The best work upon Australia-the most full, and in every respect the most interesting and reliable is the volume bearing the somewhat quaint but expressive title, Land, Labor, and Gold. William Howitt is the author, and the interest of the volume is vouched for. The work was written upon the field it describes. It is picturesque and amusing, and yet full of instruction.

Our old physicians are adding to the obligations which our community owe, and love to

writing out the lessons of their experience for their successors. Dr. Warren has appeared in print several times; and now Dr. James Jackson, M. D., LL. D., whose practice began with the nineteenth century, has written a volume entitled Letters to a Young Physician just Entering upon Practice. Apparently professional in their application, the letters are so divested of a technical character as to be full of interest and instruction to all. Every intelligent head of a family would receive invaluable aid from its suggestions.

A NEW WORK, entitled "Cyclopædia of American Literature," prepared by the Messrs. Duyckinck, will be issued immediately from the press of Charles Scribner, of this city. It consists of biographical and critical articles on the authors of America from the earliest date to

the present day, accompanied by selections from their writings. As it covers the early colonial period from the first settlement of the country, and is especially attentive to the Revolutionary era, the work supplies much curious reading of an historical interest. The Cyclopædia also contains notices of the foreign authors of worth and distinction who have taken up their residences in the country. The work will be embraced in two royal octavo volumes, making together some fifteen hundred pages, and will be well illustrated with portraits and autographs.

Macaulay, the historian, has presented an extensive and valuable donation of books to the library of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, of which he is president. The collection, which is elegantly bound, embraces some of the most important works in English history and literature.

The City Council of Concord, N. H., have passed an ordinance for the establishment and perpetual maintenance of a public library. A pledge made by John L. Emmons, Esq., of Boston, a native of Concord, will give $1,000 to start with; and $300 is promised by Octavius Rogers, Esq., besides many donations of books and money from benevolent and patriotic persons. The Council appropriates, in addition to the above, $15,000 for the purchase of library furniture and books.

Five thousand documents have already been transcribed by the commissioners appointed to collect and publish the entire writings of Napoleon. The most interesting of these contributions-because the least known-are those written while the hero of Austerlitz held inferior rank in the army. Numbers of letters written during the early portion of his career have been sent to the Imperial Commission. Many of them were addressed to people who were almost unknown, and were treasured by them after the writer had become celebrated. Of these contributions the most remarkable are

A literary discovery of interest has lately been made. It comprises above a hundred letters of James Boswell, principally addressed to his friend, the Rev. William Templer, rector of St. Gluvias, in Cornwall, whose name is mentioned three or four times in the Life of Johnson. They were rescued some years ago from the hands of a shopkeeper in France, with a mass of other correspondence of less importance, addressed to this Mr. Templer, but have Preparations are now being made for their pubnot been thoroughly examined until lately.

lication.

The Works of Professor Wilson, "Noctes Ambrosianæ," edited by his son-in-law, Professor Ferrier, have just been republished in London. There is little doubt but that they will, in their new form, command as wide a circulation as when their wit and wisdom first attracted the literary world.

The first volume of a History of the United States, from the first efforts at colonization to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, by a French author, has been published in Paris, The work is favorably reviewed in the Athenæum Français.

M. Didot, the well-known French publisher, issued a short time since a pamphlet against a projected paper-duty in France. "In 1340," says M. Didot, "King Philip ordered that paper and books, being indispensable to pupils, should be exempt from duty. King John, in 1360, confirmed that privilege; and afterward Louis XII. and François I. declared books exempt from every kind of impost. Henry II., in 1552, ordered that there should always be in France a special favor shown to paper; and in 1789, when an attempt was made to introduce a paper-duty, the idea was so unpopular that the proposed plan came to nothing."

York.-A beautiful portrait of Washington, woven in silk and neatly framed, has been received from a commercial house in Lyons, France, for presentation to the city of New-York. As it appears in the gilt frame, which is surmounted with an eagle, it is about three feet high and two feet wide. It was copied from an engraving by Stuart, and two years have been occupied in its manufacture, as it has to pass through the hands of several artists. The expense of getting up one of these portraits is from $5,000 to $20,000-consequently few only are ever made, and these to exhibit the degree of refinement of which this loom is capable, in the hands of French artists. The loom itself is a wonderful and complicated piece of mechanism, and in its more common and practical uses, in silk and other manufacture, is of immense and inestimable value in fabricating silk and worsted goods.

