ence of circumstances, the laws of necessity, the apparent intentions of nature, are nothing to him. So far as we can see at present, the history of the human race has been one of progress; in which general conduct has been the result of circumstances over which the people of any given time could exercise little control, still less any then undiscovered systems of philosophy. Mankind has had to work its way to civilization and knowledge through evil and suffering and darkness; but Mr. Carey persists in bringing all the past to the test of an Anglo-Saxon standard, which, be it what it may, had been formed by the world struggles of four thousand years. Sometimes he goes further than this, and falls foul of everything that differs from Careyism. poorer soils, and to remain in the poor and barbarous condition which invariably attends such a state, in order to supply manufacturing Britain with food for her population, which they might raise for themselves by a more intense cultivation, or materials of manufacture, which would not be wanted to anything like the present extent if they applied their industry to raising food. The remedy for this is, perfect freedom-freedom of trade, freedom of industry, freedom of banking, (but with a metallic standard, as we infer,) and freedom from monopolies, privileges in favor of land, and the expenses of lawyers. Mr. Carey thinks we have made a beginning in these things, under Sir Robert Peel; but, to make assurance as regards America doubly sure, he offers an odd suggestion for an advocate of perfect freedom-to prevent the British policy and practice from stimulating young men to scatter themselves over the poorer soils and emigrate from the older states to the west, he would prevent the importation of British manufactures by means of high duties. In addition to the fifteen chapters connected with the Past and Present, there is a resumé of the whole in reference to the Future; not with a view to predict what will happen ex necessitate, but what will happen if Mr. Carey's panacea of cultivating the richer soils and applying continual doses of capital to land be adopted. One great obstacle to It will be seen at once from this outline, that this consummation as respects the Past has been Mr. Carey is a system-monger, with the extreme the warlike, restless, and immoral character of the and onesided ideas of his class. Still, he is a French; of whom Mr. Carey gives a very bad ac- large-minded system-monger, of extensive views, count, as husbands, fathers, members of society, and well stored with knowledge, on which he has and citizens of the world. England, however, has reflected, and which he applies to a distinct purbeen the great bugbear-" who fills the butchers' pose. His theoretical conclusions cannot be imshops with large blue flies." Her system of landed plicitly trusted, any more than his specific facts; favoritism-corn-laws, laws of primogeniture, and but he puts forward many truths incidentally in the similar things to give a fancied benefit to the land- course of his work, and stirs the mind by many lords-have diverted the energies of her people suggestions upon social and economical subjects, from the cultivation of the soil to manufactures and which passing events may bring into practical imcommerce. To support these, she has aimed at portance. For, we repeat it again, the present establishing monopolies by means of laws or fiscal European revolutions are less political than social. duties; and whenever these have been resisted, In none of the countries where disturbances have she has gone to war. At present, or at least till arisen was general tyranny exercised; the most very lately, she has been trying another tack by absolute power took the form of rule, and personal means of her enormous financial power, arising freedom was not interfered with, at least in a manfrom her wealth, the extent of her demand for for-ner likely to be changed. The real cause was a eign commodities, and the Bank of England. She vague longing for a better economical condition, as has forced her goods and her money upon the un-in France; or a wish for a recognition of the rights fortunate Americans, and stimulated them to grow of men-not in Tom Paine's sense, but as creaproduce, from cotton to corn, as a means of pay-tures of the same nature with the official class, not When this has gone on for a little while, as mere animals to be fed and trained and ménaged a panic or a pressure has arisen at home; prices by masters. have fallen, loans have been stopped, and the distubance of the London money-market has spread to America. The planter cannot realize half what STEVENSON'S ACCOUNT OF THE SKERRYVORE he hoped for his cotton; a good season has made corn cheap in Great Britain, and the foolish people in the West, who have been producing for the British market, find their produce a drug; half the American merchants are bankrupt through the conduct of the Britishers and the Bank of England; and the states that have been inveigled into borrowing our money are