Recent Storms and Earthquakes.-Out of the many disastrous disturbances of earth, wind and wave that have been so frequent of late, we cannot but touch upon that dreadful havoc that earthquake and tempest have made in the town of Manilla and the Island of Jamaica respectively. On the 18th of July a series of violent shocks, even more severe than those of 1863, spread death, misery and destruction over the thrifty little capital of the Philippine Islands. Fortunately, it may be said, the sad catastrophe happened at midday, and so the loss of life-ten killed and thirty wounded-was small taking into consideration the frequency and violence of the shocks. However, from a commercial point of view the losses in produce, especially in sugar, will probably prove very great, and the damage to property and shipping is such as only years can repair.

We had scarcely dismissed the above catastrophe from our recollection, when telegraphic accounts told us of a cyclone of unusual violence that had wrought terrible desolation among the towns, harbors and plantations of Jamaica, and the recent accounts of survivors of ill-fated ships give evidence to the fury with which the storm raged over a wide area of adjacent sea. Lamentable indeed is the tale that tells of the wholesale destruction of houses, land, crops, and hundred of poor creatures left without the means of sustenance. Coffee plantations, cocoa-nut groves, and acres upon acres of banana-trees have been utterly destroyed. Planters and fishermen have been turned out of house and home, and so discouraging an influence has the dreadful work of desolation had upon many of the inhabitants, that they are ready to leave the island in despair. But it was not only on land that the hurricane spent its fury; apart from the destruction of about three-fifths of the coasting vessels of the island, there has come to us the deplorable news that the Vera Cruz fell a victim, among perhaps many others, to the savage fury of the gale, and scarce half a dozen beings have survived to tell the woeful results of the cyclone of August 18th.

Thomas Hughes and Emigration. The arrival of the author of "Tom Brown's School Days" in this country, recalls a colonization scheme devised three years ago when philanthropic New Englanders were moved by the prevailing distress to provide some remedy in behalf of the working men in large cities and overcrowded agricultural regions. Land to the extent of about four hundred thousand acres was purchased on the Cumberland Plateau in the State of Tennessee, but the spirit which first marked the undertaking began to disappear with the return ́of business activity, and this extensive tract has now largely passed into the hands of English parties, with Mr. Hughes as the general manager of the enterprise. These table-lands of Eastern Tennessee, as the future field of immigration for the farmer, mechanic, laborer, and all the struggling classes in mercantile and manufacturing occupations, are exceptionally favored with a healthy position, rich soil, delightful climate, and

natural productions. There is centered indeed in this region everything to advance the social, moral, physical and material welfare of the people, and if the plan of organization works well, as there is every reason to suppose it will, we may find in the counties of Overton, Scott, Fentress and Morton a strong encouragement to the floating population of our cities to turn their industry to agricultural pursuits. We could not well conceive of a man better suited to undertake the leadership of the cooperative scheme for settling this region than the noble barrister of London with whom the working man associates so much of his well-being.

The struggle of competition both here and abroad in larger cities demands some desirable field for immigration, and it is to be hoped that the coöperative principles of Mr. Hughes's association will not interfere with the comfort, happiness and advancement of such colonists as would take advantage of his scheme.

Charity to Poor Children.-Most of us take pleasure in seeing children enjoying themselves, and there are many good-hearted souls who will even sacrifice money and some of their most valuable time to give the "little ones" a merry day on the water or in the country. Perhaps it is because the chubby-faces, the blithesome air, the rollicking and gambling, the singing and shouting of the young recall vivid recollections of our own childhood. Children enjoy themselves all the same, whether rich or poor, yet we cannot fail to sympathize more feelingly with those to whom the occasion of such happy merry-making is a treat that comes so seldom. We have done a great deal in some of our larger cities towards alleviating much of the misery and unhealthiness of our crowded houses, streets, and lanes, and one of our ideas has been taken up and adopted in the case of the London children. The charity, now familiar to us, by which poor mothers and their little ones are enabled to spend a week or so during the heat of summer in farmhouses, has made itself acceptable to the philanthropists of London and elsewhere, and already we seem to hear the echo of hundreds of children's voices in fields and meadows, singing hymns of praise to our noble-souled Quakeress who thus provided so bountifully for their happiness.

