Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

THE SUN.-Such is the astonishing magnitude of that vast globe, that were its central parts placed opposite the earth's centre, or, in familiar words, were they placed side by side, its circumference would reach two hundred thousand miles beyond the orbit of the moon. Its diameter is 880,000 miles, and it contains, therefore, matter enough to construct thirteen hundred thousand globes of the size of the earth. Travelling at the rate of thirty miles a day, it would require 18,000 years to visit every square mile of this world, and at the same rate of motion, it would take 2,000 millions of years to traverse every square mile of the sun's surface. At the rate of ninety miles a day, in eighty years, a man would only circumscribe it. Undoubtedly the sun is inhabited by rational beings, who, if it is possible for them to discover our speck of a planet, probably commiserate the condition of the beings in it. The extraordinary brilliancy of the sun's light seems to depend upon a luminous vapor or atmosphere, by which it is surrounded, as openings are made through it by unknown causes, through which the dark body of the sun is distinctly seen.

BACCHANALIA.-No person can reflect upon the strange manner in which the ancients celebrated the orgies of Bacchus, without being struck with evident reference which was made to the transgression of Eve. They were celebrated once in three years. The multitude ran like insane people, crying evoe, evoe! Young wo men, at Athens, carried little golden baskets of fruit, from which various species of serpents were continually disengaging themselves to terrify the spectators. To such extravagance and fury were the devotees excited, that the tore off the flesh of a bull, while alive-vivum laniant dentibus taurum. At Tenedos, the votaries actually tore off the limbs of a man. In all their public as well as private ceremonies, a serpent was the invariable accompaniment.

GUNPOWDER.-Langles, in a memoir before the French National Institute, gives an opinion that gunpowder, (or in other words, the process of making it) was conveyed to Europe by the returning crusaders. It is certain that the Arabs made use of it in 690, at the siege of Mecca, and he therefore supposes they must have derived it from the Indians, among whom it was known from imme. morial time.

ROMAN BAKERS.-Sometime about 583, bakers were introduced from Greece to Rome, where they were so much esteemed, that they were occasionally admitted into the senate. They were forbidden to associate with gladiators or comedians, in order that they might be honorable in the estimation of the people. They were associated as a corporation, from which neither themselves nor their descendants were allowed to withdraw; and they were exempted from guardianships, to which the citizens were liable, in order that they might not be interrupted in their important business of preparing bread for the multitude. Each baker was under the supervision of a patron, and one of these generally managed the concerns of all the others, which constituted the college of Roman bakers.

BARBARITY OF ENGLISH LAW.-One hundred and sixty different crimes of which man may be guilty, in the British code of laws, are to be punished by death. In the reign of Henry VIII, there were seventy-two thousand public and private executions, which was at the rate of six executions a day, including Sundays, during the whole reign of that infamous wretch. We hope to live till that glorious period arrives, when the punishment of death shall be abolished by all civilized nations. When Cain, the first murderer, expressed a fear that he should be slain, and a mark was set upon him, that he might not be killed, he said unto the Lord, 'My punishment is greater than I can bear.' Life, under such circumstances, is a greater punishment than death.

SACRIFICE OF HUMAN LIFE-During twenty-two years of the life of that diabolical foe to the human race, Jenghiz-Khan, it is computed by credible historians, that 14,470,000 persons lost their lives through his instrumentality. By his express command, one hundred thousand prisoners were beheaded in one day. His successor, Tamerlane, was considered of a more gentle disposition, having never pounded over four thousand people to death, in large wooden mortars, at any one time.

EVAPORATION.-The Mediterranean contains 762,000 square miles, from which there is daily evaporated 5280 millions of tons of water.

CURIOUS TREES AND PLANTS.-In South America, Humboldt found a tree which produced milk, called the cow-tree, from which the surrounding inhabitants regularly obtained supplies of that delicious liquid. In other places are plants and trees which distil water. A traveller in the tropical forests of America, says he must have perished with thirst, had it not have been for the Tillandsia, or wild pine, a parasitical plant which clings upon trees, whose joined leaves collect at their bases large quantities of water. The Nepenthes of India not only furnishes water in its leaves, which have pitchers at their extremities, but also covers, to prevent the water from evaporating.

ANTIQUITY OF THE BAGPIPE.-Suetonius mentions this instrument, and it is, moreover, certain that Nero, who was passionately fond of music, performed on the bagpipe. On one of that monster's coins it was figured very accurately. Even St. Jerome alludes to it in a letter to Dardanus. As long ago as the fifteenth century, it was known in France. In Ireland, too, it was well known, from a very remote period. King Edward III, and queen Elizabeth kept household bagpipers. It was played at the battle of Bannockburn, in 1314; and in 1436, James I, of Scotland, who was murdered, was a tolerably expert performer.

