The Admiralty alone would save a very large sum every year by getting rid of the difficulty occasioned by one half of every day's business being transacted at Whitehall, and the other half at Somerset House. mail-and-parcel dispatch would be larger. I set House, Pall Mall, and Victoria street. Besides the conveyance of bags of letters through various districts of London, as just mentioned, the Company propose to carry small parcels to and from the several railway stations in alliance with the railway companies; and to convey professional, commercial, official, and private documents and papers of all kinds as well as newspapers and books, from office to office, combined with a hand-delivery to the consignees. The Company propose also that the government should have a complete series of tubes for special and separate use, to convey the almost numberless messages and papers which have every day to travel between the several government offices at Whitehall, Somer The future must tell its own tale. It would not be wise to predict too warmly; but if this scheme once surmounts preliminary difficulties, and becomes effective, there is no calculating the amount of commercial and social advantage that may attend its adoption. Steam-pressure and water-pressure are working busily for us every day; perhaps air-pressure will shortly join the goodly company. LITERARY MISCELLANIES. THE NEW AMERICAN CYCLOPEDIA: A Popular Dictionary of Knowledge. Edited by GEORGE RIPLEY and CHARLES A. DANA. Volume XIII. Parr to Redwitz. New-York: D. Appleton & Co., 443 and 445 Broadway. London: 16 Little Britain. 1861. AMONG the numerous works issued by American publishers we remember none of greater magnitude or practical importance to the country at large than this new American Cyclopedia, now in process of publication by the Appletons. We have just received Vol XIII., and take pleasure in announcing its publication. It comprises more than 800 pages, double-columns, and a copious index of more than fifteen hundred articles, all between the alphabetical nomenclature of Parr to Redwitz. The number of articles in this single volume will indicate the vast number included in the whole thirteen volumes thus far published, and what the whole will amount to when completed in the future volumes. The editors of this work, Messrs. George Ripley and Charles A. Dana, have performed an almost Herculean labor in the structure of the work, which obviously requires untiring industry and immense research in all the departments of literature, history, biography, science, etc., etc., which few can fully appreciate without practical experience. The work itself is unsurpassed in magnitude and importance, and will remain a perpetual monument to the talents and industry of the editors, more enduring than marble. It is a great dictionary of useful knowledge-an omnium gatherum which ought to be accessible to the great masses of the community in all parts of the land, and we trust will be when the great political storm REVOLUTION IN GAS-MAKING.-Mr. John Leslie has patented a process for the manufacture of gas, which appears to contain in it the germ of great alteration in our present system. It consists in so arranging works as to employ in the manufacture the hydrocarbon products of coal obtained by distilling such substances at a low temperature, whereby the patentee is enabled to dispense with the machinery and processes used for purifying illuminating gas obtained by the existing process of destructive distillation of the bituminous mineral. For these purposes Cannel coal, Parrot coal, Boghead coal, and other coal, and other mineral bituminous matters, are distilled at a low temperature, in such manner as to obtain the products in a condensed form in place of in the state of gases: then, when necessary, the resulting fluids are purified, and then such fluids are subjected to the action of heat in a finely divided state in retorts or vessels, to convert them into gas, which is conveyed into gasometers such as heretofore used at gas works, in order that the same may be distributed therefrom, as heretofore practiced. The coal or bituminous mineral is introduced into a cylindrical retort, broken up into small pieces, and the products evolved pass off to the condensing apparatus, which is constantly kept cool by water, and the condensed hydrocarbon products are received into a suitable receiver or vessel. In order to convert the liquid into gas, it is caused to drop into a retort or vessel heated to a good red heat, and the gas is conveyed from the retort into gasometers of the ordinary construction, from which the illuminating gas is supplied to the gas-mains. One result would be, the gas-works will be rendered less objectionable in any neighborhood. By this means, too, all the refuse coal which is now completely wasted at the pit's mouth may be distilled into oil at the collieries. "This fluid may be further purified from sulphur and other deleterious substances on the spot where it is made, whence it could be carried up to London and converted into gas in the space of a few minutes. The advantage of this would be: the coal, being used at the pit's mouth would cost a mere trifle; all the troublesome work of distillation and purification, with its concomitant evils of poisoning the neighborhood by the offensive odor, could be performed where labor was cheap and ground plentiful, instead of, as at present, in the heat of London; the expense of carriage of material to London would be considerably reduced, as only the real gas making constituent of the coal would be transported and lastly, the complicated machinery of plant and hands, with the sickening odor with which it is always surrounded, would be, in great measure, done away with, no purifying apparatus being needed, and the mechanical labor of converting any quantity of the hydrocarbon fluid into gas, being reduced to the capacity of a man and a boy.' For foreign stations where coal is not obtainable on the spot, the system would seem to offer great advantages.