Chapter II: Part 2

“This prohibition preserved these books from the slightest alteration; for it was considered so binding, that no copies were allowed to be made by any persons but the Scribes attached to the synagogue; and as the Jews were commanded to read portions of them every Sabbath day in their families, and as at certain times the whole ‘law’ was publicly read to the congregation, it is evident that any alteration must have been noticed. There is a remarkable proof of the fidelity with which that injunction was obeyed, in this fact; that the Samaritans have preserved the law of Moses to this day, as uncorrupted as the Jews themselves have done; although they were irreconcileable enemies, and though they have been exposed to all the changes and revolutions that can befall a nation during the long interval of two thousand four hundred years. No opportunity could have been more tempting than when the ten tribes separated from the house of David, and when each kingdom was zealously supported by a rival priesthood; yet both parties religiously preserved the books of the law, without changing a letter.

“From the Christian era down to this day, the Jews, though dispersed into every country of the globe, continue to read the books of Moses and the Prophets every Sabbath day, in the original Hebrew; and, however they may differ from us, or among themselves, in the _interpretation_ of various expressions, they have always considered the strict preservation of the original _text_ as the most important of their duties. Those books have now been translated into so many languages, and cited by so many authors, and have been the subject of so much discussion from the times of the Apostles, that it is absolutely impossible that any fraudulent change can have taken place since that period. I may add, that the books of the Old Testament were translated into Greek by the command of Ptolemy Philadelphus, about three centuries and a half before that period; and they have therefore been for upwards of two thousand years in the hands of heathens and sceptics, who would have been eager to detect any alteration that might have been attempted.

“It is, indeed, a most striking circumstance, that notwithstanding the many corruptions which the Israelites fell into while they had the sole custody of these books, no omissions should have been made in the copies, nor any attempts to suppress those parts of the law which bore directly on their misconduct; and I think we may safely infer, that it was the will of Him who had given the law, and who had inspired the prophecies, that they should remain an indestructible ‘memorial to all generations.’”

_17th._--The more I learn from my uncle’s kind geological conversations, the more I see the necessity of acquiring some knowledge of mineralogy, in order to understand them. In the mean time, Caroline and I find even the general views he gives us so interesting, that we seldom miss an opportunity of leading him to the subject. This morning he told us, that the _debris_ of the hills which accumulate in alluvial districts usually continue in the loose form of gravel or sand, or mud, or clay, in which they were deposited. “Their visible transformation,” he said, “into stone is of rare occurrence; in some circumstances, however, especially on the sea coast, we may perceive the consolidation of the sand and gravel into thin strata. If a stream, impregnated with _oxide of iron_, should empty itself on the beach, it acts as a cement, and the process goes on rapidly. The northern coast of Cornwall affords some examples of this sort of petrification at home; and abroad it may be seen on a much larger scale on the shores of Greece, Karamania, Sicily, and the West Indies. Abundance of sea shells and other organic remains are found in it; and at Guadaloupe a human skeleton was discovered in the beach, imbedded in a mass of that description.

“Some springs of water are so highly loaded with calcareous particles, that the sediment they deposit soon hardens into stone; and the _stalactites_ which I shewed you are formed in a similar manner, in the caverns and fissures of all limestone countries. Those were very small specimens, but in some places, for instance in the celebrated grotto of Antiparos, one of the Greek islands, they are found of enormous magnitude, forming rows and clusters of columns, that reach from the top to the bottom of that great cavern. The water in slowly dripping through the rock becomes saturated with lime; as the drops exude from the crevices, or trickle down the stalactites already formed, they are exposed to the air; the watery part then evaporates, and the lime forms a hard stony crust; in some cases assuming the shape of small crystals.”

When we reached home, my uncle obligingly laid M. De Choiseul Gouffier’s voyage on the table for us; and we all read with astonishment his description of that wonderful cavern, which is a thousand feet long, and full of these curious productions. The _stalagmites_ that grow upwards from the floor, are equally curious. My uncle explained to us, that when the quantity of water that trickles through the roof is more than can be evaporated from the surface of the stalactite, the remainder falls on the floor, where the same process occurs; and thus the upper and lower concretions proceed till they meet each other and form an entire column. In the middle of the widest part of the cavern there is a stalagmite of twenty feet in diameter and twenty-four in height; and on this superb natural altar, another French nobleman had mass celebrated by his chaplain to more than five hundred people who surrounded it. The cavern was lighted by a hundred large torches and four hundred lamps; and the splendour of this illumination, reflected by the concretions which hung from the roof, or which lined the sides, is described as producing a very magnificent effect.

_18th._--It will not be my uncle’s fault if I do not pick up some information in this delightful house, for every day he tells us something new. He has just been describing the method of casting plate glass; and I hope some day to see the whole operation myself.

The furnace for melting the materials is about eighteen feet long, and it is surrounded by ovens for _annealing_ the plates of glass when made, that is, for cooling them slowly. The pots in which the materials are melted, are made of a sort of tough clay that is found at Stourbridge, in Worcestershire, as it has the property of standing the most intense heat; and they contain about twenty hundred weight of melted glass, or metal, as it is called by the workmen. The _cuvettes_, or cisterns, which convey the liquid glass to the casting table, are made of the same clay.

