SCIENCE AND ART. EARTHQUAKE AND ERUPTION OF MOUNT HEC-| crater; but this time torrents of lava flowed down LA.-Copenhagen, Oct. 4: "The English journals two gorges on the flanks of the mountain. Lethave already stated [see Lit. Gaz. No. 1496] that ters from Reikjavik of the 13th state that up to the largest of the Orkney Isles was, during a vio- that day no great damage had been done in the lent storm from the north-west, on the night of Syssels of Rangervalla and Arnds, situated close the 2d ult., covered with fine ashes, resembling to the mountain, inasmuch as the openings whence ground pumice-stone; and that it was thought the ignited masses issue are fortunately on the they had been driven by the wind from Mount north and north-west sides, and consequently took Hecla, in Iceland, as similar appearances had that direction, in which there is nothing but barbeen observed from a great eruption some years ren heaths. Besides, the wind having constantly ago. We now learn, that, on the same or follow-blown from the south and south-west, has driven ing night, the crew of a vessel, bound to this port the ashes and dust towards the opposite points.from Reikjavik, observed, whilst about eighteen From the clouds of smoke and vapor, the top of English miles from land, volcanic flames on the the volcano could not be seen. The sheep on southern coast of Iceland. On September 3d, two the heaths were driven down to the plains, but vessels near the Fawe Isles, were also covered not till several of them were burnt. The waters with ashes. According to letters which have been of the neighboring rivers near the eruption became received here, an earthquake occurred on the pre-so hot that the fish were killed, and it was imposvious day in the west, north, and east portions of Iceland. More recent intelligence has arrived from the southern part, and it appears that the eruption was more violent than any that had taken place there during the last sixty years. The latest accounts are of September 15. They confirm the intelligence of a volcanic eruption in the southern part of the island on September 2d, the first since the memorable one which occurred nineteen years ago. The extent of the fall of sand and ashes, is not yet known, but it is ascertained that the populous districts adjacent to the volcano have not ON MULTIPLYING PLANTS.-M. E. Delacroix been seriously injured, except that the grassplote writes, that his experiments last summer, on mulnear the mountain were destroyed." Hamburgh tiplying plants, were very successful. In the Borsenhalle. Since copying the above, the Kjo- month of June, branches of rose-trees, in full vebenhavnspost, a Danish journal has been received, getation and covered with leaves, were placed in and gives the following account of the eruption; vials full of water. Outside the neck of the bottle "Hecla, after reposing eighty years, threatens, the branch was tightly tied. The vials were according to private letters, to ravage Iceland.then put into the ground, so that the ligature was In the night of the 1st September, a frightful sub- buried about ten centimetres. A bulging out (un terranean groaning filled the inhabitants around bourrelet) was formed above the tie; roots proit with terror. This continued till mid-day on the ceeded from it, and in two months the cuttings in2d, when the mountain burst in two places with creased from twenty-five to thirty centimetres. M. a horrible crash, and vomited masses of fire. In E. Delacroix says, that ligatures made on young former times these explosions came from the wood did not answer; whilst those made on wood summit, where Hecla has no regularly formed a year old were perfectly successful, The experi sible for any one to ford them even on horseback. Although the lava and ashes took a northern direction, the eruption was not known on that side of the island till after the 11th, and even as late as the 15th, the people at the Syssels of Mule, in the north-east, were ignorant of it. In the western parts, the noise accompanying the eruption was distinctly heard, like the rolling of distant thunder. Nothing was heard at Reikjavik."— Literary Gazette. ments were conducted in common earth, and in | only fear that it may induce in us such habits of the open air and sun.-Lit. Gaz. idleness and indulgence that the Gazette will be the worse for it. We have fastened it to our alSIDON SARCOPHAGUS.--A correspondent informs ready easy-chair, and found our ease made far us that the Sidon Sarcophagus,' a magnificent more easy. Attached to a couch, or sofa, the specimen of antique art, has been unpacked, and temptation was still more seductive; and we almay be seen in the vaults of the British Museum. most wished to be an invalid, to have a valid ex"The front and back," he observes, "are in a cuse for resorting to it. Ashamed of this, we tried nearly perfect state, and represent a combat of a cane-bottom; and must add, that even therein, Amazons, in alto-relievo, having almost the effect we felt so comfortable, that we are almost afraid of detached statuary; and, in contradiction to He- to recommend to all readers to provide them rodotus, the left, not the right, breasts of the Am-selves with this agreeable and ingenious invenazons are compressed. The anatomical details tion.