Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 396, October 31, 1829», страница 4

THE RED SEA-PEN IS

Of a very beautiful appearance, and is found on the British coast. The animal consists of a flattened stem, or body, which is furnished with an internal bone, and dilates into an expanded part, consisting of several pinnae, or lateral branches, which are divided on their inner edges into a number of tubular processes, through each of which is protruded a part of the animal, resembling the head of a hydra or polype; the whole animal may, therefore, be considered as a very compound or ramified union of polypi, the bodies of which are contained in the naked part or stem, and from thence ramify into a vast number of processes, each furnished with its particular head. The animal emits a very strong phosphoric light, and it is even so luminous, that it is no uncommon circumstance for the fishermen to see the fish which happen to be swimming near it merely by the light of the Pens. Its colour is a bright red crimson, and the general size that of the figure.

Mr. Ellis, in the Philosophical Transactions, has published some specimens of this extraordinary animal, of a kidney-shaped form, and observes that it nourishes and supports itself by the succours of polype filaments, which we have expressed in the Engraving in a magnified size. By these they take in their food and discharge the exuviae. In case of danger these little succours are drawn in.

Sea Pens are termed locomotive zoophytes, and swim in the manner of fish. Five hundred polypes may frequently be numbered on a single feather; and they number among the most rare and interesting animals of the order to which they belong.

SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY

Vermin in Ships

Steam has been lately found very successful in cleansing ships from vermin, and especially the white ant. In India, a steam boat was lately placed alongside a merchant vessel, and steam from its boiler conveyed by a very simple system of pipes in the hold of the latter, the apertures to which were closed as well as they could be. The operation was continued for several hours; and there is reason to believe it was effectual, and will prove a valuable process in the navy. Besides the direct object of cleansing the ship, another advantage accrued from the discovery of every leaky place existing, by the oozing of the water through it. The expense is said to be very moderate; and it is further stated to be the only process at present known, not even except sinking, which effectually destroys the white ant.—Brande's Journal.

Agriculture

England possesses more pasture land than any other European country; and Spain the least.

In agriculture, France is a century behind England; and to equal England, France would have to make the immense progress which, since that time, has more than doubled the prosperity of the former country.

England not only surpasses France in the number of its cattle, but the animals are also finer, and their flesh is of better quality; so that an Englishman may enjoy nearly double the quantity of animal food that France supplies to each of its inhabitants, and with the further advantage of better quality. "Oh, the Roast Beef of Old England."

Indian Rouge

We find in Jameson's last Journal, a very interesting paper by Dr. Hancock, on a Red Pigment, called Carucru, or Chica, which appears to be the Rouge of the interior Indians. It is produced like Indigo, from the plant chiefly found towards the head of Essequibo, Parima, and Rio Negro. On breaking a branch, the leaves, when dry, become almost of a blood red, and being pounded, are infused in water till a fermentation ensues. The liquor is then poured off and left to deposit a settlement, which forms the Chica paint. It is put up very neatly in little caskets made with palm leaves, and carried by the Atorayas and trading Caribs all over Guiana. It has a soft, cochineal, crimson shade, and is in great demand among the Indians as an ornamental paint. The use is chiefly for the face, whilst they stain the other parts of the body with Arnotta. They also apply the Chica on the cheeks and about the eyes, and variegate the countenance by marking the forehead, and along the facial line, with their coomazu, a yellow clay or ochre. This manner of painting produces a striking contrast, and gives them a very strange and furious appearance.

From the scarcity of the Chica, its employment is almost exclusively confined to the chiefs and higher orders, their nobility. The rest must be contented with Arnotta, or Poncer mixed with the oil of Carapa, a portion of which, with the Balsam of Aracousiri, mixed with these paints, imparts to them a very delightful odour. The toilet, therefore, of the rude tribes is as simple as their manners and mode of life, their chief material being perfume, and all being carried in a little gourd.

The Chica is not merely esteemed as a pigment, but is considered in the Orinoko as the most sovereign remedy for erysipelas, where that complaint is very prevalent. It is simply made with water into a paste, thinly spread on old linen or cotton, and applied as a plaster to the inflamed part.—Abridged.

