaken at the idea of such work being done by a woman. "No woman set about it, in the first place; it was but a girl and a child. And they had little knowledge of the theological world, and certainly no meaning to enlighten anybody except themselves. The thing fell out on this wise. "One Sabbath evening, my little sister, in a spirit of weary good intentions, asked of my father to give her something to do on Sundays. My father pondered the matter a little; and then, turning round to the table, sketched off the list of subjects-or points of belief-on which the following work has grown up. These he gave my sister and me, telling us to begin with the first chapter of Genesis, and see what the Bible said about them. "This list has never been changed, except by the addition of one head, which afterward, upon "One chapter a day was all we took. We searched that carefully, and noted down with miser eagerness everything which seemed to us to have an important bearing, upon any point in our scheme. On Sunday we indulged ourselves with two chapters. Then we compared notes, and sent each other back to look for what either had missed; gave each the other the advantage of her discoveries, her light, her better counsel. And at intervals, in those days, we submitted our notes to the overlooking and overjudging of my father; holding long, very interested, and doubtless very profound, discussions about them. "But by dint of this practice we ourselves grew daily in the power of judging; and not only that, but the skill and the power of seeing; till, by the time we were half through the Bible, we were just fit to begin again at the beginning. And so we did, I know not how many times, starting back from different points in our progress; for still sight and skill grew with the use of. them, and the Bible seemed a mine never to be explored. We know it to be so now; and have given up all hope, or wish, ever to see the last ore fetched out of that depth, and obliged to yield up its treasures to earthly eyes. Many a bit we passed in our ignorance, in the days when we could see no metal but what glittered on the surface; and many a good time we went back again, long afterward, and broke our rejected lump with great exultation, to find it fat with the riches of the mine. "That we thought ourselves enriched in the course of this business, was of necessity. The next thing was to show what we had got. If we could we would have taken every soul through the mine to gather for himself. But as we could not do that, it seemed worth while to set forth our collection; though none can possibly be so good to any one as that he has made himself. Where the best things are not possible, the best may be made of those that are. "To examine the whole gathered testimony of the Bible on any one point, is one thing; and to go take it oneself, at the mouths of the Bible writers, is a very different thing. But in both ways two results may be arrived at; the exceeding strength of their united evidence, and the strange harmony with which it is given; unlike as they were, and very unlike as were their occasions and ways of saying the same thing. Those gentle and scattered rays of truth, so manycolored, and so easy perhaps to deal with separately, brought together are an exceeding white light, a light above the brightness of the sun. "To go through the Bible as we have gone through it, is like seeing in a vision the Bible witnesses called to appear and give testimony; and suppose it were by the uplifting of the hand. There is the stern finger of Moses, there the quietly attesting sign of the writer of History; David's hand is on high, with a cymbal in it; the Prophet of Lamentations passes by, covered with sackcloth, and his head down, but his hand is up; Isaiah's is waved in exultation; and there is the triumphing gesture of St. Paul, and the outstretched arms of St. John. In sorrow or in joy, they are all as one, and so are you with them, before the last has given his testimony. They are all as one, though centuries rolled away between the time when one lay down in the dust, and the next lifted his head upon a changed world. Though this a golden crown had on,' and that other was in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness;' though one was learned in all the wisdom' of the politest people, and another was a prime minister in the greatest heathen kingdom, and another made and mended the nets by which he gained his bread on the little inland water which washed the walls of Capernaum. They all sing the same song; they all know the same knowledge; and they all esteem it with one accord 'beyond their chief joy.' It would be too much to say that in the following work we have always given in each case the whole Bible testimony. I believe we could never do that. But we have gathered all the strong passages that we could find. Except in one or two instances, where they outnumbered their importance, and in two or three other instances, where the subjects were very nearly bound with other subjects, and to have given the whole array of passages under each head would have been to repeat more than was needful. It is taken for granted that the student will go from one to the other. "If we were asked how we estimate this book, we should answer, with one breath, beyond price.' We cannot hope that it shall be the same thing to others. But we believe that it will be very