When the metal is sufficiently fluid, refined, and settled, which happens in about thirty-six hours, it is put, by means of ladles, into the cisterns, which are left in the furnace about six hours longer, till the little bubbles formed by this disturbance of the glass have all disappeared. The door of the furnace is now opened, and by a chain the cistern is drawn out upon an iron carriage, and conducted to the casting table. Here it is raised, by means of a crane, against two iron bars, which are so contrived as to incline the cistern, and empty the fiery torrent on the table.

This table is covered with a thick copper plate made very smooth on the surface; and it is supported on wheels, so that it can be moved from one annealing furnace to another. To regulate the thickness of the glass, two iron rulers are placed along the table, and on these rest the extremes of a very heavy roller, or cylinder of copper, which, as it moves along, drives the superfluous matter before it, and renders the two faces of the glass parallel. The iron rulers being moveable, serve also to determine the width of the glass plate, and to prevent the matter from running over the sides; the waste metal falls into a trough of water at the end of the table, and is reserved for the next melting.

As soon as the glass has cooled to a proper consistence it is examined; and if any bubbles or flaws are found, it is broken up and returned to the melting pot: but if it has a sound appearance, the table is rolled to the mouth of the annealing furnace, and the plate is carefully deposited there. The heat of this furnace is at first very great, but it is diminished every day for a fortnight, by which time the glass is sufficiently annealed. This process renders the glass less brittle; for, if suddenly cooled, my uncle says, it would fly into pieces when touched.

_19th._--Much as we were all interested by the manufacture of plate glass, my uncle steadily refused to carry us any further yesterday than the annealing furnace: this evening, therefore, as soon as we were comfortably collected round the fire, after dinner, we reminded him that he was to describe both the grinding and polishing operations; and the following is the substance of what he said.

The annealing furnace generally contains six plates of glass; when they are withdrawn, they are cut square by a large diamond, which moves in a wooden frame, and they are then carried to the grinding room. There each plate is laid on a table, covered with a large slate or flag; and to keep the glass steady it is bedded on the slate in wet plaster of Paris, which you know has the property of _setting_, or becoming hard, in a few minutes. A smaller plate of glass is then laid on the larger one, and being properly loaded and drawn forwards and backwards, with a constant supply of fine sharp sand and water, the two glasses grind each other to a smooth even surface. A ledge round the lower glass prevents the sand and water from running off; and the upper or moveable glass has a strong plank cemented to it on which the weights are laid. An upright pin is fixed to this plank, to which a handle, like a coach wheel, is attached for the workmen to give motion to the glass, and much skill is required to vary this motion in every possible direction; for if they were frequently to repeat the same stroke, the glasses would grind each other into furrows. But no matter what pains are taken to vary this motion, the two surfaces have always a tendency to become slightly spherical, one convex and the other concave; and to prevent this, the upper glasses of the different grinding tables are occasionally changed, so that two convex or two concave plates mutually correct each other.

When by these means a true surface has been obtained, finer sand is used, and then emery of increasing degrees of fineness, till the business of grinding is finished, and the plate is given to the polisher, whose operations my uncle was obliged to reserve for another evening.

_20th._--Within the last few days the swallow has returned to us; I remember seeing it last autumn, but I did not notice it much.

I have observed that its motions are very rapid, and that it sometimes perches on the house, where it makes an odd little twittering noise.--It is a very pretty bird; the back and wings are black, glossed with purple; and the breast white, with a spot of dull red upon it. I have often read of swallows in poetry, and I shall be glad to watch this little summer guest, as it sports in the sunshine, or skims along the surface of the water. This species is, I find, the house or chimney swallow, and is distinguished from the rest of the tribe by a small white spot on each feather of the tail, which is more forked than any other species.

Mary tells me that these birds generally appear in England about the middle of April, though some few may be seen a little earlier; and that they remain to the end of September. Their arrival, she says, is always considered to be the harbinger of summer, as they come here from warmer climates.

See from bright regions, borne on odorous gales,
The swallow, herald of the summer, sails.

There is a remarkable conformity, my uncle says, between the vegetation of certain plants and the arrival of particular birds of passage. Linnæus remarked, that in Sweden the wood anemone blows on the arrival of the swallow, and the marsh marygold when the cuckoo sings; and a similar fact appears to have been observed in other countries also, for the same Greek word signifies both a cuckoo and a young fig, from their appearing at the same time.

These house swallows are the earliest of all the various species, as well as the most common. They build in barns, out-houses, and even in chimneys, the warmth of which they like; and they are said to pass with surprising address up and down the narrowest flues, to the depth of perhaps six feet, without soiling their wings.

All kinds of swallows, as they skim along the surface of the water, sip without stopping; but the common swallow only washes while on the wing; gliding through the pools many times together without seeming to stop.