We are told that Chicago has a floating hospital for poor mothers with young children. There is an awning over the wharf, which extends so far out into the lake as constantly to catch the cool breezes. A lady physician is in attendance throughout the day. A kind-looking, matronly woman sits and ladles out nice fresh milk for the children, all that they may desire. The mothers bring their own lunches, and their sewing or knitting-work, and as the boat makes four trips a day, there is every means of spending an hour or a whole day on the water. It is really a gladdening sight to see in New York Bay the hospital barge of St. John's guild as it is towed along laden down with its freight of happy-faced, romping children. This form of charity is

certainly one that ought to meet with the readiest support from every one. It not only provides untold pleasure to the young, but undoubtedly possesses the germs of social and moral development.

Saint Bruno's Followers.-Since the recent decree against religious bodies in France, rumors have spread abroad as to the probability of the settlement of the Carthu sian monks in this country. It is now about eight hundred years since the monastery of this brotherhood was reared on the desert of the Chartreuse. There, in one of the grandest spots in France, surrounded by the southwestern foot-hills of the Alps, and not far from the picturesque town of Grenoble, live a race of monks who are, and always have been, indus trious, kind-hearted, and charitable, apart from their interest or influence in ecclesiastical history. They retain many of the characteristics of the monks of the middle ages. They wear a hair-cloth shirt, a white cossack, and over it, when they go out, a black cloak. They never eat flesh, and on Friday take only bread and water. They occupy their leisure time in the manufacture of a liqueur with which most of us are familiar, and of a variety of dye and medicinal preparations, which are a means of procuring them a livelihood. We cannot yet believe that the few remaining members of the Grande-Chartreuse will be forced to find a home on our shores; yet should they ever leave their monastery, they would scarcely settle in a land better suited than ours to live out the peculiar life to which they have pledged, and mentally and physically adapted themselves.

A Northeast Passage.-At last a brilliant success has rewarded the long efforts of the Swedish explorer, Nordenskiold. After years of hard-won experience and close study of the literature of Arctic navigation, this daring voyager has, without the loss of a single life among his thirty followers, and without the slightest damage to his vessel, succeeded in exploding the theories of the most experienced seamen of more than three centuries. The casual reader may fail to see the special importance attached to this circumnavigation of the Continents of Europe and Asia, or to understand the spirit that actuated the commander of the Vega in sailing from the North Cape of Norway to Japan. But a little reflection ought to remind us that the routes opened up by such an expedition are of incalculable importance as affording an outlet to the Northern coasts of Europe and Asia. The great rivers of Siberia drain a country of surpassing value in mineral and agricultural wealth, and there is now little doubt but that very soon merchant ships will be sailing out of the Lena, the Obi, and the Yenissei to the great commercial centres of the civilized world.

Nordenskiold has moreover furnished us with valuable information of the vegetable and animal life of the seas through which he sailed. His wonderful versatility in scientific knowledge, and his powers of keen observation, have added greatly to the stores of geology, mineralogy, botany, astronomy and natural history. Thus the expedition which sailed from Gottenburg two years ago has done more than simply added to the seafaring reputation of the Northmenit has enhanced the interests of the scientific and commercial world to an extent difficult to overrate.

The Photophone.-The inventor of the Bell Telephone, with the aid of Mr. Sumner Tainter, has furnished us with another marvelous instrument, by which "sounds can be produced by the action of a variable light, from substar ces of all kinds, when in the form of their diaphragms." These two gentlemen have conversed between stations six hundred yards apart without any connecting wire, and only a beam of light to act as the agent from one to the other. The rays from a kerosene or candle flame are directed upon a plane mirror, which is so arranged as to vibrate with the sound of the voice. The parallel beam reflected from the mirror is thrown to a distant concave mirror, and focused on a piece of selenium, electrically connected with the telephone. The rapid vibrations of the mirror occasion variations in the rays of light, which is followed by a corresponding change in the selenium, and so a variation in the electric current. The experiment hangs upon the newly discovered property of selenium, in conducting electricity more easily when exposed to light than when in the dark. Consequently, as with the voice the mirror vibrates, the electric current is weak and strong in corresponding proportions, and the telephone reproduces the sound as in the case of the connecting wire.

