صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

SCIENTIÆ MISCELLANEA.-No. V.

TENDENCIES.

These irregularities result from the action of what a naturalist calls “disturbing causes." I will mention and illustrate the action of one or two

of these. Let us suppose that the young tree is growing in a perfectly perpendicular directionits stem is possessed of a certain degree of elasticity-if bent by a slight wind it soon recovers, but by a stormy wind it may be so far bent as not to be able to restore itself, and thus a permanent crook may be given to the stem. Again, let us suppose that the buds are all formed at the proper time, and in their proper places, and that all are carefully wrapped up to defend them against the inclemency of winter. Of these buds it is not probable that more than one-half will survive to open at the call of spring. The most insignificant circumstance may determine which shall perish, and which survive. Even the insinuation of a drop of water beneath its scaly covering, may destroy a bud, and thus give rise to an irregularity in the form of the future tree. Let us take the case of a shoot on which eight buds had been formed at the close of summer, and suppose that one-half of these are destroyed during the succeeding winter; it is a coincidence hardly to be expected that these should be either the first, third, fifth and seventh, or the second, fourth, sixth and eighth; and yet all this would be necessary in order to preserve a perfect regularity of form to the tree.

We often observe in the growth of natural objects, a tendency towards a certain form, which they seldom if ever assume. In the common language of natural history, they are said "to affect certain forms." I do not know a better illustration of this remark, than is afforded in the growth of plants. Plants affect a perfect regularity of form-a regularity which shall extend not only to the form and position of their leaves and boughs, but also to the angles at which they are joined together. Could the trees of the forest effect that which they only affect, instead of that endless variety with which they now delight the eye, they would present a stiff and monotonous regularity, as if jointed and morticed together by the hand of an artist. Then might a fanciful man, find, indeed, some foundation for a figure used by a celebrated American botanist, who has spoken of trees as cities of leaves." This tendency of plants to assume a perfect regularity in their growth, is manifested in several ways. If we examine one as it first springs from the ground-a young peachtree, for example-we will find that it has two large fleshy leaves, placed exactly opposite to each other, and perfectly alike in color, structure, &c. The shoot which is to become the future tree, springs from between them in a direction perpendicular to the earth's surface. If we wait until it An insect may destroy a bud, or even a whole has developed its leaves, and then again examine bough. Many insects are taught by instinct to it, we will find the second leaf just one quarter of pierce the bark of certain plants, and there to dethe way around the stem from the first, and mea-posite their eggs. Where this is the case, the suring up the stem a little more than half way between the first and the third. The same will be found to be true respecting all the other leaves. If I may be allowed the use of such language, the difference of longitude between each two consecutive leaves is 90 degrees; whilst the difference of latitude is a little more than half the distance between the leaf below, and the leaf above the one from which we measure. During the months of July and August, at the point where each leaf is inserted into the stem, a bud is formed, the embryo of a future bough. By carefully dissecting one of these buds, and examining with a microscope, the whole of the bough, so far as it is destined to be developed by the next year's growth, may be discovered in miniature; each leaf carefully folded over the one below it, and all packed away within four hard scales, intended to afford them protection from the frosts and storms of winter. By carefully examining this bud, we will discover that the same perfect regularity is provided for, in the growth of the next set of branches, which characterised the first year's shoot. And yet this perfect regularity is never attained. In some trees a nearer approach is made to it than in others, but all present greater or less irregularities.

part pierced swells up, and a complete derangement ensues. The nut-gall, and the common green ball, seen on the leaves of some species of oak, are produced in this way. If we suppose that the growth of the plant was perfectly regular before, and that no deleterious influence is exerted upon the wounded part by the sting of the insect, yet as each bough receives an equal portion of the nourishment taken in by the root; and as a part of that received by the wounded branch is necessarily employed in forming the excrescence, there must be less left for increasing the size of that bough; and thus an irregularity is produced.