compelled to suspend their works before they yield a return, and are additionally injured by being held up to the world as fraudulent repudiators. An analogous course, but differing in degree and circumstances, is followed as regards India, Ireland, and Poland. The people of these countries are driven to cultivate their ment. LIGHTHOUSE From the Spectator. Is useful as an addition to our records of a difficult and dangerous branch of marine architecture; interesting as an account of the risks and hardships which men undergo in the construction of great nautical works-equalling in fact the suffering and exposure of mariners in expeditions of discovery, without being, as the seaman is, used to it." 66 The Skerryvore Rock is part of a dangerous reef in the ocean between Scotland and Ireland, extending upwards of three miles in length, and lying in a westerly direction from Mull and Iona. In more specific terms, the latitude of the group is 56° 19′ 22′′ north, and its longitude 7° 6' 32" was spent in a sort of apprenticeship to landing materials, laying the foundation, and carrying the tower about eight feet above the surface of the rock. In 1841, an addition of between forty and fifty feet was built; and in 1842 the tower was completed; though the inside fittings and the lantern were not finished till next year, and the light was not exhibited till February, 1844. In height, compared with the Eddystone lighthouse, the Skerryvore is more than double, and it is above one third higher than the Bell Rock, erected by Mr. Alan Stevenson's father; the respective elevations being-Eddystone 68 feet, Bell Rock 100 feet, Skerryvore 138 feet. The total cost of the Skerryvore lighthouse, including the opening of the quarries and forming wharfs at the quarries in Mull, and (as we understand) the formation of the harbor in the Isle of Tyree, was 90,2687. 12s. Id. No life was lost by any accident throughout the operations. The necessity for the lighthouse is indicated by a few observations of the engineer. In the course of my residence for four months on board the tender moored off the rock, I had opportunities of witnessing many proofs of the great necessity which existed for a light on the Skerryvore; and if I had ever entertained any doubt as to the beneficial efthe season of 1839 must have entirely removed it. fects of such an establishment, the experience of It often happened, that for several days successively, not fewer than five or six vessels of large size, both outward and homeward bound, were visible at distances varying from three to six miles from the rock; and much anxiety was often felt by us for the safety of those vessels, several of which approached so near the outlying rocks as to keep us for some time in the most painful suspense. On rect the steam to be raised in order that the Skertwo occasions more especially, I was about to diryvore tender might be sent to warn the masters of vessels of their danger, or if too late for that, to afford them assistance in case of accident. On the 29th of May a large schooner, and on the 13th of June a large brig, ran right down upon the western ered at the time,) and just put about in time to outlyers, called Fresnel's rocks, (which were covavoid striking; and on the 12th June, a fine foreign barque (apparently a Prussian) passed so close to Bo-Rhua as to leave us for a short time in doubt whether or not she had struck on it. On the 21st of June, also, a large brig came very near the rocks which lie off Tyree, at the base of Ben Hyabout five miles to the N. W. of the Skerryvore. nish, in trying to avoid Boinshley rock, which lies To remove this danger by erecting a lighthouse on the Skerryvore Rock itself, had long been a wish of the commissioners of northern lighthouses, or rather of Mr. Stevenson, their former engineer and the father of the author of the work before us. An act was obtained for this purpose so long ago as 1814; but the heavy expense, with the uncertainty of success owing to the nature of the rock and the sea surrounding it, diverted enterprise to other points. It was not till 1834-35 that a survey of the reef and the Skerryvore Rock was made, and the island of Tyree, about a dozen miles distant, examined as a head dépôt and station for the works. The undertaking, however, was not really begun till 1838; when stones were quarried and prepared, and a series of small wooden chambers one over the other, supported by timbers in a pyramidal form and strengthened by iron-work-technically called " a barrack"- was erected to lodge the workmen during the building of the lighthouse. This erection occupied the summer and autumn; but in a heavy gale of the 3d November, 1838, the barrack was entirely washed away, having, it is supposed, been struck by part of a wreck. The commissioners and their engineer were nothing daunted by this first failure. Our outline of geographical position and dates The preliminary works proceeded during the win- furnishes no idea of the difficulties of the underter and spring-that is to say, the