with him in one of the glazed cases, among be known by the world at large by instinct, other plants, a species of banana. This take little care about getting them written up. reached Upolu, one of the group, in a healthy The other day a gentleman of Coblentz, by condition, was transplanted, and, in May, dint of several cabs and endless enquiries, 1840, bore a fine cluster of fruit exceeding found out at last the residence of a young three hundred in number, and weighing baronet to whom he was accredited, near Portnearly a hundredweight. The parent plant man Square. He was unusually methodical then died, leaving behind more than thirty about trifles, even for a German, and had young ones, which were distributed to various taken very good care to note down the name parts of the Island, and multiplied in the of the street in which he had fixed his temsame ratio. To "estimate the importance of porary lodging. The baronet, when he was the introduction of this plant, we must bear taking leave, naturally enquired where he in mind the great quantity of nutritious food should have the pleasure of returning the furnished by the banana. Humboldt says, visit? The German produced his pocket-book, that he was never wearied with astonishment and gravely read from it, "Number nine, at the smallness of the portion of soil which, Stick-no-bill-Street." "Stick no bills" being in Mexico and the adjoining provinces, would the only words he could find written up against yield sustenance to a family for a year, and the houses, he of course, adopted them, as his that the same extent of ground which, in proper address.-A similar mistake is rewheat, would maintain only two persons, corded of an American, from Fourth Street, would yield sustenance, under the banana, Philadelphia. He too was in search of the to fifty."

address on a letter of introduction; and, when Whilst large prizes are annually awarded he got into the street, actually disbelieved the to new pansies, tulips, and other ephemeral information given to him, that he had arrived monstrosities in the vegetable world, the in- at his proper destination. "Don't I see," he ventor of the "miniature conservatory" has, said, looking up at the corner, "that this is we believe, received no testimonial whatever F. P. Sixteen-feet Street?"-and returned to of the services he has rendered to horticulture his hotel without delivering his letter. from those who have been most benefited by The rustiest select vestryman of the oldthe invention. He reaps his reward, how-school is unable to deny that the name of ever, in the consciousness of the good he has done "in his generation," and in the feeling that, in the homes of many, his name, associated with ferns and flowers, has become a "Household Word."

CHIPS.

"STREETOGRAPHY."

every street ought-for the convenience of the inhabiting, but more especially for that of the visiting-public-to be distinctly and legibly inscribed at the corners of every street in Great Britain; within the range of ordinary visions, and not some twenty feet high, to be obscured by the friezes of shop-fronts and the balconies of private houses. This very necessary job should be snatched from the neglect of the various parochial officers, and put into THOUGH We English flatter ourselves that the hands of the Commissioners of Police; those systems of general and social polity-together with several other small reforms, by which we are pleased to term the British a very great deal too numerous for the limits Constitution-give to existence more security of a "Chip." and liberty than is ensured to our Continental We will not dismiss this suggestion without brethren; yet in the smaller arrangements pointing out that in every improvement in for public convenience we are, compared with Streetography (Like Bentham, we coin as we them, barbarians. The details of municipal require, and defy the Dictionary) some variety management in France, for example, are in the names of our public ways would be very infinitely superior to the arrangements made advantageous. As the sponsors of old streets for the English towns'-people by those knots have exhausted all the Charles's, George's, of well-fed wisdom Corporations. In France Mary's, and other common-place nomenclait is always possible for a stranger to find his tures, the respectability of streets in progress way to any street; and to know its name (and they are legion) might not be damaged when he is in it; in England, impossible. by being designated by the names of a few of In Paris, the dullest Dutchman or most the benefactors of our race-our eminent inopium-soddened Turk never need lose his way ventors, divines, poets, and a ists. But while in an intricate neighbourhood, because labels the naming of thoroughfares s left to inditell him, in large and legible letters at the vidual caprice, the inestimable confusion of corner of each street, those he wants; but metropolitan topography will continue to set down the cleverest country gentleman in be worse and worse confounded. Already, any one part of London, to find his way to any according to the "London Directory," there are other part of it with the best map to be got, streets, squares, terraces, and groves, which are and he will be only able to find it in a cab; honoured with the names of "Victoria" or for those who have the ordering of these" Albert" in twenty-five instances. Thirtythings in certain districts of the Metropolis, four London thoroughfares bear the title of believing that the names of streets ought to York, and twenty-three that of Gloucester;