Many other of these disturbing causes might be mentioned, but these I deem sufficient for the purpose of illustration. By far the greater part of them act more powerfully during the winter than during the summer; and hence perennial plants are much more irregular in their structure, than annuals; and those which grow slowly, than those which grow rapidly. All plants, however, are more or less irregular, not because they do not affect perfect regularity of form, but because they are never exempted entirely from the operation of disturbing agencies. And yet their ideal Fregularity is very seldom so far departed from, as

to unfit them for performing the part assigned house, added a certain quantity of water to each them in the economy of creation. It generally cask. The spirit having been delivered on board, happens, that about as many buds are destroyed on one side a tree, as on the other; seldom if ever does it become so one-sided as to be broken off, and fall by its own weight.

What is particularly worthy of remark in this matter, is, that with every thing tending to a stiff and formal regularity, such an infinite variety has been made to spring up and delight the eye, by what may be called the incidental operation of causes, whose chief end is to produce results with which the vegetable kingdom is in no way connected. This, I think, may fairly be cited as an instance of economy in creation. So universal is the operation of these "disturbing agencies," and so endless the variety of form which results from them, that we might search the world over in vain to find two trees precisely similar in shape. In fact I do not know but that I may say, without laying myself open to the charge of extravagance, that there never have been two such trees upon the surface of our globe.

and tried by the hydrometer, was discovered to be wanting in strength. When the vender was charged with the intended fraud, he at first denied it, for he knew of no human means which could have made the discovery; but on the exact quantity of water which had been mixed, being specified, a superstitious dread seized him, and having confessed his roguery, he made ample amends."

The above is one instance among many which might be mentioned, of the advantage which scientific knowledge gives its possessor over the ignorant. Whilst the philosopher in his study is engaged in the laborious investigation of abstract truths, the question is often asked "cui bono?” But when the results of his investigations are applied to the affairs of real life, their benefit is at once evident. Perhaps one or two instances more may set this truth in a stronger light.

"On mount Pilatus, near lake Luzerne, is a valuable growth of fir trees, which on account of the inaccessible nature of the mountain had reA remark or two by way of applying this to mained for ages uninjured, until within a few settle a question of taste. A little more than half years a German engineer contrived to construct a a century since, it was the fashion in England to trough in the form of an inclined plane, by which trim trees in the form of cubes, spheres, pyramids, these trees are made to descend by their own cones, &c. &c. If my memory does not deceive weight, through a space of eight miles, from the me, I have noticed in a few instances, something side of the mountain to the margin of the lake. of this same taste in this our good state of Vir-Although the average declivity is no more than ginia. Such taste might, perhaps, be tolerated in the neighborhood of those mountains in China, which on the authority of Osbeck, quoted by MalteBrun, we believe, to "have the forms of the heads of dragons, tigers, bears," &c.; or even in Envionne, in the Valais, where their principal mountain resembles the old French frizzled wigs; but in this land, which nature has made the depository of many of her grandest works, it is intolerable. For my own part, I had much rather see the same number of green boxes or barrels, mounted upon poles, than these distorted caricatures of trees. It was a taste of this kind which Goldsmith intended to ridicule in his story of the seven sisters of the Flamborough family, who, on having their like nesses taken, each one was painted smelling an orange. Should any of my readers feel inclined to ornament the outsides of their dwellings with trees, trimmed in the style just mentioned, I hope they will improve upon the hint given them by Goldsmith, and ornament the inside after the manner of the Flamborough family.

about one foot in seventeen, and the route often circuitous, and sometimes horizontal, yet so great is the acceleration, that a tree descends the whole distance in the short space of six minutes. To the spectator standing by the side of the trough, at first is heard, on the approach of the tree, a roaring noise, becoming louder and louder; the tree comes in sight at the distance of half a mile, and in an instant afterwards shoots past with the noise of thunder, and almost with the rapidity of an arrow. But for the knowledge of the inclined plane, which this German engineer had previously acquired, such a work as this would have appeared impossible."