quarrying of taking from the character of the rock and the stones, and the forming of wooden models of every effect of winds on its exposed situation. Notcourse in the intended lighthouse; for the stones withstanding a thorough knowledge of the reef were throughout to be fitted on shore and only and channels around the Skerryvore, derived from put together and set in mortar on the rock. A the elaborate survey of 1834-35, with the use of new barrack was constructed as before, ready to craft expressly adapted to the service, a steamer be placed on the rock in the ensuing season. built on purpose, and mariners experienced in the This was soon accomplished, the second time; particular duty, the rock in some years could not and, with the excavation of the rock for a foun- be approached at all till late in the season. The dation of the building, the formation of a land- work was always interrupted during a gale or ing-place, and similar preliminary preparations, high wind; the sea washing over the rock on occupied the summer of 1839. The next season such occasions, and oftener than once compelling the vessel, on board which the workmen at first slept, to quit her moorings and run for shelter. When the barrack was erected time was saved in the passage and in landing; for men on the rock could work when a boat could not land. This saving of time, however, was dearly earned; for while the sea washed over the rock, the workmen and enginers were confined to the barrack, and a sorry time they had of it. This was the first specimen of barrack lodging on the Skerryvore. comfort every state attend :" when the weather was fair, life at Skerryvore had its pleasures, if hardly earned. The economy of our life on the rock was strange enough. At half-past three in the morning we were called, and at four the work commenced, continuing till eight, when half-an-hour was given for breakfast; after which it was carried on till two, when another half-hour was given for dinner; and the work was again resumed and continued till seven, eight, and even nine o'clock, when anything urgent was in hand. Supper was then produced Owing to the great difficulty of landing on the rock in the early part of May, (1840,) few oppor-cool of the evening. Such protracted exertion proand eaten with more leisure and comfort in the tunities occurred of preparing the barrack as a habitation; and it was not until the 14th of that month, that we were enabled to take up our quarters in it; and even then we were most uncomfortably lodged, as many of the smaller fittings which are essential to a wind-and-water-tight habitation had not been completed. During the first month we suffered much from the flooding of our apartments (upwards of forty feet above the rock) with water, at times when heavy sprays lashed the walls of the barrack with great violence, and also during rainy weather; and in northerly gales we had much difficulty in keeping ourselves warm. On one occasion, also, we were fourteen days without communication with the shore or the steamer; and during the greater part of that time we saw nothing but white fields of foam as far as the eye could reach, and heard nothing but the whistling of the wind and the thunder of the waves, which were at times so loud as to make it almost impossible to hear any one speak. For several days, the seas rose so high as to prevent our attempting to go down to the rock; and the cold and comfortless nature of our abode reduced all hands to the necessity of seeking warmth in bed, where (rising only to our meals) we generally spent the greater part of the day listening to the howling of the winds and the beating of the waves, which occasionally made the house tremble in a startling manner. Such a scene, with the ruins of the former barrack not twenty yards from us, was calculated to inspire the most desponding anticipations; and I well remember the undefined sense of dread that flashed across my mind on being awakened one night by a heavy sea which struck the barrack, and made my cot or hammock swing inwards from the wall, and was immediately followed by a cry of terror from the men in the apartment above me, most of whom, startled by the sound and tremor, immediately sprang from their berths to the floor, impressed with the idea that the whole fabric had been washed into The alarm, however, was very short; and the solemn pause which succeeded the cry was soon followed by words of reassurance and congratulation. Towards the end of the fourteen days, I began to grow very uneasy, as our provisions were drawing to a close; and when we were at length justified by the state of the sea on the rock in making the signal to those on shore, (at the hour fixed for pointing the telescope at Hynish on the barrack,) that a landing could be effected, we had not more than twenty-four hours' provision on the rock. the sea. Comfortless as this was, the previous lodging on board the moored vessel was worse, as her rolling made the landsmen qualmish, and several, after a hard day's work, could neither eat their