A beginning is about to be made, says Nature, to carry out Lieutenant Weyprecht's proposal for a circle of observ ing stations around the North Pole region. The Danish Government has resolved to establish a station at Upernavik, in West Greenland; the Russian Government has granted a subsidy for an observatory at the mouth of the Lena, and another on one of the Siberian Islands; Count Wilezek is to defray the expenses of a station on Nova Zembla under the direction of Lieutenant Weyprecht; the Chief of the United States Signal Service, General Myer, has received permission to plant an observatory at Point Barrow, in Alaska; and it is expected that Canada will have a similar establishment on some point of her Arctic coast. At the Hamburg Conference it was announced that Holland would furnish the funds for a station in Spitzbergen; and it is expected that Norway will have an observing post on the extremity of the Province of Finmark.

Utilization of Solar Heat.-Very practical results are reported to have arisen from the experiments of M. Mouchot in utilizing solar heat. By means of a large collecting mirror, twelve feet six inches in diameter, and capable of resisting the strongest gale, he has succeeded in raising more than sixty pints of water to the boiling point in eighty minutes, and in an hour and a half more produced a steam pressure of eight atmospheres. During one day last March in Algiers a horizontal engine was driven at the rate of 120 turns a minute, under a pressure of three and a half atmospheres; and at another trial the apparatus worked a pump at the rate of 264 gallons of water an hour one yard high. The pump was kept going from 8 o'clock A.M. to 4 o'clock P.M., and neither strong winds nor passing clouds sensibly interfered with its action. M. Mouchot can now readily produce a temperature applicable to the fusion and calcination of alum, the preparation of benzoic acid, the purification of linseed oil, the concentration of sirup, the distillation of sulphuric acid and the carbonization of wood.

Photographing on Canvas.-An Austrian savant, M. Winter of Vienna, has just discovered and patented a very curious process by which pictures may be produced upon artists' canvas by the aid of photography. He has named the process linography, and it is just now attracting considerable attention in Parisian art circles. By the aid of a stereotype plate M. Winter has succeeded in fixing upon canvas whatever image he desired to reproduce. The results are striking, and the pictures closely resemble such as are produced by the brush. It is expected that the discovery will effect quite a revolution in the photographic

art.

Signaling by Means of the Sun.-The usefulness of the heliograph was recently satisfactorily tested in the transmission of a despatch from General Stewart, in Afghanistan, announcing the result of an attack on British troops, which was sent from Camp Ghuzni, April 22d, and was received at the India Office, London, on the following day. The news could hardly have been brought more speedily by electric telegraph. The heliograph, signaling right over the heads of the enemy, if necessary, to stations which may be few and far between, does not require any route to be kept open, and

cannot be interrupted. A ten-inch mirror, that being the size of the ordinary field heliograph, is capable of reflecting the sun's rays in the form of a bright spot to a distance of fifty miles, where the signal can be seen without the aid of a glass. The adjustment of the instrument is very simple. If an army corps, having left its base where a heliograph station is established, desires to communicate with the other division from a distance of several miles, a hill is chosen and a sapper goes upon it with his heliograph stand, containing a mirror so as to move horizontally and vertically. A little of the quicksilver having been removed from behind the centre of the mirror, a clear spot is made through which the sapper can look from behind his instrument towards the station he desires to signal. Having sighted the station by adjusting the mirror, he next proceeds to set up in front of the heliograph a rod on which is a movable stud, manipulated like the foresight of a rifle. The sapper, standing behind his instrument, directs the adjustment of this stud until the clear spot in the mirror, the stud, and the distant station are in a line. The heliograph is then ready to work, and the sapper has only to take care that his mirror reflects the sunshine on the stud just in front of him to be able to flash signals so that they may be seen at a distance.