The chronometer, a species of watch constructed to go with great accuracy, has of late been applied to the purpose of determining longitude at sea. "After months spent in a passage from South America to Asia," says Arnott, our captain's chronometer announced that a certain point of land was then bearing east from the ship at a distance of fifty miles; and in an hour afterwards, when a mist had cleared away, the looker-out on the mast gave the joyous call, land ahead!' verifying the report of the chronometer almost to a mile, after a voyage of thousands. It is natural at such a moment, with the dangers and uncertain"A shopkeeper in China sold to the purser of a ties of ancient navigation before the mind, to exult ship a quantity of distilled spirits according to a in contemplating what man has now achieved. sample shown; but not standing in awe of con- Had the rate of the wonderful little instrument in science, he afterwards, in the privacy of his store-all that time changed even a little, its announce

No. VI.

SUPERIORITY CONFERRED BY SCIENCE.

tr

VOL. IV.-99

ment would have been worse than useless-but in | tion." Our duty to the community, which must be discharged by the education of a whole race, comprises many unobtrusive, almost invisible points, which in detail may seem trivial, or at least desultory, but which the rill to the broad stream. are still as important, as the rain-drop to the cistern, or

In

A long period allotted to study; a thorough implantation of domestic tastes, and a vigilant guardianship over simplicity of character, are essential to the daughters of a republic. That it is wise to give the greatest possible extent to the season of tutelage, for those who have much to learn, is a self-evident proposition. If they are to teach others, it is doubly important. And there is no country on earth, where so many females

the night, and in the day, in storm, and in calm, in heat, and in cold-while the persons around it were experiencing every vicissitude of mental and bodily condition, its steady beat went on, keeping exact account of the rolling of the earth, and of the stars; and in the midst of the trackless waves, it was always ready to tell its magic tale of the very spot of the globe over which it had arrived." one point of view, this result appears to arise from the perfection of the chronometer's mechanism; but had not the man of science determined the exact figure of the earth, and its rate of motion around both its own axis and the sun, the chro- | are employed in teaching, as in our own. Indeed, from nometer could have given no information respect ing longitude; it would have told its tale indeed, but without science as its interpreter, that tale would have remained wrapped in the mystery of an unknown tongue.

A. D. G.

DUTY OF MOTHERS.

BY MRS. SIGOURNEY.*

،،

Mothers best discharge their duty to the community, by training up those who shall give it strength and beauty. Their unwearied labors should coincide with the aspirations of the Psalmist, that their sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; their daughters, as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace." They would not wish to leave to society, where they had themselves found protection and solace, a bequest that would dishonor their memory.

We, who are mothers, ought to feel peculiar solicitude with regard to the manner in which our daughters are reared. Being more constantly with us, and more entirely under our control than sons, they will be naturally considered as our representatives, the truest tests of our system, the strongest witnesses to a future generation, of our fidelity or neglect.

"Unless women," said the venerable Fellenberg, "are brought up with industrious and religious habits, it is in vain that we educate the men: for they are the ones who keep the character of men in its proper eleva

*The rule which we usually observe, is to leave our readers to form their own judgments upon the labors of our contributors, without comment or commendation from ourselves. We shall be justified, however, in departing from this rule, in reference to this article from the pen of Mrs. Sigourney, if, by so doing, it shall arrest the attention of our readers generally. To say nothing of its characteristic graces of style, the subject of which it treats is of momentous importance to the happiness and well

being of the community; and, if it were possible, it should be placed in the hands of every mother capable of appreciating the beauty and originality of its thoughts and precepts. We own ourselves to have been highly delighted with it, as we usually genius, taste, and morality of our country are already much indebted to her, and her fame as an authoress is the public property of the nation. We do not know whether the works of Mrs. Sigourney have been as yet generally introduced into our southern female schools; if not, they certainly should be, whether they are regarded as chaste models of composition, or as repositories of all that is pure in sentiment and sublime in morals. [Ed. So. Lit. Mess.

are with every thing from the pen of this highly gifted lady. The

the position that educated women here maintain, it might not be difficult to establish the point, that they are all

teachers, all forming other beings upon the model of

their own example, however unconscious of the fact. To abridge the education of the educator, is to stint the culture of a plant, whose "leaves are for the healing of the nations."

