From Chambers's Journal.

SCIENCE AND ARTS FOR FEBRUARY.

As the year advances, the great International Exhibition grows more and more into the proportions of a great fact. In clear weather, strollers in Hyde Park can see the domes of the vast building rising in the southern sky, and hear a multitudinous noise of hammers; and vehicles may be seen on the way to Brompton laden with elements of the forthcoming display. France, it is said, will outdo her former effort, and present such a spectacle of art and manufacture, taste and design, as will astonish all beholders. Among the contributions from our Australian colony of Victoria will be an obelisk, dead gilt, forty-two feet in height, and ten feet square at the base, intended to represent the eight hundred tons of gold raised within that colony in the ten years 1851-1861; a quantity worth £104,000,000 sterling. Among the objects of art there will appear the bronze statue of Wedgewood, which has been recently cast to be set up as a memorial of the eminent potter at Etruria in the Potteries, after the close of the Exhibition.

|London, especially as the news is current in Liverpool before it is known in the metropolis; and the consequence is, that a new telegraph line is to be established from Queenstown to London direct, crossing Ireland to Wexford, and thence by submarine cable to Milford Haven. The cable is to be of the kind manufactured by Messrs. Silver, coated with india-rubber, which, as experience proves, is a better insulator than gutta-percha. By the completion of this line, as we hear, American news will be known in London five hours earlier than at present.

The Warrior is now going to sea in earnest, and ere long it will be known how she has behaved in a voyage from England to the Mediterranean. Some such test as this was required before a conclusive opinion could be given as to her seaworthiness, or her steaming or sailing qualities. It is said that a change in the method of steering is essential for ships of such great length and weight, and that it will be found need ful to place a rudder at the head as well as the stern. This method answers well in the long transport vessels recently introduced on the Indus and other rivers in India. There is some talk of doing the steering by one of Armstrong's hydraulic machines, which is perfectly under control, and being worked by cold water, involves no risk of explosion. Another proposition is to light the inside of the great ship with gas, and to make the electric light available for signals. The suggestion of these improvements shows that progress will be made in the building and fitting of what some future poet will describe as our iron walls. Papers on the subject have been read at the United Service Institution; and Mr. Samuda has brought a paper before the Institution of Civil Engineers, "On the Form and Materials for Iron-plated Ships."

The Horticultural Society are striving to improve their opportunity, and have announced eight shows to be held during the season, at which two thousand guineas will be given away in prizes. The shows are to comprise not flowers merely, but useful things, cereals and edible roots, whereby it is hoped alimentary resources may be increased. There is talk of a further attraction in the shape of a visitation by foreign bands of military music, among whom, by permission of the Emperor of Austria, will appear the famous Wellington band from Vienna. The last part of the Proceedings of the Horticultural Society contains a report on one hundred and eighteen varieties of cucumbers grown in the garden at Chiswick in 1861. This large number will prob- As regards the materials for ship-building, ably surprise most readers: it was, however, there is something fresh to be said. We resolved by experiment into thirty-four hear from the other side of the Atlantic of sorts only which are fit for cultivation. The iron containing an alloy of manganese and best of the non-glaucous sorts is Carter's zinc, which is so hard that no file will Champion; and the best of the glaucous bears the name of Dr. Livingstone.

Dissatisfaction has been often expressed at the length of time which elapses between the reception of American news at Queenstown and the arrival of the telegrams in

touch it; while here, at Sheffield, results have been arrived at in the manufacture of iron and steel, which a few years ago would have been thought incredible. Mr. Bessemer now casts an ingot of steel, which when hammered and rolled to the required length,

is converted into a railway bar, weighing | building-stone have been for some time beeighty-four pounds to the yard, superior in fore the public; he has now gone a step quality to case-hardened or steel-faced bars. further, and has succeeded in manufacturThese latter are liable to crack and laminate, ing an indestructible stone from a mixture but the homogeneous steel, as Mr. Besse- of sand, chalk, and other substances moismer's metal is called, is tough and ductile, tened with silicate of potash. The claylike and has a tensile strength of forty tons to substance thus produced is formed into the square inch. It is the opinion of bricks or slabs; these are washed over with practical men, that all the railways in a solution of chloride of calcium, and the the kingdom will, in course of years, be operation is complete. No baking or dryrelaid with steel rails. A beginning has ing is necessary; the bricks and slabs harbeen made on some lines at stations and den to the utmost degree, and without warpplaces where the wear is greatest; and the ing or twisting. So, if a thin coat be steel rails, after nearly a year of service, are spread on any exposed surface with a trowel, found to be scarcely inferior to new. Ordi- and similarly treated, it hardens in the same nary rails and points, in similar circum- way. Dr. Frankland, F.R.S., a firstrate stances, require renewing four times a year. authority, states that Mr. Ransome's stone The places referred to are the Pimlico sta- is harder and more durable than any buildtion, some parts of the London and North- ing-stone now used, except some of the Western, and of the Caledonian Railway. granites and primary rocks. This exceedingly durable metal will no doubt be properly considered in the new course of experiments on the strongest material for biological science as well as to astronomy; ships' sides about to be instituted; and it ought not to be lost sight of in discussions on the means of lessening the risk of railway travelling. The Society of Arts have given an evening to the consideration of railway management, as looked at from the passengers' point of view; and The Quarterly, in a long article, has helped to keep the question afloat.