suppers nor get to sleep. "See some strange who sat down fell fast asleep. I have myself reduced a continual drowsiness, and almost every one peatedly fallen asleep in the middle of breakfast or dinner; and have not unfrequently awakened, pen in hand, with a half-written word on the paper! Yet life on the Skerryvore Rock was by no means of the ocean's rage, the deep murmur of the waves, destitute of its peculiar pleasures. The grandeur the hoarse cry of the sea-birds, which wheeled continually over us, especially at our meals, the low moaning of the wind, or the gorgeous brightness of a glassy sea and a cloudless sky, and the solemn stillness of a deep blue vault studded with stars or cheered by the splendors of the full moon, were the phases of external things that often arrested our thoughts in a situation where, with all the bustle that sometimes prevailed, there was necessarily so much time for reflection. Those changes, and fears connected with the important work in together with the continual succession of hopes which we were engaged, and the oft-recurring calls for advice or direction, as well as occasional the pleasure of news from home, were more than hours devoted to reading and correspondence, and sufficient to reconcile me to, nay, to make me really enjoy, an uninterrupted residence, on one occasion, of not less than five weeks on that desert rock. One of the earliest things to be done was the preparation of a landing-place, alongside which the vessels with the fitted stones and other materials could discharge their cargoes. This was partly effected by mining; and the simultaneous discharge surprised the Celtic "natives." No inconsiderable part of the labor of this season was devoted to the clearing of the landing place, which was formed in a natural creek and in excavating the rocks in front of the line of wharf so as to admit the vessels carrying the building materials to come alongside of it. That work could only be done at certain times of tide and dur ing very fine weather, and was therefore tedious as well as hazardous. After two entire days spent in cutting with a sickle, mounted on a long pole, the thick cover of gigantic sea-weed, which hid the true form of the rock from view, we were able to mark out the line of the wharf; and after all the mines were bored and charged and the tide had whole were fired at the same instant, by means of risen, and every one had retired from the spot, the the galvanic battery; to the great amazement and even terror of some of the native boatmen, who were obviously much puzzled to trace the mysterious links which connected the drawing of a string at the distance of about one hundred yards, with a low murmur like distant thunder, and a sudden commotion of the waters in the landing-place, which From the Spectator. boiled up, and then belched forth a dense cloud of FEVER. DR. ORMEROD has been for some years a close smoke: nor was their surprise lessened when they DR. ORMEROD'S OBSERVATIONS ON CONTINUED saw that it had been followed by a large rent in the rock; for so effectually had the simultaneous firing of the mines done its work, that a flat face for a quay had been cleared in a moment, and little re-observer at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, both as mained to be done to give the appearance of a reg-student and medical officer; and he has been inular wharf, and to fit it for the approach of a stone-duced to give particular attention to the subject of lighter, except attaching wooden fenders and a fever. From the cases continually occurring in trap ladder. "Ce n'est que le premier pas que coûte." It has been intimated how quickly the second barrack was erected in comparison with the first; and here is another example of "practice making perfect." In dressing one of the outside stones of the first or lowest courses of the Skerryvore tower, a mason was occupied eighty-five hours; and in dressing one of the largest of the hearting or inner stones of the same courses, fifty-five hours. But as the work proceeded, owing to the greater readiness which the men had acquired in the application of the moulds, gauges, and bevels, the time occupied gradually decreased to the extent of about ten hours for each stone, until the work had been carried on as far as to the thirteenth course. There was not much opportunity for observation on living creatures, but what there was was not lost. the hospital he has selected the most striking; arranging them under different classes; introducing the class by general observations; and then exhibiting the details of each particular case in its history, symptoms, and treatment, as well as the results of the post mortem examination where death ensued. 