1 was delighted to hear a young lady say, at the age of nineteen, "I cannot bear to think yet of leaving | school, I have scarcely begun to learn.” With propriety might she express this sentiment, though she was eminent both in studies and accomplishments,-if the great Michael Angelo, could adopt for his motto, in his ninetieth year-“ ancora imparo,”—and “yet I am learning."

It has unfortunately been too much the custom in our country, not only to shorten the period allotted to the education of our sex, but to fritter away even that brief period, in contradictory pursuits and pleasures. Parents have blindly lent their influence to this usage. To reform it, they must oppose the tide of fashion and of opinion. Let them instruct their daughters to resist the principle of conforming in any respect to the example of those around them, unless it is rational in itself, and correctly applicable to them as individuals. A proper expenditure for one, would be ruinous extravagance in another. So, if some indiscreet mothers, permit their young daughters to waste in elaborate dress and fashionable parties, the attention which should be devoted to study, need their example be quoted as a precedent? To do as others do, which is the rule of the unthinking, is often to copy bad taste and erring judgment. We use more discrimination in points of trifling import. We pause and compare patterns, ere we purchase a garment which, perchance, lasts but for a single season. Why should we adopt with little inquiry, or on the strength of doubtful precedent,--a habit, which may stamp the character of our children forever?

When circumstances require, the youngest girl should be taught not to fear to differ from her companions, either in costume, manners, or opinion. Singularity for its own sake, and every approach to eccentricity, should be deprecated and discouraged. Even necessary variations from those around, must be managed with delicacy, so as not to wound feeling, or exasperate prejudice. But she who dares not to be independent, when reason or duty dictate, will be in danger of forfeiting decision of character, perhaps, integrity of principle.

Simple attire, and simple manners, are the natural ornaments of those who are obtaining their school edu

have not wholly indisposed him to relish the "milk of babes." If he is able to arrest the thoughts and feelings, which charmed him when life was new, he will still be obliged to transfuse them into the dialect of childhood. He must write in a foreign idiom, where, not to be ungrammatical is praise, and not utterly to fail, is victory. Perhaps, in the attempt, he may be induced to exclaim, with the conscious majesty of Milton-" my mother bore me, a speaker of that, which God made my own, and not a translator."

cation. They have the beauty of fitness, and the policy | be, if the "strong meat" on which he has so long fed, of leaving the mind free, for its precious pursuits. Love of display, every step towards affectation, are destructive of the charms of that sweet season of life. Ceremonious visiting, where showy apparel, and late hours prevail, must be avoided. I feel painful sympathy for those mothers, who expose their young daughters to such excitements, yet expect them to return unimpaired and docile, to the restraints of school discipline. "Those who forsake useful studies," said an ancient philosopher, for useless speculations, are like the Olympic gamesters, who abstained from necessary la- It has been somewhere asserted, that he who would bors, that they might be fit for such as were not so." agreeably instruct children, must become the pupil of Shall I allude to the want of expediency, in exhibit-children. They are not, indeed, qualified to act as ing very young ladies in mixed society? Their faces become familiar to the public eye. The shrinking delicacy of their privileged period of life escapes. The dews of the morning are too suddenly exhaled. They get to be accounted old, ere they are mature,—more is expected of them, than their unformed characters can yield, and if their discretion does not surpass their years, they may encounter severe criticism, perhaps calumny. When they should be just emerging as a fresh opened blossom, they are hackneyed to the common gaze, as the last year's Souvenir, which by courtesy or sufferance, maintains a place on the centre-table, though its value has deteriorated. Is not the alternative either a premature marriage, or an obsolete continuance in the arena of fashion, with a somewhat mortifying adherence to the fortunes of new candidates, as, grade after grade, they assert their claims to fleeting admiration, or vapid flattery?

guides among the steep cliffs of knowledge which they have never traversed; but they are most skilful conductors to the green plats of turf, and the wild flowers that encircle its base. They best know where the violets and king-cups grow, which they have themselves gathered, and where the clear brook makes mirthful music in its pebbly bed.