INQUISITION. From 1481 to 1759, the horrible tribunal of the Inquisition burned alive 34,658 persons; and between 1481 and 1808, sentenced 288,214 to the gallies or perpetual imprisonment. In the auto of Toledo, Feb. 1501, 67 women were cast into the flames. In the Duchy of Lorain, 900 women were consigned to the fire, for being witches, by one inquisitor, who in the course of his official life, caused, by his accusations, the death of 30,000 women. Torquemada, the infernal inquisitor of Spain, in the short time of fourteen years, brought to the inquisition 80,000 persons 6000 of whom were burned with holy pomp and satisfaction.

ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE.-Mr. Cullimore has been writing most learnedly, to sustain the authenticity of the writings of Manetho. Much curious matter was brought together, copied from ancient inscriptions, which, were it compatible with the design of this journal, would be reprinted.

ST. MARK.-Francis Douce, Esq., F. A. S., exhibited before the Society of Antiquaries, Jan. 23d, the foundation-stone of the cathedral of St. Mark, at Venice, erected about one thousand years ago, which was discovered when the present cathedral was built, on the site of a former one. It is a flat, circular piece of Vecchia marble, about six inches broad and half an inch thick, having on one side the head of St. Mark. Mr. Douce read at the same time, from Tacitus, the Roman ceremony of laying the foundation of a temple.

BANIAN TREE.-On the banks of the river Narbuddy, in the province of Guzzerat, is one of these remarkable trees, the same, probably, that was described by Nearchus. Though severe floods have carried away portions of it, there still remains as much as measures two thousand feet in circumference. The large trunks of this single specimen of gigantic growth are three hundred and fifty in number. The MONKEY-BREAD TREE is scarcely inferior. In St. Jago, one of these trees measured, at the base, fifty-six feet in circumference.

LIGHT. Dr. Nieuwentyt has computed that, in a second, there flows 418,660,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 particles of light out of a burning candle, which number contains, at least, 6,337,242,000,000 times the number of grains of sand in the whole earth, supposing every cubic inch of the earth to contain a million of grains.

ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE.-The hamlet of Antisana, which is 13,500 feet above the level of the ocean, is the most elevated inhabited place on the globe. Condamine and Bouguer, with their attendants, lived three weeks at an elevation of 14,604 French feet, where the barometer stood at 15 inches 9 lines, and consequently, the pressure on the body was 16,920 pounds.

ANCIENT ARCHITECTS.-These were chiefly Greeks, who kept their machines, or mechanical powers for raising great edifices, a profound secret, which is the reason why Vitruvius and other wri-` ters have made no mention of them. In Rome, the carpenters and masons were a corporation styled Collegium Murariorum.

RIVERS. An ingenious writer, after having mentioned the fact, that in the old continent, there are four hundred and thirty rivers falling into the ocean, and calculating the probable quantity of water which must be carried onward to the ocean, by all the rivers on the globe, says, that were all the known seas drained, it would require a period of twenty thousand years to refil them, by all the rivers now existing, running at their present rate.

SIX FINGERS.-Pliny mentions examples of six-fingered persons among the Romans, who were denominated sedigita. C. Horatius had two daughters, and both had five fingers and a thumb on each hand. In the United States, there is scarcely a family bearing the name of Kendall, in which there are not individuals, having five fingers on one or both hands, beside six toes on each foot.

DOGS.-Pallas was fully convinced that the Jackall is the progenitor of all races of dogs, which they closely resemble in manner and disposition, beside being, in some breeds, of the same size and figGuldenstædt discovered that the teeth and cæcum were perfectly alike in the dog and Jackall: the wolf and dog do not agree in these respects.

ure.

DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE.-A royal Sardinian edict was promulgated, so lately as 1825, which forbade every person from learning to read or write, who could not prove the possession of property above the value of fifteen hundred livres. To become a student, the possession of an income of the same sum is necessary.

GASTRIC JUICE.-When putrid flesh is swallowed by animals, the gastric juice, or solvent fluid of the stomach immediately changes the fœtor. Dr. Beaumont says that any digestible substance undergoes the same changes in it out of the stomach, that it does in that organ, provided it be kept at the vital temperature.

HEAD OF VENUS.-Gall and Spurzheim expressly declared that the head of Venus, in those highly valued specimens of ancient sculpture, which have been preserved to our times, was too small for an intellectual being, and the goddess of love was therefore represented as an idiot.

« ZurückWeiter »