-Builder. PROFESSOR HANEBURG, abbot of the Benedictine convent at Munich, a distinguished Oriental scholar, has been summoned to Rome to put in order the Syriac manuscripts in the Vatican. Ir was currently stated that in the late fire in Paternoster Row, London, Messrs. Longman & Co. lost the fifth volume of Macaulay's History, and the illustrated edition of Moore's Lalla Rookh, but there was no truth whatever in the report. ARE BEES DOMESTIC ANIMALS.-A singular point of law was recently submitted to the Imperial Court of Limoges, namely, whether bees are to be ranged in the class of what the law calls "domestic animals," or are to be considered as "wild and ferocious." A laborer named Sauvenet, of Chenerailles, proceeded on the 8th of October, 1859, to extract the honey from a bee-hive in the garden of his employer, a taxgatherer named Beraud. This irritated the bees, and they flew wildly about. At that moment a farmer, named Legrand, of Peripirolles, accompanied by his son, a boy of thirteen, came up the road in a gig, and the bees stung them and the horse severely. The animal in terror began prancing furiously, and the farmer and his son jumped out of the vehicle; the boy then ran along the road trying to avoid the bees, but the horse having started off, knocked him down, and so injured him that he died in a few hours. Legrand afterward brought an action before the Civil Tribunal of Aubusson against Beraud and Sauvenet, to obtain from them 3000f. as indemnity for the death of his son, which he said must be considered as caused by the bees. But the Tribunal held that bees are "ferocious animals" which no one can be expected to control, and that therefore the action could not be maintained. An appeal was presented to the Imperial Court at Limoges, and after long arguments, a contrary decision was come to, the Court laying down that bees are "domestic animals," and that the owner of them is responsible for any injury they commit. It therefore ordered that 200f. should be paid to the plaintiff. QUEEN ELIZABETH'S BED.-A wardrobe warrant dated 1581, orders the delivery for the Queen's use of a bedstead of walnut tree, richly carved, painted, and gilt. The selour, testor, and vallance, were of cloth of silver, figured with velvet, lined with changeable taffeta, and deeply fringed with Venice gold, silver, and silk. The curtains were of costly tapestry, curiously and elaborately worked; every seam and every border laid with gold and silver lace, caught up with long loops and buttons of bullion. The head-piece was of crimson satin of Bruges, edged with a passamayne of crimson silk, and decorated with six ample plumes, containing seven dozen ostrich feathers, of various colors, garnished with golden spangles. The counter-point was of orangecolored satin, quilted with cut work of cloths of gold and silver, of satins of every imaginable tint, and embroidered with Venice gold, silver spangles and colored silks, fringed to correspond, and lined with orange sarcenet. A royal patchwork indeed!— Our English Home. THE installment of antiquities from Bussorah has reached the St. Katharine's Dock, London, on the way for the British Museum. Besides inscriptions and Oriental manuscripts the consignment includes important fragments of sculpture in black marble, basalt and granite. In the departments of La Gironde and Les Landes, France, the present year's honey crop is unparal leled for value by any thing within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. Ir is rumored that the feud between the French and American Bonapartes is to be extinguished by the marriage of Capt. Bonaparte, the grandson of Mrs. Patterson and Prince Jerome, with one of the daughters of Prince Murat. GREAT SPEED IN A SEA-GOING STEAMER.-It appears that the South-Eastern Company's new steamgines by Messss. Penn, has attained remarkable er, the Victoria, built by Messrs. Samuda, with enspeed on her first trip from Gravesend to her stain the Company's daily service between Folkestone tion at Folkestone, preparatory to her employment and Boulogne. The voyage, which is stated to give the highest speed ever attained by any vessel over a similar distance, was performed in three hours and fifty-two minutes, giving (as the total distance is eighty-four statute miles) an average speed knots. This included the assistance received from of 21-7 statute miles per hour, equal to about 18.6 the tide, estimated by the pilot at under two miles. -London Express. IMPORTANT USE FOR SEA-WEED.