Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 575, November 10, 1832», страница 4

Buffon, Latham, and Gmelin have three species of Dodo, while we find it difficult to establish the existence of one. Indeed, it is improbable that the three islands of the Mauritius group possessed each a distinct type of so singular and unique a bird.

MOUNT ARARAT

Ararat is celebrated as the resting-place of Noah's ark after the Deluge, and as the spot whence the descendants of Noah peopled the earth. It rises on the Persian frontier, on a large plain, detached, as it were, from the other mountains of Armenia, which make a long chain. It consists, properly speaking, of two hills—the highest of which, where the ark is said to have rested,¹⁸ is, according to Parrot, 2,700 toises, or 17,718 feet above the level of the ocean.¹⁹ The summit is covered with perpetual snow; the lower parts are composed of a deep, moving sand; and one side presents a vast chasm tinged with smoke, from which flames have been known to issue.

Mount Ararat, from a drawing, by Sir Robert Ker Porter.

Perhaps the most recent visit to this wonder of the East will be found described in Mr. J.H. Stocqueler's Journal of Fifteen Months' Pilgrimage through untrodden Tracts of Khuzistan and Persia, in 1831 and 1832:—

"We mounted our horses," says the enthusiastic traveller, "soon after sunrise, and had proceeded for about four hours over numerous acclivities, and through a territory of undulations resembling the waves of the sea deprived of motion, when the southern peak of Ararat (for there are two), snow-clad and 'cloud-clapt' suddenly burst upon my view! At first I scarcely dared venture to believe we were so near this celebrated mount, though its situation and the distance we had journeyed from Tabreez left no doubt of the fact. I even questioned the guide, and on his answering that it was the summit of Agri-Dagh (the name by which Ararat is called by the Turks), I involuntarily clasped my hands in ecstacy! Who can contemplate this superb elevation without a mixture of awe and admiration, or fail to recur to the page of sacred writ illustrative of Almighty wrath and the just man's recompense? Who can gaze upon the majesty of this mount, towering above the 'high places' and the hills, and turn without repining to the plains beneath, where puny man has pitched his tent and wars upon his fellow, mocking the sublimity of Nature with his paltry tyranny? I felt as if I lived in other times, and my eye eagerly but vainly sought for some traces of that 'ark' which furnished a refuge and a shelter to the creatures of God's mercy when the 'waters prevailed, and were increased greatly on the earth,' till 'all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, and all that was in the dry land, died!'

"Though distant forty miles at least from the base of Ararat, the magnitude of the mountain, of about the centre of which our elevated position now placed us abreast, caused it to appear contiguous to our route, and produced that indefinable thrill and sense of humility which the immediate presence of any vast and overpowering object is so eminently calculated to generate. I continued to gaze until the decline of day warned us to seek a shelter, and Phoebus, casting a parting glance at the crystal summit of the noble glacier, for a moment diffused over all a soft rosy tint,²⁰ then sunk into the west and left the world in darkness."

NUTRIA FUR

(To the Editor.)

I read with much pleasure the article in your Number, 574, on Nutria Fur: it was, to me, particularly acceptable, as I have been connected for the last ten years with an establishment where, on an average, 150,000 Nutria Skins are annually manufactured, and the wool cut for the use of hatters. I have searched every book of travels in Brazil, &c., that I could procure, and the chief English works on zoology, without being able to gather any description of the scientific name or habits of the animal. All the information I could collect was from the captains of various vessels that had visited Buenos Ayres, and brought cargoes of skins; but their accounts were extremely vague and unsatisfactory.

I perceive, however, that you have overlooked a peculiarity generally attributed to the animal, which, if true, is, in my opinion, deserving notice: viz.—the position of the female's teats, which are not placed on the belly, as with most animals, but on the side, approaching to the back, by which means it is enabled to suckle its young on both sides at once, whilst swimming on the surface of the water; and it presents, I have understood, a singular group to the observant traveller.

I have sent the skin of a female Nutria herewith, for your inspection, as regards the teats, &c. (from which the fur has been cut by machinery,) with a small sample of the belly fur, prepared for the covering of a hat; the wholesale price of the latter is now three guineas per lb.: it is used as a substitute for beaver-wool on second-rate hats. Our French correspondents term the skins "Ratgondin."

BENJAMIN NORRIS, JUN.

Windsor Place, Southwark Bridge Road.

