"It is true that in the following age, founded on the absolutely stern rectitude of this, there came a phase of gigantic power and of exquisite ease and felicity which possess an awe and a charm of their own. They are more inimitable than the work of the perfect school. But they are not perfect." . . . . This period Mr. Ruskin named "the "Time of the Masters,' Fifty Years, including Luini, Leonardo, John Bellini, Vettor Carpaccio, Andrea Mantegna, Andrea Verrocchio, Cima da Corregliano, Perugino, and in date, though only in his earlier life, belonging to the school, Raphael. . . The great fifty years was the prime of life of three men. John Bellini, born 1430, died at 90, in 1516; Mantegna, born 1430, died at 76, in 1506; and Vettor Carpaccio, who died in 1522.” ... "The object of these masters is wholly different from that of the former school. The central Gothic men always want chiefly to impress you with the facts of their subject; but the masters of this finished time desire only to make everything dainty and delightful. We have not many pictures of the class in England, but several have been of late added to the National Gallery, and the Perugino there, especially the compartment with Raphael and Tobit, and the little St. Jerome by John Bellini, will perfectly show you this main character-pictorial perfectness and deliciousness-sought before everything else. You will find, if you look into that St. Jerome, that everything in it is exquisite, complete, and pure; there is not a particle of dust in the cupboards, nor a cloud in the air; the wooden shutters are dainty, the candlesticks are dainty, the saint's scarlet hat is dainty, and its violet tassel, and its ribbon, and his blue cloak and his spare pair of shoes, and his little brown partridge-it is all a perfect quintessence of innocent luxury-absolute delight, without one drawback in it, nor taint of the Devil anywhere." After dilating on several other pictures of this class, giving evidence of the entire devotion of the artists of the period to their art and work, Mr. Ruskin adverted to the second part of his discourse, the rivers of Verona. "There is but one river at Verona, nevertheless Dante connects its name with that of the Po when he says of the whole of Lombardy,— In sul paese, ch' Adice e Po riga, I want to speak for a minute or two about those great rivers; because in the efforts that are now being made to restore some of its commerce to Venice precisely the same questions are in course of debate which again and again, ever since Venice was a city, have put her senate at pause namely, how to hold in check the continually advancing morass formed by the silt brought down by the Alpine rivers. Is it not strange that for at least six hundred years the Venetians have been contending with those rivers at their mouths-that is to say, where their strength has become wholly irresistible-and never once thought of contending with them at their sources, where their infinitely separated streamlets might be, and are meant by Heaven to be, ruled as easily as children? And observe how sternly, how constantly the place where they are to be governed is marked by the mischief done by their liberty. Consider what the advance of the delta of the Po in the Adriatic signifies among the Alps. The evil of the delta itself, however great, is as nothing in comparison of that which is in its origin. "The gradual destruction of the harbourage of Venice, the endless cost of delaying it, the malaria of the whole coast down to Ravenna, nay, the raising of the bed of the Po, to the imperilling of all Lombardy, are but secondary evils. Every acre of that increasing delta means the devastation of part of an Alpine valley, and the loss of so much fruitful soil and ministering rain. Some of you now present must have. passed last year through the valleys of the Toccia and Ticino. You know therefore the devastation that was caused there, as well as in the valley of the Rhone, by the great floods of 1868, and that ten years of labour, even if the peasantry had still the heart for labour, cannot redeem those districts into fertility. What you have there seen on a vast scale takes place to a certain extent during every summer thunderstorm, and from the ruin of some portion of fruitful land the dust descends to increase the marshes of the Po. But observe further-whether fed by sudden melting of snow or by storm -every destructive rise of the Italian rivers signifies the loss of so much power of irrigation on the south side of the Alps. You must all well know