66 "What is fever?" is, like many other origines of medicine, a question more easily asked than an swered. "Fever," says Fergusson, "is in a great degree peculiar to the human race, and never, as an idiopathic disease, affects the lower animals. The uncivilized man appears to possess, to a certain extent, an exemption; for the negro tribes feel little of malarious fever, and the Indian races are far less subject to it than the European.” According to the same author, physic is powerless before it: "The battle is to be fought by the nurse, whether in the shape of physician or other attendant it matters not. ** ** Fever will run its course in every climate and every constitution; it cannot be prevented; and so completely is its dominion established when once begun, that even the worst practitioner-that is to say, the one who interferes the most with violent remedies-cannot There can be no always kill his patient. treatment of fever by physic but in studying the juvantia and the ladentia of the case-cultivating the first, eschewing the last." Amongst the many wonders of the "great deep" which we witnessed at the Skerryvore, not the least is the agility and power displayed by the unshapely seal. I have often seen half-a-dozen of those animals round the rock, playing on the surface or riding on the crests of curling waves, come so close as to permit us to see their eyes and head, and lead us to expect that they would be thrown high and dry at the foot of the tower; when suddenly they performed a somersault within a few feet of the rock, and diving into the flaky and wreathing foam, Dr. Ormerod's volume will not throw much new disappeared, and as suddenly reäppeared a hundred light upon the nature of fever, nor, as it strikes yards off, uttering a strange low cry, as we sup-us, do much towards establishing any large prinposed, of satisfaction at having caught a fish. At such times the surf often drove among the crevices of the rock a bleeding cod, from whose back a seal had taken a single moderate bite, leaving the rest to some less fastidious fisher. Pure idio ciple of knowledge or of treatment. pathic fever is not, indeed, the main subject of his work; but fever complicated with other disorders, or with that worst of all maladies a constitution broken down by poverty, dissipation, or distress, Mixed with these generally interesting particu- and frequently by lesions of important organs: it lars are descriptions of a more technical nature, also strikes us that sometimes the case quoted is connected with the details of the construction; merely one of symptomatic fever, originating in a one on the fittest form for lighthouses, another on primary disease, and not itself the primary disorder. the manner of quarrying. Besides the account of Hence a want of general deduction, either in the the Skerryvore lighthouse, there is a very elabo-author or in the facts of his book the reader is rate essay on the illumination of lighthouses; scarcely able to grasp a principle. The book is which, indeed, with some notes on their history, strictly practical in the sense of being, so far as it occupies more space than the account itself. The goes, a substitute for practice No description appendix contains various papers on topics con- can ever be equal to actual observation; but Dr. nected with lighthouses in general, or Skerryvore Ormerod's cases are presented so clearly and in in particular. Every topic handled in the text is such detail, that they form a very good substitute; very fully illustrated by maps, plans, and draw-and, being all more or less remarkable, (though ings the quarto altogether forming a handsome rarely as examples of idiopathic fever,) they furvolume beyond the means of private speculation, nish a curious collection of particular examples, on a subject of importance, though of limited de mand. from which Dr. Ormerod occasionally deduces practical rules of treatment, though rarely of extensive application. The only great rule is confirmatory of Fergusson's principle of treatment to study the juvantia and the lædentia. Watch often exists? The delicacy of the presentiment of the case, meet the symptoms as they arise, pre- coming events possessed by the system at large scribe what agrees with the patient, eschew what needs only a little observation to be fully appreciated. There is no denying that an attack of fever disagrees, and leave the result to Nature; unless may be a very effectual though sometimes severe there is evident disease. Perhaps, however, the remedy for many intractable ailments-as for what most important general deduction in the volume there was undoubtedly of rheumatism in the last (for it can hardly be called a principle) is the care case-and that it really removes them, and does and caution requisite in dealing with complicated not complete them, as has been suggested: but the fever. Too much care cannot be used in endeav- occasional existence of this delicate presentiment oring to ascertain whether the affection of an or- of coming disease must not be set aside because gan is primary and independent of the fever, or the uneasy nights, the capricious appetite, which hospital patients will not confess to the lassitude, whether it may be induced by or is connected with mark the period of incubation of fever, when it is the fever; too much caution cannot be used in ac- repeatedly