_21st._--After some little conversation about the alluvial alterations of the coast, and the changes produced in the interior by the different causes which my uncle had already mentioned, he said to us this morning, “Those alterations are so gradual that years are required to detect their operations, or to measure the rate of their progress; but the gigantic changes effected by volcanoes and earthquakes carry their desolation at once over whole districts. You have, no doubt, read an account of some of the destructive eruptions of mount Vesuvius, by which you know the city of Herculaneum was overflown with a torrent of melted lava, and Pompeii was buried, and remained concealed for many centuries under the ashes that were ejected from the crater.

“Large tracts of country seem to have been produced by volcanoes, and after the lapse of ages the decomposed lava has become a fertile soil. But even within the reach of history new volcanic mountains have been elevated, and new islands have sprung out of the ocean. Pliny and Seneca describe two marine volcanoes that raised themselves out of the water in the Grecian archipelago; and in the beginning of the last century the same thing again happened in the same place. In 1720, a small volcanic island rose out of the sea near Terceira, one of the Azores; and in 1811, among the same group of islands, another violent eruption of lava produced an island of considerable altitude; but in the following year it sunk into the ocean. In the sixteenth century the Lucrine Lake near Naples disappeared, and Monte Nuovo, a volcanic hill six hundred feet high, and four miles in circumference, rose out of the place it had occupied.

“Perhaps the most wonderful example I can give you of volcanic action, is the elevation of Mount Jorullo, near the city of Mexico, in 1759. Alarming sounds and repeated earthquakes, which continued for three months, had prepared the inhabitants for some dreadful convulsion; when at length a tract of ground, from three to four miles in extent, swelled up in the shape of a bladder to the height of 500 feet. The terrified natives, who witnessed this extraordinary scene from the neighbouring mountains, asserted that flames burst from the ground; that red-hot rocks were thrown to a prodigious height; and that the surface of the earth was seen to heave like an agitated sea. The surrounding district is covered by hundreds of small cones called _hornitos_, or ovens, by the inhabitants; they are about ten feet high, and from each a thick smoke ascends. From among these ovens six large masses arose from the plain, some of them upwards of 1200 feet; and the volcano of Jorullo, which has never ceased to burn, is now 1700 feet high. The place where this extraordinary convulsion took place was forty leagues from any volcano; and what renders this remarkable is, that Jorullo appears to be in the exact line of continuation of a chain of distant volcanoes, as if there were a subterranean communication. Though the fire is now much less violent, and though the plain and even the great volcano begin to be covered with vegetation, yet Humboldt found the air dreadfully heated by the small ovens, and the thermometer rose to 202° on being plunged into the aqueous vapour emitted by every fissure in the ground.

“It is said, that two rivers fall into the burning chasm, and that at some miles distance they emerge from the ground in a heated state. You may recollect Colonel Travers told you that he had seen the thermometer at 200° in a subterraneous spring called Nero’s baths, at Solfaterra, near Naples; and that he had eaten an egg which it had completely boiled in a few minutes.

“It is computed that there are at present nearly a thousand volcanoes known to exist, and yet there is no doubt that, in a former state of the globe, they must have been more numerous, and far more active and extensive in their operations. Remains of extinct volcanoes of great size are scattered in almost every country, and geologists are every day discovering large tracts of rocks and earths, which there is every reason to ascribe to volcanic agency.

“Several have been found in Europe, which for many centuries must have been at rest. Great part of Italy and Sicily are clearly volcanic. Near Coblentz, in Germany, are the remains of several craters, and large masses of lava are seen strewed over the surrounding country. Along the Rhine entire chains of volcanic hills are found; and near Spa there are traces of some very large volcanoes, with deep craters half full of water. Great part of Languedoc and Provence in France are volcanic; and Auvergne presents an astonishing example of the activity of its ancient volcanoes, for the whole country consists of lava. In the East Indian islands there are great numbers; Sumatra, Java, and the Molucca islands, possess some of the finest volcanoes now existing. You know, from Humboldt, how numerous they are on the western side of South America and Mexico; and Nootka Sound, in the 50th degree of north latitude, was observed by Captain Cook to be entirely volcanic. In the Pacific Ocean, Easter Island is a mere mass of lava and basalt; and I need scarcely mention the Sandwich Islands, as you have been lately so much interested by Mr. Ellis’s account of the great volcano in Owhyhee, with its sublime gulf of boiling lava, seven or eight miles in circumference.”

_23rd, Sunday._--My uncle continued the subject of the prophecies of Moses, this morning.

“There are different kinds of prophecies in the books of Moses, some of which were fulfilled soon after the prediction, such as the conquest of the land of Canaan; and others the accomplishment of which was not to follow till after a long interval of time, such as those that relate to the coming of the Messiah, and the dispersion of the Jewish nation; but in all there is the same clearness and consistency, the same tone of inspiration and authority, and the same internal proofs of their truth. The Jews have always looked on him as by far the greatest of all their prophets. They assert, that the others received the divine communications by dreams and visions; whereas they were given to Moses by an immediate revelation from God.