-M. E. Legou has | during an engagement in Kabylia. It has remained presented a report to the Paris Academy of Sciences in the possession of its last master for eleven years. on the employment of sea-weed, applied in layers It may as well to state that the age of twenty is conagainst the thin walls of the habitations, to prevent sidered about the extreme limit of a dog's existence. sudden variations in and excess of temperature. Homer, it may be remembered, represents Argus, The marine algæ, such as sea-wrack, may be termed the faithful dog of Ulysses, which dies of joy at a sea-wool, which has this advantage over ordinary again beholding its master, as having arrived at that wool, that it does not harbor insects, and undergoes age. no change by dryness or humidity, provided it be not exposed to the solar rays; in that case it undergoes a complete transformation-from being brown and flexible it becomes white and almost rigid. In the dark, on the contrary, it is unchangeable, unfermentable, imputrescent, uninflammable, and unattackable by insects. At first it has the objection of being hygromatic; but a single washing in fresh water removes the salt, and then its properties become so beneficial, that a celebrated architect has styled it the "flannel of health for habitations." has been applied successfully between the tiles and ceiling of a railway station, also in a portable house intended for the use of officers at the camp of Chalons; also double panels, the intermediate space being filled with sea-weed, having been prepared for the construction of temporary barracks at the Isle of Réunion. The Consulting Committee of Public Health, the Society of Civil Engineers, the Council for Civic Structures, etc., have expressed their approval of the judicious employment of the marine algae, and state that the popularization of this process will be of great service in dwellings, especially in those of the humbler class, as it renders them both more agreeable and salubrious. It can be obtained for about 20s. the ton, which quantity is sufficient for upward of a hundred square yards of roofing. It M. MAZZINI is engaged in writing Memoirs of his Life and Times-a work which will embrace a good deal of the secret history of European events during the last thirty years. HALIFAX, October 9th, 1861. "TO HENRY GRINNELL, 17 Boud street: "HOMEWARD bound. Put in after a stormy passage for repairs and water. We were unable to pen etrate Smith's Straits either this season or last on account of heavy ice. We wintered at Port Foulke, near Cape Alexander, and I have penetrated with dog-sledges to latitude eighty-one degrees thirty-five minutes, on the west side of Kennedy channel. In that channel there was much open water. The thirteen surviving members of my original party are all well. Two of my companions-Mr. Sontag and Gibson Caruthers-have died. "I. J. HAYES, American Polar Expedition." THE announcement has been made in London of a performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah at Exeter Hall, with such an array of solo talent as is implied by the names of Mme. Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, Mme. Sainton - Dolby, Mr. Sims Reeves and Mr. Stantley. A VETERAN.-The Independant, of Constantina, (Algeria,) mentions the death in that town of a dog, named Bellona, at the extraordinary age of thirtyfour years. The dog formerly belonged to the soldiers of one of the batteries of artillery at the siege of Constantina, and successfully accompanied three regiments of the line in their expeditions. It had one of its legs broken by a musket-shot in 1831, opposite side of a lady to avoid stepping on her THE hight of politeness is, passing around on the shadow. THE FOOT OF A HORSE.-The human hand has often been taken to illustrate Divine wisdom-and very well. But have you ever examined your horse's hoof? It is hardly less curious in its way. Its parts are somewhat complicated, yet their design is simple and obvious. The hoof is not, as it appears to the careless eye, a mere lump of insensible bone fastened to the leg by a joint. It is made up of a series of thin layers, or leaves, of horn, about five hundred in number, nicely fitted to each other, and forming a lining to the foot itself. Then there are as many more layers belonging to what is called the "coffin-bone," and fitted into this. These are elastic. Take & quire of paper and insert the leaves one by one into those of another quire, and you will get some idea of the arrangements of the several layers. Now, the weight of the horse rests on as many elastic springs as there are layers in his four feet-about four thousand; and all this is contrived, not only for the easy conveyance of the horse's own body, but for whatever burdens may be laid on him. GUSTAVE DORE, who, in the wild, weird and supernatural walks of art has no equal living, has recently illustrated the Inferno of Dante. The grim fancies of the great Florentine are instinct with life in his hands. His designs (etchings, by the way) will shortly be published in London. The edition will be in folio, the price five pounds a copy. THE HIELAND FOOTMAN.-When the family moved into a house there, Mrs. Campbell gave him very particular instructions regarding visitors, explaining that they were to be shown into the drawing-rooms, and no doubt used the Scotticism, "Carry any ladies that call up stairs." On the arrival of the first visitors, Donald was eager to show his strict attention to the mistress's orders. Two ladies came together, and Donald, seizing one in his arms, said to the other, "Bide ye there till I come for ye," and in spite of her struggles and remonstrances, ushered the terrified visitor into Mrs. Campbell's presence in this unwonted fashion. NEW-YORK ACADEMY OF MUSIC.