-Lit. Gaz. and contours are open to criticism; but the composition is harmonious, and the figures are full of fire and life-like expression. From the depth of the relief, there is a sotto piano of grooms, with the Nubian expression of countenance, holding horses; which gives a completeness often desiderated in works of a like character. The lid is wanting, having been, on the excavation of the sarcophagus converted into mortar by the modern Sidonians."-Athenæum. ARTISTIC ASSOCIATION IN ATHENS.-The objects proposed by a new Artistic Association recently formed in the city of Athens, under the title of" National Association of the Fine Arts," and having the Royal sanction, are stated to be as follows:-First, the encouragement through out Greece, of the study and practice of the fine arts in general-sculpture, painting, architecture, and music in particular; secondly, the forming of collections of the works of Art: thirdly, the foundation of a school for the gratuitous teaching of those who, giving proof of a special vocation for the arts, are yet without the pecuniary means to pursue them. The society already numbers upwards of two hundred and twenty members, including the leading men of Athens; the Queen of Greece has accepted its presidency, and Messrs. Koletti and Andreas Metaxas have been named vice presidents.-Speaking of instruction in Art, we may mention that the distribution of the prizes at the Athenæum of Bruges has been marked by one of those rare and touching instances of the conquest of a native genius over material disabilities, of which the French painter Ducornet is another example. The first prize in landscapepainting was awarded to a young artist, Charles Felu, of Waermaerde, who had to receive it by the hands of his brother-being, himself, without arms-Athenæum. TOMBS OF GLUCK AND MOZART.-It is a remarkable fact, that the tombs of the two greatest German composers of the last century, Gluck and Mozart, should have had the same strange fate of oblivion; so complete, in the case of each, that, up to the present time,no man has been able to "show where they have laid him." The grave of the latter, in spite of anxious inquiry, is yet to seek; and the reader will remember the summons sent a year or two ago, by the Austrian government, to his aged widow, to come up to the capital, in her extreme decline, that she might help, by the flickering light of her almost burnt-out memory, in seeking for the place where, fifty years before, she had left the husband of her youth. Up this long vista of half a century of widowhood, her thoughts travelled in vain. The fame of the illustrious dead has accompanied her all that time, brightening the weary way; but the tomb itself lies in the shadow of that far past,-and will never be known, save by some such accident as has just revealed the resting-place of Gluck. In repairing one of the walls of the village of Mutzleindorf, near Vienna, the workmen found, inclined against the base of the wall, below the level of the soil, a small tablet of grey marble, engraved with the following inscription, in the German tongue and Roman characters:-" Here reposes a brave German, zealous Christian, and faithful spouse,-Christopher Chevalier de Gluck, a great master in the sublime art of music. He died on the 15th of November, 1787."-Athenæum. ANTIQUITIES OF GREECE.-The following monuments, the fruit of the travels of M. Le Bas, in Greece, are about to be placed, by order of the Minister of Public Instruction, in France, in a hall of the Louvre assigned to them by the King, beside the Museum of Antiquities and the collection brought from Nineveh :-a Votive bas-relief, DISINFECTING LIQUID.-M. M. Ledoyen and representing Theseus, naked, invoked as the proRaphanel have patented a disinfecting liquid, com-tector-hero of Attica;-a funeral shaft, or broken posed of 125 grammes of nitrate of lead to 1000 grammes of water. It is said to be very efficacious; the nitrate is readily decomposed, and sulphuret, chloride and sulphate of lead formed; the nitric acid going off as ammonia, or combining with the soda present.-Lit. Gaz. THE PATENT READING EASEL.-In one of our Variety paragraphs last week, we described the production of a very handsome carriage, upon which all the town, we presume, has had an opportunity of exercising its judgment in the streets; and we now direct attention to an object which can only be seen and appreciated in the penetration of the domestic interior-the study, or boudoir. We have tried this easel-apparatus; and column, of a good period, presenting a young girl in the act of bidding adieu to her father and mother;-the fragment of a frieze, supposed to have belonged to one of the small temples of the Acropolis destroyed by time or by war-and representing a scene in the Combat of the Amazons;—a Votive bas-relief, from Cortynia in Crete, which exhibits Jupiter, seated,-on his right, Hebe and Mercury, or rather, perhaps, Europa and Cadmus, who were particularly worshipped in Cortynia. In the right corner, is a draped figure, less in size than the three divinities, and in the attitude of a suppliant ;-the fragment of a small statue, wanting the head and part of the arms and legs, but which it is easy to recognize as Hercules seated on a rock, by the lion-skin spread on the rock Gaz. and the club still remaining;-a bas-relief, in leaden chests, have been exhumed, and are in which figure the nine Muses, with their attributes the custody of the rector of Southover.