much what they choose to make it. The only spirit to make anything of the Bible, is that of the man who, after all, was a wise man when he said, 'O Lord, my God, I am but a little child.'" An Autobiographic Sketches. By Thomas De Quincey. Ticknor, Reed & Fields, Boston. enumeration of the contents of this book is its most attractive exposition. It is introduced by a letter from Mr. De Quincey to his American Publishers;-) - Preface to the English Edition; The Affliction of Childhood; Dream Echoes of these Infant Experiences; Dream Echoes Fifty Years. later; Introduction to the World of Strife; Infant Literature; The Female Infidel; Warfare of a Public School; I enter the World; The Nation of London; Dublin; First Rebellion in Ireland; French Invasion of Ireland, and Second Rebellion; Travelling; My Brother; Premature Manhood. The Story of an Apple. Illustrated by John Gilbert. Ticknor, Reed & Fields, Boston. Uncle Sam's Palace; or, the Reigning King. By Emma Wellmont. Illustrated by Billings. B. B. Mussey & Co., Boston. This is a novel not in the interest of manufacturers of Drunkenness. Passages from the History of a Wasted Life. Edited by the Author of Pen and Ink Sketches, &c., &c. Illustrated by Billings. B. B. Mussey & Co., Boston. This work appears to be, in many respects, similar in character to that which precedes it. A History of England, from the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of William and Mary, in 1688. By John Lingard, D.D. A new Edition, in 13 vols. Vol. III. Phillips, Sampson & Co., Boston. Woodworth's American Miscellany of Enterlips, Sampson & Co., Boston. taining Knowledge. With Illustrations. Phil Lorenzo Benoni, or, Passages in the Life of an Italian. Edited by a Friend. Redfield, New York. This is an important work, of which we shall copy a review from an English periodical. Subjects Analyzed and Illustrated from Analogy, A Guide to English Composition, or 120 and Modern Authors. By the Rev. Dr. Brewer. History, and the Writings of Celebrated Ancient C. S. Francis & Co., New York and Boston. We add the Heads under which the passages The Exiles: A Tale. By Talvi. This is an are arranged: The Divine Nature - Divinity of the Saviour — Divinity of the Holy Spirit-Pictures, written by an adopted citizen of the original work, containing a series of American United States, and originally intended for German readers. G. P. Putnam & Co., New York. God's Omniscience God's Universal Government-God's Sovereignty- God's Regard for his own Glory God's Justice - God's Goodness- - Christ Administers the Divine Government on Earth Christ's Prophetic Office Christ's Priestly Office-Office of the Holy SpiritMan's Freedom - Man's Fall-The Nature of Sin-Imputation of Sin-The Prevalence of Sin Consequences of Sin RepentanceFaith, What?-Importance of Faith -Salvation by Faith-Imputation of Righteousness Justification-Sanctification-Duty of HolinessThe Resurrection The Judgment Heaven, What? Hell, What? The Story of Mont Blanc. By Albert Smith. Early History of Chamouni; Visit of Pococke and Windham; De Saussure; First Adventures on Mont Blanc; First Ascent of Mont Blanc; De Saussure vanquishes Mont Blanc; Dr. Hamel's Fatal Attempt; Successive Ascents of Mont Blanc; Chamouni; A Day on the Glaciers; Author's Ascent in 1851; Night Bivouac in the Snow; Night March of the Grand Plateau, Mur de la Cote, Victory; Coming down. G. P. Putnam & Co., New York. LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 490.-8 OCTOBER, 1853. POETRY: The Outer Light-Predictions, 65; God Knows it All-Echoes- SHORT ARTICLES: To obtain Skeletons of Small Animals - Chimpanzee, 85; Answers to NEW BOOKS: Invalid's Own Book, 85; Philosophy of Atheism, 111; Sabbath Evening Read- GOD KNOWS IT ALL. In the dim recess of thy spirit's chamber Is there some hidden grief thou mayst not tell? Let not thy heart forsake thee; but remember And art thou tossed on billows of temptation, And dost thou sin? thy deed of shame concealing Art thou oppressed and poor, and heavy-hearted, The heavens above thee in thick clouds ar Do I call and call in vain ? Hark! the echoes cry again, All in vain! Cease, O echoes, mournful echoes! From the Dublin University Magazine. Alone and sad, his pensive strain; Wind, that in freedom dost rejoice, "My cheated hopes are fading fast I feel my days, my hours depart; My spirit's strength succumbs at last, And ice is gathering round my heart. Ah! from my cruel solitude My sighs can reach no friendly ear; 'Tis but the wind, a list'ner rude, The story of my grief can hear. Wind, that in freedom dost rejoice, Give freedom to the captive's voice! My loved one! could my song but fly To thee, upon the breezes borne, I should not thus be left to die, Like one deserted and forlorn. But thou art far, O far away; Happy-unconscious of my pain; And I am singing mournful lay To the wild music of my chain. Wind, that in freedom dost rejoice, How often in the mirror clear, Held up to Love by Fancy's hand, I fondly see delusion dear! Thy graceful form before me stand. I speak to thee. -no voice replies; I strive to clasp thee-like a beam Of light obscured, the vision flies Ah! then I feel 't was but a dream. Wind, that in freedom dost rejoice, My own dear love! the life and light Weep for the charms I may not see; These walls how dear thou art to me. Wind, that in freedom dost rejoice, * A Castilian poet, now living. |