*** We thank our intelligent correspondent for this communication, as well as for the skin and fur. The skin is rather above the usual size: its length is 26 inches, the tail being cut off; as is always done before the skins are exported: the width of the skin is 15 inches; the teats, nine in number, are in two rows, each row being about 2-1/2 inches from the centre of the back, and about 5 inches from the centre of the belly; so that they are, as our correspondent observes, on the side, approaching to the back nearer by half than to the belly. This position of the teats appears to correspond with the animal's habit of suckling its young whilst swimming.

THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

THE CHOLERA MOUNT

Lines on the Burying-Place for Patients who have Died of Cholera; a pleasant eminence in Sheffield Park.

By James Montgomery, Esq

 
In death divided from their dearest kin,
This is "a field to bury strangers in:"
Fragments lie here of families bereft,
Like limbs in battle-grounds by warriors left;
A sad community!—whose very bones
Might feel, methinks, a pang to quicken stones,
And make them from the depths of darkness cry,
"Oh! is it naught to you, ye passers by!
When from its earthly house the spirit fled,
Our dust might not be 'free among the dead?'
Ah! why were we to this Siberia sent,
Doom'd in the grave itself to banishment?"
 
 
Shuddering humanity asks—"Who are these?
And what their sin?"—They fell by one disease!
(Not by the Proteus maladies, that strike
Man into nothingness—not twice alike;)
By the blue pest, whose gripe no art can shun,
No force unwrench—out-singled one by one;
When like a timeless birth, the womb of Fate
Bore a new death, of unrecorded date,
And doubtful name. Far east its race begun,
Thence round the world pursued the westering sun;
The ghosts of millions following at its back,
Whose desecrated graves betray'd their track;
On Albion's shore, unseen, the invader stept;
Secret, and swift, and terrible it crept;
At noon, at midnight, seized the weak, the strong,
Asleep, awake, alone, amidst the throng,
Kill'd like a murder; fix'd its icy hold,
And wrung out life with agony of cold;
Nor stay'd its vengeance where it crush'd the prey,
But set a mark, like Cain's, upon their clay,
And this tremendous seal impress'd on all,
"Bury me out of sight, and out of call."
 
 
Wherefore no filial foot this turf may tread,
No kneeling mother clasp her baby's bed;
No maiden unespoused, with widow'd sighs,
Seek her soul's treasure where her true-love lies;
—All stand aloof, and gazing from afar,
Look on this mount as on some baleful star,
Strange to the heavens, that with bewildering light,
Like a lost spirit, wanders through the night.
 
 
Yet many a mourner weeps her fall'n estate,
In many a home by them left desolate;
Once warm with love, and radiant with the smiles
Of woman, watching infants at their wiles,
Whose eye of thought, while now they throng her knees,
Pictures far other scene than that she sees,
For one is wanting—one, for whose dear sake,
Her heart with very tenderness would ache,
As now with anguish—doubled when she spies
In this his lineaments, in that his eyes,
In each his image with her own commix'd,
And there at least, for life, their union fix'd!
 
 
Humanity again asks, "Who are these?
And what their sin?"—They fell by one disease!
But when they knock'd for entrance at the tomb,
Their fathers' bones refused to make them room;
Recoiling Nature from their presence fled,
As though a thunder-bolt had struck them dead;
Their cries pursued her with the thrilling plea,
"Give us a little earth for charity!"
She linger'd, listen'd; all her bosom yearn'd;
The mother's pulse through every vein return'd;
Then, as she halted on this hill, she threw
Her mantle wide, and loose her tresses flew.
"Live!" to the slain she cried: "My children live!
This for an heritage to you I give;
Had Death consumed you by the common lot
Ye, with the multitude, had been forgot;
Now through an age of ages ye shall not."
 
 
Thus Nature spake;—and as her echo, I
Take up her parable, and prophesy:
Here, as from spring to spring the swallows pass,
Perennial daisies shall adorn the grass;
Here the shrill skylark build her annual nest,
And sing in heaven, while you serenely rest;
On trembling dewdrops morn's first glance shall shine,
Eve's latest beams on this fair bank decline,
And oft the rainbow steal through light and gloom,
To throw its sudden arch across your tomb;
On you the moon her sweetest influence shower,
And every planet bless you in its hour.
With statelier honours still, in Time's slow round,
Shall this sepulchral eminence be crown'd;
Where generations long to come shall hail
The growth of centuries waving in the gale,
A forest landmark, on the mountain's head,
Standing betwixt the living and the dead;
Nor, while your language lasts, shall travellers cease
To say, at sight of your memorial, "Peace!"
Your voice of silence answering from the sod,
"Whoe'er thou art, prepare to meet thy God!"
 