-Lit. between Mercury aud Apollo,-and appearing, from the inscription on the plinth, to be a monument consecrated to the latter god. It is of coarse workmanship, and a late period,-scarcely deserving, it is said, the name of Art; and interesting only as a page in the history of its decline among the Greeks, and a proof of the servival of the Hellenic usages down to the latest times of paganism;a leaden weight-a mina-from the island of Chios, representing a Sphynx seated on a vase ;-together with a dozen marbles, having inscriptions, all from the town of Mylasa, in Caria,—and, all, it is said, of historic importance.Athenæum. COVERDALE'S BIBLE, folio, 1535, "is," says our informant, "supposed to have been printed at Zurich. No perfect copy is known; the one at Holkham makes the nearest approach to what the book was when first issued from the press, possessing, as it does, the original title page in a perfect state, and a fragment of the original prologue, neither of which are known to exist in any other copy. What is deficient in the Holkham copy is also wanting in every other, viz. the remainder of the prologue in the same type as the body of the book. Before the discovery of the Holkham copy, it was generally supposed that the prologue was first added to the book on its arrival in Eng.. EXTRAORDINARY APPEARANCE OF THE PLANET land, in consequence of the different type with MARS.-We have lately had our attention invited which it is printed; the fragment already spoken to the singular appearance now worn by the plan- of proves that such was not the case. From the et Mars. Hitherto this planet has been distin- first chapter of Genesis to the last of the Apocaguished by a fiery redness of color, which, to use lypse the Holkham copy is quite perfect, and in the language of Sir John Herschel, "indicates, no a beautiful state of preservation." The foregoing doubt, an ochrey tinge in the general soil, like is the answer from Holkham to our inquiry rewhat the red-sandstone districts of the earth may specting this literary treasure. We are informed possibly offer to the inhabitants of Mars." Such from another quarter-"The book was in the is, however, no longer the case, that planet hav-library along with other valuable works, and in ing lost all appearance of redness, and put on a 1827 examined and collated by Mr. Pettigrew brilliant white aspect, vying in apparent magni- when on a visit to Holkham. It is, indeed, mentude and brightness with the planet Jupiter itself. tioned by that gentleman in the second volume of The only changes which have heretofore been his Bibliotheca Sussexiana, and is there described noticed in Mars are those our knowledge of which as having the title-page, which is of very great was derived from observation with the large re- rarity, but as defective both of dedication and flecting telescopes of Herschel. These telescopes preface."-Lit. Gaz. exhibit the appearance of brilliant white spots at the poles, which spots, from the circumstance of their always becoming visible in winter and disappearing as the poles advanced towards their summer position, have reasonably enough been attributed to the presence of snow. appearance now described to us, however, by the Honorable Company's astronomer, Mr. Taylor, is such as that the whole of the planet, with the exception of a moderately broad equatorial belt, assumes a decidedly white aspect, strongly contrasting with what he has ever before noticed. We look forward with great anxiety and interest to those observations on the above planet which may be expected to have been made through the medium of the numerous and powerful telescopes now at work in Europe.-Madras Spectator, Aug. The novel COLUMN OF THE GRAND ARMY, AT BOULOGNE. -After forty-on -one years of labors and their suspension, the column of the Grand Army, at Boulogne, is at length completed, on the original plan designed by its first architect, M. Labarre, and voted on the 28th Thermidor, in the year 12 of This pillar, the Republic, or 1804 of our era. which in its unfinished state is well known to a large body of our readers, is of the Doric orderby a collossal statue adding fourteen more. It a hundred and fifty feet in height, and crowned stands on the heights that border the sea, looking over to England. Its foundations are of the rocks, those of the pedestal being dark, and those of the and itself of the marbles, of the neighborhoodcolumn a sort of ash-colored grey, variegated with shadows-known now in the country by the name of "marble of the column." The entrance A DAUGHTER OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR to the monument is guarded by two lions, on AND HER HUSBAND DISINTERRED BY A RAILWAY!! platforms; and the whole surrounded by a double -MR. M. A. LOWER, one of the most efficient enclosure one of marble and the other of stone members of the British Archæological Associa--the latter encircled by alleys of trees. Two tion, and well known within its circle by his con- bas-reliefs occupy the principal front of the montributions, as well as to the antiquarian world at ument and its opposite. The first represents the large by his popular publications on Heraldry and presensation by the army to Napoleon of the plan the Origin of Surnames, has communicated to of the column which they proposed to erect to his the central committee a very interesting discove- honor in the second the emperor distributes, in