of Wellington "Places" alone, there are ten; It was Sunday evening, and the church besides several Wellington Streets and Squares. bells clanged sweetly across the waters, Royalty spreads its titles over miles and mingling in harmonious discord with the miles: there are no fewer than thirty-seven distant sounds of profane music from the King Streets, twenty-seven Queen Streets, pleasure parties. On we sailed, until we twenty-two Prince's Streets, and seventeen reached the narrow peninsula where, fifty Duke Streets; not to mention Courts, Alleys, years previously, trees grew and savages Terraces, and brick-and-mortar Groves dwelt, and where now stands one of the most innumerable, with one or other of these desig- prosperous cities in the world, there, in deep nations. The list is to be swollen to an end- water, close along shore at Cambell's whart, less confusion; and without some improved we moored. system of "Streetography," it will soon be as impossible for a stranger to find a Londoner in London, as it is to trace a fly through the tangled intricacies of a spider's web.

LAND HO!-PORT JACKSON.

In the buildings there was nothing to denote a foreign city, unless it were the prevalence of green jalousés, and the extraordinary irregularity in principal streets,a wooden or brick cottage next to a lofty plate-glass fronted shop in true Regent Street style. There were no beggars, and no halfstarved wretches among the working-classes. In strolling early in the morning through the streets where the working-classes live, the smell and sound of meat frizzling for breakfast was almost universal.

An esteemed Contributor has laid open a page of his travelling note-bote, to allow us to extract the following graphic "Chip" :"LAND HO!" cried the look-out. Blessed sound to the weary landsman!-a sound associated with liberty and society, a walk on One day, while strolling in the outskirts of turf, a dinner of fresh meat and green vege- the town, above a cloud of dust, I saw aptables, clear water to drink, and something to proaching a huge lumbering mass, like a do. The dark line in the horizon was Terra moving haystack, swaying from side to side, Australis, the land of my dreams. As we ap- and I heard the creaking of wheels in the disproached more near, I was not greeted, as tance, and a volley of strange oaths accomI had hoped, by sloping shores of yellow panied the sharp cracking of a whip; presently sands, or hills covered with green pasture, or the horns of a pair of monstrous bullocks apclad with the bright-coloured forests of peared, straining solemnly at their yokes; southern climes; but far above us towered an then another and another followed, until I iron-bound coast, dark, desolate, barren, pre-counted five pair of elephantine beasts, draw cipitous, against which the long rolling swell ing a rude cart, composed of two high wheels of the Pacific broke with a dull disheartening sound.

No wonder that the first discoverers, who coasted along its shores in the midst of wintry tempests, abandoned it, after little investigation, as an uninhabitable land, the dwellingplace of demons, whose voices they fancied they heard in the wailing of the wind among the inaccessible cliffs.

feet long, with the thong of which, with per fect ease, he every now and then laid into his leaders, accompanying each stroke with a tremendous oath.

and a platform without sides, upon which was packed and piled bales of wool full fourteen feet in height.. Close to the near wheel stalked the driver, a tall, broad-shouldered, sunburnt, care-worn man, with long shaggy hair falling from beneath a sugar-loaf shaped grass hat, and a month's beard on his dusty chin; dressed in half-boots, coarse, short, fustian trousers, a red silk handkerchief round But soon a pilot boarded from a stout whale- his waist, and a dark blue cotton shirt, with boat, rowed by a dozen New Zealanders. He the sleeves rolled right up to the shoulders reached the rocks which, divided by a narrow of his brown-red, brawny, hairy arms. In cleft, or canal, and towering above the coast his hands he carried a whip, at least twenty line, are the sailors' landmark, known as Sydney Heads, the cleft that Captain Cook overlooked, considering it a mere boat harbour. Steering under easy sail through this narrow channel, the scene changed, as by stroke of A little mean looking man, shabbily dressed an enchanter's wand," and Port Jackson lay in something of the same costume, trotted before us, stretching for miles like a broad humbly along on the off-side. Three huge silent river, studded with shrub-covered ferocious dogs were chained under the axle of islands; on either hand of the shores, the the dray. This was a load of the golden fleece gardens and pleasure-grounds of villas and of Australia, and its guardians the bullock villages descended to the water's edge; driver and bullock watchman. The dust, the pleasure-boats of every variety of build and creaking of the wheels, and the ejaculation of size, wherries and canoes, cutters, schooners, the driver had scarcely melted away, when and Indians, glided about, gay with flags and up dashed a party of horsemen splendidly streamers, and laden with joyous parties, zig-mounted and sunburnt, but less coarse and zagged around like a nautical masquerade. worn in features than the bullock driver, Every moment we passed some tall merchant- with long beards and moustaches and long ship at anchor, for in this land-locked lake all flowing hair, some in old shooting jackets, the navies of the world might anchor safely. some in coloured woollen shirts, almost all in

patched fustian trousers; one, the youngest, had a pair of white trousers, very smart, tucked into a pair of long boots-he was the dandy, I presume; some smoked short pipes; all were in the highest and most uproarious spirits. Their costume would have been dear in Holywell Street at twenty shillings, and their horses cheap at Tattersall's at one hundred pounds. These were a party of gentlemen squatters coming down after a year or two in the bush, to transact business and refresh in the great city of Australia.