“In the most important of all his prophecies--‘The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken’--Moses does not say a priest or a king, though the Messiah was to be both; but ‘a prophet,’ in order to put the people on their guard not to look for him among any of their priests or kings. They were not to expect a person clothed with the external honours of the throne, nor ranking high in the priestly form of their government; but were to consider divine inspiration as the true test of that great prophet to whom they were to hearken, and who was to be the future head of their religion.

“In consequence of this prediction, an expectation of some extraordinary prophet had always prevailed among the Jews, and particularly about the time of our Saviour. They understood and applied it, as well as other similar prophecies, to the Messiah, who they admitted would be as great as Moses: but, forgetting the distinct explanation with which it was accompanied, they looked for pomp and splendour, instead of the quiet manifestation of divine power on suitable occasions; they looked for the worldly attributes of dominion, instead of the meekness and humility which had characterized Moses, and which entitled him to use the expression, ‘like unto me.’

“When our Saviour had fed five thousand men by a miracle like that of Moses, who fed the Israelites in the wilderness, then all those that were present exclaimed,--‘This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.’ St. Peter and St. Stephen[1] declared to the people that the prophecy directly applied to Jesus, for he fully answered the definition of a prophet like unto Moses. He was by birth a Jew of the middle class like Moses. He had immediate communication with the Deity, and to him God spake ‘face to face’ as he had done to Moses. He was a lawgiver as well as Moses, and he performed ‘signs and wonders’ greater than those of Moses.--‘I will put words in thy mouth,’ God said to Moses; and our Saviour says, ‘I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak.’

“There is another circumstance to which I would call your attention. There are instances of kings, both Pagan and Jewish, who were described, long before their birth, by those holy men, whom the Lord inspired; but we do not find that any prophet was ever foretold by an antecedent prophet; this pre-eminence was peculiar to the promised Deliverer.

“Several prophecies in the Old Testament plainly ascribe the destruction of the Jewish church and nation to their rejection of the Messiah. The words in Deuteronomy xviii. 19 are remarkably strong. ‘Whosoever will not hearken unto my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.’ Daniel expressly assigns this as the cause of the destruction of their city and temple; and Zechariah describes the future repentance and mourning of the whole nation for their sin of ‘piercing’ or crucifying Christ, as preparatory to their general restoration.

“And,” added my uncle as he finished, “Let us hope that the time is fast approaching, when instead of a wandering and despised people, we may see the whole Jewish nation repenting of their former obduracy, and yielding up their unbelief to a full though tardy conviction.”

_24th._--We claimed my uncle’s promise this evening of describing the mode of polishing the glass. “When the grinding operation,” said he, “has been completed on both sides of the glass, it is again secured in plaster on a flat table, and the surface is rubbed with a block of wood covered with several folds of woollen cloth. The workmen supply the cloth with polishing powders, such as crocus, tripoli, and putty, beginning with the coarsest, and changing gradually to the finest.”

Wentworth observed that he had never seen putty in a powdered state.

“The putty of which you are thinking,” my uncle replied, “is a mixture of chalk, or whiting with linseed oil, for the use of glaziers; but the putty to which I alluded is the oxide of tin. Crocus is a preparation of the brown oxide of iron; and tripoli is a natural earth, which was formerly imported from Tripoli in Africa, but is now found in other countries. Both the grinding and polishing of plate glass is performed in the large manufactories by the steam-engine.”

We begged of my uncle to describe to us the process of silvering, so as to make looking-glasses. “The coating a plate of polished glass with a thin pellicle of quicksilver, in order to give it the power of reflecting, is a very pretty and easy operation. I think Wentworth might readily perform it on a small piece of glass. Blotting paper is first spread on the table and sprinkled with powdered chalk; and over the paper is laid a sheet of tin foil; that is, tin beaten out in the same manner as gold leaf. On the tin foil quicksilver is poured and equally distributed, and cleaned from every speck by means of a hare’s foot. Over that a sheet of thin smooth paper is to be spread: fan paper is the best; and on this paper the glass is placed. With the left hand you are to press down the glass, while with the right the paper is drawn out, and with it most of the superfluous quicksilver. The plate is then to be loaded with a great weight, to squeeze out more of the mercury; and lastly the glass is set nearly upright that every particle that is not amalgamated with the tin may ooze out; for the thinner the coating of mercury, the more perfectly the metal adheres to the glass.”

If ever I should be in the neighbourhood of a plate-glass manufactory I will endeavour to see the whole process; in the mean time even the little knowledge one can pick up from a general description is better than entire ignorance. Wentworth lost no time in making an experiment of the silvering operation. My uncle furnished him with tin foil and quicksilver; my aunt supplied paper, and a small rubber of cloth instead of the hare’s foot; and we all assisted. There was a little bungling at first, but after a few trials we succeeded in making a scrap of looking-glass, which Wentworth intends to frame for Grace’s doll.

“As glass was comparatively a late invention, uncle, what were the looking-glasses which are mentioned in Scripture?”