the look of their chain-seen from Milan or Turin late in summer-how little snow is left, except on Monte Rosa, how vast a territory of brown mountain-side heated and barren, without rocks, yet without forest. There is in that brown-purple zone, and along the flanks of every valley that divides it, another Lombardy of cultivable land; and every drift of rain that swells the mountain torrents if it were caught where it falls is literally rain of gold. We seek gold beneath the rocks; and we will not so much as make a trench along the hill-side to catch it where it falls from heaven, and where, if not so caught, it changes into a frantic monster, first ravaging hamlet, hill, and plain, then sinking along the shores of Venice into poisoned sleep. Think what that belt of the Alps might be-up to four thousand feet above the plain-if the system of terraced irrigation. which even half-savage nations discovered and practised long ago in China and in Borneo, and by which our own engineers have subdued vast districts of farthest India, were but in part also practised here— here, in the oldest and proudest centre of European arts, where Leonardo da Vinci-master among masters-first discerned the laws of the coiling clouds and wandering streams, so that to this day his engineering remains unbettered by modern science and yet in this centre of all human achievements of genius no thought has been taken to receive with sacred art these great gifts of quiet snow and flying rain. Think, I repeat, what that south slope of the Alps might be; one paradise of lovely pasture and avenued forest of chestnut and blossomed trees, with cascades docile and innocent as infants, laughing all summer long from crag to crag and pool to pool, and the Adige and the Po, the Dora and the Ticino, no more defiled, no more alternating between fierce flood and venomous languor, but in calm clear currents bearing ships to every city and health to every field of all that azure plain of Lombard Italy. "It has now become a most grave object with me to get some of the great pictures of the Italian schools into England; and that I think at this time-with good help-it might be contrived. Further, without in the least urging my plans impatiently on any one else, I know thoroughly that this which I have said should be done, can be done, for the Italian rivers, and that no method of employment of our idle able-bodied labourers would be in the end more remunerative, or in the beginnings of it more healthful and every way beneficial than, with the concurrence of the Italian and Swiss governments, setting them to redeem the valleys of the Ticino and the Rhone. And I pray you to think of this; for I tell you truly-you who care for Italythat both her passions and her mountain streams are noble; but that her happiness depends not on the liberty, but the right government of both." [J. R.] GENERAL MONTHLY MEETING, Monday, February 7, 1870. JOHN PETER GASSIOT, Esq. F.R.S. Vice-President, in the Chair. Lord Brabazon. Robert Dudley Baxter, Esq. Mrs. J. H. Gladstone. Rodolph Alexander Hankey, Esq. were elected Members of the Royal Institution. The special thanks of the Members were returned for the following addition to "the Donation Fund for the Promotion of Experimental Researches":: W. D. Esq. (5th donation) £5 5 0 The PRESENTS received since the last Meeting were laid on the table, and the thanks of the Members returned for the same, viz. :— FROM Antiquaries, Society of Archæologia, Vol. XLII. Part 1. 4to. 1869. Asiatic Society of Bengal-Journal, No. 156. 8vo. Proceedings, 1869, Nos. 9, 10. 1869. No. 1. 8vo. Astronomical Society, Royal-Monthly Notices, Vol. XX. Nos. 1, 2. 8vo. 1869-70. Bavarian Academy of Science, Royal—Sitzungsberichte. 1869. I. Hefte 4. II. Hefte 1, 2, 3. 8vo. Baxter, R. Dudley, Esq. M.R.I. (the Author)-English Parties and Conservatism. (K 97) 8vo. 1870. British Museum Trustees-Catalogues of Dermaptera Saltatoria, Part 2. 1869. 8vo. Guide Books. 16mo. 1869. Hand-List of Birds. 8vo. 1869. Chemical Society-Journal for Dec. 1869, Jan. 1870. 8vo. Church, Professor A. H. M.A. M.R.I.-Practice with Science: a Series of Agricultural Papers, Vol. II. 8vo. 1869. Delondre, M. Aug.-Produits Végétaux du Portugal. Par J. L. Soubeiran et A. Delondre. (L 15) 8vo. 1867. Editors Academy for Dec. 1869, Jan. 1870. 4to. American Journal of Science for Nov. 1869. 8vo. Artizan for Dec. 1869, Jan. 1870. 4to. Athenæum for Dec. 1869, Jan. 1870. 4to. Chemical News for Dec. 1869, Jan. 1870. 4to. Engineer for Dec. 1869, Jan. 1870. fol. Horological Journal for Dec. 1869, Jan. 1870. 