-The Directors | is divided into a number of small impermeable diof the New-York Academy of Music have entertain- visions, so that in case of accident to one or more of ed a petition from Mr. B. Ullman, the present lessee these the apparatus would still be effective. The whole of the Academy for operatic entertainments, solicit- does not weigh more than eight pounds. The experiing the cooperation of the Board to aid him in his ment was made by the master of a swimming-school efforts to secure the necessary means to carry out on the Seine, and a non-commissioned officer in the his contract. military establishment, and was deemed perfectly satisfactory. The river was crossed and re-crossed by what is known to bathers as treading water, cigars were lighted, and the action of using a musket gone through. The swimmers then made an effort to lie down on the river, and even to turn over, but the apparatus always brought them back to the vertical position.-Morning Post. The Directors, considering the present disturbed state of the country, the loss to the Manager of a fall season, almost entirely supported by transient sojourners in our city-the necessity to keep open the Academy, not only for the amusement it affords the stockholders, and music-loving citizens, but to show-despite a civil war that calls a quarter million of men to the field-despite the treasure promptly found to supply them necessaries and war's expensive requisites-we are not compelled to close our institutions of art and intellectual amusement, or debar our citizens their usual pleasure of a season's opera. The Directors, therefore, having resolved to support Mr. Ullman, in his laudable intentions, by subscribing for tickets for his benefit, in the ratio of from five to ten tickets per share of stock, do respectfully urge you as a fellow proprietor of the Academy, on the plea of interest as well as good policy, to do likewise-to subscribe liberally for Mr. Ullman's benefit tickets, in order to give him the requisite aid to inaugurate the coming season. By order of the board. The directors, after having taken my letter into consideration, have arrived at the conclusion that my demands are reasonable, and after having indorsed them, have addressed you a circular. You must pardon my troubling you likewise, but I am anxious you should be fully informed of all particulars. Should I not meet with the expected liberality on those two evenings, it would certainly discourage me to go through the trouble, risk, and anxiety of a season in times of war. But I am confident that my request will be favorably received. You have only to remember the many nights of opera I have given you-sixty to seventy every year instead of forty, as stipulated in my lease; the numerous great artists I have presented; the magnificent nannner in which I have produced some of the most difficult and costly operas; the losses entailed upon me by the financial and political difficulties since I became the manager of the Opera; the use I intend to make of your liberality; the enjoyment you will derive this winter from the Opera, and that the income it will bring to the Academy will carry it unscathed-nay brilliantly-through this portentous year. Nor can you have many difficulties in the disposal of such a limited amount of tickets among those of your friends who many times have been invited by you to your seats and boxes. I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant, B. ULLMAN NOVEL SWIMMING-BELT.-A curious invention for the use of the army has just been experimented on at Paris. It consists of a swimming-belt on an entirely new principle. An inverted truncated cone made of thin metal, fitting closely about the waist, A VALEDICTION. My hopes go with thee! Let them not be wrecked, My heart goes with thee! Let it nerve thine own My thoughts go with thee! Thoughts of trustful Of patient faith and gentle tenderness, My prayers go with thee! Prayers of lonely hours- -From Scattered Seeds by an English Lady. SOAP AND WATER-THEIR RELATION.-In an address delivered by the engineer of the Glasgow Waterworks, that gentleman remarked, that Mr. Porter estimates the annual consumption of soap at 9.2 pounds per individual. The total population of Glasgow may be taken at 460,000; deduct for Gorbals, 110,000; total on the north of river, 350,000. Supposing that only five pounds and a half of soap are allowed for each person, it will give £72,000 as the annual cost of soap, on the average of the country, consumed by the 350,000 persons, on the north of the Clyde. Since the introduction of Loch Katrine, owing to its softness, careful returns show that nearly one half of the soap formerly used will now suffice. If these calculations were applied to London, the saving there, allowing for the harder character of the water, would amount to not less than £400,000 per annum, equivalent to the interest of ten millions of money, which it would be worth the while of the Londoners to pay for water equal in quality to that of Loch Katrine. ENAMELED STEEL