found that tumors, emphysema, valvutively treating such cases, especially in the under- lar disease of the heart, and pleural effusion, have mined or shattered constitutions that form so large passed unnoticed by them. a proportion of hospital patients, or the poor in general. Such theoretical notions need not, however, embarrass practice; for it would seem that a disease In a literary point of view, the narrative of the did we even know what the disease was going to cannot be treated during its period of incubation, cases, as we have already said, is clear, full, and be: they should urge us to inquire more closely succinct the matter of the "clinical observations" into the reason why our remedies do not succeed in upon each case judicious; and the expression an individual case, to be more exact in their appliplain. In the introductory or closing observations cation, and to feel at times our own uncertainty. on each class of cases, Dr. Ormerod sometimes It is occasionally necessary to suspend all treatment manifests an ambition of largeness of grasp which the result fails to support. Part of this may be owing to the formality of the college still adhering to the bachelor of medicine: there is too much of the schools in his style, which is somewhat cumbrous and involved. From the nature of the book, it is of course rather professional than popular; but remarks may be found scattered through its pages that possess a general interest. The following observations on the premonitory symptoms which precede fever, and other complaints, is of this kind. It is not only medical men that can from their own experience recall several such cases;" perhaps few, except the very robust, but must have felt the restlessness, malaise, pain, and what not, that precede a more definite indisposition. It may be a satisfaction to such, if not a comfort, to learn that nothing can be done during the incubatory process-unless, indeed, in slight cases, the desperate remedy of a debauch! in order to a clear understanding of a case, and to withhold present relief from symptoms in order to their ultimate cure; but only on this consideration: for the study of disease must be subservient to the consideration that it is human life with which we have to do; and when we cannot see our way clearly, we must carefully feel it, that the patient may live or be at ease, for our knowledge must not guidance in the treatment of fever is simple: to do be bought by his pain or danger. The rule for our all that may be done to control painful or dangerous symptoms, keeping constantly in view that the patient may have to pass through a fortnight or more of a most exhausting disease, with all those specific local complications, the symptoms and treatment of which form so large and important a part of the subject of fever. the slave-trade. Jamaica, with nearly prohibitive duties on all coffee but West Indian, furnished our principal supply of this article. It exported From the Examiner. FUTURE PROSPECTS OF THE WEST INDIES. IT seems to us a conclusion inevitable, that the cultivation of the West Indies has, heretofore, been carried on at the cost of the people of this country. A monopoly was indispensable to it, Patients are sometimes admitted suffering from not only in sugar, but in every other kind of exwhat, after much puzzling, is set down as anomalous portable produce. Thus, with the cessation of prorheumatic pains. Treatment has little effect upon their ailment, as might be expected on such vaguetection, the growth of cotton and the manufacture indications; yet they are obviously ill. Rest, and of indigo perished in the West Indies, even during warmth, and time, are looked to for the accomplishment of the cure; and they do not fail us; for, in due time, fever or one of the exanthemata often makes its appearance, and then the patient with his fever, severe as it generally is, loses all his ail-18,000,000 lbs., which, with the loss of prohibments. Probably there are few who could not from their own experience recall several such cases, where an attack of this kind has swept away all sorts of ailments, and preceded an uninterrupted enjoyment of health; as, on the other hand, it is It is the same thing with cocoa. Under the sometimes its first breaking up. It is a very par- heavy weight of the protective duty, our whole tial view which always looks on acute disease as a consumption was West Indian, and by its removal sudden interruption of good health doubtless it often is so-the exanthemata themselves supply the we consume above "six times" the quantity that best example of this occurrence-but is it that acute the British West Indies ever produced, with or disease always engrafts itself on these anomalous without slavery or the slave-trade. The cultivasymptoms, or that in it the acute disease already |tion of tobacco as a staple never existed in our itive duty, has dwindled to 7,000,000, while our consumption has risen to 37,000,000 of pounds; a quantity far exceeding all that the British West Indies ever produced. |