Indian Graters

The Tacumas (Indians) are the fabricators of those curious Cassada Graters, which are considered superior to all others by those who are acquainted with them. They are made of a very hard wood, studded over with pointed flint stones, and fixed by a kind of cement and varnish of surprising durability; the substance being at the same time a strong cement and transparent varnish. These Cassada Graters are scarcely, if at all, known on the coast, or in the European settlements.—Jameson's Journal.

Wild Bulls

In the province of San Martin, in South America, M. Roulier saw wild bulls feeding in the llanos among domestic cattle. These animals pass their morning in the woods, which cover the foot of the Cordillera, and come out only about two in the afternoon to feed in the savanna. The moment they perceive a man they gallop off to the woods.

Mount Souffre

During the eruption of this volcano in 1812, the explosions were heard at 600 or 700 miles distance; and cinders were taken from the deck of a vessel 150 miles distant.

Force of Running Water

In August, 1827, the small rivulet called the College, at the foot of the Cheviot Hills, was so swollen by the heavy rains, that the current tore away from the abutment of a mill dam, a large block of stone, weighing nearly two tons, and transported it to the distance of a quarter of a mile.

Cement

The large snails which are found in gardens and woods, discharge a whitish substance, with a slimy and gelatinous appearance, which has been known to cement two pieces of flint so strongly as to bear dashing on a pavement without the junction being disturbed, although the flint broke into fragments by fresh fractures.

Artificial Ice

A mixture of four ounces of nitrate of ammonia, four ounces of subcarbonate of soda, and four ounces of water, in a tin pail, has been found to produce ten ounces of ice in three hours.—Brande's Journal.

THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS

AN OLD MAN'S STORY

BY MARY HOWITT

 
There was an old and quiet man,
And by the fire sate he,
"And now," he said, "to you I'll tell
A dismal thing, which once befell
In a ship upon the sea.
 
 
'Tis five-and-fifty years gone by,
Since from the River Plate,
A young man, in a home-bound ship,
I sailed as second mate.
 
 
She was a trim, stout-timbered ship,
And built for stormy seas,
A lovely thing on the wave was she,
With her canvass set so gallantly
Before a steady breeze.
 
 
For forty days, like a winged thing
She went before the gale,
Nor all that time we slackened speed,
Turned helm, or altered sail.
 
 
She was a laden argosy
Of wealth from the Spanish Main,
And the treasure-hoards of a Portuguese
Returning home again.
 
 
An old and silent man was he,
And his face was yellow and lean.
In the golden lands of Mexico
A miner he had been.
 
 
His body was wasted, bent, and bowed,
And amid his gold he lay—
Amid iron chests that were bound with brass,
And he watched them night and day.
 
 
No word he spoke to any on board,
And his step was heavy and slow,
And all men deemed that an evil life
He had led in Mexico.
 
 
But list ye me—on the lone high seas,
As the ship went smoothly on,
It chanced, in the silent second watch,
I sate on the deck alone;
And I heard, from among those iron chests,
A sound like a dying groan.
 
 
I started to my feet—and lo!
The captain stood by me,
And he bore a body in his arms,
And dropped it in the sea.
 
 
I heard it drop into the sea,
With a heavy splashing sound,
And I saw the captain's bloody hands
As he quickly turned him round;
And he drew in his breath when me he saw
Like one convulsed, whom the withering awe
Of a spectre doth astound.
 
 
But I saw his white and palsied lips,
And the stare of his ghastly eye,
When he turned in hurried haste away,
Yet he had no power to fly;
He was chained to the deck with his heavy guilt,
And the blood that was not dry.
 
 
'Twas a cursed thing,' said I, 'to kill
That old man in his sleep!
And the plagues of the sea will come from him;
Ten thousand fathoms deep!
 
 
And the plagues of the storm will follow us,
For Heaven his groans hath heard!'
Still the captain's eye was fixed on me,
 
 
But he answered never a word.
And he slowly lifted his bloody hand
His aching eyes to shade,
But the blood that was wet did freeze his soul,
And he shrinked like one afraid.
And even then—that very hour
The wind dropped, and a spell
Was on the ship, was on the sea,
And we lay for weeks, how wearily,
Where the old man's body fell.
 