“The word,” said my uncle, “should have been translated mirrors; they were formerly made of brass, or of a mixture of brass and silver, which takes a very high polish; and this inadvertence of the English translators is the more singular, because the context removes every difficulty. In the passage of Exodus[2], to which you refer, the laver is described to be made ‘of brass of the looking-glasses.’ Glass could not possibly have been converted into brass; but if the word be rendered by mirrors, the sense would be complete; that is, the laver and the foot of it were made of brazen mirrors.

“In Turkey, the common domestic mirrors at this day are made of brass; but I have heard that in Persia they are sometimes made of steel, and slightly convex. The metallic mirror, or speculum, which is now used in a reflecting telescope, is composed of about two parts of copper and one of tin; but what metals were employed by the ancients in their burning mirrors is not known.”

“You allude, I suppose, papa,” said Frederick, “to the famous concave mirrors with which Archimedes destroyed the Roman fleet.”

“Long before his time,” my uncle replied, “concave mirrors had been constructed, by which the sun’s rays were so concentrated as to burn substances placed in the focus: but those used by Archimedes were not concave, they had plane or flat surfaces, and it was by the combination of a great number that the effect was produced. For you can readily conceive that whatever portion of the solar heat can be conveyed by reflection from a single plane surface, the effect will be doubled if the rays from another plane surface be directed to the same spot. Five or six times the direct heat of the sun would set dry wood on fire; but as more than half the heat is dissipated by reflection and by other causes, we may say that eighteen or twenty small plane mirrors would be quite sufficient for that purpose. The Count de Buffon tried a great many valuable experiments on this subject; with 154 mirrors he succeeded in burning wood at the distance of seventy yards, and in fusing several metals at eight, ten, and even twelve yards, “There was another circumstance in your question, Bertha, on which I must set you right. It is true that glass has been brought to great perfection by modern skill, but glass was known in the earliest ages of which any remains of art are now extant. The mummies, for instance, which have been brought home from Egypt, are ornamented with beads and bits of coloured glass. Pliny describes the manner of making it; and there are various authorities for believing that glass was even used in windows before the third century.”

_25th._--The nightingale, the next bird that appears after the swallow, has arrived, and I have twice had the pleasure of hearing the sweetness, fulness, and power of its melody.

It is supposed to visit Asia during its absence from England, as it does not winter in the south of Europe or in Africa, but is found at all times in the East, from Persia to Japan. I must acknowledge that its song is more agreeable than that of the bird we call nightingale in Brazil.

The wry-neck, and the cuckoo, which I have; just heard, arrive here very soon after the nightingale. The wry-neck is a very pretty little bird; the neck and breast are of a reddish brown, and crossed with waving bars of fine black. It sits so very erect on a branch, that its body appears to bend almost backward, while it is constantly turning its neck quite round from side to side; and it also has the power of erecting the feathers of the head like a jay. I have seen it feeding on ants, which it dexterously transfixes with the sharp bony end of its tongue; and the country people say, that the young ones, while in the nest, make a hissing sound like that of little snakes, which deters boys from plundering their nests.

There is something very cheerful in the notes of the cuckoo and the rail. They serve to mark one of the steps by which this changeful and busy season of spring steals on us with all its gradations of pleasure and interest; and which, dear mamma, I cannot help thinking preferable to the unvarying brilliancy of Brazil.

“Now Nature, soothed, assumes her wonted charms,
And like an infant, stilled, laughs through her tears,
That glittering hang on every bloomy spray.
The birds their woodland minstrelsy renew,
In chorus universal; while the sun
Gilds with effulgence sweet the azure vault,
And paints the landscape with a thousand flowers.”

I have seen the mole cricket to-day; it is a most remarkable insect, endowed with wonderful strength, particularly in its fore legs which are fitted for burrowing. The shanks are broad, and terminate obliquely in four large sharp claws, like fingers; and the foot, which consists of three joints, and is armed at the extremity with two short claws, is placed inside the shank so as to resemble a thumb, and to perform its offices. The direction and motion of these hands enable the animal effectually to remove the earth when it burrows under ground; and in wet and swampy situations, which it loves, it excavates very curious apartments.

There is the prettiest variety of wild flowers now in bloom all over our part of the forest; not gaudy and dazzling, like the natives of the Brazil forests, but small and delicate, and beautifully marked and tinted. I am sorry to say the primroses are fading; but wild violets, the wood anemone, and millions of cowslips with their pretty golden bells, make up for their loss.

I had almost forgotten to tell you that the buds and leaves of the branches I had in water, have all withered away; ashamed, I suppose, to appear now that there are abundance of real leaves.

_27th._--My aunt has been extremely interested by an account she read of the progress of Christianity in the Sandwich islands.

It is almost a singular instance of a nation by general consent destroying their idols, and being sensible of the insufficiency of their own religion. The small opposition made to the change, and the manner in which many of the chiefs publicly professed Christianity, give one every reason to hope that it will take root in the minds of the people, and that the progress of Christianity and civilization will advance together. It appears to have been a spontaneous act of those intelligent and amiable islanders; and when the Blonde frigate arrived there in 1825, the new faith they had adopted had already materially purified their morals and improved their manners.