Superstition in Portugal.-The amateurs of strange superstitions will find them in abundance among a race of uneducated rustics, who live much apart, and whose minds are naturally tinged by the sombre character of their surroundings. The peasant who drives his ox cart in the dusk through the gloomy shadows of the pine forest; the shepherd who sleeps among his flocks in the bleak solitudes of the mountains, hear wild voices in the shrieks and sighings of the wind, and see phantoms in the waving of the boughs and the dashing of the waterfalls down the rocks. The belief in ghosts is very general; but the most fantastic of the prevalent superstitions is that of the lobis homen or wehrwolf. It is an article of firm faith in most rural households that there are beings doomed or permitted by the powers of evil to transform themselves periodically into wolves, with the bloodthirsty instincts of the animal. Introduced into the service of some unsuspecting family, they have rare opportunities of worrying the children. . . . A superstition which ought to be most embarrassing to trav ellers, which is universal in Oriental countries, and which the Portuguese may possibly have inherited from the Moors, is that of the existence of hidden treasures. Archæological researches would probably be set down to a hunt after buried gold, in which the stranger was guided by supernatural intelligence. And it must be remarked that the Portuguese are confirmed in that fancy by instances of treasuretrove from time to time. It is an undoubted fact that in the troubles of the country considerable quantities of valuables were concealed by fugitives who never came back to reclaim them.

How the Virginia Creeper Grows.-This plant can climb up a flat wall, and is not adapted to seize sticks or twigs; its tendrils do occasionally curl round a stick, but they often let go again. They, like the bignonia tendrils, are sensitive to the light, and grow away from it, and thus easily find where the wall lies up which they have to climb. A tendril which has come against the wall is often seen to rise and come down afresh, as if not satisfied with its first position. In a few days after a tendril has touched a wall, the tip swells up, becomes red, and forms one of the little feet or sticky cushions by which the tendrils adhere. The adherence is caused by a resinous cement, secreted by the cushions, and which forms a strong bond of union between the wall and the tendril. After the tendril has become attached, it becomes woody, and is in this state remarkably durable, and may remain firmly attached and quite strong, for as many as fifteen years.

Self-Assertion in America.-Life in America is a battle and march. Freedom has set the race on fire-freedom with the prospect of poverty. Americans are a nation of men who have their own way, and who do very well with it. It is the only country where men are men in this sense, and the usualness of the liberty bewilders many, who do wrong things in order to be sure they are free to do something. This error is mostly made by new-comers, to whom freedom is a novelty; and it is only by trying eccentricity that they can test the unwonted sense of their power of self disposal. But as liberty grows into a habit, one by one the experimenters become conscious of the duty of not betraying the

precious possession by making it repulsive. Perhaps selfassertion seems a little in excess of international require ments. Many "citizens" give a stranger the impression that they think themselves equal to their superiors and superior to their equals; yet all of them are manlier than they would be, through the ambition of each to be equals of anybody else.

Marriage Ceremony in Bengal.-The marriage was next performed with all its endless details, which may be regarded with breathless interest by Bengali spectators, but have no significance to European eyes. They were brought to a close by the symbolic tying of the skirts of the bride with those of the bridegroom, the exchange of garlands between the happy pair, and the chanting recitations of the Vaidik hymns by the officiating Brahmans. The marriage feast was then served up to the male visitors in the yard. A plantain leaf was placed on the ground before each guest to serve as a plate, and then there was a general distribution of boiled rice, boiled pulse, vegetable curry, fish curry, fish in tamarind, and the curds, which are always a favorite dish with the Hindus. When the gentlemen had finished, the ladies were served, and the night was thus spent in feasting and frolic. Two days afterward, the bridegroom went back to his father's house, accompanied by the bride; but after a week or two Malati returned to her old home to remain there until she should be old enough to live with her husband.