8vo. Pharmaceutical Journal for Dec. 1869, Jan. 1870. 8vo. Photographic News for Dec. 1869, Jan. 1870. 4to. Practical Mechanics' Journal for Dec. 1869, Jan. 1870. 4to. Revue des Cours Scientifiques et Littéraires. Dec. 1869, Jan. 1870. 4to. Gassiot, J. P. Esq. F.R.S. M.R.I. (the Author)-London and St. Katharine's Dock Gyll, Gordon W. J. Esq. M.R.I. (the Translator)-The Voyage to Parnassus; Numantia, a Tragedy; and the Commerce of Algiers. By Cervantes. Translated from the Spanish. 16mo. 1870. Harlem, Société Hollandaise des Sciences-Archives Néerlandaises des Sciences, Tome IV. 8vo. 1869. Ironmongers' Company, London-John Nichol: Some Account of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers. 4to. 1866. Catalogue of the Antiquities and Works of Art exhibited at Ironmongers' Hall, May, 1861. Edited by G. R. French. 4to. 1869. Linnean Society-Journal, Nos. 47, 52. 8vo. 1869-70. Proceedings. 1869. 8vo. London, Corporation of Catalogue of Library, 9th Supplement. 8vo. 1869. Manning, Frederick, Esq. M.R.I.-Rev. F. Leigh Colvile: The Worthies of Warwickshire. 1500-1800. 4to. 1869. Mechanical Engineers' Institution, Birmingham-Proceedings, Aug. 1869, Part 2. 8vo. Meteorological Society-Proceedings, No. 45. 8vo. 1870. New Zealand Government-Statistics of New Zealand, 1868. Fol. 1869. Norwegian University, Christiania, Royal-Thomas Saga Erkibyskups. Ved C. R. Unger. (Norwegian and Latin.) 8vo. 1869. Le Glacier de Boium en Juillet, 1868. Par S. A. Sexe. 4to. 1869. Norsk Meteorologisk Aarbog for 1868. 4to. 1869. Photographic Society-Journal. Nos. 212, 213. 8vo. 1869-70. Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften-Monatsberichte, Sept. Oct. 8vo. 1869. Roussillon, the Duke of (the Author)—Origines, Migrations: Philologie et Monuments Antiques. 8vo. 1867. Royal Institute of British Architects-Sessional Papers, 1869-70. No. 3. 4to. Royal Society of London-Proceedings, No. 115. 8vo. 1869. Scottish Society of Arts, Royal-Transactions, Vol. XVIII. Part 1. Svo. 1869. Statistical Society-Journal, Vol. XXXII. Part 4. 8vo. 1869. Symons, G. J. Esq. (the Author)-Symons' Monthly Meteorological Magazine, Dec. 1869, Jan. 1870. 8vo. Tyndall, Professor, LL.D. F.R.S. M.R.I. (the Author)—Faraday as a Discoverer. New edition. 16mo. 1870. Victoria Institute-Journal, Vol. III. No. 13. Svo. 1869. WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, SIR HENRY HOLLAND, Bart. M.D. D.C.L. F.R.S. President, WILLIAM B. CARPENTER, M.D. F.R.S. On the Temperature and Animal Life of the Deep Sea. THE present Discourse embodies the most important general results obtained by the Exploration of the Deep Sea in the neighbourhood of the British Isles, carried on during the summer of 1869 in H.M. Surveying vessel 'Porcupine,' with the view of completing and extending the inquiries commenced in the 'Lightning' expedition of 1868, of which an account was given by the speaker at the Friday evening meeting of April 9, 1869.* The expedition of the Porcupine' was divided into three Cruises. The first of these, which was placed under the scientific charge of Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys, F.R.S., accompanied by Mr. William L. Carpenter as Chemical assistant, commenced from Galway near the end of May, and concluded at Belfast at the beginning of July. It was directed in the first instance to the South-west, then to the West, and finally to the North-west as far as the Rockall Bank. The greatest depth at which Temperature-sounding and Dredging were carried on in this cruise was 1476 fathoms; and these operations, through the excellent equipment of the Porcupine' and the skill of her commander, Capt. Calver, were so successfully performed, that it was confidently anticipated that still greater depths might be reached with an equally satisfactory result. The second Cruise, which was under the scientific charge of Prof. Wyville Thomson, F.R.S., with Mr. Hunter as Chemical assistant, was consequently directed to the nearest point at which a depth of 2500 fathoms was known to exist, viz. the northern extremity of the Bay of Biscay, about 250 miles to the west of Ushant. In this cruise Temperature-sounding and Dredging were carried down to the extraordinary depth of 2345 fathoms, or nearly three miles-a depth nearly equal to the height of Mont Blanc, and exceeding by more than 500 fathoms that from which the Atlantic Cable was recovered. This sea-bed, on which the pressure of the superincumbent water is nearly Proceedings of the Royal Institution, vol. v., p. 503. |