Blackwood's Magazine.

THE STEAM ENGINE SIMPLIFIED

It is a universal property of matter, that by the application of heat, so as to raise its temperature, it suffers an increase in its magnitude. Also in different substances, when certain temperatures are attained by the application of fire, or other methods of heating, they undergo a change of form. Solids, at certain temperatures, are converted into liquids; and liquids, in like manner, when heated to certain degrees, become aeriform fluids or gases. These changes are familiar to every one in the ordinary phenomena attending water. Below the temperature of 32° of the common thermometer, that substance exists in the solid form, and is called ice. Above that temperature it passes into the liquid state, and is called water; and when raised to the temperature of 212°, under ordinary circumstances, it passes into the aeriform state, and is called steam. It is to this last change that we wish at present principally to call the attention of the reader. In the transition of water from the liquid state to the state of vapour or steam, an immense change of bulk takes place. In this change, a solid inch of water enlarges its size about 1,700 times, and forms 1,700 solid inches of steam. This expansion takes place accompanied with a certain force or pressure, by which the vapour has a tendency to burst the bounds of any vessel which contains it. The steam which fills 1,700 solid inches at the temperature of 212°, will, if cooled below that temperature, return to the liquid form, and occupy only one solid inch, leaving 1,699 solid inches vacant; and, if it be included in a close vessel, leaving the surfaces of that vessel free from the internal pressure to which they were subject before the return of the water to the liquid form. If it be possible, therefore, alternately to convert water into vapour by heat, and to reconvert the vapour into water by cold, we shall be enabled alternately to submit any surface to a pressure equal to the elastic force of the steam, and to relieve it from that pressure, so as to permit it to move in obedience to any other force which may act upon it. Or again, suppose that we are enabled to expose one side of a movable body to the action of water converted into steam, at the moment that we relieve the other side from the like pressure by reconverting the steam which acts upon it into water, the movable body will be impelled by the unresisted pressure of the steam on one side. When it has moved a certain distance in obedience to this force, let us suppose that the effects are reversed. Let the steam which pressed it forwards be now reconverted into water, so as to have its action suspended; and at the same moment, let steam raised from water by heat be caused to act on the other side of the movable body; the consequence will obviously be, that it will now change the direction of its motion, and return in obedience to the pressure excited on the opposite side. Such is, in fact, the operation of an ordinary low-pressure steam-engine. The piston or plug which plays in the cylinder is the movable to which we have referred. The vapour of water is introduced upon one side of that piston at the moment that a similar vapour is converted into water on the other side, and the piston moves by the unresisted action of the steam. When it has arrived at the extremity of the cylinder, the steam which just urged it forwards is reconverted into water, and the piston is relieved from its action. At the same moment, a fresh supply of steam is introduced upon the other side of the piston, and its pressure causes the piston to be moved in a direction contrary to its former motion. Thus the piston is moved in the cylinder alternately in the one direction and in the other, with a force equivalent to the pressure of the steam which acts upon it. A strong metal rod proceeds from this piston, and communicates with proper machinery, by which the alternate motion of the piston backwards and forwards, or upwards and downwards, in the cylinder, may be communicated to whatever body is intended to be moved.

The power of such a machine will obviously depend partly on the magnitude of the piston or the movable surface which is exposed to the action of the steam, and partly on the pressure of the steam itself. The object of converting the steam into water by cold, upon that side of the piston towards which the motion takes place, is to relieve the piston from all resistance to the moving power. This renders it unnecessary to use steam of a very high pressure, inasmuch as it will have no resistance to overcome, except the friction of the piston with the cylinder, and the ordinary resistance of the load which it may have to move. Engines constructed upon this principle, not requiring, therefore, steam of a great pressure, have been generally called "low-pressure engines." The re-conversion of the steam into water requires a constant and abundant supply of cold water, and a fit apparatus for carrying away the water which becomes heated, by cooling the steam, and for supplying its place by a fresh quantity of cold water. It is obvious that such an apparatus is incompatible with great simplicity and lightness, nor can it be applied to cases where the engine is worked under circumstances in which a fresh supply of water cannot be had.