Besides wooden idols, the uninstructed natives had long worshipped the deities of their island at the foot of the stupendous mountain of Mouna Roa, imagining their favourite abode to be in the volcanoes it contained. Offerings were frequently made to court their favour; and at every fresh eruption of lava hogs were thrown alive into those fiery gulfs, to appease the anger of Peli, the principal deity. To put an end to these superstitions, Kapiolani, the wife of a chief of high rank who had recently embraced Christianity, determined to descend into the great crater, and, by thus braving the volcanic deities in their very home, she hoped to convince the people that they existed only in their imagination. A crowd of her friends and vassals accompanied her up the mountain, to the first precipice that bounds the sunken plain: there most of them stopped or turned back; and at the second, her remaining companions earnestly implored her to desist from her dangerous enterprise, which could only serve to tempt the vengeance of the deities whose sanctuary she was about to violate. She proceeded, however, to the verge of the crater, and being again assailed with their entreaties, she calmly replied, “I am resolved to descend; and if I do not return safe, then continue to worship Peli;--but, if I come back unhurt, you must learn to adore the God who created Peli.”

Few of her attendants had sufficient courage to follow this heroic woman; but she steadily persevered, and at length reaching the bottom of the dreadful chasm, she triumphantly thrust a stick into the burning lava, and for ever dissolved the spell of superstition which till that moment had bound the minds of the astonished spectators. Those who had expected to see the incensed goddess burst forth and destroy the daring intruder, were awe-struck; they instantly acknowledged the superiority of the God of Kapiolani; and from that time no reverence has been paid to the fires of Peli.

_28th._--When I came down to the library early this morning, my uncle asked me several historical questions: taken thus by surprise, I should some months ago have been unable to answer, though, perhaps, I might have been acquainted with the facts; but now I conquered my difficulties in a tolerably satisfactory manner; and my uncle congratulated me on the improvement of my memory, or rather of my recollection.

“I believe, uncle, it is more from my not being quite so much frightened as I used to be at being examined; and besides, since I have been in this house, I have gained more knowledge.”

“Yes, my dear, you have gained more knowledge, but of what avail would it be if your memory could not supply you with a key to it? You have materially improved your recollection; and I will tell you how: first, by increased _attention_, the foundation of all memory; and next by _exercise_, for every power of body and mind may be strengthened by constantly, though moderately, applying them to their proper purposes. You have also, I think, wisely aided your memory by some of the expedients that I formerly hinted to you.”

“Do you mean, uncle, the classification of one’s knowledge; and the endeavour to connect detached ideas?”

“Yes,” said he; “I have carefully observed you, Bertha--and I perceive that you have in some degree acquired the faculty of catching the points by which ideas are related to each other, and thus of associating them in your mind with some one common principle. This is the true way of strengthening the memory, and, indeed, at the same time, of improving the understanding. Every one who steadily pursues it will find, that the facility of this kind of arrangement increases every day, till at length it becomes so habitual as to be performed almost mechanically; that is, without the intervention of the will. The advantage is obvious; every new fact, every new idea becomes a catch-word to some other; and when referred to the common principle by which they are all combined, the mind rapidly and almost unconsciously runs through every link in the chain, and literally _recollects_ those which may be wanted for the subject under consideration.”

“Do you not think, too,” said I, “that as we increase our knowledge, those links become more numerous; and therefore, that the more new facts we learn the more easily we can recollect the old ones?”

“In some measure,” he replied; “but it is not merely by the new facts or ideas that we acquire that our real increase of knowledge must be estimated; it is by the number of relations which they bear to those already in the mind. _New_ knowledge does not merely consist in our having access to a new object, but in forming new combinations of the ideas which it excites with our former ideas of similar objects; it is not by loading the memory with insulated facts, but by putting those facts in their right places, that we augment our stock of knowledge.”

“Indeed, my dear uncle, I feel the truth of that every day; for the more I know, the more my curiosity is excited, and I ramble on from one thing to another, till my head contains nothing but a confused heap of unconnected facts. Then, when I go back and try to put them in some sort of order, I find that the most useful circumstances are forgotten, and only those well remembered which happened to connect themselves with things long known.”

“That leads me,” said he, “to another point, which I would earnestly press on your attention;--_discrimination_--or the selecting from the necessarily confused mass of new ideas which are constantly presenting themselves those of the greatest importance. By grasping at all, you lose the real acquisitions within your reach; and though the sacrifice may at first appear great, you will be a gainer in the end. Every day your selection will be more judicious, and in time more abundant; and your knowledge of useful and connected truths will advance gradually and securely, because you will have learnt to hinge them properly together, without encumbering your mind with those that are insignificant.”

I then asked him if he approved of my writing this journal, and whether he advised me to continue it.