Have you ever listened to a little girl telling a story to her younger brother or sister? What adaptation of subject, circumstance, and epithet? If she repeats what she has heard, how naturally does she simplify every train of thought. If she enters the region of invention, how wisely does she keep in view the taste and comprehension of her auditor. Ah, how powerful is that simplicity, which so readily unlocks and rules the heart, and which, "seeming to have nothing, possesseth all things."

Those who are conversant with little children, are How much more faithfully does the mother perform not always disposed sufficiently to estimate them, or to her duty, who brings forth to society, no crude or allow them the high rank which they really hold in the superficial semblance of goodness, but the well-ripened scale of being. In regarding the acorn, we forget that fruit of thorough, prayerful culture. Her daughter, it comprises within its tiny round the future oak. It associated with herself, in domestic cares, at the same is this want of prospective wisdom, which occasions time that she gathered the wealth of intellectual know-ignorant persons often to despise childhood, and renders ledge, is now qualified to take an active part in the sphere which she embellishes. Adorned with that simplicity which attracts every eye, when combined with good breeding, and a right education, she is arrayed in a better panoply than the armor of Semiramis, or the wit and beauty of Cleopatra, for whom the Roman lost a world.

Simplicity of language, as well as of garb and manner, is a powerful ingredient in that art of pleasing, which the young and lovely of our sex are supposed to study.

some portions of its early training seasons of bitter bondage. "Knowledge is an impression of pleasure,” said Lord Bacon. They who impart it to the young, ought not to interfere with its original nature, or divide the toil from the reward. Educated females ought especially to keep bright the links between knowledge and happiness. This is one mode of evincing gratitude to the age in which they live, for the generosity with which it has renounced those prejudices, which in past times circumscribed the intellectual culture of their sex.

May I be excused for repeatedly urging them to convince the community that it has lost nothing by this liberality? Let not the other sex be authorised in complaining that the firesides of their fathers were better regulated than their own. Give them no chance to throw odium upon knowledge, from the faults of its allies and disciples. Rather let them see, that by a participation in the blessings of education, you are made better in every domestic department, in every relative duty-more ardent in every hallowed effort of benevolence and piety.

The conversation of children is rich in this charm. Books intended for their instruction or amusement, should consult their idiom. Ought not females to excel in the composition of elementary works for the juvenile intellect, associated as they are with it, in its earliest and least constrained developments? The talented and learned man is prone to find himself embarrassed by such a labor. The more profound his researches in science, and the knowledge of the world, the farther must he retrace his steps, to reach the level of infantine simplicity. Possibly, he might ascend among the stars, and feel at home; but to search for honey-dew in the bells of flowers, and among the moss-try, which some young ladies evince, is the necessary cups, needs the beak of the humming-bird, or the wing of the butterfly. He must recall, with painful effort, the far-off days, when he "thought as a child, spake as a child, understood as a child." Fortunate will he

I cannot believe that the distaste for household indus

effect of a mere expanded system of education. Is it not rather the abuse of that system? or may it not radically be the fault of the mother, in neglecting to mingle day by day, domestic knowledge with intellec

tual culture? in forgetting that the warp needs a woof,
ere the rich tapestry can be perfect? I am not prepared
to assert that our daughters have too much learning,
though I may be compelled to concede, that it is not
always well balanced, or judiciously used.
Education is not indeed confined to any one point of
our existence, yet it assumes peculiar importance at
that period when the mind is most ductile to every
impression. Just at the dawn of that time, we see the
mother watching for the first faint tinge of intellect,
more than they who watch for the morning." At her
feet a whole generation sit as pupils. Let her learn her
own value, as the first educator, that in proportion to
the measure of her influence, she may acquit herself of
her immense responsibilities.