The

The city of Lyons is the great silk work-shop of the world. The richest silk manufactures are made here. The city of Lyons, though second to Paris in population, is the first in France in her manufactures and artistic productions. She works 70,000 looms, and gives employment to nearly 200,000 artisans. raw material is brought from India, Africa, Italy, and the South of France. The rich figured and brocade silks and other stuffs are now made on the Jacquard loom. Jacquard himself was a native of Lyons, and his wonderful invention produced an entire revolution in the manufacture of those rich and expensive goods. On this loom are also made, as specimens of art, and for the court families of Europe, and not as articles of commerce and trade, portraits of individuals. Very few of these have ever been manufactured, as time, labor, and expense are too great to allow them to become subjects of commercial traffic.

The well-known German naturalists, Messrs. Wagner and Scherzer, who have just terminated a complete scientific exploration of the two Americas, including Jamaica, Hayti, and Cuba, are about to publish an account of it, and of the collections of plants, animals, birds, and reptiles, which they found in the course of it. Statuary at the Mercantile Library Readingrooms. Two fine pieces of statuary have recently been placed in the reading-room of the Mercantile Library. They are from the chisel of Mr. J. Mozier, an American artist, and are named

respectively "Truth" and "Silence." The former represents a female figure, with a sword in one hand, while the other holds up the drapery with falls in graceful folds about her person. At her feet lays a mask, apparently just struck from her face by a sword. The whole figure and attitude is defiant, and typifies Truth not as "crushed to earth," but as advancing with steady step to overthrow and exterminate error. "Silence" is also represented by a female figure, with one finger placed on the closed lips, implying attention and warning, while the other

been presented to the Association by Mr. Henry A. Stone, of Boston. They are well placed, with a back ground of dark maroon velvet, which brings the white marble into fine relief.

The University of Königsberg intends to erect a monument to the philosopher Kant, once the is to be a statue in bronze, and will be placed great ornament of that learned institution. It on the daily promenade of the great man, which, after him, has been called "der Philosophensteig" (the Philosopher's Path). Prof. Rauch,

of Berlin, has almost finished the model. The statue is to be eight feet high, and will represent the philosopher in the costume of his time.

A French chemist has invented a machine for making water boil without fire. Friction is the means employed instead of fuel.

in course of experiment at Tunbridge a process Sir Robert Merchison, the eminent savan, has for almost instantly changing the softest stone into an imperishable rock. The carver would thus have all the advantage of soft stone in his almost indestructible. work, and when finished it might be rendered

A new light has been thrown on an interesting question of chemistry by M. Deville, the producer of aluminum. Silicon, as is pretty well known, is supposed to be condensed carbon. M. Deville points out the relation between the two; and taking chloride and fluoride of silicon, and treating them at different temperatures, he gets carbon in three distinct formsas ordinary coal, as graphite, and, third, as a crystalline substance, hard enough to cut glass. Of the latter, he exhibited a large crystal to the Académie des Sciences at Paris. Should these experiments bear the test of further trial and repetition, we shall have as a fact what has, from time to time, passed through the world of science as a rumor, causing no little excite

ment.

By way

A paper was lately read before an English association of civil engineers, on the economic distribution of material on the sides or vertical portion of wrought-iron beams. of illustration, reference was made to the railway suspension-bridge, of 882 feet span, across the Niagara river, at a height of 350 feet above the water. This bridge is said by some to settle the question as to the possibility of running heavy trains on an ordinary suspended roadway. It hangs by four cables, each containing 3,640 wires, and estimated to be altogether a weight of 7,060 tons. The first train that passed over weighed 366 tons. It produced a deflection of one foot, but very little undulation.

The Russian system of telegraphs has been so improved by Siemens, of Berlin, that dispatches can be flashed from a distance, and printed in the ordinary typographical character, instead of dots and dashes. He has also proved, what

was for a long time doubted, that signals can be sent from opposite ends of a wire at the same time without interference; so that a second signal may be forwarded while the receiver of the first is acknowledging its reception. The essential condition appears to be, that the two opposing currents shall be absolutely equal; and this is measured and determined by a newly invented instrument called an agometer. The same fact of double transmission has been for some time known to experimentalists in this country.

