tion that my face is sallow: it is sympathy with the destitute that has blanched my cheek. "The man of feeling likes not to behold a gore on the body of a fellow-creature, any more than on his own. "Praised be God, that although I am myself unscathed, my frame trembles with emotion when I behold a wound upon my neigh bour! The enjoyment of him that is sound in health is froubled, by whose side is stretched the enfeebled victim of disease! "When I see that the poor Darvesh has not eaten, the morsel turns, on my own palate, to poison and pain. "How can he, whose friends are in a dungeon, any longer find enjoyment in his gardeh ? Fine Arts. MR. E. T. PARRIS'S PICTURE OF THE CORONATION. MR. PARRIS having just finished his picture of the Coronation of the Queen, we were invited to a private view on Tuesday last. It is a specimen of great merit, not only as a brilliant display of British art, but also as a critically-correct representation of a great historical event. It is a remarkable circumstance, that the sun did not shine forth' on that memorable, day, until Howell, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, was about to place the crown of Eng land upon the head of our youthful Queen: and this was the auspicious moment happily chosen by Mr. Parris. Her Majesty is seated in King Edward's chair, in her splendid Dalmatic robes: on her right stands the graceful and lovely-looking Duchess of Sutherland; behind whom may be noticed Her Majesty's train-bearers; and further on to the right, Lord Melbourne and other ministers of state; Dukes of Sussex, and Cambridge, Duchess of Kent, &c. On the left the Archbishop of Canterbury is seen,, whose purple robe, richly embroidered with gold, harmonizing delightfully with the imposing dress of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and the splendid robes of the Duke of Richmond. In addition to the above illustrious characters, are those of the various foreign ambassadors, and many of the female, nobility; in all there are seventy-seven partraits. The judicious grouping of the figures the splendour of the gorgeous scene-the vividness of the colouring; the fidelity of the portraits; and the representation of the vapour arising from the heated state of the Abbey, are all worthy of the highest com mendation but what renders this picture, truly valuable, and gives it an irresistible charm, is, the extreme correctness that has : been observed throughout, even in the most minute particulars: the various dresses; the shapes and colours of the numerous jewels, are given with faithful adherence; being all drawn from those worn by the illustrious personages on that occasion; the original sketches of which we have had the pleasure of witnessing. This splendid work of art, was painted for Mr. Moon, the spirited printseller, who has engaged an artist of the first talent, to engrave a print from it, on a very large scale, which we have no doubt will amply repay him, for it is a subject that will engrave well. Apples marked with the impression of a leaf are sold in the bazaars of Persia. To produce this impression, a leaf of some flower! or shrub is glued or fastened with a thread on several parts of the fruit, while yet grow! ing; the apple gradually ripens, and all that the sun reaches becomes red; the parts covered by the leaves remaining of a pale green or yellow colour. Poetry often the Precursor and Nurse of Science. To them that, professing learning, inveigh against poetry, may justly be objected,, that they go very near to ungratefulness, to seek to deface that, which in the noblest nations and languages that are known, hath been the first light given to ignorance, and. first nurse, whose milk, by little and fitfle, enabled them to feed afterwards of tougher knowledge.-Sir Philio Sydney. clined walking out with an elderly maiden Anarrow Come-off-Sheridan having de-, lady, on the pretence of bad weather, was met by the lady afterwards walking by himself. So Mr Sheridan," said she," it has cleared up." " Yes, madam," said he, " enough for, one, but not enough for two." גי Pleasure a Cheat.-We should have a deceive us, marches before, and conceals her care of drinking too much for pleasure, to train.--Montaigne. LONDON: Printed and published by J. LFMBIRD 143, Strand, (near Somerset House) and sold hy all Booksellers, and Newsmen — In PARIS, by all the Booksellers.-in FRANCFURT, CHARLES, JUGEL. THE RESIDENCE OF THE LATE JAMES WOOD, ESQ., PLACES of abode of remarkable persons, have form, than to state, that Mr. Wood was born in the city of Gloucester, on the 7th of October, 1756: he descended from the ancient and highly respectable family of the Weeds of Brockthrop Court, in the county of Gloucester, who at all times distinguished themselves for their loyalty. Certain it also is, that the family have, to the death of the subject of this memoir, been eminent, for their high respectability and wealth. founded by James Wood, Esq., grandfather The "Gloucester City Old Bank" was of its late proprietor, in the year 1716, and land, with the exception of Messrs. Childs', was the most ancient private bank in Engof Fieef-street, London. Mr. Wood died at his above residence, April 20, 1836, in the 80th year of his age. A DAUGHTER'S GIFT TO HER FATHER, Author of" The Bridegroom and the Bride,"-" Vision Respectfully Dedicated to Mrs. Thomas Littlewood. To him who reared it in the cultured bower :- Not alone And, therefore, could forgive her little faults, She form'd a wish, a secret of her own! The life of which lay in concealing it! Now each day Her gentle thoughts dwelt on the great result, At last she fixed,Fix'd at the extent of all her treasure, too,Purchased the gift, conceal'd it carefully, And when the birth-day of her father came, THE PILGRIM CHILD.