ry made on Tuesday last, the 28th ult., and of the field of Terlincthun, the decorations of the which we have been favored with an account for Legion of Honor. The two other faces have inearly insertion. scriptions-one in Latin, the other in French ;— of which the following is an English translation: 26. In the course of the railway excavations through the site of the priory of St. Pancras, at Lewes, the bones of Gundred, fifth daughter of William the Conqueror, and those of her husband, the first Earl of Warenne, the founders of this renowned monastery, have been brought to light! Two "On this coast, on the 16th of August, 1804, Napoleon, in the presence of the Grand Army, distributed decorations of the Legion of Honor to the soldiers and citizens who had deserved well of the country. The fourth corps, commanded by Marshal Soult, and the Flotilla, under the orders of Vice-Admiral Bruix, determined to perpetuate the memory of that day by a monument. Louis Phillipe I., King of the French, undertakes the completion of this column, consecrated by the Grand Army to Napoleon-1841." The completion of the works and extensive embellishments was entrusted to Mr. Henry Faudier, of Boulogne. Notorious as is the monument, it yet demands this word of description on its completion, -for the sake of the remarkable project of which it stands the sole record, and of the striking mutations in its own growth to maturity. The plan itself its subsequent long suspension-and its final resumption and termination are themselves, as it were, expressions of the great leading facts of the last fifty years.-Ath. by the Col de Balme-and reach Geneva, by the Col d'Anterne-without fatigue and without danger-without cloud and without rains-and at the small outlay of two francs!"-Ath. AN EPIC POEM BY ARIOSTO.-From Florence we hear of a discovery of great interest which has just been made by Signor Zampieri, conservator of the Grand Ducal Library. Amongst the manuscripts in that establishment he has found one containing the greater part of an epic poem by Ariosto, of which hitherto the existence was unknown-and whose title is Rinaldo l'Ardito (Rinaldo the Bold'). The work has been originally composed of 244 octave verses, divided into 12 cantos; of which the first, the beginning of the second, and the sixth are wanting in the manuscript in question. The Grand Duke has HOUSES OF LUTHER AND MELANCTHON.-From ordered its publication, at the government exBerlin, it is stated that the government has pur-pense; and directed that a copy shall be sent to chased the two houses, in the town of Wittem- each of the great libraries of Europe, in the hope burg, wherein Luther and Melancthon resided that a search will be made in those various instiwith the intention of establishing in each a free primary school. The two great reformers are, our readers know, buried beneath the choir of the church of the Castle of Wittemburg; and on its magnificent gates, burnt during the war, it was that Luther affixed his ninety-five famous propositions. These gates are about to be replaced, in exact conformity with the drawings of them, which remain-with this only exception, that they will be of bronze instead of sculptured wood.-Ath. tutions for the absent portions of the poem.—Ath. TYCHO BRAHE'S TOOLS AND MANUSCRIPTS FOUND.-From Copenhagen, too, we have accounts of a discovery of interest-which we report as we find it, though we think it probable there is some mistake in the terms. They state that Professor Heiberg, who is occupied in collecting materials for a History of the Life and Labors of the Illustrious Swedish Astronomer Tycho Brahe,-which he purposes publishing in the course of next year, wherein will fall the NEW DIAMOND-MINES-A diamond-mine, of 300th anniversary of the birth of the great savant inestimable value, is stated to have been discov--lately caused searches and excavations to be ered in a desert, difficult of access, about eighty miles from Bahia. 1 made amongst the ruins of the Château and Observatory of Tycho, in the little Swedish isle of Hveen, situate in the Sound, which was the property of the latter. These researches have, it is said, produced some curious results. A number of the tools used by the philosopher for the construction of his astronomical instruments have beed found-many of the completed instruments themselves, and some in an unfinished state-and several manuscripts in the Latin language, bearing the signature of Tycho Brahe, and containing astronomical observations, reflections on the events of his day, and occasional poetry.—Ath. MAPS IN RELIEF.-An ingenious work of art and science, by M. Sené, a citizen of Geneva, is exhibiting in Paris-and about to be inspected by a committee of the Academy of Sciences. This work represents, by means of sculpture in wood, the chain of Mont Blanc and its neighboring mountains, on a superficies of 25 square mètres; the lengths being given on a scale of 1 in 10,000 and the altitudes of 1 in 6,000—and the forms and colors of their many peaks, all their glaciers, valleys, water-courses, châlets, and even their firs (no less than 500,000 of which are represented) being rendered with a fidelity that constitutes, it is said, a complete illusion. The effect attained is pleasantly described by the Moniteur des Arts:" In the compass of an hour, how charming a journey may be made, under the guidance of M. Sené, around this relief! You arrive at Chamouny, by Saint-Martin, or by the Baths of Saint Gervais, and alight at the Priory. After having taken a general view of the valley, you mount suscessively from station to station-visit the Mer-de-glace-pass, if you will, the Col du Géant-climb Mont Blanc-nay, look down even on this "Monarch of Mountains," by ascending a gallery which is erected at a little distance. The ascent completed, you make what is called the tour of Mont Blanc ;-arrived at Martigny, pass-analysis of milk.