66

Her debt to the community must be paid through her children, or through others whom she may rear up, to dignify and adorn it. Aristotle said, "the fate of empires depended on education." But that in woman, dwelt any particle of that conservative power, escaped the scrutinizing eye of the philosopher of Greece. The far-sighted statesmen of our times have discovered it. A Prussian legislator, at the beginning of the present century, promulgated the principle, that "to the safety and regeneration of a people, a correct state of religious opinion and practice was essential, which could only be effected by proper attention to the early nurture of the mind." He foresaw the influence, which the training of infancy would have, upon the welfare of a nation. Let our country go still further, and recognize in the nursery, and at the fireside, that hallowed agency, which, more than the pomp of armies, shall guard her welfare, and preserve her liberty. Trying as she is, in her own isolated sphere, the mighty experiment, whe ther a republic can ever be permanent-standing in need as she does, of all the checks which she can com

mand, to curb faction, cupidity and reckless competition-rich in resources, and therefore in danger from her own power-in danger from the very excess of her own happiness, from that knowledge which is the birthright of her people, unless there go forth with it a moral purity, guarding the unsheathed weapon-let this our dear country, not slight the humblest instrument that may advance her safety, nor forget that the mother, kneeling by the cradle-bed, hath her hand upon the ark of a nation.

Hartford, Con. October 18th, 1938.

GREECE.-A SONNET.

Land of the muses, and of mighty men!

A shadowy grandeur mantles thee; serene
As morning skies, thy pictur'd realms are seen,
When ether's canopy is clear, and when
The very zephyrs pause upon the wing

In ecstasy, and wist not where to stray.
Beautiful Greece! more glorious in decay
Than other regions in the flush of spring:
Thy palaces are tenantless; the Turk

Hath quenched the embers of the holy fane;
Thy temples now are crumbling to the plain,
For time hath sapped, and man hath helped the work.
All cannot perish-thy immortal mind

Remains a halo circling round mankind. [Blackwood,

FALKLAND, BY E. L. BULWER.*

This is a volume which has been for a considerable time sur le tapis; and, from the reputation of the author and the subject of which he treats, has doubtless long since found its way to the boudoir of every lady, married or single, who is fond of fashionable life, and ergo of fashionable novel reading; for I take it for granted, that a truly fashionable lady has little time to devote to aught else than those works of folly and foolery which are daily and hourly poured forth from the press, in the form, and under the name of novels. We would not, however, be understood as aiming to rank the volume now before us among the publications of the denomination just mentioned. Far from it; we regard it as meriting a much more serious attention. We regard it as possessing far more than ordinary ability in the author, in his development of character and his portraiture of the passions. Yet, while we promptly award to it that meed of praise, which, as a literary effort, it most unquestionably merits, we are far from according to it our applause for the moral tendency, which the author, in his ingenious preface, would fain flatter his readers, he has been enabled to infuse into its pages. We think, on the contrary, that it contains sentiments supported by a reasoning and eloquence worthy of a better cause, and which, if suffered to pass unexposed and uncondemned, are calculated to sap the very foundations of those wise and salutary institutions, upon which virtuous society, and indeed every thing relating to the moral government of mankind, must ultimately and inevitably depend. To expose the deleterious tendency of those sentiments, and to pass upon them a loudly-called-for condemnation, is the purpose for which we have again, for a few moments resumed our grey goose quill,

"That mighty instrument of little men." We are introduced to the hero of the tale by a series of letters from him to his friend Monkton; from which we learn that he is somewhat of a solitaire, shrouded in the pall of melancholy, and, in the genuine spirit of a misanthropist, ruminating with gloomy but bitter sarcasms on the unsatisfying pleasures of a gay bel mondo, in the golden light of whose flattery and applause he had long moved with glory and renown. He treats with a proud contempt (and verily we think justly too,) the mercenary motives which dictate the conduct and call forth the friendship of the generality of mankind. "From the height of his philosophy he compassionates" the imbecility of human greatness, and pours the phials of his indignation upon the

*These remarks upon Bulwer's "Falkland," were written several years since. They are now offered for publication from

a belief in the mind of the writer, that an undue applause has been awarded to the imaginary productions of the distinguished novelist.

« السابقةمتابعة »