* A STRANGER child, one winter eve, The spring-tide came, and once again, With garlands crown'd, a laughing child The stars shone bright the bower above; And smiles, and sighs, and kisses sweet, And Winter came, and hopes, and fears, Came Love! From Minstrel Melodies. Longman & Co. PHENOMENA OF NATURE. THEORIES OF THE EARTH'S SUBSTANCE. THE opinions of the ancients regarding the form and substance of the earth, were various; and, as might be naturally expected, in their ignorance and excited imagination, many of their hypotheses were of a wild and fanciful description. The Eastern philosophers, and those of Greece, were fond of speculating as to the primary qualities and ultimate agglomeration of the elementary atoms or particles of which the globe is composed. Some of our modern philosophers have been equally erratic in their conceptions of it. By some this material ball is considered to be a solid, dull, inert mass, surrounded by a luminous atmosphere; by others it is conceived to be a hollow sphere, filled with light, pure and etherial; while a third class suppose it to be a cooling star, still molten at the centre. This last is the theory of M. Cordier, a celebrated French Sçavan; and not a few, particularly in France, have adopted his views on the subject. Kepler at one time entertained the extravagant idea that the earth is a living animal, and that the ebbing and flowing of the sea are merely the effect of its respiration! So conflicting and curious, indeed, are the theories respecting the substance of which the earth is composed, that Dr. Buckland was induced to quote some of them in his Bridgewater Treatise; and we may extract the fol lowing four as the least whimsical of the series: "The earth," says Burnet, " was first invested with an uniform light crust, which covered the abyss of the sea, and which being broken up for the production of the deluge, formed the mountains by its fragments.' Theoria Sacra. "The earth is an extinguished sun, a vi. trified globe, on which the vapours falling down again, after it had cooled, formed seas, which afterwards deposited the limestone formation."-Leibnitz Protoga. "The earth was a fragment of the sun, struck off red-hot by the blow of a comet, together with all the other planets, which were also red-hot fragments. The age of the world, then, can be calculated from the number of years which it would take to cool so large a mass from a red-hot, down to its present temperature. But it is of course grow ing colder every year, and, as well as the other planets, must finally be a globe of ice." -Buffon Theorie. "All things were originally fluid. The waters gave birth to microscopic insects; the insects, in the course of ages, magnified themselves into the larger animals; the animals, in the course of ages, converted another portion into clay! These two substances, in the course of ages, converted themselves into silex, and thus the silicious mountains are the oldest of all. All the solid parts of the earth, therefore, owe their existence to life, and without life the globe would still be entirely liquid."-Lamark. This, too, is the favou rite mode among the German philosophers, of accounting for the formation and filling of the world. As to the form of the earth, there can be now very little difference of opinion. Its true figure is that of an oblate spheroid-that is, a body approaching to the form of a sphere, or globe, but not exactly round. This has been long since satisfactorily ascertained, and is now universally recognised. The discovery of a high temperature in the interior of the earth no doubt suggested the idea that the ground on which we tread is but the crust of a cooling star; and many circumstances tend to give countenance to the theory; particularly the existence of thermal springs, the eruptions of volcanos, and the occurrence of earthquakes. Thermal, or warm-water springs, are found in almost every latitude. They abound on the continent of Europe; they occur also in Asia, Africa, and North and South America; but the most remarkable of these phenomena are the boiling fountains of Iceland. Thermal waters are very various in their composition; in the greater part saline substances predominate; some are gaseous, others ferugenous, others sulphureous, and a few have, on analysis, been discovered to be highly impregnated with iodine. They are also very different in their temperatures; varying from a few degrees above the surrounding atmos phere to the boiling point. Their distinctive composition is acquired from the particular substances through which they have percolated, or over which they have passed in their descent through the mineral strata of the earth; minute particles of which they hold in solution. The cause of their increased temperature has long been a contested point in physical science. Many intelligent natural philosophers ascribe it to beds of limestone over which the waters had run, others, and amongst the rest, the ingenious Borden, to the agency of subterrene fire. Undoubtedly, the theory which attributes the increase of temperature to subterraneous fire, is the most philosophical of all the theories that have been broached on this point; and the recent experiments of Dabuisson and Cordier, for ascertaining the temperature of mines of various depths, having proved that the farther we descend into the interior of the earth the higher is the temperature; and that the water, which has filtered to these depths, is uniformly found to be of a like increased heat, would seem to corroborate this