Among the operations carried on at Sheffield, Mr. Bessemer has shown that the manufacture of great guns is a comparatively quick process. He filled his "converting vessel" with melted pig-iron at 11.20 in the forenoon; in thirty minutes, it was converted into fluid steel, and cast in an iron mould four feet long, and sixteen inches square, from which it was taken and forged while still hot; and at seven o'clock in the evening the gun was shaped, and ready for the boring-mill.

Dr. M'Vicar has written a paper to show that geometrical laws may be applied to

and to illustrate his argument he brings forward the various forms assumed by animals during hybernation, the forms in which animal and vegetable organisms are developed and matured, and shows how widely the spherical form prevails. The sphere exposes the smallest number of its parts to external influences, and secludes and protects within itself the largest number. Animals, during sleep and hybernation, assume an approximation to a spherical form; hence, from these and other phenomena, the doctor considers that he demonstrates his argument, and the value and applicability of geometry in the science of life.

The important palæontological question which has been much discussed of late by naturalists is now attracting attention in the far north. Professor Karl von Baer, member of the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg, has laid a paper before that learned It appears that cast-steel bells are grow- body, on the extinction of animal species ing more and more into use. In Russia from the physiological and non-physiologiand Canada, where the winters are intensely cal point of view, and particularly on the cold, cast-steel bells are preferred for disappearance of species contemporary with churches and public buildings, as they do not crack when struck, even with the temperature below zero; a degree of cold which is often fatal to ordinary bells.

What Mr. Bessemer has done for iron, Mr. Ransome of Ipswich has done for stone. His experiments and method of preserving

man. Those who have paid attention to this important subject will be able to form some notion of the significance of the professor's proposition. Another paper by the same hand is on a new project for the establishment of oyster-beds on the Russian shores of the Baltic, from which we gather

that Russia is about to imitate the good parliamentary grant of £1000 to the Astrowork which has been so successfully begun nomical Society, is to be expended in estabin England and France in the acclimatiza- lishing a hill observatory near Poonah. tion and multiplication of fish. The Swedish exploring expedition to

M. Struve, the Russian astronomer-royal, Spitzbergen has confirmed the observations declares that the great arc of the meridian of Sir John Ross and Sir Leopold M'Clinmeasured in Russia will have to be remeas-tock, that animal life is to be found in the ured before its exactitude will satisfy the requirements of modern science, because, during the measuring, no allowance was made for the disturbing effects of mountain masses on the instruments employed. This disturbing effect was hardly considered until a few years ago, when Archdeacon Pratt of Calcutta investigated it, and communicated the results to the Royal Society in elaborate papers which have been published in the Philosophical Transactions. We also hear that the Indian arc, surveyed by Colonel Lambton, will have to be remeasured, with instruments of the present day, which are better fitted for the work than were those manufactured half a century ago. Sir Andrew Waugh's Report on the latest operations in India has just been published as a blue-book; in looking through it, we notice a particular concerning cost which is worth attention. The surveying of the mountain regions of the Himalaya was accomplished at a cost of eight shillings a square mile; a sum remarkably insignificant when the danger and difficulty of the work are taken into consideration. Astronomy will ere long make a further advance in India, for the

polar sea at a depth of twelve hundred and fifty fathoms. The old maps and charts of the latitudes explored, which proved very erroneous, have been rectified; and proofs were found that the Gulf-stream actually touches upon that far northern island.-At last Australia has been crossed from south to north; after the sacrifice of many daring adventurers, a small party of four, led by Mr. Burke, travelled all the way from Melbourne to the sea in the Gulf of Carpentaria. But the tale of their enterprise ends sadly. They found a country of grass, wood, and water, and proved that the interior desert or swamp so long assigned to the unexplored inner regions of Australia, has no existence; they showed a practicable way from sea to sea, and returned to the rendezvous to perish of starvation. The mismanagement or neglect which led to the catastrophe remind us painfully of the terrible disappointment that awaited Captain Franklin and his few miserable companions on their arrival at Fort Confidence from their dreary walk across the Barrens from the Coppermine River.

UNSUCCESSFUL PRIZE POEMS.-Such fragments as that quoted by F. J. M. (which I suppose may be called maccaronic) are usually given as if parts of unsuccessful prize poems. The following are three that I have heard thus quoted; perhaps some reader of "N. & Q." may remember others :

1. Part of a poem on Nebuchadnezzar“And murmured, as he cropped the unwonted food,

'It may be wholesome, but it isn't good.""
2. On "Belshazzar's Feast "-

"When all the nobles stood appalled,
Some one suggested Daniel should be called;
Daniel appears, and just remarks in passing,
The words are Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Uphar-

sin."

POETRY.-The Ladder of Heaven, 306. Longings, 306. The Dead Prodigal, 306. Honey Bee's Song, 333. Men who fell in Baltimore, 334. Resurgam, 334.

NEW BOOKS.

A DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH ETYMOLOGY. By Hensley Wedgewood, M.A. Vol. I. (A-D). With Notes and Additions by George P. Marsh. New York: Sheldon & Co. [A beautiful small folio.]

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: with reference to the Present Condition of the United States. By Joel Parker. [Judge Parker is high legal authority-and was a good Fremont man ;-but speaks harshly of the Hon.'s Charles Sumner and Geo. T. Curtis.]

Elihu Burritt.-Accidentally opening No. 682 of the Living Age, and reading our own introduction to Mr. Burritt's Plan for Compensated Emancipation, we felt that some recognition of his labors and expense in this, and every other good cause, would be gratifying to the national sense of justice. So we sent that No. to the President, and prayed him to appoint Mr. Burritt to some post in which he could continue to serve the country. Will not some of our readers write to Washington to second this motion ?-which is made without Mr. B.'s knowledge.

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