Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443

Gold is, and will be for some time to come, a subject much talked about. Some of our financiers are beginning to be of opinion, that the period is not distant when a great change must be made in the value of our currency—the sovereign, for instance, to be reduced from 20s. to 10s. If so, there would be a good deal of loss and inconvenience during the transition; but, once made, the difficulty would cease. Others, however, consider that the demand for gold for manufacturing purposes and new appliances in the arts, will be so great, that not for many years to come will its increase have any effect on the value of the circulating medium. It will be curious if the result, as not unfrequently happens, should be such as to falsify both conclusions. Connected with this topic is the important one of emigration; and so important is it, that either by public or private enterprise, measures will be taken to insure a supply of labourers to the Australian colonies to replace, if possible, those who have betaken themselves to the diggings. Convicts will not be received; and as something must be done with them, Sir James Matheson has offered to give North Rona, one of the Orkney Islands, to the government for a penal settlement. It has been surveyed, and found to contain 270 acres, sufficient to support a population of 1000. Should the proposal be adopted, it will afford an opportunity for trying an entirely new system of discipline with the criminal outcasts.

Some attention has been drawn to the fact, that our 'Ten Hour Bill' has produced an effect on the other side of the Atlantic. The legislature of Ohio has just passed a 'ten hour law,' to apply to 'all manufactories, workshops, and other places used for mechanical or manufacturing purposes' throughout the state; the penalty to be a fine of from one guinea to ten. Something has already been said about extending its provisions to agricultural labourers and domestic servants—not so easy a task as the other; but when one remembers how desperately hard people are made to work in the United States, it is gratifying to observe ever so small a beginning towards more temperate and life-preserving regulations. In New York, great efforts are made towards establishing female schools of design and female medical colleges, with a view to open to women a wider sphere of employment than that to which they are now restricted. Notwithstanding the objections expressed in many quarters against female physicians, it is certain that they would find favour among a large class of invalids. Another Women's Rights Convention has been held, and an Industrial Congress. One of the questions discussed at the latter was: Why in the United States some have all the work and no property, and others all the property and no work? Harriet Martineau's stories of Political Economy would have helped the debaters to a satisfactory solution.

Our sanitary reformers, also, are felicitating themselves on the spread of their principles to the West, seeing that the first Baths for the People were opened in New York a few weeks since. It appears from accounts which have been sent over, that the edifice cost 30,000 dollars, and is provided with every convenience to insure the end in view—the promotion of cleanliness. The charge for plunge-baths is two cents; for warm-baths, five cents; and first-class baths, ten cents. For washing, a range of stalls extends through the building, in the bottom of which is a contrivance for admitting hot or cold water, as may be desired. The drying machinery is 'arranged after the plan of a window-sash, with weights and pulleys, so as to rise and fall at pleasure. This sliding apparatus, when elevated, is brought into contact with confined heated air for a few minutes, followed by a rapid draught of dry air, which dries the clothes with great rapidity. The same heat is made use of for heating the flat-irons, which are brought from the furnace to the hands of the laundresses on a miniature railway.' With such an establishment as this in full play, the 71,000 emigrants who landed in New York during the first four months of the present year, would have little difficulty in purifying themselves after their voyage.

There is yet another topic of interest from the United States—namely, the earthquake that was felt over a wide extent of country on the 29th of April last. Our geologists are expecting to derive from it some further illustration of the dynamics of earthquakes, as the Smithsonian Institution has addressed a circular to its numerous staff of meteorological observers, calling for information as to the number of shocks, their direction, duration, intensity, effects on the soil and on buildings, &c. There have been frequent earthquakes of late in different parts of the world, and inquiry may probably trace out the connection between them. The centre of intensest action appears to have been at Hawaii, where Mauna Loa broke out with a tremendous eruption, throwing up a column of lava 500 feet high, which in its fall formed a molten river, in some places more than a mile wide. It burst forth at a point 10,000 feet above the base of the mountain.