DEATH IN THE TEAPOT.

By the help of Mr. Slivers, we were enabled in a recent number to expose to an injured public some of the ingredients of metropolitan milk-"London Genuine particular." A correspondent now makes a further revelation of how our tea-pots are defiled when it is innocently supposed that a pure beverage is in course of concoction.

of his a short time since happened-though quite unintentionally-on his part, to walk into a private room connected with the establishment of a wholesale tea-dealer, and there he saw the people actually at work converting the black tea into green; the proprietor soon discovered his presence in the room, and before him, in no measured terms, severely reprimanded the workmen for having permitted a stranger to enter."

CITY GRAVES.

I WALKED straight through the gathering fog,
By drains and ditches fed,

Until I saw the City church

High towering over head,
And came to where the grave-yard holds
Its half-unburied dead!

Hard by the Thames, those high-piled graves
Higher and higher grow,

Where living men, at morn and eve,
By thousands come and go;
Where ledgers pile the desks above,
And gold lies hid below.

Within those walls, the peace of death--
Without, life's ceaseless din;

The toiler, at his work, can see

The tombs of his mouldering kin;
And the living without, grow, day by day,
More like the dead within.

I saw the wheezy beadle pause,
Panting with gold and lace,

He turned the key in its creaking lock,
With handkerchief over his face.
And pale-faced urchins gambolled round
The "consecrated" place.

I saw from out the earth peep forth
The white and glistening bones,
With jagged ends of coffin-planks,

That e'en the worm disowns;
And once a smooth round skull rolled on,
Like a football, on the stones.

I thought of those who bear the sounds
Of Life across the foam,

"A short time since," he says, 66 a friend of mine, a chemist in Manchester, was applied to for a quantity of French chalk, a species of talc, in fine powder; the party who purchased it, used regularly several pounds a week; not being an article of usual sale in such quantity, our friend became curious to know to what use it could be applied; on asking the wholesale dealer who supplied him, he stated his belief, that it was used in 'facing' tea (the last process of converting black tea into green), and that within the last month or two, he had sold in Manchester upwards of a thousand pounds of it. Our friend the chemist then instituted a series of experiments, and the result proved that a great deal, if not all the common green tea used in this country is coloured artificially. The very first experiment demonstrated fraud. The plan adopted was as follows:-A few spoonfuls of green tea at five shillings a pound, were placed on a small sieve, and held under a gentle stream of cold water flowing from a tap for the space of four or five minutes. The tea quickly changed its colour from green to a dull yellow, and, upon drying with a very gentle heat gradually assumed the appearance of ordinary black tea. On making a minute microscopic examination of the colouring matter washed from the leaf, and which was caught in a vessel below, it appeared to be composed of three substances, particles of yellow, blue, and white. blue was proved to be Prussian blue-the yellow thought to be the turmeric, and the white, French chalk. If the two former be LONDON is full of strong contrasts, and one of mixed together in very fine powder, they will them may be met with in Lincoln's-Inn Fields. give a green of any required shade. It is Two large public buildings adorn that fine made to adhere to the tea-leaf by some adhe-open square-as different in character, appearsive matter, and then it is "faced" by the ance, associations, and objects as two strucFrench chalk, to give it the pearly appear-tures could be-the one appertaining to law, and the other to physic. "This simple experiment any one can perLincoln's-Inn Hall is a noble-looking place, form. A gentleman assured me that a friend in the English style that perhaps suits our

ance so much liked.

The

In foreign climes, in savage lands,

Who rear Religion's dome;
They might have taught our rulers first
To spare our lives at home.

Too late the wished-for boon has come,
Too late wiped out the stain-
No Schedule shall restore to health,
No Act give life again

To the thousands whom, in bygone years,
Our City Graves have slain!

THE HUNTERIAN MUSEUM.