-Ath. ing by the Col du Bonhomme, the Col de la Seigue, the Allée Blanche Courmayeur, the hospital of MOUNT TITLIS.-From Switzerland, we learn Saint Bernard, the Val Ferret, or the Val d'En- that another of the most perilous and almost intremour. And, finally, from Martigny, you re-accessible Alps of that country, Mount Titlis, has turn to Chamouny, either by the Tete Noire, or been ascended by two German tourists.-Ath. CONSTITUENTS OF MILK.-M. Dumas observes that the milk of herbivorous animals always contains four orders of substances which form part of their food, viz.; the albuminous represented by the caseum, the fatty substances represented by butter, the saccharine portion of their food represented by the sugar of milk, and, finally, the salts of different kinds which exist in all the tissues of these animals. In the milk of carnivorous animals, there is no sugar, and there are only the albuminous, fatty and saline substances which form the general constituents of meat. If, however, bread be added to the food of these animals the sugar of milk will be found, although not in large quantities. M. Dumas states that his investigations have enabled him to arrive at a perfect BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. Great Britain. A Retrospect of the Religious Life in England; or, the Church, Puritanism, and Free Inquiry, by J. J. Tayler, B. A. THIS is a temperate, candid, and thoughtful inquiry into the effect which the religious opinions and practices of our ancestors, whatever the denomination to which they belonged, have had, and still have, on English society. The subject is as important as it is ably treated. No one who wishes well to that society can be indifferent to it.Whether for good or evil, certain principles are, and have been at work since the Reformation; and no earthly power could resist or suspend their operation. To a certain extent they might be directed, perhaps even controlled, by the legislature; but by far the best policy is to leave them unshackled. They are full of instruction; but, unfortunately, most readers do not receive the benefit. They look only on the surface of the stream; and do not suspect the existence of a deep resistless current underneath. Both the subject and the book well deserve an attention which cannot be expected from the Athenæum. We cannot enter into so wide a range of the tendency of opinions, though on it the welfare of a nation may depend. But we can cheerfully praise the Catholic spirit which runs through the volume. For this very reason, probably, coupled with its honesty, it may be abused; for if we have few Christian philosophers, we have many zealots, and many more who, without caring for any religion, are always ready to join in a party war-cry. Such men should not open the book; it is not written for them.-Athenæum. A Grammar of the Latin Language, by C. G. Virgilii Opera cum Annotationibus, by Flock, by the Rev. T. Dale. Eight Dissertations on some Prophetical Passages of Scripture, by G. S. Faber, 2 vols. Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745, by Mrs. Thomson, 2 vols. The United States Exploring Expedition (Popular Library Edition), I vol. 8vo. GERMANY. Der Brief an die Römer, ausgelegt von mischer. Tom. XIII. Geschichte der Römischen Literatur. Grundriss der Griechischen Literatur mit einem vergleichenden Ueberblick der Römischen. Von Bernhardy. Translated from the ninth edition of the origiginal, by L. Schmitz, Ph. D., with numerous Additions and Corrections by the Author. This is a new translation of the best Latin grammar in existence. Kenrick's translation was taken from the third edition of the original, though from time to time enlarged, and corrected, as new editions appeared; the present is from the ninth; and contains additions and corrections never published in Germany, and now incorporated, for the first time, in this translation. If no improvements had been made by the author between the third and ninth editions, a new translation would not have been required; but the whole life of Professor Zumpt has been one of progress in the study of Latin construction; and every succeeding edition bore testimony both to his ardor and to his success in tracing the more recondite relations of the language. For his own reputation, it was very natural that he should wish them to be incorporated with all future editions of the English translation-he, therefore, co-operated with the present translator, by MS. communications founded on the points which have struck him since the publication of the ninth German edition. The result is de sa Dynastie, 1841-1845. Par M. ChauDe l'Empire Ottoman, de ses Nations et a work which ought to be in the library of-not only_every Latin student, but every Latin scho-vin-Beillard, Ancien Commissaire de Législation á Alger. Ire Partie, Islam. lar. Athenæum. FRANCE. Delavigne, et de Béranger. |