theory. Volcanos, with a few exceptions, are found to take place in those mountainous groups which are situated in the neigh bourhood of seas, or extensive sheets of salt water. Volcanic mountains, standing in the interior of the European continent, at a distance from the influence of the present ocean or lakes, such as those scattered over the central regions of France, Silesia, Bohemia, Hun gary, and Transylvania, have long been in a state of inactivity; but taking into calculation the changes which may have been effected upon the surface of the earth since the period at which they were in action, it is probable that they were then either within a short distance of the sea, or in the vicinity of lakes or other masses of water. From the striking similarity which subsists between the lavas and substances ejected from the craters of volcanos, and the rocks of the primitive and transition series, it is conjectured that the focus of volcanic action must be at a great depth below the surface, and near to, if not at, the nucleus of the globe. It is certain, that if these ejected materials were situated near the surface, the enormous quantities which have been discharged would, long ere this time, have levelled the mountain with the plain. But the volcanic pro ducts of Vesuvius, altogether, far exceed the magnitude of the mountain; and several of the Coulées of Mount Etna measure four miles in breadth by sixteen in length, and one is from fifty to a hundred feet in thickness; and yet these mountains have suffered no visible diminution. The earlier writers on geology suppose the mighty cause of these powerful and wonderful effects to be the spontaneous ignition of beds of coal, sulphur, and other inflammable substances, which are found among the secondary or superficial strata. This, however, is a cause which is utterly inadequate to produce effects so great and extraordinary, and can in no way account for the concomitant awfully disastrous phenomena of earthquakes. Dr. Charles Daubeny, of Oxford, and Sir Humphrey Davy, were of opinion, that the volcanic heat depends upon the oxydation of the metals of the earth on an extensive scale, in immense subterranean cavities, to which water or atmospheric air may gain access; but the latter candidly acknowledged that the hypothesis, of the nucleus of the globe being composed of matter liquified by heat, offers a far more simple solution of volcanic phenomena. This, as we have stated, is the theory of M. Cordier; who, having devoted much time and attention to the investigation of the rival theories, concerning the aqueous and igneous original fluidity of the earth, is considered to have made, after numerous experiments in deep mines, the discovery of the fact, of the existence of a subterranean heat peculiar to the terrestrial globe, and which has belonged to it since the beginning, totally independent of the solar rays, and increasing rapidly with the depth. M. Cordier embodied his opinions and demonstrations in a treatise, which was read, for the first time, before the Royal Society of Sciences at Paris, in the year 1827, when it excited great interest, and was received with unusual applause; but although his hypothesis has been approved by several able philosophers and men of science, it has not yet been received as the only authentic theory of the earth. In the valuable and highly illustrating Treatise on Climate, which was contributed by the late Sir John Leslie, of Edinburgh, to the Supplement of the Encyclopædia Britannica, there occurs the following passage, with which, as it bears on the question in dispute, we shall conclude the present article: "If we dig into the ground," says Sir John Leslie, "we find the temperature to become gradually more steady, till we reach a depth of perhaps forty or fifty feet, below which it continues unchanged. When this perforation is made during winter, the ground gets sensibly warmer till the limit is attained; but in summer, on the contrary, it grows always colder, till it has reached the same limit. At a certain depth, therefore, under the surface, the temperature of the ground remains quite permanent. Nor is there any indication whatever of the supposed existence of a central fire, since the alleged increase of heat near the bottom of the profoundest excavations is merely accidental, being occasioned by the multitude of burning tapers consumed in conducting the operations of mining. Accordingly, while the air of those confined chambers feels often oppressively warm, the water which flows along the floors seems comparatively cold, or rather preserves the medium heat. It would be a hasty conclusion, however, to regard this limit of temperature as the natural and absolute heat of our globe. If we dig on the summit of a mountain, or any very elevated spot, we shall discover the ground to be considerably colder than in the plain below; or, if we make a similar perforation on the same level, but in a more southern latitude, we shall find greater warmth than before. The heat thus ob tained, at some moderate depth, is, hence, only the mean result of all the various impressions which the surface of the earth receives from the sun and the atmosphere." In the gardens of Chapultepec, near Mexico, (says a modern traveller,) is a magnificent cypress, called the cypress of Montezuma. It had attained its full growth when that monarch was on the throne, in 1520; yet it retains all the vigour of youthful vegetation: the trunk is forty-one feet in circumference. At Santa Maria de Tula, in' Oaxaca, there is a cypress, the trunk of which is ninety-three feet in circumference; and yet does not show the slightest symptom of decay. |