English climate better than any other-with whose existence is now one of the romances red brick walls, gables, towers, and buttresses, of geology and of the animal world. The and a wide spanning roof, betokening a noble building fit for the usages of hospitality or the despatch of legal business.

whale is the only existing creature that can bear comparison with the by-gone monsters whose existence is shown by the bones in this place; and of the skeleton of the whale we have no perfect specimen, because the building is not large enough to hold it, and the college wants funds to build a place for the reception of the creature that would make this national collection more complete. Amid the real riches of the place we cannot avoid wishing it more perfect. The skeleton of a whale was exhibited in London some years ago, and attracted much notice; but it was taken away, and is now in France. Another may be seen in the Museum at Berlin. We ought to have a perfect one in the Hunterian Collection. The money of the College has been liberally poured out to secure the strange old-world relics. One Don Pedro de Angelis, an active collector, who secured the bones of the glyptodon and mylodon, on the alluvial plains near Buenos Ayres, received for them no less than three hundred pounds thirteen shillings; for But if we witness here the revelations of the bones of the mastodon, found in Kentucky, the dissecting-room, we are startled by none another speculative gentleman got one hunof its grossness or its taints. The museum is dred and sixty pounds; whilst a Mr. Cuma large architectural building, lighted from ming received one hundred and six pounds above, and at first glance seems to be a noble for a set of choice shells he collected in the hall of stone, mahogany, and plate-glass, Philippine Islands; making together a handraised for the occupation of a regiment of some sum well spent to enrich the collection. skeletons and an army of bottles. Shelves Everything, however, need not be sacrificed and galleries run round the place, from the to the past. The creatures of our period floor to the roof, and every shelf is crowded deserve a place, the more so since the exten with specimens of all sizes and colours. Upon sion of commerce, and of whaling energy, the front of the galleries, skulls and antlers, of threatens the ultimate extinction of the mamvarious kinds, are fixed, and amongst them moth of the deep. If the College cannot afford some of gigantic size, which we soon learn to extend their building to make room for a belonged to the creatures the traveller Bruce whale, let the extension be made by the spoke of, as the mysterious Sauga of Central Government. Mr. Arnott, the President of África. From the door we enter at, to the the College, should plead the cause of science extreme end of the place, run two rows of to Lord John Russell; and the ministermahogany, glass-roofed cases, the lower por- himself an author as well as a statesmantions filled with drawers containing specimens could scarcely withstand the appeal now that for reference, and the tops covered with others he has an exchequer balance in hand. of more beauty or interest. These cases But the consideration of what might be in divide the floor into three straight walks, along which, at regular intervals, are pedestals to support various things too large for enclosure. Nearest the door are the oldest and most curious of the contents of the place-the relics of the huge monsters who roved in the primeval wilds of our earth long before the Flood.

The second of the two buildings instead of warm red brick, presents a cold stone, stately classic front, adorned by a row of tall Grecian columns, under which we pass to enter the place. In two minutes we are in a different world. Without, we left an atmosphere of life and living bustle; within, we find a stiller, calmer company. We walk amidst an abundant harvest yielded by death to teach the lesson of how life continues, and we come in absolute contact with some things that moved upon the earth before the Flood. About us are innumerable forms in which life has been. Now all are quiet in the serene dignity of death. Very few minutes are generally enough to calm down the minds of those who may visit the two buildings in successionwho, after seeing the Hall of Lincoln's Inn, will pass along the square and enter the Hunterian Museum at the College of Surgeons.

These are the ancient glyptodon, the still older mylodon, and the megatherium, more ancient than either. Looking at the bones of these extinct monsters, and glancing from them upon the other bony relics disposed about the place, we see, at once, how immensely larger some of the animals of our earth once were, than they are now. The skeleton of the elephant, at the opposite end of the hall, and the bones of the hippopotamus, close by, look small in comparison with those of the creatures no longer found alive, and

the Hunterian Museum must not divert our attention from the many things it contains. Walking along the central path we gradually obtain an idea of how abundant these riches are. We see around contributions from all countries; hundreds of skeletons; but not one horror. All are clean, calm, and whitebones, dry bones-but standing up in all the characteristic attitudes of life. Asia sends its elephant; Africa its cameleopard, and its hippopotamus; the new world of Austra lasia, its gigantic extinct bird, the Dinornis of New Zealand; Europe, a species of extinct, gigantic deer. The birds of the air, the beasts of the field, the fishes of the sea, the myriad of creeping things, the reptiles of oozy rivers and marshes, and dark forests, send each their contribution to this assemblage of all things

this bony parliament of the natural creation-this Hall of Skeleton Assembly-this

Post Mortem Palace. All rest quietly in company. Lions and lambs; dolphins, turtles, and sharks are on the very best terms with each other; eagles, hawks, swans, and pigeons perch in harmony. Different portions of the animal economy are also displayed. One case contains skulls from all parts of the globe; in another are brains of various creatures, beautifully preserved, and abundant enough to satiate the wildest phrenologist; a third has stomachs sufficient to startle any number of aldermen, or to outdo in capacity the largest of luxurious corporations. The noblest and the meanest of created things send each their contribution; from the mammoth to the mouse,-from man to the ape.