“Certainly I do, Bertha, because I am sure it is highly satisfactory to your mother, not only to know what you are doing, but to trace the progress of your mind. Besides, though I suspect that no young lady can write a great deal without introducing a little desultory matter, yet, from the pages you have occasionally shewn me, I am sure there is much in your journal that may be advantageous to Marianne. Indeed I am glad you mentioned it, for I think it forms no bad illustration of the unconnected manner in which knowledge presents itself in every-day life; and if our present conversation finds a place in it, tell your sister, from me, to attend to what I have said about discrimination, and to try her skill in selecting, and classifying in her memory, the many useful topics on which you have touched.

“The benefit to _yourself_ of committing to paper the detailed knowledge that you acquire, is quite another question. As a help to which the memory may refer I am inclined to think that it is injurious; except in so far as the time occupied in writing forces one to dwell sufficiently on the ideas, to perceive their analogy with others. But you may, I think, make a common-place book really useful, by stating your general impressions of the books you read, and of the discussions you hear; and by sometimes recording those passing thoughts which suggest themselves to every reflecting person. By thus frequently marking the state of your mind, you can hereafter judge of its progress; and you will be able to correct the prejudices which may have impeded its steady improvement.”

_29th._--I begged of my uncle to describe some more of the remarkable animals that have been found in a fossil state. He readily complied; and as it is possible that I may one day have an opportunity of seeing some of these curious petrifactions in the museums, I carefully noted what he told us.

“One of those huge oviparous quadrupeds to which the name Monitor has been given, was found at Maestricht, in soft limestone rock mixed with flints. The skeleton was about twenty-four feet long; the head four feet; and from the great breadth and strength of the tail, the animal is supposed to have inhabited the sea.

“There are but two living species of sloths known; and two fossil animals have been found which seem nearly allied to them. One of these animals, the megalonix, is of the size of an ox; and was first discovered in a limestone cave in Virginia. The other, the megatherium, is as large as a rhinoceros; its remains have been found only in South America; and it is a curious fact, that greatly as these animals exceed the sloth and the ant-eater in size, they not only appear to belong to the same family, but their bones are found only in America, the very country inhabited by sloths and ant-eaters.

“The gigantic fossil elks of Ireland are also an extinct species: they are found under bogs, or in deep marl pits; and generally in an erect position, as if the herd had been suddenly overwhelmed by the mass in which they are imbedded, while it was in a fluid state. The distance between the tips of the horns of a skull, now in the museum of the Royal Society of Dublin, is eleven feet and ten inches; and I have heard that a still larger specimen has been discovered in that country.

“The skull of the fossil ox, or buffalo of Siberia, cannot be identified with any of the known species of this animal; and it is conjectured to have lived at the same time with the fossil elephant and rhinoceros, as it is found in the same alluvial tracts.

“Two distinct species of elephant are at present known; the African and the Asiatic; but only one fossil species has hitherto been discovered, which has been called the mammoth, a name borrowed from the Russians. Though differing from both the existing species, principally in the structure of the teeth, it more nearly resembles the Asiatic than the other. The remains of this animal have been found also in the alluvial soil round London, and in a great many parts of England, and even in this county. In Ireland also, in Sweden and Norway, and in almost every country of Europe, they have been discovered. Humboldt found their teeth in South America; the North American naturalists have also found them; and lately, Lieutenant Kotzebue, the Russian navigator, perceived them in an _iceberg_ near Behring’s Straits. But it is in Asiatic Russia that they occur in the greatest abundance: there is scarcely a river there with alluvial banks that does not afford remains of the mammoth, and generally accompanied by marine shells.”

My uncle then was so good as to go to the library for an account of a fossil elephant that was found in a state of perfect preservation, though its great antiquity is evident, from the whole race to which it had belonged being now extinct. The account was drawn up by the celebrated M. Cuvier, from observations made on the spot by Mr. Adams.

“In the year 1799, a portion of an ice-bank, near the mouth of the river Lena in the north of Siberia, having fallen down, a Tungusian fisherman perceived a strange shapeless mass projecting from the remaining cliff of ice, but at a height far beyond his reach. The next year it was a little more exposed, by the dissolving of the ice; and in the end of the summer of 1801 he could distinctly see that it was the frozen carcase of some enormous animal. He continued to watch it till the year 1804, when the ice having melted earlier and to a greater degree than usual, the carcase became entirely disengaged, and fell down from the ice-cliff on an accessible part of the shore. The fisherman carried away both the tusks, and so well had the ice preserved the ivory, that he sold them for fifty rubles. This circumstance having come to the knowledge of Mr. Adams in 1806, he travelled to the spot to examine the animal, but he found the body greatly mutilated; much of the flesh had been taken away by the natives to feed their dogs, and one of the fore legs had been carried off, probably by the white bears. The rest of the skeleton was entire; the head was uninjured, even the pupil of the eye was still distinguishable; and the ears were well covered with bristly hair. A large quantity of the skin remained, which was extremely thick and heavy; and there was a long black mane on the neck, the stiff bristles of which were more than a foot in length.

“About thirty pounds weight of reddish brown bristly hair was collected in the mud, into which it had been trampled by the bears while devouring the carcase, as well as a quantity of coarse wool of the same colour. The wool was evidently the same kind of covering that lies next the skin of all the inhabitants of cold climates; and this very interesting fact proves that the fossil elephants of Siberia were residents of that country, and that they belonged to a race which no longer exists, which was fitted by nature for a rigorous climate, and which could not have endured the sultry regions where those animals are at present found, and where their skin is nearly bare.”