 
I told no one within the ship
That horrid deed of sin;
For I saw the hand of God at work,
And punishment begin.
 
 
And when they spoke of the murdered man,
And the El Dorado hoard,
They all surmised he had walked in dreams,
And had fallen overboard.
 
 
But I alone, and the murderer—
That dreadful thing did know,
How he lay in his sin, a murdered man,
A thousand fathom low.
 
 
And many days, and many more,
Came on, and lagging sped,
And the heavy waves of that sleeping sea
Were dark, like molten lead.
 
 
And not a breeze came, east or west,
And burning was the sky,
And stifling was each breath we drew
Of the air so hot and dry.
 
 
Oh me! there was a smell of death
Hung round us night and day;
And I dared not look in the sea below
Where the old man's body lay.
 
 
In his cabin, alone, the captain kept,
And he bolted fast the door,
And up and down the sailors walked,
And wished that the calm was o'er.
 
 
The captain's son was on board with us,
A fair child, seven years old,
With a merry look that all men loved,
And a spirit kind and bold.
 
 
I loved the child, and I took his hand,
And made him kneel and pray
That the crime; for which the calm was sent,
Might be purged clean away.
 
 
For I thought that God would hear his prayer,
And set the vessel free,—
For a dreadful thing it was to lie
Upon that charnel sea.
 
 
Yet I told him not wherefore he prayed,
Nor why the calm was sent
I would not give that knowledge dark
To a soul so innocent.
 
 
At length I saw a little cloud
Arise in that sky of flame,
A little cloud—but it grew and grew,
And blackened as it came.
 
 
And we saw the sea beneath its track
Grow dark as the frowning sky,
And water-spouts, with a rushing sound,
Like giants, passed us by.
 
 
And all around, 'twixt sky and sea,
A hollow wind did blow;
And the waves were heaved from the ocean depths,
And the ship rocked to and fro.
 
 
I knew it was that fierce death-calm
Its horrid hold undoing,
And I saw the plagues of wind and storm
Their missioned work pursuing.
 
 
There was a yell in the gathering winds,
A groan in the heaving sea,
And the captain rushed from the hold below,
But he durst not look on me.
 
 
He seized each rope with a madman's haste,
And he set the helm to go,
And every sail he crowded on
As the furious winds did blow.
 
 
And away they went, like autumn leaves
Before the tempest's rout,
And the naked masts with a crash came down,
And the wild ship tossed about.
 
 
The men, to spars and splintered boards,
Clung, till their strength was gone,
And I saw them from their feeble hold
Washed over one by one.
 
 
And 'mid the creaking timber's din,
And the roaring of the sea,
I heard the dismal, drowning cries
Of their last agony.
 
 
There was a curse in the wind that blew,
A curse in the boiling wave;
And the captain knew that vengeance came
From the old man's ocean grave.
 
 
And I heard him say, as he sate apart,
In a hollow voice and low,
'Tis a cry of blood doth follow us,
And still doth plague us so!'
 
 
And then those heavy iron chests
With desperate strength took he,
And ten of the strongest mariners
Did cast them into the sea.
 
 
And out, from the bottom of the sea,
There came a hollow groan;—
The captain by the gunwale stood,
And he looked like icy stone—
And he drew in his breath with a gasping sob,
And a spasm of death came on.
 
 
And a furious boiling wave rose up,
With a rushing, thundering roar,—
I saw the captain fall to the deck,
But I never saw him more.
 
 
Two days before, when the storm began,
We were forty men and five,
But ere the middle of that night
There were but two alive.
 
 
The child and I, we were but two,
And he clung to me in fear;
Oh! it was pitiful to see
That meek child in his misery,
And his little prayers to hear!
 
 
At length, as if his prayers were heard,
'Twas calmer, and anon
The clear sun shone, and warm and low
A steady wind from the west did blow,
And drove us gently on.
 
 
And on we drove, and on we drove,
That fair young child and I,
But his heart was as a man's in strength,