In one case are some illustrations of the durability of the skin of different creatures, and amongst others is a specimen of the integument of the extinct animal giant, the mammoth, discovered in the frozen soil of Siberia, where it must have lain bound up in its crystal prison doubtless not for hundreds, but for thousands, of years. The story of its discovery is told in the Catalogue, and is worth repeating :

could be perceived. The brain was still in the cranium, but appeared dried up. The parts least injured were one fore-foot and one hind-foot; they were covered with skin, and had still the sole attached. The skin, of which about three-fourths were saved, was of a dark grey colour, covered with a reddish wool, and coarse long black hairs. The dampness of the spot where the animal had lain so long, had in some degree destroyed the hair. The entire skeleton, from the fore-part of the skull to the end of the mutilated tail, measured sixteen feet four inches; its height was nine feet four inches. The tusks measured along the curve nine feet six inches, and in a straight line, from the base to the point, three feet seven inches.

He next

The

Very many heads and hands have contributed to complete this museum. As its name indicates, the founder of the collection was the self-educated, self-elevated physiologist, John Hunter, who, born to the condition of a village carpenter, raised himself to the foremost rank as an investigator of the laws of Nature. Hunter did not accept as truth, all that was told him; nor did he rest content with what his predecessors had done or said; but, intent upon the discovery of facts, he went to work for himself. Animal and vegetable products of all kinds were materials full of interest to him; come whence they would, they were made to contribute to his knowledge of natural things; and when his skill and his fame grew, and as skill and fame gave money and power, both were used for the acquisition of a larger stock of materials for observation.

"Mr. Adams collected the bones. detached the skin on the side on which the animal had lain, which was well preserved; the weight of the skin was such, that ten persons found great difficulty in transporting it to the shore. After this, the ground was dug in different places to ascertain whether any of its bones were buried, but principally to collect all the hairs which the white bears "A Tungusian hunter and collector of fossil had trod into the ground whilst devouring ivory, who had migrated in 1799 to the the flesh, and more than thirty-six pounds' peninsula of Tamul, at the mouth of the weight of hair were thus recovered. Lena, near the seventieth degree of north tusks were re-purchased at Jakustk, and the latitude, one day perceived, amongst the whole sent thence to St. Petersburgh, where blocks of ice and frozen soil, a shapeless mass, the skeleton is now mounted." which in the following year was more disengaged and showed two projecting parts. In 1803, part of the ice between the earth and the observed body-which was then recognised as that of a mammoth, yielding the tusks commonly found in the soil of that coast-having melted more rapidly than the rest, the enormous mass fell by its own weight on a bank of sand. Of this, two Tungusians, who accompanied Mr. Adams, the recorder of the fact, were witnesses. In the month of March, 1804, the discoverer came to his mammoth, and having cut off the tusks, exchanged them with a merchant for goods of the value of fifty rubles. Two years afterwards, or the seventh after the discovery of the mammoth, Mr. Adams visited the spot, and found the mammoth still in the same place, but altogether mutilated: the Jakutski of the neighbourhood had cut off the flesh, During his lifetime he prepared and accuwith which they fed their dogs during the mulated a marvellous number of specimens; scarcity. Wild beasts, such as white bears, and when his sudden death whilst attending wolves, wolverines, and foxes, also fed upon at St. George's Hospital, brought enemies and it, and the traces of their footsteps were seen friends alike to a recognition of his great around. The skeleton, almost entirely cleared services to science, it was determined to buy of its flesh, remained whole, with the excep- his museum, with funds provided by the tion of one fore-leg, probably dragged off by public purse, and to place its contents where the bears. The spine, with other parts of the they might be ready for public reference. skeleton, still held together by the ligaments, The valuable charge was first offered to the and by parts of the skin. The head was College of Physicians, and declined upon the covered with a dry skin; one of the ears, plea that they were too poor. It was next well preserved, was furnished with a tuft of offered to the College of Surgeons, and hair. The point of the lower lip had been accepted. The Government voted a portion gnawed; and the upper one, with the pro- of the money necessary for building a museum, boscis, having been devoured, the molar teeth the College finding the rest. Since then,