Dr Gibbons has published a few noteworthy facts with respect to the climate of California, which shew that San Francisco 'possesses some peculiar features, differing from every other place on the coast.' The average yearly temperature is 54°; at Philadelphia it is 51°.50; and the temperature is found to be remarkably uniform, presenting few of those extremes common to the Atlantic states. On the 28th of April last year, it was 84°; on October 19th, 83°; August 18th, 82°—the only day in the three summer months when it rose above 79°. It was 80° on nine days only, six of them being in October; while in Philadelphia it is 80° from sixty to eighty days in the year. In the latter city, the temperature falls below the freezing-point on 100 days in the year, but at San Francisco on twenty-five mornings only. The coldest month is January; the hottest, October. 'In the summer months, there is scarcely any change of temperature in the night. The early morning is sometimes clear, sometimes cloudy, and always calm. A few hours after sunrise, the clouds break away, and the sun shines forth cheerfully and delightfully. Towards noon, or most frequently about one o'clock, the sea-breeze sets in, and the weather is completely changed. From 60° or 65°, the mercury drops forthwith to near 50° long before sunset, and remains almost motionless till next morning.' The summer, far from being the beautiful season it is in other countries, parches up the land, and gives it the aspect of a desert, while the 'cold sea-winds defy the almost vertical sun, and call for flannels and overcoats.' In November and December, or about midwinter, the early rains fall, and the soil becomes covered with herbage and flowers. These are facts which emigrants bound for California will do well to bear in mind.

To come back to Europe. M. Fourcault has addressed a communication to the Académie on 'Remedies against the Physical and Moral Degeneration of the Human Species,' intended more especially for the working-classes. He would have schools of gymnastics and swimming established along the great rivers, and on the sea-shore; gymnastic dispensaries, and clinical gymnastic in towns; and agricultural and other hospitals, combining simple and economical means of water-cure. His clinical gymnastic comprehends three divisions: hygienic or muscular exercise, not violent or long-continued, or productive of perspiration; medical, in which the exercise is to be kept up until perspiration is induced; and orthopedic, which, by means of ropes, bands, and loops attached to a bed, enable the patient to take such straining and stretching exercise as may be likely to rectify any deformity of limb. Whichever method be adopted, it must be carried out conscientiously, because 'feeble muscular contractions, without energy or sustained effort, produce no hygienic, medical, or orthopedic effect.' M. Fourcault may perhaps find some of his objects accomplished in another way, for the Prince President has, by a decree, appropriated 10,000,000 francs to the improvement of dwellings for the working-classes—3,000,000 of the sum being set apart for Paris—and has offered 5000 francs for the best design. If such works as these continue, we shall soon cease to hear that enough is not done for the working-classes; and they will have, in turn, to shew how much they can do for themselves.

A portable electric telegraph has lately been introduced on some of the French railways, by which, in case of accident, the conductors may communicate with the nearest stations. It is all contained in a single box, the lower portion of which contains the battery, the upper, the manipulator and signal apparatus. When required to be used, one of the wires is hooked on to the wires of the telegraph, and the other attached to an iron wedge thrust into the earth. It answers so well, that the directors of the Orleans line have provided thirty of their trains with the portable instruments. In connection with this, I may tell you that Lamont of Munich, after patient inquiry, has come to the conclusion, that there is a decennial period in the variations of the magnetic declination; it increases regularly for five years, and decreases as regularly through another five. If it can be discovered that the horizontal intensity is similarly affected in a similar period, another of the laws of terrestrial magnetism will be added to the sum of our knowledge.

NATIVITY AND PARENTAGE OF MARSHAL MACDONALD, DUKE OF TARENTUM

M. de Lamartine having made a mistake in his History of the Restoration, in describing Marshal Macdonald as of Irish extraction, it may be worth while to state what really was the parentage of that highly respectable man.

When Prince Charles Stuart had to voyage in an open boat from the isle of South Uist in the Hebrides to Skye, he was guided and protected, as is well known, by Miss Flora Macdonald. On that occasion, Flora had for her attendant a man called Neil Macdonald, but more familiarly Neil Macechan, who is described in the History of the Rebellion as a 'sort of preceptor in the Clanranald family.' This was the father of Marshal Macdonald. He remained more or less attached to the fugitive prince during the remainder of his wanderings in the Highlands, and afterwards joined him in France, under the influence of an unconquerable affection for his person. It was thus that his son came to be born abroad.