Experiments have recently been made by a committee of scientific gentlemen, to ascertain the porosity of marble. This was accomplished by heating a cube of the material in a bath of oil, weighing it, and then placing it in an airpump, exhausting the air, and then allowing a current of water to pass in from a large chamber, with a force of about fifteen pounds to the square inch. This question of the absorption of water is important, as illustrating in some measure the action of frost upon marbles. The marble chosen was from Lee, Mass., the principal ingredients of which are found, on analysis, to be carbonate of lime and magnesia.

A monument has been erected at St. Petersburgh to the Russian fable-writer, Krylow, (born 1768, died 1844.) It is a colossal "sic sedebat" statue of the poet, surrounded by allegorical groups of animals, and has been modeled by the well-known Russian sculptor, Baron Kloots.

Professor Pierce, of Harvard College, is said to be of the opinion that the zodiacal light is occasioned by a nebulous ring around the earth; also, that the earth has many satellites, though too small to be seen, and that these satellites furnish the meteors which fall to the earth.

Prince Albert has suggested, in a letter to the Council of the Society of Arts, the propriety of their visiting the Paris Exhibition, accompanied by the associated institutions, now amounting to nearly four hundred. The Council of the Society of Arts are now making arrangements to carry out the plans recommended by the prince-president of the society.

It has been lately proposed, by some scientific gentlemen, to organize a new American Scientific Association, on a more select and exclusive plan than the one now in existence.

A new mezzotint engraving called the "American Christian Union" has just been published. The scene appears to be the interior of a church, with a congregation of distinguished divines of all evangelical denominations. Bishop Wainwright is presiding, with the familiar figure of Dr. Cox conspicuously holding forth, while some forty of the leading clergymen of the present day are seated at the right and left. Among them are Drs. Ferris, Krebs, Tyng, Spring, Spencer, Cone, H. W. Beecher, L. Beecher, Bishop Waugh, Bishop Coskry, Rev. E. N. Kirk, and others.

Geologists are accumulating facts concerning the earthquakes in Turkey and the eruption of Vesuvius. As regards the mountain, it appears from a report by Professor Palmieri, of the Observatory at Naples, that the magnets were unusually disturbed on the 29th of April, still

more so on the 30th, and the next day the eruption took place. Thus the magnet is now ascertained to indicate the approach of a volcanic outburst as well as an earthquake.

Scientific investigation shows that flints are formed from sponges. Imbedded in the substance of chalk, which, during long periods, by its accumulation, had continued to overwhelm successive generations of marine animals, the sponge have remained for centuries exposed to the water that continually percolates such strata-water which contains silicious matter in solution. The silicious spicula, that originally constituted the framework of the sponge, forms nuclei around which kindred atoms constantly accumulate, until the entire mass is at last converted into flint.

Parisian Telegraphs.-In Paris the telegraph wires are laid under ground, no poles being seen in the streets. A trench is dug twelve or fifteen inches wide, in which the wires are placed side by side, but so as not to touch each other. Liquid bitumen is then poured on, which them. It secures them from damage by accident surrounds the wires, and completely isolates or design, and from being deranged by atmospheric influence. The same plan is to be adopted at Lyons.

for some time investigating the phenomena of Lauberg, the German chemist, who has been terrestrial magnetism, sees reason to conclude that the greatest magnetic induction, as demonstrated by the records of observatories in all parts of the world, takes place sixteen days after the two solstices-in the northern hemisphere at one period, in the southern at the other. He shows that at those two periods the poles of the earth are so placed as to become subject to the greatest amount of influence from the sun. These facts assort well

with what is known respecting another phenomenon-namely, that the aurora has a marked maximum at the equinoxes, and as strongly marked a minimum at the solstices. So far as is yet ascertained, the phenomena are dependent on the position of the poles and axis of the earth relatively to each other; and slowly we are beginning to be able to trace something like cause and effect in the mysterious phenomena of terrestrial magnetism.

Newton and Leibnitz.-Sir D. Brewster has taken great pains to investigate the claims advanced by the friends of Newton and Leibnitz to the invention of the Differential Calculus, upon which, after the lapse of nearly two hundred years, a verdict has not yet been pronounced. Our author, however, conceives that it is not difficult to form a correct estimate of the claims of the rival analysts, and arrives at the following results :-"1. That Newton was the first inventor of the method of Fluxion; that the method was incomplete in its motion; and that the fundamental principle of it was not published to the world till 1687, twenty years after he had invented it. 2. That Leibnitz communicated to Newton (1677) his Differential Calculus, with a complete system of notation, and that he published it in 1684, three years before the publication of Newton's method."