Nubar Pacha.-In his earlier days Nubar Pacha was a round-faced, smiling, smooth-spoken young man, exceed ingly pleasant and plausible in manner and speech, and calculated to conciliate all with whom he came in contact. Persuasion seemed then his forte; the hand of steel was covered with the glove of velvet, and strength was subordinated to the arts of pleasing and persuading his interlocutors. But time, ill-health, disappointments, and conflicts with rivals whom he scorned, have set their seal on his face and figure, and have given to both another semblance. He now looks older than his age, which cannot much exceed fifty years; the once round face has grown sharp and worn, and the lines of thought and care furrow its formerly smooth surface. To him may fitly be applied the description given of Bertram by Walter Scott:

"Roughened the brow, the temples bared,
The sable hairs with silver shared;
Yet left, what age alone could tame,
The lip of pride, the eye of flame!"

Such is the outward semblance of Nubar Pacha now, with cigarette in constant combustion beneath the grizzled mustache. As he is a Christian in faith and practice, so his life and manners conform to the usages and habits of Christian lands and Western culture. Surrounded by a charming family, and blessed with an equally charming and accomplished wife, like himself of Armenian descent, he is eminently home loving and domestic, and is seen to great advantage in the midst of his home-circle, where he exercises an unbounded hospitality. His house and grounds at Cairo are large, but unostentatious, for he has no taste for show or extravagance.

His personal appearance is striking and distinguished, with something Oriental in it, although in dress, manners and speech, he might be mistaken for a polished French or Italian gentleman.

Wesley's Life-work.-John Wesley, during a minist of fifty-two years, travelled over two hundred and fifty thousand miles and preached over forty thousand sermons, making an average of about eight hundred every year. Excepting Wesley, it is probable that no other man ever preached so many sermons as Whitefield. Indeed it has been said, and the statement has been warranted by facts drawn from sources so various and trustworthy that they cannot be questioned, that "if the time spent in travelling and some brief intervals of repose be subtracted, his whole life may be said to have been consumed in the delivery of one continuous and almost uninterrupted sermon."

Chocolate. When chocolate was first introduced into France, which, according to some writers was in 1615, at the marriage of Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip III, with Louis XIII, and according to others at the marriage of Maria Theresa of Austria with Louis XIV, it was considered a medicine. In 1684, a physician at Paris named Bachot, maintained before the faculty a thesis, in which he declared that well-made chocolate was so noble an invention that the gods ought to prefer it to nectar and ambrosia.

Literary Dandyism.-Literary dandyism is excessively annoying to the rugged hodmen of letters, the rapid pic turesque writers, the half- or quarter-educated persons who crowd the press and carry their farrago of ill-sorted observa tions to an uncritical public. These industrious persons detest the literary dandy, the man who minds his periods, and regards the cadence of his sentences, and shuns stock illustrations and old quotations, as the social dandy avoids dirty gloves and clumsy boots. This antagonism naturally breeds more excess in literary dandyism, till the prose of some critics is as full of musk or millefleurs as the handker chief of a popular preacher. Both parties are hardened u their ways; the rough and ready pressman becomes careless even of grammar, and trots out his quotations from Macanlay's essays more vigorously than of old. The prose of the exquisite begins to die away in aromatic nonsense, and h great genius tires itself to death in hunting for exotic adjec

tives.

What Gave Rise to the Minuet.-Few persons perhaps have ever considered that the minuet, notwithstanding its solemn triviality and dignified affectation, was really in essence and origin a reaction of decorum and dignity against the licentious dances in vogue amidst the highest sear during the first half of the seventeenth century. It is sam cient to read any French memoirs of this period to perceive how scandalous, both from the point of view of good mentis and good taste, were the ballets and dances performes at the Court of the Tuileries by princes and princesses of be blood, in company with hired opera-dancers, male female. For this species of exhibition, the minuet was 30 doubtedly an excellent substitute. And although considera

simply in itself the minuet, with its elegant attudinizing and pompous affectation, has a ridiculous side to 1, yet we must remember that at its beginning it was welcomed as being far more modest and decent than the dances then in fashion. The minuet in fact raised a distinct line of demarcation between stage dancing and society dancing, and this was for many reasons a gain to morality.