Neil Macdonald, though a man of humble rank, had received the education proper for a priest at the Scots College in Paris. His acquaintance with the French language had enabled him to be of considerable service to Prince Charles, when he wished to converse about matters of importance without taking the other people about him into his confidence. There is some reason to believe, that he wrote, or at least gave the information required for, a small novel descriptive of the poor Chevalier's wanderings, entitled Ascanius, or the Young Adventurer. (Cooper, London, 1746.)

When Marshal Macdonald visited Scotland in 1825, he made his way to the farm of Howbeg, in South Uist, where his father had been born, and where his ancestors had lived for many generations. He found here an old lady and her brother, his cousins at one remove, to whom he shewed great kindness, settling a pension at the same time upon a more distant relation whom he found in poverty. When about to leave the spot, he took up some of the soil, and also a few pebbles, which he got packed up in separate parcels, and carried back with him to France.

The facts respecting Marshal Macdonald's parentage were lately communicated to M. de Lamartine, who promptly sent the following answer: 'J'ai reçu, avec reconnaissance, monsieur, vos intéressantes communications sur le Maréchal Macdonald, homme qui honore deux pays. J'en ferai usage l'année prochaine à l'époque des nouvelles éditions.'

DOMESTICATION OF WILD BEES

The following account of the process of transplanting bodily a tribe of wild bees, is given in the notes to The Tay, a descriptive poem of considerable merit by David Millar. (Perth, Richardson, 1830.) 'When the boy, whose hobby leads him in that direction, has found out a "byke," he marks the spot well, and returns in the evening, when all its inmates are housed for the night. Pushing a twig into the hole as far as it will go, in case he should lose it by the falling in of the rubbish, he commences digging freely till the hum of the hive is distinctly heard, when he proceeds more cautiously to work. By this time, the more adventurous of the bees come out to ascertain what is going on, and are caught as they make their appearance, and put into a bottle. When the nest is fully exposed, it is lifted carefully up, and placed, as it stood, in a box prepared for it, along with the captured bees. The lid being now closed, the whole is carried home, and placed in the spot assigned for it in the garden. Next morning, a hole in the side of the box is quietly opened, when one or two of the strangers soon make their appearance, wondering, evidently, where they are, but apparently resolved to make the most of their new circumstances. At last, they rise slowly on the wing, and buzz round and round their new habitation for some time, taking, no doubt, special note of its every peculiarity. The circle of observation is then gradually enlarged, till it is thirty or forty yards in circumference, when the earnest reconnoitrer disappears, to return again in a short time with something for the general good. The curious in those matters, by placing the grubs of all the different kinds in one box beside a hive in operation, will soon have a choice assortment of all descriptions, working as amicably together as if they were all of the same family.'

COPPER-PLATE ENGRAVINGS COPIED ON STONE

In No. 439 of this Journal, Lieutenant Hunt received the credit of inventing a process by which copper-plate engravings may be transferred to stone, and the copies from a single print thus multiplied indefinitely. A correspondent, however, makes us fear that Lieutenant Hunt may have been unacquainted with what others had done before him. The process, it is stated, is not at all new; although, so far as we have heard, it has never been applied to the transfer of complicated pictorial engravings.

SONNET:

ON MY LITTLE BOY'S FIRST TRYING TO SAY 'PA-PA.'

Marked day! on which the earliest dawn of speechGlimmered, in trial of thy father's name!Albeit the sound imperfect, yet the aimThrilled chords within me, deeper than the reachOf music! Happy hearted, I did claimThe title which those silver tones assigned;And in me leaped my spirit, as when firstThe father's strange and wondering feeling came!While this dear thought woke up within my mind,Which careful memory in her folds has nursed:'If thus to earthly parent's heart so dearHis child's first accents, though imperfect all—Dear, too, to Father-God, when faint doth fallHis new-born's half-formed "Abba" on his ear!'P.

1

See Journal, No. 425. Article, 'Dibdin's Sailor-Songs.'

2

Tennyson.

3

Cocoa-nuts of the sea—the French appellation of the nut.