SHIRT-FRONTS AND COLLARS. The cottony Manchester and the steely Sheffield are at cross purposes. In the Manchester starchy laundry they are "getting up" shirt-fronts, collars, and wristbands, of "enameled steel!" while at Sheffield cotton or linen shoddy is about to be manufactured on the great scale, in shape of shirt-collars, fronts, and other fragments of piecemeal attire, in a large building, now in course of erection on an elegible stream there. The great Manchester house who have sent forth their business announcement, anent the steel manufacture, describe it as assuming the shapes of "elastic steel shirt-collars, wristbands, and fronts, enameled white." The gentlemen in steel wristbands and collars, we should fear, will feel much as if they were serving apprenticeships to the great Newgate house in the oakum line. But custom is every thing, as the cook said to the eels.-Builder. THE SUNBEAM. GENTLE ray of sunlight, gleaming Full of light and life and joy, Tell me, is it not thy mission On life's gloomy path to shine? Of those heavenly rays divine? As it bears us to the tomb! of 32,000 men are employed upon it under Messrs. Adamson and Clowser, the managers for the contractors, Messrs. Tredwell. To give some conception of the magnitude of the works, we may mention that, in the month of November, five tons of gunpowder per diem were consumed, and that work to the amount of £40,000 was executed within one month.-London paper. RELIC OF BYRON.-At Newstead, age, wind, and weather have so much affected the tree the late Col. Wildman preserved with so much care, on which Byron carved his name, together with his sister's, on his last visit to the Abbey, that another winter would doubtless have destroyed every vestige of so very interesting a relic. Mr. Webb, the new proprietor, who is anxious to preserve every thing of interest connected with the place, has consulted with competent persons, and has decided upon at once removing the part, and preserving it with other relics of the noble poet, in the Abbey itself, as the only means of preserving it to posterity.-Nottingham Guardian. KISSING IS BETTER THAN WINE.-Among the ancient Roman matrons and virgins the use of wine was unknown, and the woman was taxed with immodesty whose breath smelt of the grape. Pliny says that Cato was of the opinion that kissing first began between kinsmen and kinswomen, that they might know whether their wives, daughters, or nieces tasted wine. Young Sharpwits says Cato was an old coon! for kissing is better than wine any day. Ar the recent Industrial Exhibition held at Marseilles, some specimens of paper, which it is said were scarcely distinguishable from the finest qualities of ordinary paper, were exhibited, made of a material which grows spontaneously throughout Algeria and Spain. This is the "esparto" or Spanish broom, which has heretofore been used merely for making mats and ropes. Algeria alone, it is said, produces two hundred millions of pounds an INDIAN RAILWAYS.-We have already mentioned the Institution of Civil Engineers awarded a Telford gold medal and a council premium of books to Mr. James J. Berkley for a paper "On Indian Railways, with a Description of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway." The author is chief engineer to the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company, whose service he entered in the year 1849. The projects comprise the two railway inclines up the Syhadrees or Ghauts of Western India. One of these-the Bhoor-Ghaut in-nually of the raw material. cline is rapidly drawing towards completion. It contains twenty-five tunnels through basaltic rock THE heart of a beautiful woman, like that of a within the short space of thirteen miles. Upward beautiful flower, may be the abode of a reptile. ARTISTIC PORTRAIT ATTRACTIONS. THE finely-engraved Portraits of various personages of distinction, which have appeared as embellishments in the successive numbers of THE ECLECTIC MAGAZINE, have come to be regarded with high favor by the public as a valuable element of art. We have had occasion to know that many of our patrons remove a choice selection of the portraits from the numbers, and have them framed to adorn their parlorwalls. Not a few others desire to purchase the portraits for a similar purpose. Influenced by these facts and others, we beg to offer inducements in this direction to those who desire to possess valuable portraits, finely engraved. INDUCEMENTS. We will send by mail, postage paid, to any new subscriber, or to any one of our patrons who will procure a new name among his friends or neighbors, and send the pay, $5, in advance for one year, either of the following engravings or portraits: 1. The beautiful engraving, RETURN FROM MARKET. Published price, $2. 2. The beautiful engraving, SUNDAY MORNING, a match-print of the other piece. Price, $2. 3. A large and finely executed portrait of Hon. EDWARD EVERETT, the best portrait of him. Price, $2. 4. We will send any four portraits which have appeared as embellishments in THE ECLECTIC, printed on fine paper in large quarto form, suitable for framing or for the portfolio, according to the choice or solection as desired. This will be an easy mode of obtaining a rich selection of valuable portraits. Address the Editor of THE ECLECTIC MAGAZINE, W. H. BIDWELL, No. 5 Beekman Street. |