A Laplander's Home. In a large but rather low room, with walls and roof of rough-hewn planks, and with beams stretching from wall to wall in every direction, were assembled at least twenty-five persons of all ages and both sexes. Most of them had taken off their skin blouses and hung them on the rafters near a huge wood-fire fit to roast an ox at. The half-stewed garments and the steam from the dirty persons of those in front of the fire caused a most unsavory odor, which tempted us to make our stay as short as possible. All around the apartment, except near the door, were ranged the sleeping-shelves, the major part of which were already occupied-men, women, and children all indiscriminately mingled together, not distinguishable to the unpracticed eye the one from the other, and appearing like nothing else than mere animated bundles of fur. From the group congregated around the fire no cheerful laugh, no buzz of conversation, no noisy merriment emanated-all were silent and still; perhaps they did not wish to disturb the sleepers; but judg. ing from their solemn and lugubrious countenances, their gloominess seemed but too natural, and very far from assumed

Early Character of Marie Antoinette.—Marie Antoinette, at her wedding, was but a school girl. By nature bright and graceful, lively in manner, but petulant and even imperious in humor, she betrayed defects which might then have been taken as the mere marks of an unformed character. She exhibited a child's dislike for serious occupations, and particularly for the restraints incumbent on the exigen cies of court state. Maria Theresa had entrusted her daughter's education to preceptors too obsequious to be severe with the waywardness of an august pupil. To this culpable weakness it was due that at fifteen the archduchess had acquired the merest varnish of instruction; those most essential lessons for princesses, to keep whims under control and to acquiesce graciously in the trammels of etiquette, having been left wholly untaught. Grace and youth threw, indeed, a charm of playfulness around her unceremonious freaks; but the undress fashions which suited the homely tone of Schönbrunn were quite out of harmony with the punctilious ways of Versailles. Marie Antoinette had no idea of putting up with any thing irksome, or of not freely indulging in fancies. Not that she was a person of really warm affec tion. Marie Antoinette was cold at heart, though she had an easily-excited surface sensibility, which made her hasty and impulsive.

The Life of General James A. Garfield. By J. M. BUNDY. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. There is often such an air of suspicion about the pages of campaign literature that one might well be excused for fail ing to put a proper estimate upon the worthy purposes of the author, or upon the merits of the candidate whom he strives to magnify. Yet in the above biographical sketch that Mr. Bundy has presented to us in a form so truthful and so delightfully terse, we cannot help reading with interest and unusual confidence the life of a man whose ambition has ever been to justify his own powers in the direction of help and happiness to his family, and of development and pros. perity to his country. There is a spirit of romance about the log cabin in the woods of Orange, where Garfield's earliest associations are centred, as there is about the periods of advancement which mark his experiences in the hayfield, in the forest, on the canal boat, in the Seminary of the "Free will Baptists," or as undergraduate, professor, president, and State senator. His military title is significant of his services as a soldier; his political speeches reveal sound legal training and the statesmanship for which he is, singularly adapted. In fact, no one can conscientiously deny that Garfield's career is a very exceptional one, and that he has victoriously worked his way in the face of unusually unfavorable circumstances, from the time that he saw

the sun shine through the window of his log cabin home to the day when he took up his abode at Washington. Mr. Bundy has long been one of General Garfield's most intimate friends; and the social, political and intellectual qualities with which he endows his hero seem to proceed from a pure desire to do justice to one whom he loves, rather than from any partisan motives which he feels bound to make the most of.

The Stillwater Tragedy. By THOMAS B. ALDRICH. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

The title of this story is suggestive of much that would incite certain readers to take no more than a passing notice of the book. But we have only to cast an eye over two or three chapters, and our interest in the nature of the plot, our admiration of the terse, vigorous, and often humorous style in which the author clothes his scenes and incidents, are too great to allow us to put the book aside until we have read every page from first to last. Our attention throughout is centered upon the person of one Richard Shackford, who, after a boyhood passed in a desultory sort of way, suddenly becomes conscious of the necessity of justifying his existence; and irrespective of the wishes of his wealthy old cousin, Lemuel Shackford, with whom he is never on good terms, applies for and secures a position in Slocum's marble-yard.