My uncle added that it was impossible to conjecture at what period this elephant had been buried in the ice, but that it was evident he had been frozen at the moment of his death, which sufficiently accounts for the preservation of the flesh. In cold countries it is common to preserve meat through the longest winter by freezing it; and all kinds of provisions are sent at that season from the most remote of the northern provinces, to St. Petersburgh.

Gmelin, a German traveller, tried how deep the ground had been thawed by the heat of a whole summer at Jakutsk, in 62° north latitude: he found it soft to the depth of two feet and a half; there it became harder; and at half a foot lower, it scarcely yielded to the spade. The inhabitants of that place keep their provisions continually frozen in caves which are only six feet below the surface.

_30th, Sunday._--I asked my uncle to-day to explain to me the nature of those three feasts at which all the Israelites were enjoined to attend in the course of the year; the feast of Unleavened Bread; the feast of Weeks; and the feast of Tabernacles[3].

“Feasts,” he replied, “were appointed to commemorate those great events with which the existence of the Israelites, as a separate people, was identified; they also afforded opportunities of giving general instruction, of expounding the law, and of keeping up a useful connexion between the distant tribes, by meeting each other at stated times in the holy city. The first and most ancient of feasts, you know, was the Sabbath, a day of general rest, in memory of the creation; and there was also a Sabbatical year of rest every seven years; and a jubilee year every seven times seven years. The feast of Atonement took place in the seventh month; the feast of Trumpets celebrated the first day of the year; and in after times feasts were instituted on the restoration of the Temple, and on the deliverance of the Jews from Haman’s plot.

“But of all the annual festivals, the three about which you inquire were the most sacred and important. The feast of Unleavened Bread was only another name for the feast of the Passover. It lasted seven days after the Paschal lamb had been killed; sacrifices were offered on each of the days; no bread but such as was unleavened was permitted to be eaten during its continuance; and the first and the last days were observed with peculiar and impressive ceremonies. The departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and the wonderful acts of Divine power by which their liberation had been accomplished, were the objects commemorated at this great assemblage of the people;--but we have so often conversed on the Passover, that I need not renew that subject now.

“The feast of Weeks,” my uncle continued, “was so called because it was kept at the end of seven weeks, or a _week of weeks_, after the Passover, that is, on the fiftieth day; and therefore it has been also called the feast of Pentecost, from a Greek word signifying fiftieth. It lasted seven days, and was held in remembrance of the law which was given to the people at Mount Sinai on the fiftieth day after their leaving Egypt. At this feast two loaves of bread and a certain quantity of meal, to represent the first-fruits of the ground, were offered as a solemn and grateful acknowledgment for the harvest which in that fine climate and fertile country had already commenced. The modern Jews keep this festival with great strictness; but they mix various traditional rites with the ceremonies. In this country, I understand that they decorate their houses with garlands of flowers, and strew roses in the synagogues; and in Germany each Jewish family has a high rough cake, to represent Mount Sinai, composed of seven layers of paste, to designate the seven heavens through which they pretend that Jehovah descended to declare the law to Moses. As the Passover was the type of the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, so the feast of Weeks was the type of our Christian Pentecost, which took place fifty days after the resurrection, and on which the astonishing miracle was performed, of the gift of tongues to the Apostles.

“The feast of Tabernacles was established in the middle of the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year, or in the first month of the civil year, which began in September. All Israel were obliged to assemble in order to celebrate this feast, and to live in tents or booths made of green boughs, during its continuance. The same word in Hebrew signifies both tabernacles and tents, and this great religious festival was held in memory of the journey through the wilderness, and of the mode in which their forefathers had dwelt there in tents, during forty years. On the first day, the people, with branches of palm trees, willows, and myrtles in their right hands, and a citron bough bearing its fruit in the left, joined in procession round the altar, waving the branches and singing Hosannas. The six following days burnt offerings were made, and the latest fruits of the year were presented at the temple; on the eighth and last day the procession with branches was repeated with still greater solemnity, and the whole feast concluded with what was called the Hosanna Rabbah, or the great Hosanna. This word literally means ‘Save, I beseech thee;’ it was a common form of religious blessing or salutation; and thus to that ancient mode of solemnizing the feast of tabernacles you may trace the branches that were cut down, and the acclamations of ‘Hosanna to the son of David,’ with which our Saviour was received on his public entry into Jerusalem.”

_May 1st._--This has been a day of amusement; and the Miss Maudes and their brother, who came here yesterday, have greatly added to our gaiety. Very early this morning we all went out, not exactly to gather May-dew, but to see the numbers of people that went out Maying. Several May-poles and garlands had been erected; but we were most interested by that which the little school children had dressed up opposite to their house. They had also placed an arch of flowers and hawthorn branches over the door; with a magnificent C in the middle of it, made of daisy flowers strung on thread.